| Galvanizer said: The point remains that FFXII had a world far more open than FFX. I'm surprised you even thought to compre them. They're not in the same league. FFX is literally a straight line until you get the airship before the last boss. In FFXII, you can go almost anywhere, even if the enemies are way over your level. Therefore, in both theory and practice, FFXII is a very open game. Having enemies that are too poweful in certain areas deosn't change that, it instead supports it. With regards to story pacing, I'm merely stating that there's no rule that dictates the ideal pacing of story cinematics in a video game. I think you're riding off your experience with past FF games and using their story pacing to critcise FFXII. You have to judge FFXII on its own merits and as its own standalone game. After all, the world is far more realistic in scale than any past FF. As a result, story scene pacing has also been spread out far more realistically. One thing I do agree with you on is that FFXII is simply just battling and exploring. While I enjoyed this, I wold have liked some more variety in gameplay, such as a few mini-games. At one point they were going to put in playable airship battles as a mini-game, but sadly it didn't make the cut. Getting the best weapons is definitely a RNG issue. To get the Zodiac Spear, you have to not open 4 certain chests and this will alter the RNG and allow the weapon to be 100% obtained from a chest later in the game. This also applies to many other rare items. Therefore, if people never bought the official guide, they would have no way of knowing this item was even in the game, yet alone how to obtain it. That's why I say the developers didn't want the game to be 100% completable. If they did, the actual game would provide cryptic clues and hints about rare items and weapons and how to get them. I found Vaan and Penelo to be good characters. I remember their goals well and that carried me through the game. However, I think people expected too much character development from the FFXII cast. I'm glad there was barely any, as it allowed the cast to feel more realistic and not fake and overly scripted. I also really enjoyed the dialogue of the cast; the game has superb voice acting. Lastly, the lasting legacy of Vaan is a testament of how well written the script of FFXII was. On my view on video games, I believe that gameplay comes first and story should be written to support the gameplay. For example, if you make a game that's open world and primarily about exploring, you should write a script that's focused on the world itself and what's happening in it, not one focused on the characters your controlling. You can include some character development, but the world should be at the forefront of the story, as that's what the gameplay revolves around. However, if you're making a game that's linear and the player walks in a straight line from A to B (basically FFX and FFXIII), you can make a story more focused on character development. With the fact FFXII was open world and mainly about exploring, I find the story to be very good. The story urges you to keep exploring and visting new locations. |
The point I was trying to make when comparing when I compared FFX and FFXII was that in practice, you were absolutely free to do anything you want only at the very end of the game. I know and admit that FFXII has more freedom but in practice, it's very hard to go anywhere until the end of the game. Part of the open world appeal to me is that I can visit places properly, even if it means running or sneaking past high level enemies. In FFXII, neither is a viable option until later in the game. Overall, in theory I could go anywhere I wanted in FFXII but in practice, I felt very restricted because I couldn't go anywhere because I would die very quickly and there was no point in going anywhere (well, trying to) because almost all the content in the game revolved around killing stuff.
I'm not comparing FFXII that much to the previous installments of the series. I can appreciate games for what they are. Sometimes I get angry developers/publishers use a known name just to get more publicity but overall, that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of a game. If I wanted to review FFXII as a Final Fantasy game, my main problem would probably be the fact that FFXII is kind of realistic and doesn't have that much fantasy in it. Like I said, the pacing just doesn't feel right to me. I didn't say it didn't feel right for a Final Fantasy game, I said it didn't feel right period.
I just find it strange how an RNG issue would find its way to the official guide. Guides don't generally advertise bugs in a game. Also, the rest of the items are somewhat easy to acquire if you know what to do. Games where getting everything usually are like that, only rarely do games seem to make getting all items easy and obvious without guides and such.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about Vaan and Penelo then, I suppose. You liked them, I didn't. I guess we'll also have to agree to disagree about what games should be like. Well, I think it's really more about you having a certain idea about what games should be like if they're designed in a certain way and me not caring as long as the execution is entertaining.
