@Wagram

he ws also a contender.

Looks like you have another admirer Rol.


And AkibaFan, you are supposed to end the op with "It makes perfect sense."

Ashe was and still is the main character. It's funny that you act like Vaan and Penelo were added to the game halfway through.

As far as I'm aware, they were.  Maybe not halfway, but a decent bit into the development cycle due to issues with demographics.

The game wasn;t necessarily bad.  It was okay.  The game however did have massive flaws because it had no clear focus in characters, the gameplay became too drawn out in the later areas and there was little extra content aside from 'hunts' and fetch quests for Espers.

At its core, the game has excellent graphics, a solid customization system, a fun and unique battle engine and good characters. The problem was, all of these things didn't have focus. It felt like the game was trying to do too much and too many people were putting their thumb in the pie.

One thing is clear, that the focus on characters was out of place.  Basch, who initially starts of as a very strong character and seemingly a 'leader' of your party, ends up nearly invisible for the majority of the game after you find Ashe.  Similarly, Balthier has little to do with the story aside from random introjections of opinions until near the very end of the game.  And Ashe, while much of the story revolves around her, does little to move the plot along herself.  The 'main' character label seems instead to fall on Vaan, which is sad because he is literally the only one in the game with no influence on the story.  Even Penelo has more influence (and character) than he does.

Vaan really does feel like SquareEnix attempt to make an 'identifiable' hero.  Much like Link or Chrono or any of the Dragon Quest leads.  But it backfired completely, instead making Vaan stand out the most as an incompetent loser who doesn't fit in with the story.

There's one underlying flaw OP

FF12 didn't suck.

I disagree. FF12 did not suck. I think it's a very good game. It's all a matter of opinion really.

I strongly disagree about the sucking part, although the S-E meddling is very true.

Matsuno's original vision was awesome, even before using Basch and Ashe as the main characters. Heck it was supposed to be Balthier.

FFXII is my second favourite FF of all time, mainly because of it's story and it's gameplay, but I agree that it could have been so much better if they had kept the original vision.

can someone tells me what OP stands for? I know what it means I think, (topic creator dude/womanly person that's not a male) Offensive Protagonist?

Opinions make the world go round.
Well not really that's scientifically incorrect, uhh I think
but technically no game sucks unless it's a vacuum cleaner...

Now that my rants over, I will defend that it did not suck. It was just different. Vaan was bad, but you didn't really notice him, they should have allowed you to switch the main character that is running around on screen though. Then you wouldn't of even noticed him! Also, yes, letting Mastuno have his artistic vision would have been good for letting guys have their artisitic visions, but there is no guarentee that it would have better (though I think it would have) as the gameplay would have been the same I'd imagine. (But I guess the didn't do that) (Ends second rant, wow this made no sense... hooray!)

OP = Original Poster.....but it can also mean Opening Post nowadays