The game was good overall but I just don't like the battle system, its just not like the old FFs. Other than that the Gambit system is great.

The game is still good, but the story simply sucks.

I thought it was an awesome game, but just not as good as Final Fantasy X

Story and I think a bit of the feel of the game. It didn't look very appealing to me. I never liked to play the game anymore.

These are my thoughts. The game as a game was very very good. The graphics for a PS2 game were stunning, best I'd ever seen on the console. Story wasn't to bogged down but needed improvement. And it was worth my £30. I enjoyed it, a lot.

But...the issues I had with it was this, to me, it just didn't feel as Final Fantasy as I would have liked, i had to remind myself I was playing a FF game. I mean a couple of points below to highlight this.


1) I know so many people complain about random battles but if you don't/didn't like random battles, why were you playing an FF game to start with. Random battles have been part of it since I can remember. But because of the lack of them I found it easy to prepare for battle, I just walked accros the battle field and when a shield ran out or haste, I'd just cast it before a fight even arrived.
2) Might seem not very important to many but fixed cameras. I liked the prerendered scenes of 7-9 and the fixed camera of 10, ignoring 7 and it's online only bullcrap. From behind like in FFXII didn't feel as 'nice'.
3) Summons, I know they were Tactics summons and that's all well and good but I wasn't wanting to play tactics, I wanted Final Fantasy.

Other then those other issues were that it Took forever to level up IF you didn't focus of 3 characters and used them all, even with the Double EXP item attached. I mean first play through too me ages and most of it was spent wandering around purposely fighting things. Gambit system made the game so it played itself...I would have liked to play it personally so tried to tell them what to do at all times.

Redeeming feature was the hunting sidequest but even that and depending on the enemy would just take forever. Some had rediculous amounts of health, far greater then the main bosses and it could take me hours to beat them, just standing and waiting for them to die as my characters just threw attack after attack on autopilot.

Oh and the early bosses were REALLY hard and the final bosses i waslked through...found that odd.


Over all though, still a great game.

The game is alright. The story was pretty bad and boring. The game lacked character development/build up. There was no real reason why Vaan and Penelo were doing there. The story mostly revolved around Ashe and Basch, but Basch had no personality. The same can be said about Ashe I suppose. Balthier and Fran were pretty cool characters.

Graphic wise, the game looked pretty good. The only problem was that there were too many jaggies, and they look even worse on an HDTV. The music was beautiful. It's my favorite thing from the game. I would just walk around and just listen to the music.

The battle system was alright, but it gets boring most of the times. Putting the battle system to active made it more enjoyable. The gambit was pretty cool, but it made the game very easy. If you use the gambits and all, you don't even have to press a button to fight. Just watch and your characters will heal themselves and defeat the enemies. If I don't use the gambits, then I would get owned. The license system was terrible. Every character can have the same weapons, armor and abilities. The only thing different from them were the Espers and Quickenings.

Overall, FFXII was a disappointment. I felt it was boring, but still enjoyable at few times. Deserves a 7.5 - 8 in my book. I did beat the game and was doing some of the side missions, but they are pretty boring and repetitive. The Marks are the same thing. Look up a bill, accept it, find the poster, find and defeat the monster and then go back to the biller.

I've talked bad about it enough.

I'll just say... it's REALLY obvious Matsuno had to leave halfway through the production of the game, as the story just isn't there.

They rip off Star Wars and Matsuno's previous works a bit too much to the point of where if you've seen Star Wars, an MMO and played the Ogre Battle series your left wondering where the originality is.

The gameplay was fun though if you left your main character up to you.  I just dreaded the bad story.  I perfered the "Hunts" the game would of been like 100% better had it cut out the story and centered it only around hunts for the clan.

The reason why the story of FFXII is not as good is because Matsuno left S-E in 2005 and the scriptwriter couldn't portray the story the way Matsuno intended

::shrug:: I've played 7 of the Final Fantasy games. FF XII is, uh, my 7th favorite.

I like the game. But only as a game where I use the analog stick and press buttons. Other than that it sucked. Especially since it brought my expectations up for being a "Final Fantasy". And the graphics, as good as they are, don't touch FFX, despite being 4/5 years older. It's too grey and sepia, while FFX had rich bold colors all around the spectrum. Alas, I personally put 80+ hours into it.

And I'll respect everybody's opinions about the gambits, characters, etc.
BUT THE MUSIC?! How the HELL can anyone like, let alone love, the music in that game? It was TERRIBLE music. All it was to me was slurs of soft violins and bells chiming randomly. Which is good if utilized correctly on certain songs, but when you have to sit through a game where that's all it is for 50+ hours, it's not gonna work. The music blew.

Edit: Oh yeah, the title of the thread. I can see it being a masterpiece. Honestly, somehow, I can. But to the general public, it's gonna be burned and brought down, blinding the perfection it might be.