The Golden era of Square ended after the third disk of FF7.

QFT!

There was excellence in FFXII, it was just harder to find. The FF series has a tendency to not give you what you expect. People wanted FFVIII to be FFVII-2, but they took another direction with the series.

This was especially true with FFXII. It's a very intricate game. It honestly isn't fun unless you're in on all its little secrets right from the start.

Fans booted the game up, left town, and played the game without any guides, like it was just an ordinary jrpg, when it is exactly the opposite. Fans hated the game for it. Most never finished. The story was admittedly boring, and the characters weren't that great, but the game had style, and a very, very deep combat system.

A lot of people just never dug deep enough to find it. Most who did, found they would have to start over their 20 hours game to have any kind of maxxed out characters.

Reviewers were forced to dig deep. They were forced to play the whole thing and understand its concepts.

They discovered that the game wasn't what it appeared at first glance, and when you do understand its concepts, and delve its depths, it's actually a much better game.

The real game, the FFXII I played, the one reviewers were forced to discover, most fans never played.

That's why I recommend you go guide heavy with the game, and study. It's like learning all the intracasies of PVP in world of warcraft. You can't do it over-night. You should also start a trial game and play it to 20 hours, first, before you restart on a new save. In that game, 20 hours is nothing. My final save had over 160.

If you understand the game, its random Diablo 2 esque drops, its battle system depth and innumerable sidequests, it will own you. IMO, it was a fantastic and evolutionary entry in the series, and that is why i have faith in FFXIII. I've never played a bad Final Fantasy.

They are both killing themselves. That's why they merged. If either company wasn't scewing up they would both still be compition. That's why they are still killing themselves and we are seeing large updated ports. Cause their artistic vision is getting in the way of surviving.

   I think thats what I've grown to dislike about FF games, and even JRPGs in general...As WRPGs move more and more towards open ended gameplay, choice and really compelling experiences with no need for a guide I find myself less and less tolerent of what I used to love.  I more or less learned to read on guides for Dragon Warrior and the first Final Fantasy when I was 3 to 5.  I spent hours looking at where all the hidden FF stuff was and it was great.  WRPGs of the time were the same way, man if you didn't have a guide for bards tale with the maps and all the locations you were VERY stuck (great Apple II game).

   This continued with VII where, again, you really needed a guide to find all the cool hidden stuff like Knights of the Round and what have you.  I still liked that Easter Egg approach even into FFX, but I'm just kind of over it by now.

   I mean I played a LOT of WRPGs like Mass Effect, Jade Empire, The Witcher, KOTOR and lately Fallout 3.  I never really felt compelled to guide up on any of them and was able to find TONS of cool stuff without any guide required.  It was so much more exciting to run into a hidden pirate camp by myself in Mass Effect then if I had to be led by the hand.  Being able to make choices in dialogue, find things on my own and progress meaningfully though ALL the content without a guide was a huge boon, and something I wish more JRPGs would allow for.

   I don't know, maybe with games like FFXII its not that Square has changed, it could be they're just too much of the same.  All the interesting and new experiences have disappeared (Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, Xenosaga) to be replaced primarily by more of the same.  

  A lot of the games I mentioned have plenty of side quests, they're just not strange and semi hidden like FFXII's. With the exception of a few really unique games like Valk Chronicles and Persona 3 (the high school system and the choice involved in it is just awesome) there has been so much stagnation in JRPGs that its increasingly hard to put down the WRPGs to try them out.  If Dragon Age and FFXIII come out at the same time I am sadly 99% sure I'll be playing Dragon Age first, if FFXIII is coreleased with Mass Effect 2 that certainty jumps to 100%.  I've probably spent 1000 hours all told on stand alone Final Fantasy games (including Game Boy releases and Mystic Quest but not including FFXI which is another 1000 hours right there).  I appreciate that they have continued to be what they are, guide requiring treasure hunts with a big side of grind for the high end stuff, but at the same time I can't help but wish they were something more like Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve and other Square games were.

I miss SquareSoft....

I completely hear you. Vagrant Story was and is one of my favorite games ever, but believe it or not, I think it shares a ton in common with FFXII. Same developer afterall, same level of depth(yep, XII is that deep).

Anyway, yes, I think that a lot of traditional FF or JRPG fans would hate the way FFXII changed focus to open ended gameplay, and complexity, over a fun, simple, strategic, endearing experience. It certainly wouldn't fit everyone's tastes.

That said, it doesn't mean the game is crap. It's actually magnificant, for what it is. It's a masterpiece. It just doesn't suit your tastes. Like me, and LBP. Just because I'm not a huge fan of a certain type of gameplay, doesn't mean that said game is crap. I can even recognize it for excellence.

A couple of great games that I love are Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Elite Beat Agents, and Hotel Dusk, all on the DS. About half of the people who play those games, might hate them. That doesn't mean those games suck. Quite the contrary, they are absoulty fantastic, and groundbreaking in their respective genres. However, they aren't for everyone.

FFXII was a magnificant, groundbreaking console game. It put many PC Diable II clones to shame, but managed to not be a Diablo II clone itself, despite borrowing many ideas.

It just wasn't the type of magnificant game that fans of jrpgs and final fantasy wanted.

That is the reason it was reviewed so well, but hated by fans.

Reviewers aren't necessarily predisposed to loving jrpgs, final fantasy, nor do they have such expectations. Instead, they played the game for what it was. A magnificant game that jrpg lovers would probably.

It's a great game...if it was a WRPG, I'm telling you, it would be ranked right up there. However, it sold to the wrong audience, and now you have a ton of people who are worried about Final Fantasy.

There is one thing constant about Final Fantasy. it will NOT be what you expect it to be. Once you accept that, and play the games for whatever they eventually become(which might be a shooter, with no story or character development for all we know) the game will probably be great...but it won't be what you expect.

THAT was the best FFXII related post I've ever made.

Game Arts still better than either.... so it hardly matters