Final Fantasy XII (12) first PS2 game I beat

[ZeroAX]

So I finally beat my first PS2 game, after owning one for nearly a decade (well 8 years to be precise) and boy was it a big one.

FF 12. I don't know what is more unfair about the way this game is treated. That people think it's not good, or that it's rarely talked about because

A) It came out at the end of the previous generation and a year after the 360 was out, and around the time the PS3 and Wii got released
B) It's very different from previous games in the series
C) It's not as shitty as FF XIII, which just gets discussed about a lot more cause of how reviled it is.

Anyway, I really really liked it. The Arabian themed fantasy setting is pretty rare and unique among games, though I find it questionable that an Arab themed civilization seems to be inhabited by Scandinavian themed people.

The battle system was both very good and bad. I liked that you could design your own tactics giving you much more control than FF13, and also that you could easily die in battles if you didn't watch out, making it more exciting than the previous game's "use attack till enemy == dead".

But at the same time, once I got good at building my gambits....well the game run on autopilot. I still liked it, and it got rid of a lot of the annoyance of grinding, but I think I'm in a minority on this one.

I really liked the world and the side quests in it though. It felt much richer than the stuff you found in FF X and FF XIII.

And the story....well....other than Vaan and Penelo, the cast is very well developed and very liked (even though it's ripped off from Star Wars), and I really like a lot of the side characters too, which is rare for me in a FF game. Balthier was my favorite of course, as he was probably everyone's too. The cocky bastard even says as much in game , and he does in a sexy voice too. I forgot to mention that the voice acting for the main characters in this game is top notch too. A variety of accents makes it much more engaging. No weird protagonists laughing like crows here.


Also FF12 probably has the best Cid of any FF game. Enough said



It's a real shame for the rushed ending though (no spoilers). But it's obvious the game had much grander things in plan but it had to be scaled back cause of the departure of its original director. Oh what could have been....


But I still think this is a very strong entry in the FF series. If not as good as 6-9 (though I personally rank it pretty near those games, and maybe better than 7 which is my least favorite of those 4), I think it is better than 10 which was very shitty in a lot of compartments yet it gets a free pass for some reason (nostalgia me think, but I personally hated it . I prefer 13 to 10).

What has your experience been with the game? I've seen in other FF related threads most people bury it, but I think it deserves a second chance. Yes it was a great departure battle wise for the series, but it got so many things right I don't think it deserves the flack it gets.

[brunoafh]

I've talked about this a bunch here but I guess I'll have another go. I think it is an okay game. As for where I would rank it among the other FF games personally (assuming we are only talking about major entries), probably at the very bottom not counting 11 and 13. It feels like it has an identity crisis, confused as to whether or not it wants to be full-on Ivalice, or try to appeal to the fans of the major numbered entries. As such, you've got an Ivalice themed game with a seemingly mature plot somewhere in there, with a static bishounen lead and his stupid girlfriend wanting to be sky pirates.

Supposedly, the game was originally going to be completely focused on Basch as the main character and the storyline with his brother. That would have likely made for a considerably better game, story-wise.

But that wouldn't make the insufferable combat any better. I don't care what anyone says, it's boring as fuck. Basically just yanked the success of mindless hotpocket MMO combat and threw it in a single player game. On top of that the game is very easy even later on, so yeah, gambit this and gambit that, it doesn't matter if no strategy is required beyond staring at HP bars and making sure 0 doesn't pop up. (Not that that would matter, as you can just run away from normal battles without penalty of course). The gameplay in general is straight up MMO elements left and right, so if you don't enjoy that sort of thing, the story is all it has going for it. I don't care for MMOs (let alone ones where I'm the only player), so this is a main reason I didn't like it much.

Visually, I can appreciate the game on some level, but this game was doing the next gen brown filter before any FPS I saw doing it. I know it was part of the setting, but it made everything feel even more boring and flat. Endless sea of brown in every direction. The first thing I think of anytime someone mentions this game is the color brown. There was definitely some thought and work put into designing a lot of the areas though, and I thought the city-scapes were consistently impressive looking, so I'll give it that.

Overall I don't hate it and I'll easily take it over XIII, but I'm not a fan. What's a shame is that I think it could have been way better with just some simple things in mind, namely forget the shitty main character and all that forced pirate stuff that clogged everything up, and give the combat either some challenge or depth, not just the illusion of.

Also FF12 probably has the best Cid of any FF game. Enough said

Even VIII Cid is better.

[ZeroAX]

Also FF12 probably has the best Cid of any FF game. Enough said

Even VIII Cid is better.

All the other stuff I can respect, but with this I have to just flat out disagree.


wait....

when you talk about Cid, which of the 2 do you mean? The phony Spanish accent one, or the awesome mad scientist one? Cause obviously I'm talking about the badass mad scientist with the giant magical guttling gun

[MrEco]

I don't know what is more unfair about the way this game is treated. That people think it's not good...

...C) It's not as shitty as FF XIII

So it's "unfair" that people don't think it's good, but apparently perfectly fair for you to say a different game is not good?


Seems like legit logic there. Nothing hypocritical about that at all, no sir.

[pierrot]

I really liked XII when I played it. I'll also go ahead and get it out of the way that I liked XI and XIII as well; probably more than IV, VI, VII and VIII, even. Aside from the horrible story, I think X is about on par with the later entries. In terms of battle mechanics, the games after IX involve thinking far more tactically than anything including, or before it. (Save for III, and maybe VIII.)

That said, I think the main reason people don't like the newest entries in the Final Fantasy series, is because they perceive them to have departed too much from the series motif, but if you ask me, Final Fantasy went off the rails after V for a brief jump back on them at IX. Then back off; and back on again for XI; and--well you get the idea. Stylistically, though, XII is very much in line with Minagawa's other work, and I think it fits in well with his almost overarching series of disjointed games. Sure they might not all be spectacular games, but I thing they're very evocative of an old world, with great political intrigue.

I also agree, though, that the ending to XII is extremely unfortunate, and lazy.

[J T]

I must admit, I'm a sucker for Fran cosplay...

[Gamerforlife]

I love FF XII. I have to say though, I did not play this game casually. I did ALL the optional quests and got ALL the equipment so I can comment on the game in its entirety. So I feel like I have a better view of the combat system than most players because I've had to stretch it to its limit and master every facet of it. I won't lie though, faqs helped me a lot. You NEED help when pursuing some of the game's harder challenges.

Much of my love for the game is from the incredible sense of accomplishment you get from doing all the extra stuff. There's some pretty hardcore challenges in the game, including tough, optional boss fights that can literally take an hour to win...more like survive actually. And the game has a built in achievement system back when achievements and trophies weren't a common thing in games. Valkyria Chronicles has a very similar, built it medal system. What I like about FF XII is as tough as all the optional stuff gets, there is nothing in the game that is so hard that you can't overcome it with persistence and patience and just a tiny bit of luck. Still, it's one of the most hardcore entries in the series for completionists. You WILL feel like you accomplished something if you do everything in the game. If this ever got re-released on PS3, it would be a Platinum trophy to be proud of.

I like the combat system. People need to look at it like a strategy game. Yes, your characters are on auto pilot, but the challenge of the game is in coming up with smart gambits so that your party can actually be EFFECTIVE when on auto pilot. It's like you are a coach, and you need to effectively manage your team. This is somewhat true of Final Fantasy XIII's combat system as well. Imagine yourself as Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights, and your party is the Dillon Panthers. Also, it's not even accurate to say that the game runs on auto pilot all the time, because in tough battles you WILL have to change your gambits on the fly as battles go in different directions when enemies, particularly bosses, change their tactics. Sometimes, you'll even have to take manual control of your characters just so you can immediately have them do something to keep the party from getting wiped out. You have to think on your feet in this game and you can't always expect the party AI to be able to handle everything. Sometimes you have to step in and take charge.

I love that when your party dies, your non active party members get swapped in. I have had many battles be saved by people being called off the bench. It gives the player a second chance to survive. Also, this adds a level of excitement, intensity and suspense to battles too because your B Team is usually under leveled. So it becomes a matter of trying to keep them alive juuuust long enough to maybe resurrect your A Team. Some of my favorite moments in the game were when my power hitters got wiped out and I had to struggle with my weakest characters to try to stay in the fight and try to get my stronger characters back into the game before my B Team would get annihilated. There are times in this game, when you feel like you're hanging by a thread, and when you survive and win those battles, particularly a screen filling boss you have been fighting for 45 minutes it feels FUCKING EPIC!!!!!!!

The grapics are gorgeous, but it's an FF game so that is pretty much a given. The music was good and the story was alright. Not great, but certainly more respectable than the drek in FF XIII and XIII-2.

The game's only really flaws to me are in how it handles treasure and enemy drops. Some treasure chests have random contents and getting the good stuff requires many resets. Also, really good enemy drops can require a billion resets too due to their low percentage of appearing. It's also frustrating getting certain enemies that you need to defeat in this game to even appear. FF XII is a game that can make you curse the Random Number Generator gods.

Also, the requirements for Zodiac Spear. Just google that and read many of the horror stories from players failing the bull shit requirements for this weapon. Word to the wise, if you are going to play the game for the first time, google Zodiac Spear and MAKE SURE you know the requirements for getting it BEFORE you start playing the game. Thank me later.

One last thing I want to say, just to illuminate the amount of bullshit that exists among the gaming community (and the world in general). About 90 percent of what you see Xenoblade do as a game is copy and pasted from FF XII. Yet, people love to bash FF XII and pretty much every FF game to come out in the past decade or so and talk about Xenoblade like it's the most original game ever made and the savior of the jrpg genre

There was an episode of The Weekend Confirmed podcast where one of the hosts talked about something called "Group Think". Where basically people accept something as fact just because they hear many people in the gaming community say it, despite having no knowledge or first hand experience about the thing that those people are talking about.

[dsheinem]

One last thing I want to say, just to illuminate the amount of bullshit that exists among the gaming community (and the world in general). About 90 percent of what you see Xenoblade do as a game is copy and pasted from FF XII. Yet, people love to bash FF XII and pretty much every FF game to come out in the past decade or so and talk about Xenoblade like it's the most original game ever made and the savior of the jrpg genre

Truth.

FF12 is my 4th favorite Final Fantasy game, and it gets a bum rap. Every time I put in Xenoblade Chronicles I think to myself "I'd rather just play FF12, which is pretty much this game but done much better."

Glad to see some nice comments on it here.

[brunoafh]

One last thing I want to say, just to illuminate the amount of bullshit that exists among the gaming community (and the world in general). About 90 percent of what you see Xenoblade do as a game is copy and pasted from FF XII. Yet, people love to bash FF XII and pretty much every FF game to come out in the past decade or so and talk about Xenoblade like it's the most original game ever made and the savior of the jrpg genre

Truth.

FF12 is my 4th favorite Final Fantasy game, and it gets a bum rap. Every time I put in Xenoblade Chronicles I think to myself "I'd rather just play FF12, which is pretty much this game but done much better."

Glad to see some nice comments on it here.

Do you guys legitimately not realize the stuff in FF XII is just pulled from Everquest, WoW (and probably FF XI), or do you just choose to ignore that? None of these concepts are original to FF XII or Xeno, it is nonsensical to see the combat or general game design as anything unique to either of them. Just because FF XII was your first exposure to it doesn't mean it's the origin.

[dsheinem]

One last thing I want to say, just to illuminate the amount of bullshit that exists among the gaming community (and the world in general). About 90 percent of what you see Xenoblade do as a game is copy and pasted from FF XII. Yet, people love to bash FF XII and pretty much every FF game to come out in the past decade or so and talk about Xenoblade like it's the most original game ever made and the savior of the jrpg genre

Truth.

FF12 is my 4th favorite Final Fantasy game, and it gets a bum rap. Every time I put in Xenoblade Chronicles I think to myself "I'd rather just play FF12, which is pretty much this game but done much better."

Glad to see some nice comments on it here.

Do you guys legitimately not realize the stuff in FF XII is just pulled from Everquest, WoW (and probably FF XI), or do you just choose to ignore that? None of these concepts are original to FF XII or Xeno, it is nonsensical to see the combat or general game design as anything unique to either of them. Just because FF XII was your first exposure to it doesn't mean it's the origin.

I know it has MMO type elements, sure. What's your point?