Penelo

[asukaevaunit02]

Hi all, I've been playing this game a fair bit lately and have to say its an awesome game, so good it took me away from finishing FF10.

Anyways to the point of this topic... Penelo! Is it just me or does Penelo sound like a really nice name, I really like it. She seems like a very nice character, reminds me of a caring sister or friend.

Discuss how you feel about Penelo.
(how ever note I havn't finished the game yet, I'm about half way through)

[Wolf Kanno]

I actually like Penelo, I feel she gets a lot of crap from people cause they feel she's pointless in the story. I felt she represented the ideal that Archades could mend their relationship with other countries through the next generation. A subject that Ashe and Basch actually touch upon. Its her relationship with Larsa and her ability to pull Vaan in that makes her a wonder in the game. I love her quickenings.

She is a bit obnoxious in RW as she plays "mother hen" to your party but she' more balanced in TA2.

Mostly, I love Penelo cause she wasn't the stereotypical "hyperactive girl" which is probably my least favorite RPG cliche that FF insists on keeping... :roll2

[Tuhkasieni]

i like penelo, and i think the name penelo is adorable. shes really happy and her conversations with vaan are really enjoyable haha. though i like her as a person i unfortunatley dont use her in battle, sometimes but rarely. its nice to have her in your party and its nice to see her in cutscenes but i just dont know, im having a hard time using her in combat. mostly use balthier, ashe and vaan/basch. :)

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

"Penelo" reminds me of Punchinello (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchinello). It's kind of distracting, really.

[rubah]

I was ambivalent until she single handedly won the cluckatrice hunt battle. Sooooooo

[Aerith's Knight]

Penelo was the reason I played it as far as I did.

[Vermachtnis]

I like her, but she is always just kind of there. She is handy in battle, she keeps everyone in Bubble and Haste. I could use anyone else for that, but I taught them to her.

[asukaevaunit02]

Mostly, I love Penelo cause she wasn't the stereotypical "hyperactive girl" which is probably my least favorite RPG cliche that FF insists on keeping... :roll2
Yeah, thats true, she seemed quite normal which was nice, compared to those "cute hyperactive girls" Rikku from X/X-2 comes to mind, I never really liked her or saw much point in her...


shes really happy and her conversations with vaan are really enjoyable haha. though i like her as a person i unfortunatley dont use her in battle, sometimes but rarely. im having a hard time using her in combat. mostly use balthier, ashe and vaan/basch. :)
She does appear quite happy, the cheery/optimistic person in the group. I think that and how she talks with Vaan is believeable i can imagine people like that and its kind of sweet.
I like using her in battle she is my main healer, but also can attack well with a pole. My prefered party is usually Ashe, Penelo and either of Baltheir or Basch.

[Shattered Dreamer]

Yeah I'd have to say I like Penelo. She sorta encapsulates what a good friends should be. Even though she is obviously scared by whats going on around her but because she is Vaan's friend she'll follow him to the edge of the world & back again! She reminded me of Selphie from FFVIII a bit sometimes too.

[PeneloRatsbane]

I like Penelo, she gets very hot in the end, i wish she had looked like that the whole way thru. I do love her quickenings but i rarely use her in battle.
I figured Penelo was just short for Penelope, which made me wonder if Fran was short for Francesca and how that is quite an un-veirary name, Surely it should have been "Frjn"? but i guess she's an un-verirary type of gal.

[Quindiana Jones]

I like Penelo, but she's never in my main party. Main party is always Vaan, Basch and Fran.

However, she does have adorable Quickenings, and I swear to God she gets them more often. I've had repeated Penelo Quickenings for about 4 or 5 times before getting another person. It's ridiculous. She literally saved my ass - TWICE - when I went up against the White Mousse at level 20 or something. I knew I couldn't win that battle by hitting him to death, simply because I was too low a level. But everyone had all their Quickenings by level 20ish, so the whole battle was "15+ Quickening Chain, ethers and elixirs and revives, 15+ Quickening Chain". It was...it was beautiful.

So yeah, to sum up. Although I find Penelo's character a little annoying (ohmigod stop whining), I like the fact that she's not as naive as normal FF gals, and since she saved my scrawny ass I've never thought of her as a less powerful character.

[Aerisfanatic]

Lovely girl, the only character I like with pig-tails. Much better than that cow, oh whats her name? Oh ya, Ash.

[Wolf Kanno]

But Ashe is such a wonderful bitch :Eek: How can you not love her!!??

[Crimson]

She's the female Vaan.


Vaan makes me want to punch babies.

Penelo makes me want to stuff some puppies in a bag, throw it around, then drown them until the last one stops squeeling in agony.




....Yeah I'm really not fond of Penelo.

[The Space Pope]

Penelo was completely irrelevant to the story. I know FF12 had lackluster character development, but she might has well been an NPC and switched her for Reddas. At least he had a bit of a backstory, however faint.

[Raistlin]

I agree with Space Pope. I didn't care about a lot of FF12 characters, and Penelo was no exception.

[tan]

When I think of Penelo, all I can think is "bland." I don't really think the game developers put much thought into building up a plot or even making any of the other characters that dynamic, but with Penelo it's like they just threw her in there and forgot that she had anything to do with the others. If you also look at the trailer or the game guide, they have all these interesting descriptions for the other characters (Vaan as "A boy who would be a pirate", Ashe as "A princess who had lost everything,") and then for Penelo all they could muster up was "Vaan's friend." If all a character is worth in a game is the role of plutonic best friend, there's a problem o_O

[Aerisfanatic]

I think she was suppose to be a love interest for Vaan. That's the only thing I think of why she was there. They didn't do much to tread on that idea it seems.

[TurkSlayer]

I mean, FFXII has just about the most unimpressive story gameplay entertainment value cast of characters of any of the Final Fantasy games to date, and Penelo was about the blandest. But at least she wasn't this obnoxious. (http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-02/art/ff12-vaan.jpg)

Sorry, was not a big FFXII fan. Its been awhile since I tried to get through it though, I may give it another shot someday.

[Bolivar]

I like all the characters in the game, Penelo included.

I feel some people arbitrarily pretend to have unfathomably high expectations so they can justify their own bias of why they like/don't like something. The lot of FFXII got the short end of that.

[Formalhaut]

She had such potential, the whole game did, but they rushed it abit I feel.

I feel FFXII is a proof Of Concept for the new battle system. Oh well, at least FFXIII is looking amazing. I think FFXIII is the battle system slightly tweaked, but then actually MADE the game.



EDIT: Shes actually part of my Team BAP (Balthier, Ashe, Penelo)

[Wolf Kanno]

I will never understand why people feel every party member has to contribute something to the plot as a whole for some personal reason (Red XIII and Quina didn't and we all still love them anyway). Somehow, not being a self righteous jackass means you don't have the qualifications to save the world. :roll2


As I stated earlier, I feel Penelo's role in the plot was to show the jaded "adults" that reconciliation between the warring countries is possible with each new generation. This is apparent when you see the scenes between Larsa and Penelo and its also practically spelled out to the player in the dialogue between Lady Ashe and Basch on the journey to the Henne Mines.

These interactions helped Lady Ashe see that annihilating Archades may not be the way to go and is one of many reasons on her journey that weighs on her mind to her eventual destiny at the Pharos.

[Raistlin]

RedXIII added nothing? I think the entire visit to Cosmo Canyon disagrees with you. And while not every character in a game has to add a lot, for people to like them they need to add something, even if that's only comic relief or general awesomeness.

And for me, it's not that Penelo specifically didn't add much; in my opinion, a lot of FFXII was underdeveloped, so I had trouble caring about other characters and parts of the plot as well.

[Wolf Kanno]

The events of Cosmo Canyon are not important outside of introducing Bugenhagen; and the plot could have easily been rewritten to have Barret do that since he has connections there. Red XIII's whole point of going is cause Grandpa told him to. After that he doesn't really have another story scene until you get his ultimate weapon.

On topic though, I don't really find the XII cast underdeveloped but that's my own opinion so we can all just leave it at that if we wish. I just find it funny that people act like Penelo has to have some world shattering backstory to be justified being there. To be honest, once Vaan learned the truth about his brother and rescued Penelo; he probably should have been left behind in Rabanastre since his personal issue is sorta resolved by that point. Lady Ashe is pretty much the main character from a writing standpoint.

[Raistlin]

I definitely agree that actively disliking a character just because she doesn't have a huge backstory doesn't make much sense, considering that if that were the case a lot of characters in most games outside of the main few should be disliked just for that fact. But it is certainly a valid justification for not giving a crap.

And I also agree that Ashe becomes the main character in the story later in the game; Vaan and Penelo both are pretty much just followers for the hell of it.

[Quindiana Jones]

If anything like this actually happened, though, we'd all probably be Vaans. Just cooler and less annoying.

Actually, I imagine most of us would be Generic Dalmascan A and just suffer through the Arcadian rule. Hell no am I risking my life.

[Rostum]

She's the female Vaan.

Vaan makes me want to punch babies.

Penelo makes me want to stuff some puppies in a bag, throw it around, then drown them until the last one stops squeeling in agony.

....Yeah I'm really not fond of Penelo.

Okay you have more problems than just disliking a character in a video game. I suggest seeking professional help - being serious here.

[PeneloRatsbane]

And I also agree that Ashe becomes the main character in the story later in the game; Vaan and Penelo both are pretty much just followers for the hell of it.

I'd follow Ashe, first i wouldn't want to nark her off, and second shes got junk in that trunk.

Vaan and Penelo both lost so much to the war and the empire and all that so i can see why they would want to help out. Even if they did sort of just bumble into the middle of things

The Character that confuses me most is Basch, he's the happiest torture victim/prisoner that ever lived. I do love him tho.

[Quindiana Jones]

That's because Basch is awesome. It's like in Casino Royale when Daniel Craig starts laughing during the torture. You know why he laughs? Because James Bond is awesome. Basch = James Bond. Future Esthar, continue.

[Crimson]

She's the female Vaan.

Vaan makes me want to punch babies.

Penelo makes me want to stuff some puppies in a bag, throw it around, then drown them until the last one stops squeeling in agony.

....Yeah I'm really not fond of Penelo.

Okay you have more problems than just disliking a character in a video game. I suggest seeking professional help - being serious here.

I'm just a very passionate gamer. :cool:

[Animora]

I actually like penelo, she's one of the first characters i got to lvl 99 and also one of the 3 i used to destroy Yiazmat.

[Depression Moon]

I can't say that I really like any of the cast, so I'm more neutral to all of them. A couple of things that I do like about her are her name and her personality. I agree that it was good that she was carefree, but not too much like the perky female characters the developers love to make. Like others said. It did sort of seem like the developers forgot about her with her bland description in the guide.


She reminded me of Selphie from FFVIII a bit sometimes too.
That's probably because she's white, wears yellow, and is generally carefree just like her.

[arcanedude34]

Mostly, I love Penelo cause she wasn't the stereotypical "hyperactive girl" which is probably my least favorite RPG cliche that FF insists on keeping... :roll2

[Rad Bromance]

I liked that one of her quickenings was called "Evanescence". :D

[ANGRYWOLF]

including Penelo.

I usually gave her a staff or a crossbow.

I'm not a fan of the quickenings so I tended only to use them on tough boss fights.

I am one of those who believes in romance so I wish there had been more romance in the game between Penelo and Vaan.