Criticize this game!

We've got this sort of thread going in some other FF subforums so I thought it was high time we had one for the single most overrated game in the entire FF franchise, FFTactics!

Let's discuss how thoroughly mediocre it is, how SRPGs were better off without it, how completely boring and unfun it is, and why so many deluded people think this is a good game when they could be playing Vandal Hearts or Tactics Ogre or Front Mission or anything by NIS or anything on the PC side of things like X-Com or Jagged Alliance or who even knows.

:jess:

I am MILF. I live in a Bizarro World in which FFT and IX are crap and FFX deserves to have its dick sucked constantly for being such a masterpiece of gaming achievement. :colbert:

I'll be honest, I've never actually played Tactics - much to my dismay, as I completely trust people like Del when they say it is awesome - but knowing that you dislike a game makes me assume you are wrong. ;)

So sod off, Hux. :colbert:

I've never played tactics, but I'd love to play it.

My two issues with the game is some of the game balance is off, the fact monsters and random encounter humans level with your party but storyline ones don't ultimately means that just trying to grind for a few high skills will have the untimely consequence of making the game both ridiculously easy and harder at the same time if you don't know what you are doing.

My second issue is that the game suffers from the same problem with any game that has huge amounts of customization, which is that often simplicity is way better than more elaborate builds. The game isn't terribly difficult once you know what you are doing and equipment and levels can often prove to be more important in turning the tide of battle than specific skillset builds. Why bother with the Ninja class when the early Knight class is pretty damn lethal throughout the whole game? Why should I stat min/max when just trying to farm some Excalibur's is more than enough to make everything in the game my bitch? This all comes back to some of the balancing issues I mentioned, and I will freely admit that I don't play the late game meta game of trying to build ultimate parties cause who cares when there is nothing worthy to give it a challenge? If there was a ever a game that seriously needed online versus mode, it was this game.

Other than that, I love the game and Milf... You're just crazy.

Where to begin...

Well, let's start with something I haven't criticised recently. The graphics. This game is aesthetically dull. It's not "dark", it's not "serious", it's boring. Oh, it can do dark and serious at times, and do it quite well. Usually in a one minute cutscene of the villains. But, for the majority, it's just brown and grey and more brown. There is no vibrance in Ivalice in this game. Everything feels washed out and lifeless. Colors are muted and landscapes are dull. There is no hint, anywhere, that anyone actually lives in this bloody world.

And it's not a result of war, don't give me that lame excuse. Go back and take a look at the War of the Roses, and you'll see that those people used color all the damn time. Outfits, banners, signs... Armies were things of vibrancy and life, even as they were slaughtering each other. Even the bloody spells in this game looked muted. Lightning is pretty much the only thing that has any glow to it, and I'm convinced that's only because they couldn't find a way to make it brown. It's hard to believe that there is anyone living in Ivalice when the entire world, even the bustling cities, looks like something lifted from Call of Duty or Quake.



Next up, the JP system. My gosh is this thing horrible. The amount of JP rewarded per the amount required for most abilities even in a single job is absolutely ridiculous. The absurd rate of acquisition practically forces grinding, and doesn't at all suit either the progression of the story or any natural progression for characters.

It also doesn't help that the game's balance and progression are all out of whack anyway. Getting more gear is far, far more important than gaining levels or abilities, due to the way level matching is done. The Charge system completely breaks magic use up until you get Calculators (which are pretty game breaking themselves).


The Zodiac compatability system is ridiculous and does nothing to aid strategy.


The Faith/Bravery system is too easily min/maxed, and extremely overcomplicated.


Since you guys have read some of my recent posts on those issues, I left them brief. Plus its getting late. But I'll get back to you with more of this game's many, many flaws later.

There's also the mentioned factors like availability and knowledge. Had people did this, bought that, found out about this or that?

What they were doing at the time in general. Every person had their own tastes too and we can appeal to only so many. I hate to be generalistic but I know people who don't like Goldeneye because you could only play it in first person. ;)

I'm going to disagree with you on the graphics I loved the way the game looked and it's associated color pallet Seeing as this is personal preference I don't think this makes a good debate point, but I will throw that out there.

As for the JP system forcing 'grinding', I think that is a matter of semantics. In a game like FFT the battles are the meat of the game, and I would argue that fighting random battles is considered part of the gameplay. It only becomes grinding when you are using extremely repetitive strategies to maximize JP earned. (Which people do do, but they also grind in every other game.) I don't think that the game forces you to fight several random battles for every story battle is actually a knock against the game though, I see these random battles as just as much gameplay as the story ones.

I'll leave the others points that have seen discussion at greater length.

BAD GRAPHICS! HOW COULD ANYONE PLAY THIS GAME? COD IS MUCH BETTER.



But to be serious, I have nothing bad to say about this game.

Okay, I know I said I wasn't go to comment on anyone's actual criticism cause that's the whole point of this thread, but I just can't help pick out this point...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

Where to begin...

Well, let's start with something I haven't criticised recently. The graphics. This game is aesthetically dull. It's not "dark", it's not "serious", it's boring. Oh, it can do dark and serious at times, and do it quite well. Usually in a one minute cutscene of the villains. But, for the majority, it's just brown and grey and more brown. There is no vibrance in Ivalice in this game. Everything feels washed out and lifeless. Colors are muted and landscapes are dull. There is no hint, anywhere, that anyone actually lives in this bloody world.

And it's not a result of war, don't give me that lame excuse. Go back and take a look at the War of the Roses, and you'll see that those people used color all the damn time. Outfits, banners, signs... Armies were things of vibrancy and life, even as they were slaughtering each other. Even the bloody spells in this game looked muted. Lightning is pretty much the only thing that has any glow to it, and I'm convinced that's only because they couldn't find a way to make it brown. It's hard to believe that there is anyone living in Ivalice when the entire world, even the bustling cities, looks like something lifted from Call of Duty or Quake.

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You do realize that the flashy colors and the outfits proved to be a detriment to the French right? The flashy outfits easily allowed English Longbow men to spot Captains and other high ranking officers easily from their troops and be targeted and killed. I mean the War of the Roses is partially why military uniforms changed to be more universal and bland. Hell, even the Revolutionary War had the British Redcoats having trouble not getting easily spotted by Rebel forces and sniped. So flashy exotic colors are not exactly a plus in a military setting.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

Where to begin...

Well, let's start with something I haven't criticised recently. The graphics. This game is aesthetically dull. It's not "dark", it's not "serious", it's boring. Oh, it can do dark and serious at times, and do it quite well. Usually in a one minute cutscene of the villains. But, for the majority, it's just brown and grey and more brown. There is no vibrance in Ivalice in this game. Everything feels washed out and lifeless. Colors are muted and landscapes are dull. There is no hint, anywhere, that anyone actually lives in this bloody world.

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Two words, Akihiko Yoshida.

So we aren't supposed to discuss any of the criticisms? I feel that something like that should have been mentioned in the OP. My bad.

Oh feel free to discuss the criticism, I'm just going to try and avoid discussion cause I'm not terribly in the mood to write walls of text defending a position. Though in terms of the IX version of this thread, I haven't had a chance to do my yearly "why FFX sucks" rant in awhile so that's more theraputic. Feel free to dig in, I'm just telling people I'm graciously bowing out before it gets ugly unless someone says something truly stupid and wrong, then you know damn well I'll be there to rip you a new one... :shifty:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

There is no vibrance in Ivalice in this game. Everything feels washed out and lifeless.

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You missed the point of the entire game.

J/k, i get it.

This is one of the games me and Wolf more or less agree on, so again, I don't have much to add to myself other than reiterate the balancing is shot to hell.

Also, Matsuno repeated his blunder from Ogre Battle, where he wanted to make a game about complex moral dilemmas but once again ended up being all about zodiac stones and demons. Personally, I think the ending works on the earlier themes beautifully with Delita's path contrasting Ramza's, but I understand why some don't like the ending.

Lastly, I don't think Sakimoto was as successful creating a soundtrack you could tolerate for hours upon hours each play session, unlike Final Fantasy XII.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

You do realize that the flashy colors and the outfits proved to be a detriment to the French right? The flashy outfits easily allowed English Longbow men to spot Captains and other high ranking officers easily from their troops and be targeted and killed. I mean the War of the Roses is partially why military uniforms changed to be more universal and bland. Hell, even the Revolutionary War had the British Redcoats having trouble not getting easily spotted by Rebel forces and sniped. So flashy exotic colors are not exactly a plus in a military setting.

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This didn't change for most people until the early 20th century, really until World War I, and even then there were almost riots in the French Parliament when the discussion of abolishing les pantalons rouge was underway. In the setting FFT equates to there really would need to be a justification for colorless drab armies, because knights and dukes and so forth really really loved their banners and colors and heraldry (and with good reason; when battles descended into melees you needed to be able to tell who was on your side). Furthermore massed archer attacks didn't tend to have the accuracy needed to target individuals (and in this age in many battles the important people were at the front of the charge anyway), though I suppose if you saw a chap who was clearly important you might be inclined to fire in his direction. I don't actually mind FFT's graphics or aesthetic myself but that's one particular issue I wanted to correct. Again it could very reasonably be justified but that doesn't happen, and it really does need to given real-world historical context. Also the War of the Roses was an English civil war, not a fight with France - you may be thinking of the Hundred Years War, where the English with their Longbowmen did indeed annihilate the French knights more than once (Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers).

:milsperg:

Also there's nothing wrong with grinding in and of itself, it depends on the gameplay. Grinding in a fun game is still fun, grinding in a boring one is not. This is a boring one.