This game is awful

[Renmiri]

Hey Setzer ?

How is teh real game holding up in regards to your expectations ? You were so excited about it before you actually played! Was it everything you hoped for ?

Be honest now

[Setzer Gabianni]

I get spasms whenever I go into a new area. Being chased by gangs monsters, summoning Espers even. Having the Undead pop out of the ground, going into the stupidly hard Zertinan Caverns, fighting rolling chickens, trying to take on neutral monsters which are like 20 levels higher then you - god woman, this, is what I have been waiting for. No more ty random battles. Yes, I get angry sometimes, but thats a good sign - challenges make me angry, and I love getting angry 8D

Good lord the scenery, the music! The Bestiary! The story! The characters! *O* The story isn't too long winded and complicated, like previous titles, such as X, VIII, and IX - not saying they were , but they were very long. XII's story was of a great length.

Judges. omg. If only there were more footage of them. Probably my main gripe with the game. Also, just gimme gimme more FMV's at more sensational points. No biggie though, cutscenes were good enough.

I could secks the judges. dihsdfs

VOICES! zomg. I fell in love with everybody. ♥

I smurfing love it Renmiri. difhds

ds
fd
ds

[Renmiri]

I'm happy for ya

[TheBanzaiKitten]

Not the best game I ever played, but one of my favorites.

The storyline isn't that great. I haven't beaten it yet but I see hardly any character development at all (Ones I have seen are Vaan becoming more mature and everyone tolerates each other more). It's very confusing and the dialect doesn't help (They talk like Yoda!).

The gameplay is one of the best ever from what I've played. The battle system is fun and makes dungeon crawling tolerable. The only problem I see is how tedious it is to get weapons and magic (You have to get a license AND buy it). This is the only game where I actually level up for hours at a time.

The graphics are great but even some of the cutscenes bug me sometimes.

The music is okay and tolerable. It's not the best FF music I've heard. When it comes to sound, the voice acting is one of the worst parts. The only voices I can stand to hear are Fran, Balthier, and Basch.

[Setzer Gabianni]

VA bad? Surely you are only referring to the main party ;_; ♥

[Hazzard]

The storyline is good, but too jumbled. The amount of time it takes to get to the next point in the game is long and you have to do training, side quests and hunts as well. So you usually end up forgetting about the basic story plot which is going on at that point. I'm at the part after the dreamer guy called kilitias has just well...Y'know!

[No.78]

The storyline is good, but too jumbled. The amount of time it takes to get to the next point in the game is long and you have to do training, side quests and hunts as well. So you usually end up forgetting about the basic story plot which is going on at that point. I'm at the part after the dreamer guy called kilitias has just well...Y'know!

Thats the same with all FF first play throughs. Especially the older ones, in FF1 I'm stuck cos I forgot what I was doing =/

[Wolf Kanno]

I personally prefer the Sphere Grid, but that's just my opinion. The characters aren't underdeveloped I guess, but a few things (like motives, etc.) are less-than detailed.

I still think this game is great and worth playing.

To be honest, if I was to compare FFXII's liscence grid with my favorite FFbattle system (Job Class system from FFVand FFT respectavely) I would agree that the Liscenece board is a poor substitute. Cause to me, the job system is the best system in the series and makes every new system in the series look laughable. In fact I find that most systems from FFVI to FFXII (excluding FFXI) is just trying to emulate the Job system.

On it's own merits. It's a really wonderful system that allows a greater level of freedom than both the Job class and sphere grid systems cause you don't really have to spend time leveling certain jobs or traversing through different paths to get the results you want. It's streamlined for new players but complex enough (when you combine it with the Gambits) to make it appealing to older fans. I genuinely found it to be very fun. Hell I'm still working out the logistics of building workable strict job classes from the system. Something I think is a testament to the freedom the system allows.

Alright first of all I have a love hate relationship with this game but its steadily growing on me and I'm learning to love it more.

Glad to hear you're starting to enjoy it.

-Graphics in terms of square enix are going to improve each time we play, graphics are easy to build on (I'm going to get shot for saying that I mean it's easy by comparison to writing a good story) you just have to make things look realistic right? The FF series isn't suddenly going to revert back to pixels (the good old days) Normally I try and save judgement on a game via its graphics for last, hence a scene in GAME

Friend; Wow look at the graphics on that game the characters look realistic and so does everything around them, wow you can even see the expression change and theres sweat dripping off their heads.
Me; Yes but its ping pong

For me graphics is the icing on the cake, the thing that finishes off a good game but doesn't nessesarily make one in the first place.

This is my exact feeling about graphics in the gaming community as a whole.

At first I really disliked the new battle system but now I've played with it more I'm getting used to it and I love it, I find it much more bearable than a random battle every 3 steps that makes me throw down my controller and go ARGH when I'm trying to cross a very large field. Here you can easily run and avoid enemies quite happily. (even if the slower runners get killed you can revive them when the big t rex gets tired of running after you.

I wasn't really impressed with the battle system during the Reks tutorial . I only began to really like it once I gained access to the Gambits and multiple characters play around with.

Leveling up was neither tedious nor annoying to me and I've only died twice (once when Vaan was by himself and the second for stupidly not pressing the pause button when I had to answer the door), not out of low level but out of my own carelessness. I just take ten extra minutes before going into a new area with a rule that if I can defeat a reasonable enemy with 2-3 hits then I'm ready for the next area. Boss fights made a nice challenge and the fact that I can run around freely in Battle instead of simply bouncing up and down proportionatly to how badass (do I need skulls for that?) my character is, is a fresh and welcome change, battles are NEVER simply run, attack, run back. I did find it annoying that I have to wait for a physical attack to power up before it happens but ah well at least its the same for the enemy.
Quickenings were at first a royal pain, mashing the R2 button while hammering on triangle confused me no end but I've gotten the hang of it now and just managed a 10 hit combo so I'm a happy Gaia plains bunny. Summons also were a bit annoying as Belias kept dieing on me and it still does tick me off slightly, but the high level of damage (unless I'm against a mark or another boss) they inflict makes me keep on summoning them I just wish they went back to the format of one, huge apocalyptic assult that cut 1/3 of the hp off your enemies.

I never had to level up until recently and I'm only doing it so I can complete optional challenges. This may be due to the fact I never skipped the Mark hunts and did them religiously throughout the game. I also never used a guide so I only had a vague idea where they were and spent a good time wondering the area map looking for them instead of making a bee line straight to them. Cause I did this, and kept avoinding combat to a minimum... I never had to level up, and I never had to worry about money. This is why I have problems addressing people who have these issues cause my only response would be simply "You must be playing the game wrong"

You seemed to have worked out a good system and I'm happy to hear it alleviates you from the normal "it's too hard and tedious" whining of the other players.

Finally on the story, I have just left the mout Bur o'msomething and so far I find the storyline is okay, I like the judges, characters and especially the cameos in the moogle characters that have been popping up making me gush at the cuteness. I have been hearing the fact that there is no canon romantic story involving any characters (unless you count Ashe being married but thats besides the point) whatsoever, I for one lept for joy at this because I'm sick of romantic storylines and how unrealistic they make characters if not written properly. I for one can never see anyone switch from a full length skirt and boots to hot pants with half a skirt just because her love interest has popped out of existance (Rikku was fine she always dressed like that) That and I couldn't bear the thought of another underwater kiss scene where the main character looks stoned out of his bleach blonde, tanned, ever complaining and moaning head.

I'll end the rant for now but I shall return (Maybe)

Took the words right out of my mouth. I do hope you enjoy FFXII's amazing story though.

Not the best game I ever played, but one of my favorites.

The storyline isn't that great. I haven't beaten it yet but I see hardly any character development at all (Ones I have seen are Vaan becoming more mature and everyone tolerates each other more). It's very confusing and the dialect doesn't help (They talk like Yoda!

What kind of character development were you looking for with the characters. I'm curious.

My point is that a sizable portion of FF fans in Japan, US and Europe have noticed problems with the story. That is a fact.

When people in 3 continents, all with different backgrounds, different expectations, different levels of FF knowledge and different tastes all find a thing in common to say about a game, I listen. Even if I didn't agree, I'd listen

PS: The pacing is not uniformly bad IMO, just uneven I'd say the same about the entire FFXII game. Which makes me mad at it because parts of it are the greatest ever so the lame parts make XII loose it's spot on the "greatest games of all time" list

Thought I "overlooked" this statement did you

The problem with this argument is that it can be said about any of the FF's so it's not unique to FFXII alone. Just wonder into any of the myriad of "Your Favorite..." or "Which is the best..." threads in General FF or even General Gaming forums and you will find that no FF has some unanimous opinion of good or bad on a game in the series. And most of the time it stems from story (or lack thereof) of their respective games. Thus fact quickly turns into opinion once again.

We just all have different taste, hell the only thing most of us can agree on is that we love FF. Even if it's not the exact same one.

[Renmiri]

Rats, pwned again by WK

[Hazzard]

wow, another factual description of summin from the great 'Wolf Kanno'.
Hail down people!

[DLPB]

I have been searching bad reviews on this game after i finished it, because to be quite honest those reviews are the only true ones.

How this game got 40/40 and 10/10 in the high review magazines is a complete and utter mystery.

I have wrote a review oin this in another forum and shall also place it here. I completely agree with shadow...this game is crap.

-----------Rewiew: A bit of a mess and contains spoilers...if you can call them that!-----------

Well, Where to begin. I am going to try and remain level headed but believe me it is going to take it out of me.

I will be soring this game out of 10 for each aspect, then an average score will be decided which I don't even know myself yet (but you can bet your arse it isn't going to be over 7/10)

------------------------------------
Music:

Before I headr the music for this game I had serious reservations about what it would be like without Nobuo. Some of that initial worry was unfounded, some of it was spot on.

Firstly, the music usually fits this game. There are a few nice tunes like the main theme, rabanastre and even 1 of the boss battles. Overall hitoshi has doen a reasonable job.

No, it isn't on the level of Uemstsu. No way in hell and I never thought it would be. I can name 3 or 4 tunes that really stick in my mind from this OST, compared to almost all of the previous installments. Alot of the music in this game sounds too generic, that would be my main complaint.

less real melodies and alot of mainly generic sounds that flow from 1 place to the next.

I give 6.5/10 for music. It is a reasonable effort and on the whole it fits the game.

Story:

This, is undoutedly where this game utrerly breaks down. I have to base this review on its own merits but also, I must compare it to other RPG's and previous Final fantasy games.

To put it bluntly, the story is extremely thin. At times, it seems to be going somewhere but then you spend 5 hours fighting meaningles battles, to be presented with nothing but a vague direction to a new area. Nothing more.

The saddest part is this game is classed as being "50-100 hours long" when in reality, the story occupies around 2 hours. Much less than any other RPG I have played. The endless battles and ridiculous plotless bosses just keep coming and coming and unless you are braindead, you get bored very quickly. The sad excuses driving you forward just make you want to attack the TV. following on from this:

The character deveopment is none existant, and this is the biggest crime of all. The main charcters are basically, just there (including the elusive bad guy). No explanation of their motivations, because, apart from Ashe, they have none. It is laughable to expect that anyone of any real intelligence can believe these charcters would just stay together through it all for no reason.

You don't care 1 iota for any of your charcters, because, quite simply, you don't know them! What little dialogue there is, as mentioned, is simple an excuse to drive you to a new area of the game and progress. The lack of dialogue in this game is an absolute and utter pitiful disgrace. This is supposed to be an RPG and so I must come down hard on this game for its insulting plot. The only one who has any real depth is balthier and that isn't saying much at all.

I give the plot 3/10. The 3 points are there for the reasonable tying up job at the end, wheer baltheir gives back the ring and also the main NPC discussions around the towns. I also give 1 point for the main running storyline of the empire. For the record, FFX-2 scores 1/10 and FFVII 10/10

Voices:

Surprisingly this game has very good voice acting with the exception of Fran who is an annoying talentless noise. I believe she is played by a male to be quite honest.

Vayne solidor at the end is without doubt the coolest, though we must be very respectful to the performance of ashe and bathier's actors. Compared to othe voice acting this is about as good as I have heard along with X and metal Gear Solid.

The voice acting, little of it though there is compared to X, is solid throughout from all but 1 character.

I therefore give voice acting for this game 8/10

Sound

The engineering of the voices is absolutely disgraceful. I could and have done better with a regular mic attacjed to adobe audition. The quality is reminisent tof a 32 kbit/s MP3 in mono. It is nothing as clear or natural sounding as X for sure.

That isn't the only downfall. It seems for the english release somebody got very very lazy. hardly any of the NPC say anything, instead we are back to subtitles and worse, periodically your main charcters don't have voices either! At the end of the game, vayne is talking but his crew isn't when replying. FARCICAL.

The main sound effects are as you would expect, apart from the ridiculous volumes and over-the-top effects, especially during the special moves

The sound engineering therefore must recieve 4/10 because it is awful and downright LAZY

Gameplay:

Now, this started off very good. You had all these cool new things to check out. gambits, mist attacks, espers, license Grid and clan battles. Let us not forget the miles of areas there is to explore. This game is huge on that front. So, for somebody who doesn't care about plot, the gameplay is a plus.

Well, it would be a big plus, except the gambit system ruins the main battle and the new battle system completely. Throughout this game I survivied by 2 gambits: attack:foe and cure: ally. Worse still, the develppers deliberately left in an exploit to get your party up to level 99 without touchinga button.

Pathetic. you can watch your party destroy the foes without any interaction or brain power throughout the entire game. It truly is disgusting. Ater a few hours this gets samey and you realise that there is hardly anything to really acre about tactically. bad bad move by enix.
This gambit system is the single biggest disaster in Final fantasy history. You don't need a brain, it limits creativity, it makes every battle attack attack attack and it gets you to level 99 without touching a button. IT IS A DISASTER.

Then there is the second problem, you gain around 2 or 3 espers from the main storyline. The last few come right at the end of the game and are worthless to you in battle. The others are all side quests which again, is disgraceful (since you won't be using them at all anyway). Mist attacks also become as useless and so, youe nd up back wheer i said--- foe: attack. NO GOOD.

The mist attacks become useless but at the start of the game I suppose they help. Unfortunately, here is another problem. Your MP is taken to 0, the same as when using an Esper. So tactically this makes it a last ditch attempt at killing a boss for example. The 2 worst things about the mist attacks however, are i) The damage is mostly down to luck as your shuffle the attacks and ii) you aer sat there waiting hours for these silly moves to finish.

The license grid is yet another huge let down. It starts off promising, but then you realise at 30 hours into the game (29 are battles), that this will be finished in no time and that you won't even be using the magics much.

By far the worst thing gameplay wise is the repeative battles and ridiculous amount of bosses. When you get to the final area before bahumut you will absolutely know what I mean.

I also hear (since I could stomach no more) that there is an enemy on this game devoted to the writer which has 50,000,000 HP. YES 50 million! With your main attacks capped at 9999 it is known to take 8-9 hours to beat this thing, leaving your characters to mindlessly fight it with the gambits. ARE ENIX SERIOUS! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

It just sums this game up: an endless boring battle with no brains. An excuse to add time to your game timer and make the game look good.

It fails. IT FAILS

Has anyone noticed the loading times are much worse for this game too? it is a joke. On a few screens, consistently, 16 seconds to load the next area (i tested this properly). And after the Esper's are dismissed....Is there anything in this crap game that isn't poor?

Then we have the sidequest hunts for weapons/armours which is a mess. A total mess. You have random chests with ridiculous drop rates. You have enemies with ridiclous drop rates. You need a guide to get the stuff, and even with it there is a huge amount down to luck. You may not open certain chests or you cannot get the hardest weapons and even more laughably, every chest in this game contains worthless items 99.9% of the time. Unless you are daft or just plain stupid, you will not be loading your game up time and time again to get the "correct item". No this system is the Second biggest disaster in final fantasy history

If not for the clan battles and the extra side quests, the gameplay would be right where it should be, a 1 in 10. However, I have decided a fair score will be 5/10 when taking everything into consideration.

Graphics:

final fantasy has always been strong in this area, pushing every system to the limit. This is certainly no different. The areas are detailed, the charcter sprites good, the FMV's wonderful as usual. The Areas are as vast and beautifu as ever before. I cannot give this anything other than 10/10

{FF7 Music: 10/10, Story: 10/10, Gameplay: 10/10, Sound: 10/10, Graphics 9/10}

FFXII:
Music: 6.5/10
Story: 3/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Voice: 8/10
Sound: 4/10
Graphics: 10/10

The final average score for this travesty of a game is 6/10

Firmly placing it as the second worst Final Fantasy game of the modern era. This game will never be played by me again. I belieev it has 0 replay value whatsoever and the biggest mystery is wheer people see the story and also, how they get to 8-10/10 reviews. I will never trust famitsu with the scores. They talk garbage, which is apt really, because on the whole that is exactly what this game is.

I know why this game sucks so much though. Here is why:

Yasumi Matsuno as the writer and the other has-been's. No, you are not Yoshinori Kitase or hironobu sakaguchi or Kazushige Nojima my friend. You are a talentless fool. Don't come back.

No nobuo, yes he is missed.


DISASTER.

------
Luckily my friends the above genius' will be back (with the exception of hironobu) along with the very talented Masashi Hamauzu who did a great job in X.

So, there is hope for XIII but XII is not a final fantasy game. Don't kid yourselves that it is. it never will be, those tactics amateur bunch are not what made this series great and thank god they have pissed off for XIII.

XIII will be a good game with the main dudes back, I will never trust the lot that brought us this yarn ever again. That is what happens when you take away the main forumla. 0+0 does not equal 2. It never will do, so stop looking for anything in this game. It is not there!

Now I am sick of moaning. So I will just let it be. Enjoy the game if you can.

DLPB

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/review/R109645.html <<<<so damn true!

[Setzer Gabianni]

Hah. If we want to think it is a Final Fantasy, we will, and won't be swayed otherwise. People have good reasons for saying it is a Final Fantasy, and it does indeed have that feel to it. Didn't see much of a "fantasy" feel with VII or..VIII to an extent. But's that me and maybe some others at the end of the day. I already enjoy the game, as do others. No - "if I can enjoy it's".

Your opinion is welcomed, but at the end of the day, it's not a fact, although a lot of your stuff claims to be facts. I may disagree with various people at the end of the day and relentlessley argue stuff, but that is only because not everyone can be arsed to give an indepth review/decent comments. Heck, I don't try to make myself look all facty, I do my best to..urg, fdsfd - to explain myself and opinions? D=

You sir, while that being an indepth review, 8D, doesn't go down well with me. But you do win a load of respect points for being thorough. ._. Please don't type as long next time.



P.S WOLF KANNO, WE NEED BACKUP

[DLPB]

I will be gone, so you may argue amongst yourselves. I will not indulge debate in this area. The game sucks and that is a fact. My review is true and anyone who thinks this game was good plot wise especially also probably believes that X-2 was a good game.

I have said my piece, agree or not. I am right.

If any of you here enjoyed that final dungeon before bahumut you must have brains like puddings! lol

[Setzer Gabianni]

You know what I take that back what I said about you. It isn't a fact dear, it's like with VII supposedly being the best FF ever. WRONG. Many people hate that game, and it's all down to opinion. Your opinion was welcomed, but with the arrogance coming out of you now, I'm just going to fling it out the window.

You aren't right. People find things wrong with every game. Heck, I think this story has a good plotline, and yes I also think that X-2 was a good game to a certain extent, but I'm allowed to think that.

Goodbye to you.

[DLPB]

yeah, as i thought. brain like puddin! For the record, VI has basically no plot either. I can demonstrate with dialogue, complexity and a number of statistical facts why this game is..... and why VII,VIII,IX and X are great but you aren't worth it, because you have a brain....like...a...PUDDIN!

Goodbye!

Oh, also for the record this wolf guy, talks POO POO!