Penelo - Transient Extraordinaire

[Cap'n Basch]

Vaan forgets his brother right after Jahara. Penelo forgets herself after Bhujerba.

Face it. XII is oodles of fun to play, but it is not much in the way of story telling. The fact you have to make it up as you go is not a virtue, it's plainly bad script writing.

Leaving the audience to make inferrences on their own is not, in and of itself, bad story-telling. There isn't a need for lots of exposition and having a lot is actually detrimental. If you weren't going in like a child with ADD, almost all of the things I mentioned were very easy to deduce.

Vaan hasn't forgotten his brother by Jahara and Penelo certainly hasn't "forgotten herself". An absence of direct referrences to Reks should not be read like that. Reks was important for helping establish Vaan's character and his relationship with Basch; he was not there for Vaan to endlessly angst over as though he were Squall. Vaan is not solely defined by Reks. And not only is it impertinent to the development of the actual story to bring him up, but from the fact Vaan is no longer ostensibly angry about Reks' death, we can infer he was made peace with it and it reflects a grown trust in Basch.

As for Penelo, I guess if you just sleep through every time Larsa joins the party, any subsequent interactions between those two characters, and the things she says in later areas (specifically Archades, because how she and Vaan feel about the Empire is important to their characters) I suppose you could make the case she was forgotten.


With respect to Ashe in the ending...did you consider her role as Queen would affect her ability to see her friends, and that (SPOILER)the way Penelo talks about her missing Basch suggests contact can't have been that badly broken? You can't notice that stuff from afar nor in a passing conversation.

[Shattered Dreamer]

With respect to Ashe in the ending...did you consider her role as Queen would affect her ability to see her friends, and that (SPOILER)the way Penelo talks about her missing Basch suggests contact can't have been that badly broken? You can't notice that stuff from afar nor in a passing conversation.

I gathered that but I kinda expected the corny giving all you friends important positions in your kingdom ending in order to keep them around but hey can't have everything your own way

[Setzer Gabianni]

Face it. XII is oodles of fun to play, but it is not much in the way of story telling. The fact you have to make it up as you go is not a virtue, it's plainly bad script writing.

Anyone who has seen the ending has to agree with that

How about no? People don't always think like you.

Cap'n Basch pretty much owns a lot of people in here. <3

[Savannah]

Vaan forgets his brother right after Jahara. Penelo forgets herself after Bhujerba.

Er, no they don't. I'm not really sure where you came up with this, but as Cap'n Basch explained more thoroughly, it's complete rubbish. Did you miss the battle with Cid in the Pharos? Just because he isn't babbling about Reks during the whole game doesn't mean he's "forgotten" him.

[Renmiri]

Cap'n Basch pretty much owns a lot of people in here. <3

Blaming gamers for XII's poor story telling is not owning

I respect Wolf Kano's and your points, Cap'n Basch in spite of his gorgeous name (Bash!!!! ) is just a weak debater that resorts to AD HOMINEN attacks when he sees his pet game offended. He knows nothing of story telling theory yet he tries to put me down pretending he knows. Won't fly, I have several classes on it under my belt. He would do better to discuss XII story telling on it's merits, not on my and any other people's "flaws" because we don't love it.

[Savannah]

Cap'n Basch pretty much owns a lot of people in here. <3

Blaming gamers for XII's poor story telling is not owning

I respect Wolf Kano's and your points, Cap'n Basch in spite of his gorgeous name (Bash!!!! ) is just a weak debater that resorts to AD HOMINEN attacks when he sees his pet game offended. He knows nothing of story telling theory yet he tries to put me down pretending he knows. Won't fly, I have several classes on it under my belt. He would do better to discuss XII story telling on it's merits, not on my and any other people's "flaws" because we don't love it.

He's not personally attacking you. He's calling you out on having an invalid argument. His point is that Vaan and Penelo don't forget their motivations after certain points in the game (and I'm still waiting to hear why you think this is the case), and anyone who has actually played the game without prejudice can see that. If anything, you're the one resorting to personal attacks. I haven't once seen him say anything that amounted to "you don't know what you're talking about," yet that's exactly what you just said of him. Funny that you're ignoring his points and throwing around fancy Philosophy 101 debate words while he is actually presenting a viable argument. If you know so much, prove it instead of whining that he's picking on you when he isn't.

[Setzer Gabianni]

I thought Savannah was on about me first. Lol. The only few people here who have argued rather decently on this are Savannah and Cap'n Basch.

He knows nothing of story telling theory yet he tries to put me down pretending he knows. Won't fly, I have several classes on it under my belt.

So what? Noone has to have a massive amount of experience in this sort of thing. Just a way with words when speaking to the audience, doing your best to explain things will do well enough to earn respect from other people.

EDIT: Put you down? What the heck? I saw no personal attacks. If I'd have seen any, I'd have said so.

[Renmiri]

EDIT: Put you down? What the heck? I saw no personal attacks. If I'd have seen any, I'd have said so.

If you weren't going in like a child with ADD, almost all of the things I mentioned were very easy to deduce...

As for Penelo, I guess if you just sleep through every time Larsa joins the party... I suppose you could make the case she was forgotten.

...You can't notice that stuff from afar nor in a passing conversation.

QED or the proof is in the pudding

He knows nothing of story telling theory yet he tries to put me down pretending he knows. Won't fly, I have several classes on it under my belt.

So what? Noone has to have a massive amount of experience in this sort of thing. Just a way with words when speaking to the audience, doing your best to explain things will do well enough to earn respect from other people.

That is the reason I respect you, WK and most people here. That is also the reason I don't respect nor wish to debate "Mr. Anyone who disagrees with me has ADD"

EDIT: Savannah, someone can post a picture of a blond girl looking at a dark haired guy on here, and I can make all sorts of romance and cute deductions about them and their relationship. That makes ME a good creative person, but the guy who just posted the pictures is not a good writer. The good writes is ME (or you), i.e, the person who came up with all this little stories the original author didn't provide.

XII is like that. they throw a bunch of guys and girls in a world and let you come up with the story you like. Which is fine, I can do it. Just don't ask me to praise their script writing skills when they left all the script writing undone and up to me to come up with something.

[Setzer Gabianni]

Oh darn, I missed that. Usually I'm so observant.

[Renmiri]

You were probably so happy with his passionate view of XII that you didn't notice the rest

Tis ok, XII is a great game, I guess that is why I whine about the story telling so much. I wanted it to be perfect for Ren

[Savannah]

EDIT: Savannah, someone can post a picture of a blond girl looking at a dark haired guy on here, and I can make all sorts of romance and cute deductions about them and their relationship. That makes ME a good creative person, but the guy who just posted the pictures is not a good writer. The good writes is ME (or you), i.e, the person who came up with all this little stories the original author didn't provide.

XII is like that. they throw a bunch of guys and girls in a world and let you come up with the story you like. Which is fine, I can do it. Just don't ask me to praise their script writing skills when they left all the script writing undone and up to me to come up with something.

But that's not what they did with FFXII. You can claim lackluster storytelling all you want, but FFXII doesn't require any extra effort from the player other than a little more observation than normal. I agree that the characters and storytelling aren't as lush as they are other games, but saying that the creators left it completely up to the gamers is an exaggeration. The storytelling is a different kind than other games'-- it's subtle, it doesn't throw everything in your face, and personally, I would much rather have that than some of the silly, overblown and melodramatic moments in other FF games (Tidus and Yuna's kiss, Squall and Rinoa falling toward each other in a field). No one is asking you to worship at the feet of the writers, but claims like "Vaan and Penelo forget their motivations after this certain point in the game" are just unfair and, well, not true.

[Shattered Dreamer]

It is only a game after all why argue about it? Sure the story has its faults as we all pointed out but now that I think about it, the fact you have to fill in the blanks for yourself is kinda entertaining in a way. For all its faults it is not the worst game story ever, I've played games with worse storylines.

FFXII is such a great game for its gameplay and leaves alot of other rpg's with their face in the mud in this department. Of course the story was sacrificed to a point as a result but hey you can't have it both ways I suppose:mog: .

I also realise I may in someway contradicted myself at some point in this thread so feel free to point it out to me.

[Renmiri]

I haven't once seen him say anything that amounted to "you don't know what you're talking about...

...saying that the creators left it completely up to the gamers is an exaggeration... claims like "Vaan and Penelo forget their motivations after this certain point in the game" are just unfair and, well, not true.

I guess some exaggeration is fine and harmless in your view, like "anyone who dislikes XII is like a child with ADD" while others are unfair, heh ?

Fairness works both ways.

[Savannah]

I haven't once seen him say anything that amounted to "you don't know what you're talking about...

...saying that the creators left it completely up to the gamers is an exaggeration... claims like "Vaan and Penelo forget their motivations after this certain point in the game" are just unfair and, well, not true.

I guess some exaggeration is fine and harmless in your view, like "anyone who dislikes XII is like a child with ADD" while others are unfair, heh ?

Fairness works both ways.

Frankly, making claims like that one DOES remind me of a kid with ADD-- just get over it, you made a hasty judgment in effort of insulting the game (and, indirectly, anyone who doesn't agree with you). It doesn't take a whole lot of observation to see that Vaan and Penelo's motives are pretty clear throughout the game. I honestly don't really see how you missed it.

Once again, I think you should stop dwelling on whether or not Cap'n Basch is picking on you if your intent is to make a valid claim about this game. The more time you spend trying to cherry-pick insults out of other peoples' remarks, the more you look like your actual argument holds no water.

[Bolivar]

alot of good points are being brought up here. I agree with Cap'n Basch that the player doesn't need much to understand the story - the motivations are definately present, and there's many for each character. I look at Vaan and Penelo as used as Tidus was in X - they're essentially an every-day-person's point of view on what is going on, a perspective for the player to observe the storyline with. That's probably why they didn't go through as many changes as Ashe, Fran, Balthier and Basch.

At the same time, I've always been with Renmiri when it comes to the storyline. They really should have put as much effort into that as they did with world detail and gameplay. The fact that the last two one-player games in the series were IX and X, should make it obvious why so many of us have complaints with its storyline. It took a backseat, metaphorically, far back in the vehicle, and because of that, this game almost isn't an RPG, much less a Final Fantasy.

Probably my main reason for this is because XII had such a great backstory. I would have liked to learn more about it and what was going on, as that's what really hooked me in in the beginning parts of the game. Overall, I think the story-to-gameplay ratio was way off, but just adequate enough for me to have a positive opinion on this game.