Why a lot of fans don't like this game *SPOILERS*

[Cloudane]

I did read somewhere (maybe in this very thread?) that Basch was originally going to be the main character. But they decided that proper manly looking main characters weren't as popular as girly ones, and so they introduced Vaan.

Not sure where that theory came from, so take with a pinch of salt. Makes sense to me though.

[Heath]

I've heard that as well. I'm unsure where (it may even have been in this thread!), but it sounds plausible enough.

[Cyric]

After reading the first few pages of posts in this thread, then reading the vent about the Espers, and then using my own playing experience I think I've figured out why people are so split on whether they like this game or not.

It has a relatively steep learning curve. I loved the battlesystems in FFX and FFX-2, FFVIII, pretty much any FF I've played for any length of time eventually won me over to the battlesystem. They've all got their pros and cons, and when you think about it, as a system, the aspects of each do make sense. At first when I started playing FFXII, I knew I was in for one helluva ride trying to learn the battlesystem, simply because they put you through one of the most extensive battlesystem "tutorials" I have ever had to go through. I bought the game within a week of it's release, and have only recently actually gotten the hang of it. Admittedly, I did take a hiatus from the game for a while, but I really don't think many will disagree with me. It is VERY tricky, but once you get the knack of it, it is VERY powerful. The gambit system is probably one of the most interesting concepts that Square, SquareSoft and SquareEnix have ever come up with, but I don't like it. I don't like the gambit system because I don't know about you, but I don't consider walking up to a monster and doing nothing while the people on screen are scripted to kill everything, fun. It's boring. I tried to offset that boredom by trying to focus my energy on the story. FFX and FFX-2 were the last FF's that I played before XII. I deeply love(d) that story. So realistically, what are the chances of the next one being able to live up to it if it isn't the same story? I was prepared for the let-down. I actually had to watch all of the FMV's from FFXII alone before I understood that it was more of a war-story than an adventure. With that under my belt, I loaded up FFXII and actually gave it a good solid 1-2 months of play time and got about 1/3 of the way through, before I got bored again. I even tried loading up the GameShark to help speed things along a bit, which it did nicely, so I could pay more attention to how the story develops but the story just was too plain. I've so far gotten the impression that people that hated/didn't like the story in FFX/FFX-2 thought the battlesystem was great/fun. In my opinion, FFXII has a plain story with a battlesystem that is powerful when one knows how to use it, but is difficult to learn. In order to make it a true winner, they needed to make at least ONE of those two aspects fun just to keep the gamer's attention. Another thing I didn't like about XII is that Vaan looked like he was wearing a heavy-duty wonderbra. I liked the FMV's, but there was nowhere near enough of them. FFX and FFX-2 each had about 2 hours of movie footage...FFXII only has 43m 38s of it.

All-in-all, I commend SE for trying to "spice things up," but they've only succeeded in keeping my attention on the game up to the 33% mark, and it's still my first time through! There is simply just too much for the player to learn. As I've said, I just got the hang of using the Gambits...but now it's the Espers, and omfg, the Quickenings! The Quickenings, they are powerful yes, but I don't have any freaking clue what I'm doing besides hitting whatever button comes up.

Just to sum up what I just said here are the 3 aspects of the Post-2D Era Final Fantasy that make or break it, and my opinions for each:

Story = plain, boring
Battlesystem = powerful, but hard to get the hang of
FMV = Beautiful, but not enough of them

So I guess on a scale of 0 to 3, my opinion of FFXII would be a 1. Half a mark each from the Battlesystem and the FMV's.

[Tabris]

X is my favourite FF, and I loved the story and the battlesystem in both X and XII. But XII went from very good to great when I played it the second time around - as I do now.

[Mo-Nercy]

The poetic nature of FFXII's script is what really makes it the best in the series thus far for me.

I'm seeing a lot of negativity towards the battle system. Now, I've never really played a whole lot of MMORPGs in my time, not because of the actual gameplay, but because of the people. Not everyone, of course, just the tiny percentage that brings about my loss of faith in mankind. Anyway, FFXII was essentially all the fun of an MMO, for only me to enjoy. As far as I'm concerned, SE have catered for my needs perfectly. =]

On a more serious note, getting away from the random battle scene is refreshing too. I'm not going to exaggerate the nature of random battling like some others have. Random battles never used to appear "every two seconds" and for the most part, it was quite tolerable. But let's say, you're a little underleveled, but you're keen to carry on with the story anyway. FFXII gives you more of a fighting chance, not only because you can flee without constantly changing of screens, but also because of the sheer amount of status effects you can use on your opponents to turn the battle in your favour. In previous games, spells like Sleep, Berserk, Slow, Blind etc. were formalities, you get them and you never use them, but in FFXII, you'd have to be suicidal or power-leveled to not make use of status effects.

But if some people don't like it. That's just how it goes.

[Roogle]

Please note before reading what follows that I don't dislike the game. However, it's not the FF I like best, either.

Why? In my opinion, it is the clear product of overwork.
The game has too much of everything. The costumes are too elaborated (and, in the case of females, too skimpy), the dungeons are too long, the sidequests too many, and too complicated, without an efficacious way to keep track of them all (except for Hunts), and so on.
The game itself is too long. Heck, I'm at almost 120 hours, and I'm nowhere near a solution of events!

I agree, KoShiatar. This game was in development for several years and, with the lull provided by the release of Final Fantasy XI, gamers were expecting this game to be another Final Fantasy VII. I thought that the game was too detailed and lost itself in its own plot because of the depth of its gameplay. The characters hardly interact between hours upon hours of gameplay and the story can get lost as a result.

I did read somewhere (maybe in this very thread?) that Basch was originally going to be the main character. But they decided that proper manly looking main characters weren't as popular as girly ones, and so they introduced Vaan.

Not sure where that theory came from, so take with a pinch of salt.

This is stated in the List of Final Fantasy XII characters on Wikipedia. It appears that this may be speculation, though, because the references for that statement refer to the following question-and-answer session with one of the developers, Akihiko Yoshida:

IGN: Final Fantasy XII Q&A

Q: There seems to be a trend of FF games towards younger looking, more effeminate male leads. Did you ever consider making a more rugged looking hero?

Lot's of laughter as the super translater person tries to figure out how to describe Vaan as "effeminate."

Yoshida: In the early stages of development the hero character was more rugged -- big and tough. As we started shaping up the scenario and taking into consideration the target demographic, the character became what you see today. There were other ideas tossed around.

[Vivisteiner]

I was there waiting for FFXII since pretty much the beginning. And yeah, Matsuno originally planned to have Basch as the main character. I even saw some of his original artwork for Basch which looked pretty cool.

[Cloudane]

Pics plz

[Bolivar]

Also, in another roundtable interview, Yoshida stated that a snow monster-type character was floated around as a possible lead. But I think it's apparent with the way that the game begins and plays out that it was intended to be Basch's story. I think Gabranth as the logo in the Amano-designed title also reflects that. It all starts with Basch leading up to the events at Nabudis, him going there to meet the archadians, then going again to save the King. He failed to protect Rasler, his King, and Dalmasca and the rest of the game is him making things right.

I also read that when square execs heard about Matsuno's original ideas, they began a focus group/public study to see what the prospects would be to have a rugged male lead, and they concluded that it wasn't a good idea and basically told him he had to stop it. I think all of this lead to his departure from Square, as very little and very vague information has been given by Square, no one has heard anything except rumors that he's working on a Wii RPG, and at times a DS RPG. In any case, i think the split was anything but amicable.

However, I think it's a miscalculation to regard FFXII as "the game that never was." I too had been following the game since early on, and I remember sometime before XI was released, they showed pics of Vaan and Ashe and the illustration of Archades that's in some pages of the manual. So I think alot of the original ideas that seemed to have been left out were only preliminary. Executive Producer Akitoshi Kawazu has stated that only 2 members were added to the original team (himself included) and that all of Matsuno's intentions were manifest in the final product.

[Serapy]

I absolutely love this game, it has a "true" feeling towards it, it's hard for me to describe. It has a nice re-play value, I've completed the game twice or third. I've began re-playing the game again since two days ago.

and "a lot of fans don't like game" is not true at all. Not everybody don't like each FF game, same thing applied to FF12. Just because you (Mr C) don't like it doesn't mean a lot of others don't like the game as well.

[Tabris]

Good point, Serapy. At lot of fans doesn't like VIII, X, II, IX, VII, I etc. And a lot of fans like those games. Same with XII.

[Nifleheim7]

I also read that when square execs heard about Matsuno's original ideas, they began a focus group/public study to see what the prospects would be to have a rugged male lead, and they concluded that it wasn't a good idea and basically told him he had to stop it. I think all of this lead to his departure from Square, as very little and very vague information has been given by Square, no one has heard anything except rumors that he's working on a Wii RPG, and at times a DS RPG. In any case, i think the split was anything but amicable.

It's really sad when a developer (especially someone with Matsuno's experience) isn't allowed to complete his vision to its fullest.I'm sure the game would have been much more coherent.

However, I think it's a miscalculation to regard FFXII as "the game that never was." I too had been following the game since early on, and I remember sometime before XI was released, they showed pics of Vaan and Ashe and the illustration of Archades that's in some pages of the manual. So I think alot of the original ideas that seemed to have been left out were only preliminary. Executive Producer Akitoshi Kawazu has stated that only 2 members were added to the original team (himself included) and that all of Matsuno's intentions were manifest in the final product.

Yeah i remember those pics too,but maybe Vaan and Ashe had different roles back then that Matsuno was forced to change...

[Sarc the Swordsman]

Personally I loved this game - I don't see why so many people hate it, but many gamers are just afraid of change. The battle system was interesting, and I was getting so bored of random battles. It's nice to actually choose what to fight and what not to fight. The music reminded me a lot of Vagrant Story...same composer, I think.

Love stories are stale. It's a silly reason to not like a game. >_>

[Roogle]

But I think it's apparent with the way that the game begins and plays out that it was intended to be Basch's story. I think Gabranth as the logo in the Amano-designed title also reflects that. It all starts with Basch leading up to the events at Nabudis, him going there to meet the archadians, then going again to save the King. He failed to protect Rasler, his King, and Dalmasca and the rest of the game is him making things right.

Interesting. I think that the game would have been much better with Basch as a lead character, and I think that it is unfortunate that we were forced to deal with Vaan, as I think he had a detrimental effect on the storyline.

It seems like one half of the party is very relevant to the story: Ashe, Basch, and Balthier have interesting storyline arcs and interactions, while Vaan, Penelo, and Fran — to an extent — are somewhat cast aside when looking at the bigger picture. This might be because they did not exist in the preliminary concepts for the game.

I like Fran and I think that she was an excellent example of the diversity and background of Ivalice, but Vaan and Penelo were nothing more than tagalongs, bringing nothing but a point-of-view of poverty with them.

[Cloudane]

Interesting indeed (thanks for the pic)

It's not the first time we've had a relatively pointless character as the lead. Tidus springs to mind here. I guess the "dumb/newbie" type of lead character is important, as they tend to ask the kind of questions you ask as a player.