Random battles, along with their cousin the separate battle screen, are obsolete. They were forced on the genre by technical limitations that no longer exist. Also, I'm not sure how you can compare the static, preset camera angles found in FF VII with the complete control over the camera you have in XII, and say the former is somehow more dramatic with a straight face.
Because nothing beats the sound of a million voices screaming in unison.
Yeah,so?Camera control in FFXII was (unfortunately) useless in battles.Originally Posted by Silvercry
The story was great, although it was told in a somewhat less direct fashion, leaving the player to figure some stuff up himself. I think that's why people don't like it - the story is presented in a difficult way. I still believe it's one of the best and definitely the deepest story in any FF.
The Music
I, personally, didn't mind the music in this game. Some bits were memorable, some weren't. Like any game. The music fit in perfectly with the scenery IMO.
The Battle System
I found the battle system in this game to be a refreshing change. By this time random battles were starting to get on my nerves anyway. Sometimes the battles are really slow, but thats the same with any game, really.
The Love Story
I don't know about anyone else (maybe I'm a hopeless romantic on the inside) but I saw some subtle traces of love stories in there. Ashe really loved Rasler, Penelo seemed to have a thing for Vaan IMHO, and I'm sure Fran and Balthier were partners in a much less professional way too. Not to mention Ashe seemed to develop a crush on Balthier later on in the game (IMO Balthier seemed to like her a little bit too) and Vaan seemed to have a crush on Ashe too. It's also been debated that Ashe loves Vaan (she's starting to sound a bit like a slut).
So yeah, I'd say there's at least SOME emotion in there. But I don't really know since I haven't finished the game yet.
The Plot
Ok, so there's this bad guy called Vayne but at the start you don't think he's the bad guy. And you have to fight him. Having not played this game for a while that's all I've really picked up on. I've started on a new playthrough so once I'm a fair way through that I'll write a paragraph on the story.
Hmm... well this is not my favorite final fantasy. I have played it, and I really can't remember very much about this game, whereas I remember practically everything about FFVII and FFX. I also can’t say that I have any desire to ever play FFXII again.
1. I didn’t think the music was bad, it was pretty good actually.
2. I liked the new battle system, but I also like random battles. I haven’t played zillions games that have random battles so I wasn’t tired of them yet.
3. I do like love stories, but not having one in this game really didn’t take anything away.
4. The story just did not interest me.
In all, it was OK, but I won't ever play it again.
Ooh...I would agree with most of your assessment about the potential couples in this game. I'm also a hopeless romantic.
From what I've played of XII (I'm up to the Henne Mines), I think one can make good cases for Balthier/Fran, Rasler/Ashe (obviously), and perhaps Penelo --> Vaan and Larsa --> Penelo.
I've heard that there's implied Balthier/Ashe later in the game. As for me, I like to think that Basch and Ashe might have a thing years after this game, though I usually can't stand huge age gaps with couples. (Eww to Auron and Rikku).
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VII: DoC, VII: CC, VIII, X, X-2, XII, KH, KH:CoM, Re:CoM, KHII, CT
How is it one of the deepest stories in any FF? Jeez, FF1 almost has a deeper story. Really, you're presented with a story about 2 major warring nations and the struggle for your small nation in between it all to gain control of its own state again. Thing is, is that its all pushed into about 1 month of a time span. You see the part at the beginning, you see Vayne taking over power of Dalmasca then you start off on the journey.
There is no backstory for any of the nations, you have no real idea as to why the nations are warring, the reasons as to why the monsters are there are stupid, and there are massive plotholes. How the hell did Penelo and Vaan learn to fight? What does the senate Archadia of the do? Where did the Judges of Archadia come from? What sort of country is Rosaria, whose to say they aren't the 'bad' guys? Why isn't Dalmasca an actual ally of Rosaria? What are licenses, why exactly are they there? They tried to cram waaaay to much into this game, and attempting to deny this is useless.
I'm not saying that everything in a game should be explained to you, but I just could not get into this game because I had no rational reason as to why everything was and why it was happening. Square should leave these sort of games to people who can make them, and make them well.
Thanks to Sir Edeon X for signature"It's the decisions you make, when you have no time to make them, that define the person you are" - Teh_Masterer
^I could explain those but it would take loooooong.
But the answers are there, although not always presented well. FFXII can be too subtle for its own good at times. They expect the audience to be paying attention to each sentence very closely, which is sometimes hard to do when there are distractions.
For example, one sentence revealed a whole lot about Judge Ghis, which you wouldn't have realised otherwise. Goes something like:
"Blood alone does not an emperror make, Vayne."
"They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do." - Barack Obama.
clicky clicky clicky
The depth in this game is that it's more realistic when it comes to relationships, IMO. In any normal game, when someone takes your country, your objective is to get that revenge (that's to put it very simply), while here, Ashe really does have a dilemma, which makes us feel like she has a realistic conscience. In this game there are no 'good guys' or 'bad guys' - it's all just too much for me to put in one post. In this game you have to read between the lines - just like in a poem, or life, for that matter, where you don't get everything directly.
To try and answer some of the questions.
"How the hell did such and such learn to fight" is a pretty moot point in Final Fantasy. How the hell did Tidus learn to fight? Or Relm? Or Quina? Or Eiko There are plenty of characters in Final Fantasy (and in games in general) you could question how they learnt to fight, but you don't often see those questions raised for those. I don't think it's a particularly important point.
I saw Archadia as being a nation that was similar to how Britain used to be before the English Civil War, in that the job of the parliament (in this case the Senate) is to advise the head of state (the king/queen/emperor/empress/etc) and make decisions as a collective body but not to enforce them. Thus the senate can confirm things and lend legitimacy to decisions made by the monarch but have relatively little actual power except in an advisory role.
The reason that Dalmasca didn't ally themselves with Rozarria was because they valued their independence. They wanted no part of the war between Archades and Rozarria. They wanted to safeguard their status as a nation by remaining out of the way. Obviously had Dalmasca allied itself with Rozarria, it would've made Dalmasca itself fair game for attacks by Archades and Rozarria would've doubtlessly used Dalmasca as a base for their attacks against Archades. Should Rozarria have won the war, they would've probably taken over Archades' territory and would have had little concern for the junior partner of Dalmasca, who may have paid for Rozarria's protection with the surrender of their sovereignty.
Not my words Carol, the words of Top Gear magazine.
Sort of a mini review.
I have nothing bad to say about the game's score; it fits the game very well, but it's very unremarkable and has nothing memorable. I even found the vocal theme forgettable.
The battle system is great, I enjoyed it. You get through the game real quick, and even though the gambits are pretty much automatic, sit back and let the game play itself, I liked it because it allowed me to at least speed through and watch the story.
I get lost trying to keep track of what's going on, because, wow the dungeons and fields are long and get old. I don't mind that there's no central love story, but I had absolutely no empathy for the characters. I only found Balthier remotely interesting, and Fran had potential. I always thought that the best things about FF stories was the character development, or at least personality, and the characters in XII were just plain dull. Uh, Penelo. What's her purpose? Filler? She's just...there. Even Vaan was just there.
I only wish that the entire game was put together so that there wasn't 20 hours of mind numbing dungeons and battles between five minutes of actual plot advancement. I hope Squeenix got their act together with XIII because XII was potential misguided and turned into a mess.
i am a meteor mixed with holy.
"Daikatana" also springs to mind when thinking of this game.
Delayed to high hell, finally came out, there wasn't really anything special about it, and the AI system was lame (imagine if, in real life, you had to go spend fifty quid to learn to tell your friend to back you up in a fight).
People consider "No Gambits" to be one of the challenge. Newsflash: If you turn them off, the game is actually easier because now they smeggin' well do as they're told!
This belongs on the list of embarrassing games that took too long to come out and then sucked.
^^^ The biggest thing I learned from that post is that you have no idea how to play FF XII. It sounds like you came up with a gambit configuration that didn't work and decided to stick with it rather than try something else.
No. I tried it with a Gambit configuration and the game was boring as hell with them on. Then I turned them off and opted to control every character manually like I normally do in these games and it was suddenly a lot more enjoyable. I admit the wording in that post is extremely misleading.
Gambits make the game very dull; sure you can get a configuration that works but then doesn't that just mean you may as well put down the controller? Seriously, what is the point of setting up a bunch of things that make the game play itself? I can select my own Hastes, Cures and Firagas, that's what FF is all about for me.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that if you weren't a lazy gamer (which unfortunately a lot of people seem to be) then there was no need for Gambits at all.
Last edited by ReloadPsi; 12-22-2007 at 04:07 PM.
I didn't bother to set gambits on the character I used as the team leader so I still was in control of battles and had plenty of fun with it. I might automatically set Libra to be cast so I can see HP or protect or shell in an area that requires it to save a bit of time, otherwise I was fully in control of my main character. That allowed me sufficient input into the battles while not having to worry about controlling the other characters because, hopefully, they'd have gambits that would be good enough to win any battle.
Not my words Carol, the words of Top Gear magazine.
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