Is this game better than Final Fantasy XII?

[daggertrepe]

This thread is an insult to the game. I played FFXII for the first ten minutes and shut it off. What a joke!

I am also extremely angry they got rid of random battles. That's what makes Final Fantasy Final Fantasy!!

[Omni-Odin]

While I think it's not even close, IX is much better. In fact, IX may be the most under-rated in the series, while XII was more like a bump in the FF road. Go IX and wow let's hope Square-Enix will ever dish us a gem that SquareSOFT used to be able to do on the reg.

[Jiro]

IX and XII tried two different ways of handling an RPG. I prefer IX over XII, but I don't think XII sucked. Comparing the two is not an insult, but rather pointless.

[Laddy]

FFIX had more involved characters, beautiful locals and one of the best storylines in the series. It's music was brilliant, and the writing is excellent, especially considering it's in the PS1 era.

XII is pretty and has better combat. A good game, but FFIX is simply unreal. Oh, and Zidane is a much better protaginist than Vaan. In fact, I find only Terra and maybe Cecil to be better. Since Zidane matures rather than changes, at the end of the game, he is wiser and older, but still has the same personality unlike say, Squall or Cloud.

[The Shoeless Hobo]

Without a doubt IX is better.

[Mirage]

FFIX loses because of its incredibly slow battle system. I just couldn't bear it.

[asukaevaunit02]

In some aspects yes.
IX is my fave, overall the game is great, not much at fault.

But now I have a ps2 and have been playing XII for over a week straight... its that good... I decided not to finish X coz XII was so interesting. The combat system of XII is the best in the series, it reminds me of Secret of Mana which is my all time favourite... the combat is just so fun and customisable. I like/gotten used to XII's free/faster combat that I'm finding hard to go back to previous games and play through, due to the battles being somewhat slower and not as involved as XII. Unfortunately the music in XII is good but just background music and not memorable, where as IX the music was great and very memorable, to the point I can recall some part of the game to just about every song.

But both are my top 2, and are great games in their own way.

[Aydin]

I didn't really enjoy the story in FFXII because i hated how Vaan was totally the main character and he wasn't really involved in the story! (SquareEnix says there's no real main character. HA! Don't make me laugh...) The characters were uber dull, the music was okay, and the battle system was good though.

The aspects in FFIX are WAY better. The music, story, characters, battles were amazing.

[hectord25]

Yes,of course,FFIX was a great hystori,a great battle system,is a classics tribute,is the best FF ever,FFIX is the best of all!

[Kyros]

I've played a few hours of FFXII, and the only reason I didnt play longer or havent picked it back up it b/c Im always doing other stuff. From what I played I liked XII a lot better for a few reasons. I'm happy I dont look at 99% of the characters and hate them, I actually like the main villain instead of spending more time wondering why theyre called a 'him' when it does several closeups on the crotch to show its definitely not a guy who has a horrific 'ultimate' ability, and the hunts are more challenging than that pos extra boss Ozma was (what a waste of time). FFIX is probably the only FF I've played where I could not find myself working to play through a 2nd time. I've tried like a thousand times, reach the forest, and say screw it I dont want to put up with this again.

edit: Oh yeah and FFIX's card game sucked hard

[Old Manus]

I was reading this with interest until I saw a post by roto13. Holy old thread, batman!

FFXII was a dungeoncrawling borefest though imo

[Raebus]

Final fantasy XII is the superior game in my eyes and its due to the fantastic gameplay.

[J.Raven]

Pre-set job/class was one of the more major causes of why I prefer IX over XII, because it further enhanced the character in the storyline. If every character was customizable, it lost the unique feel of the characters.

For example in FFIX Freija will be remembered as the one who can top high-rise buildings in a single jump in her red cape, strike down targets hard and fast, and Zidane's thieving matching his outgoing character and heart of gold.

The medieval aspect was another major factor as well. Nobuo Oematsu (sp?)wrote over a hundred music pieces for IX, and during his break went to Europe to see the castles there, especially in Germany and France, to get a feel for getting the medieval atmosphere of IX.

XII was the only other game I played, although not to the ending, so I can't say much about IX's past references feature. But I thought going back to its roots in light of being the last game on the PS1 series was good.

A lot of effort was put into it. The problem was bad timing and poorly executed marketing/sales strategy.

The downer for IX had to be at times when during battle, the character would reach Trance at the end of the battle, and it could not be carried over to the next battle. Personally the vast difference in graphics between actual gameplay and FMVs was a bit jarring,

[sir helix]

trance was unique, but not wel thought out in my oppenion, it takes for ever to get into trance for some charecters, some (dagger, eiko) iv hardly ever seen tranced. Zidane's trance was very useful but i didnt figure out how to obtain dyne skills untill the end of the game. (i was only equipting skills i needed at the time) and daggers trance was practiculy useless in the game, eikos was very useful but as iv said, it take forever to get her tranced.

vivi was the median of trance. here and there hed change, quina was pathetic in boss fights, steiner was a lot of help when tranced and mixed with a super mage vivi.

and honostly iv never seen freya in trance so i dont even know what she does and iv been playing ffIX for years.

ffXII is the worst ff ever, the plot was too easlied cliche'd, it wasnt even entertaining at all, the combat was unique but it took away the feeling of Final Fantasy that i grew up knowing, when i was eleven i picked up copies of 7 and 9 and flabbergasted by the games, and i was dumbass back then and learned a lot of math by playing those two games, i learned to try and predict what was going to happen next, strategy, puzzle solving, patience, all these aspects were riped away from FFXII and its sad.

[malkyah]

You like what you like, you dislike what you dislike so in that aspect it's your perception whether FFXII isn't as stellar as FFIX. It happens to be my favorite in the series, it has new features and innovation while maintaining the classic elements to final fantasy that we have grown to love and be accustomed with. The musical score is also one of the greatest things about it.