FFXII: Vindicated by history?

[Freya]

MMO's revolutionized the RPG genre and if you think otherwise, you're misguided. The sheer amount of content included in MMOs shows how engrossing a RPG can be. XII was one of the first to take MMO elements and apply them to a single player game. Now it has drastically affected (not just XII of course) the genre as a whole.

Example: Dragon Age.
Dragon Age is a freaking awesome game. It shares similar elements with what XII did. Illusion of an open world, party members with active combat. Etc etc.

You obviously haven't played too many MMOs because if you have you'd know they aren't all "mindless grind and repetition". Korean MMOs are, yes. Because they like the grind. But most popular MMOs, aren't. And they have a huge amount of story and content that sorry, a standard game anymore can't compete with. Check out WoW. It has the lore from the first 3 warcraft games. It has spin off books. It has comics. It is going on its 5th expansion. For one game (essentially) Any game or series that tries to emulate that amount of content is okay in my book. It makes for a more engrossing world.

Take Skyrim as another example. The Elder scroll series is FULL of lore. That series itself has been around forever and has been taking on a "MMO" feel. It goes along the same boat.

Discarding this one game because it was too much like an MMO is silly and foolish when countless other games since then were successful when playing off it. FF XII was just one of the first to do so, so it was riding a bike up hill for fans.

[Skyblade]

I'm not discounting the game for taking elements from MMOs, I'm discounting the game for taking the wrong elements from MMOs. Poor pacing, pitiful story, meaningless grinds, repetitive combat, etcetera.

[Jessweeee♪]

meaningless grinds
repetitive combat
you are on a final fantasy board did you get lost

[Skyblade]

Before Final Fantasy XII, no Final Fantasy game had nearly as much tedious frelling grinding as XII did. Since then, it has only gotten worse. XIII and Dissidia may both put XII to shame in regards to the amount of grinding they require, but it all started with XII.


Let me talk for a moment about things the game could have taken from MMOs that would have actually made the game better.

-Make the world worth exploring.

Go find someone running a pirate legacy server for World of Warcraft, and try out the game. Play through the first few zones, and you'll discover something very quickly. The world is absolutely chock-full of content. Every zone has a half dozen NPCs outside the town wanting help or quests done. You can explore to find new questgivers, and new NPCs to talk to.

Ivalice has none of this. From the moment you step out of the town, that's it. You are going to encounter no sentient life until you step back into town. Ivalice is completely devoid of anything interesting. You have almost no incentive to explore (you might find an Esper that's about it), and you just rush from point to point with no interest in the world because it's absolutely mind numbing. That's right, they made Ivalice boring. The towns are fantastic, everything else is just dull.

Now, this may be the case in other Final Fantasy games. The problem is, most Final Fantasy games have a world map, to streamline out the boring process of running from town to town and make it take only a hundredth the time it takes in FFXII. Dungeon runs are actually saved for dungeons, instead of being the entirety of the world outside of towns.


-Social interaction

There are two ways to play MMOs. When you play alone, you're alone. There is no one else there, and the mood is you off adventuring on your own. The other way to play is with a group. When you group up, you are never alone, and the game is never silent. The party constantly chats back and forth, party members do stupid things, jokes are made, and the adventure is more enjoyable.

They could bring this aspect to the games. Have your party members banter and talk as they explore the world. Give us character moments and dialogue to serve as a backdrop to the mindlessly dull tasks that the game sets us at. But, no. We get hour after painstaking hour of dull combat and dungeon crawling, interspersed with a few brief minutes of cutscenes that try to suddenly make us care about these automatons as individuals.


-Give you a reason to fight.

MMOs go to great length to make fighting interesting. You always get something out of it. Experience, gold, loot, whatever. They also endeavor to make the fighting mechanics themselves interesting (and I really don't need to explain how badly FFXII failed at this). The game knows you're going to be fighting a lot, so they make sure it's worthwhile. You'll be constantly acquiring goodies. Also, if you are too overpowered to get much use out of enemies, they're far more likely to ignore you.

In FFXII... Yeah, no. Not only is the combat agonizingly dull, but there is no reason for almost any of it. You get so little gil or item drops that combat is essentially worthless, and you spend the majority of the game running or trying to avoid everything, unless you're grinding for a particular drop or stolen item. Oh, but even when you're level 100, those level 1 wolves will still charge at you from across the zone and make sure that you have to engage in a fight or specifically run away.



These are just a few of the ways the game could have taken ideas from MMOs and actually implemented them well and improved the game. Instead, they took most of the worst and most annoying concepts, and then poorly executed them.

[Freya]

Did we play the same game?

[Edge7]

Sounds like a difference in taste, Skyblade.

I understand your points, I really do; that was how I felt when I first played the game back when I was in seventh grade, when the game first came out. Hell, I met one of my best friends by arguing over how the last two FF's were mediocre at best, and that I even thought FFXII was the worse of the two.

I guess as time went, I started looking for other things in JRPGs. Maybe I loved reading Alexander O. Smith's localization work, maybe I loved how straight faced the entire cast acted, maybe I loved the distinct lack of melodrama I typically associate with the genre, maybe I started to find the tedium of level grinding to be soothing akin to why some people play games like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing. Whatever the reason, FFXII clicked for me, and personally, I'm glad I took the opportunity to revisit it.

I won't tell you what you can or can't like; hell, I don't even know when the last time you attempted to give it another chance occurred, if it ever occurred. But I respect your opinion, and hope that if in the slight chance you do replay the game; there might be some redeeming quality you find.

[Skyblade]

I won't tell you what you can or can't like; hell, I don't even know when the last time you attempted to give it another chance occurred, if it ever occurred. But I respect your opinion, and hope that if in the slight chance you do replay the game; there might be some redeeming quality you find.

The redeeming quality is the setting. Ivalice is always awesome. The towns in this game are wonderful. So many people to talk to, so much to see. Rabanastre is great. The rest of the game just doesn't hold my interest.

Unfortunately for FFXII, there are tons of other Ivalice games. I can play this one longer than I can Tactics, at least, but I'm still more likely to jump into FFTA or FFTA2 if I want to experience the world again. I'd be more likely to play Revenant Wings, except I've reached a point where it's basically unplayable, so I leave it alone as well.

[Pumpkin]

You don't like Tactics even?

[Fynn]

You don't like Tactics even?

[Pumpkin]

What are you staring at me for, stare at him!

[Wolf Kanno]

Skyblade has made his feelings heard about FFTactics many a time on these forums. Don't encourage him.

[Fynn]

What are you staring at me for, stare at him!

I am! That quote was for context.

[Pumpkin]

Oh, okay

[Skyblade]

You don't like Tactics even?

I like about half of Tactics, and the other half I absolutely abhor. The game does so many good things, and then the rest is filled with incomprehensible design choices and plot elements that ruin the game for me. I want to like Tactics, and I keep playing it every so often just to see if maybe this time will be better, but it never lasts more than an hour or two.

Skyblade has made his feelings heard about FFTactics many a time on these forums. Don't encourage him.

Too late. But, yeah, there are probably threads full of my ranting about that game in the Tactics forum.

Here's one.
Here's another.
More.
Still more.
Yep, even more.
Hey, more rage against this game, but tempered with a genuine request for help.
Probably not the last, but I'm too lazy to hunt down any more after this.

Tactics is a good game, but some choices I hate just completely ruin it for me.

[Freya]

Wow you post a lot about things you dislike. When I dislike something I may mention something but then I move on. You should pep up! less hate, more love.