Slightly off topic but.... on the subject of Vanille's fake Australian Accent, are you sure? because:Originally Posted by maybee
Vanille's voice whilst slightly annoying at times in how high pitched it could get (which I guess is just the natural voice of the girl who played her bear in mind, she's younger than myself and a fair few members of the forums) was the real deal, pure Aussie. The fake Australian accent belonged to Fang who was actually voiced by a Californian in the form of Rachel Robinson, though being guilty of impersonating more than a few aussies in my time and having spent many years living in an area with a surprisingly high Australian population it wasn't the worst accent ever, though yes, as an American doing an Australian Accent you could at times tell that this was definitely the case.
Actually on topic here:
Final Fantasy XII for me is one of the entries in the series that I find hard to make my mind up on. The combat seemed to work ok but reminded me strongly of Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (which was the weakest of the BoF games imho) and also MMO RPG games such as Final Fantasy XI which it clearly borrowed from (I'd have prefered it to have borrowed from X-2 than XI to be honest, a far superior combat system if you stripped out the stupidity of the "garments" and "dress spheres" and viewed it for what it was, job switching). Though the Gambit system worked really well and smoothly allowed you to control the party in the harder battles. It also did a great job that XIII failed to do in it's implementation of the combat which was take over any character in the party. Battle going Poorly, need some additional healing that Penelo's gambits simply won't cover you for? Switch to Penelo, heal up and let the gambits take care of Basch/whomever you personally chose for your party leader's attacks for a while.
The parts of combat that didn't work for me was stupid stuff like chaining enemies of a certain type to get better loot. It often meant fleeing areas or simply not being able to get higher tier loot. The idea of the Bestiary could have been used to balance this out some (though I did love that the beastiary only fully unlocked on a monster if you killed more than one/was a boss).
The loot system overall however, was amazing. One of my favourite things in a video game to date. A loot drop system that didn't break the early game if you killed everything possible and yet was still rewarding. I recall trying to convince the game development team I worked with at the time to introduce a similar economy to that of XII via a loot system which would help restore the game economy from the horrible imbalance and utter trash that it had become due to the rarity and farming of gems which increased power. It was an uphill struggle but if I were to develop a game in a similar style today, I would utterly insist on this being a huge part of the economy. Similar of note, the Mark system again was best implemented in XII and I thought it was the perfect compliment to the world economy.
I loved the design of the Espers, they were amazingly well done and the back story was really interesting which is more than I can say about some of the summons in other entries of the series, even the game I would often describe as my favourite (FFVIII) had a horrible way of introducing and explaining summons. The story of this war between two pantheons and the Espers being the result of this was intriguing, I'd have liked it to take a more direct part in the game. Sadly it seemed very much like a backdrop only.
You're right about the characters, though if anything I think this was one of the flaws to the game. As they were all pretty bad ass in their own right, or likable, it became very difficult to determine who your party would be, what their equipment would be and their role in general to the team. You found yourself trying to keep up with all characters, turning FFXII in to more of a grind fest than necessary.
The Zodiac Spear was loot/treasure done horribly. I'm not going to lie, I hated it and could never do it without a guide. It was a simple cash cow that told you to buy the official guide book on launch because without that (or some kindly gamers who leaked it on GameFAQS within a day or two) you would never have known how to get that weapon. I also didn't like the mechanic as sometimes, those chests would contain stuff which you actually would need, especially in early game. If you must include something like that, a weapon which is so broken it could imbalance the game, lock it behind a super boss not behind some troutty "you cannot open these 13 chests ever if you want it" mechanic.
World of Ivalice again is amazing, I love FFTA and FFT (though it's very clear FFTA and FFTA2 in particular are the Ivalice of FFXII though FFTA2 came out afterwards if I recall). Ivalice is one of those amazing worlds where FF really should have been able to do more with it. It was great to explore but then you realise you're exploring this tiny little area of a much bigger piece. The only thing I didn't like were the parts where geographically, the places should not have been. Giza Plains for example. I get that the name was used to connect you to the world of Ivalice but you'd surely have known of other locations nearby in FFTA/FFTA2 if you had access to the Giza Plains.
Overall, I can't decide if I think this to be a stronger or weaker title in the series. I know I struggle to finish this game because I get bogged down in the grind fest too much and never actually seem to progress the story. Though I feel I need to one day, find myself a decent emulator (I could repair my PS2 but it's very old and dying it's death of deaths now) and play it through properly.
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(aaahhhhhh yeah!!) but none of the others really engaged my attention in the same way.
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