FFXII General Discussion

I Do Admit that FFXII had an amazing battle system and I liked the gambits they added in the game. It was a nice touch.

Just that the License Board and the Story Line/Character Development was lacking terribly. =/. The quickenings and the Summons were useless after a certain level in the game. (Although they were quite nice to look at).

All in all, I can say I enjoyed playing it and wouldn't mind replaying it again. It has a bunch of side quests I still have to do and I love that about an RPG. But, my all time favorite will still be FFX.
 
IMO the beginning parts of the game should have been the whole game. I remember playing it and getting really behind the story at the opening, although I really couldn't get that behind the new battle system, but when that was all said and done I just lost interest in the game altogether.
 
I liked being able to choose to make any character do what I want (like weapons, and what moves get unlocked). That was a huge throwback to some of the oldschool Final Fantasies, and I loved it.

However, I did not really find Vaan, Ashe, Penelo to be that interesting...

I did however love Balthier and Fran. Basch was pretty cool, and Larsa was fricken adorable.

Although the storyline of the game was kind of boring... The gameplay was so fun that it made up for it. :)
 
Wiegraf said:
Do people just ignore the storyline and character development at the end of the game so that they can say that it wasn't there?
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To me the sudden development in the last few scenes felt kind of rushed. Like they decided "Oh, we kind of forgot about characterization here, let's make Ashe pretend to care about someone other than herself in the last scenes."

I really didn't see much progression or change over the course of the story so that entire scene where she starts crying just felt out of character for her.

That's just one example but for the most part I just didn't enjoy the main cast. They felt kind of flat and boring.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the villains and the secondary characters a great deal. And I actually did rather enjoy the storyline. I don't mind politically-driven storylines at all. I loved FF Tactics. I just think the main characters were rather lacking so it made the game a little harder to enjoy for some.

That said, I didn't actually hate the game; it's not my favorite but I did enjoy playing through it. :lew:
 
Am I the only one who thought the FMV in Final Fantasy XII were a bit much. You have like over half of the cutscenes, or something along them lines, in the FMV mode. I'm not complaining about it or anything, I just thought it was a little much :/.

But yeah, not judging. :mokken:
 
The characters did seem a little bland at times, which kind of put me off.
I've never actually got any further than when you first reach Archades, so I can't comment on the plot past that point, but the plot as far I got to wasn't all that great. It was starting to pick up a little, but not much.

I wasn't really whether I liked the gambits or not, but unless you put the battle speed on the lowest possible, and enable the 'Wait' option, I guess they're pretty necessary, so I don't complain too much.

What I do complain about is the License Board.
Sure, it means you can make each character whatever you want, but seeing as each character starts in pretty much the same part of the board, progression is a bit more limited than you first think, especially as sometimes you find yourself having a character learning something that doesn't fit their "role" just to reach something that does.
I really liked the idea of the International Zodiac Job System, which would make it a hell of a lot easier to stick to your defined roles. Too bad I don't have access to it.
 
Hmm well I really really loved the combat of this game.. Probably one of my favorites, the only ff that I have played where you didn't get into a battle scene while fightning.. Loved the Gambit system, I didn't mind the license boards as some of you seemed too... I also really liked the random treasure chest idea.. Now I wouldn't want every ff to be like that but it was unique to the game and made looting things more exciting because you didn't know what was going to be in there, or if it would even be there at all..

Now for the things I feel it could of improved on.. The music was my least favorite of the ones I have played.. Dunno not much variety and the music they did have for the most part just didn't appeal to me.. TRAPS were really annoying, probably my least favorite thing about the game.. They were so stupid. I know they put them in there to keep you on your toes and make the game harder, but they could of done that better in so many different ways.. Also I feel like the story while not horrible, wasn't as personal as say ffx and ffxiii were.. I prefer really emotional stories and this one didn't have that much emotion to me as many of the others..

All in all great game though, loved it..
 
I love FF12 very very much and have recently started up a game again. I can't help but notice a few scenes that doesn't really seem...well, it seems like they don't have a "reason" behind it. But I have to admit. There are many places I have yet to adventure to and have only managed to get the Zodiac Spear and then stopped playing. I do that each time I play... lol

Anyway...does anyone know what role the Galbana lilies play? I know it leads to a flashback of some sort about Reks, but they seemed kinda useless.

Anyone know? I haven't played the DS game yet. Do they have a role in that?
 
There isn't much of a significance when it comes to those lilies. Just that they're Reks's favorite flowers and so on. IN the DS game, Vaan names his airship Galbana after those lilies. Do these useless scenes have to do with Vaan and Penelo by any chance? =p
 
Ah, okay. That makes sense. I really need to play that DS game. Galbana is a nice name for a ship xD

No, not really. Mostly movie scenes of certain areas.
 
A Serious Problem

Ok, so I've tried, on 3 separate occasions, to play through this game but every time I get too distracted by side quests and I never get into the story. I really like the game but I forget the characters and villans and it's just one big mess. How long is the story and can you play after beating it? please don't spoil anything (even though I doubt I'd know what it meant)
 
Link2010 said:
Ok, so I've tried, on 3 separate occasions, to play through this game but every time I get too distracted by side quests and I never get into the story. I really like the game but I forget the characters and villans and it's just one big mess. How long is the story and can you play after beating it? please don't spoil anything (even though I doubt I'd know what it meant)
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Thats the best / most annoying part. I wouldn't be so frustrated with this game if there were more save crystals. Sometimes I need to live my life and I'll be in the middle of Ozmone plain.
 
Wiegraf said:
Do people just ignore the storyline and character development at the end of the game so that they can say that it wasn't there?
Click to expand...


There wasn't enough throughout the whole game itself. I felt like the characters were really bland and they ALL had the same personality. There was no diversity in the group really to bring the characters to life. They ALL had blonde hair (except Fran), they all had an accent, they all had the same skin tones (except Fran). It was just all the same people to me sometimes.

Granted there were things that made each one sorta stick out compared to the other but not enough for me.
 
It really ....

Wiegraf said:
Do people just ignore the storyline and character development at the end of the game so that they can say that it wasn't there?
Click to expand...

wasn't there.
That's because Matusno had left Square and his replacement did a poor job.

I can accept that some people like the game and make excuses for it.But it still floors me that people seem to ignore the fact that Matsuno had left the game unfinished.
 
I never felt that the game was that unfinished at all. If elements of the story appears to be unfinished, then that's down to the writer who Matsuno was incidentally enough, partially responsible for in the project. In fact, though Matsuno did have to abruptly leave the project due to health issues, he still played an integral part in the supervision of the development as well as its story and concept. So if he were still there, FFXII would have turned out no different as the foundations were already laid out practically in full by him before he left.

To bring my point back to the story, I didn't see it as being incomplete. I spotted no serious plotholes or anything. It's just the lack of real emotional scene to evoke empathy that people often raise when they cite the flaws of the story, but I don't really see it that way. The only real incomplete element is perhaps some scenarios that may have been cut. The brief time we see of Judge Drace for example, as well as the sparse focus in characters such as Vaan - as well as Balthier (admittedly Balthier's whole "yeah, I was a Judge Magister" thing did seem out of the blue and went nowhere). It could have been for space reasons or just the fault of the writer (I'm leaning towards a combination of both), but I never really felt it dragged the game down that much. Well, I suppose Vaan's very existence did, but I digress.
 
I certainly do not hate Final Fantasy XII even if I am not done it yet. I think it is different yes but the game feels pretty complete. I don't know why people are saying character development is not there and such when I can see it with my own eyes. Ashelia is a major character in the game and I can understand what she wants. Same with Basch. The only one who I feel really should not be a main character is Vaan... I hate him from the start of the game. XII haters seem to be mostly everywhere but I think the game plays pretty smoothly and as I said.. character development is definitely there... Hell I would have preferred Reks to Vaan. I admit Some of the Judges had poor development but.. they are more or less unimportant to me compared to Gabranth. An example would be Bergan... he was just psycho and it didn't end well for him I guess..:hmmm:.
 
I never felt the game was incomplete by no means. I actually enjoyed FFXII quite well. I just felt there could have been more of a character development there between characters. =/. I loved the gameplay and I really enjoyed the sidequests and missions. Those were by far my favorite.
 
Well, for me, the game was just too easy to beat. Once you learned all the arcane magics and had a bunch of ethers you were unstoppable.Except for sidequests, there were no really tough bosses that you needed to strategize (is that a word?) to beat. (For me anyway)
However, I did like the battle system, just because I hate random battles. :/
Like everyone else said, the characters were a bit interesting but you don't get deep into their lives. I feel the same toward Ashe all the way throughout, Vaan wasn't deep at all, and Balthier and Fran were great but I barely got to know about them (same with Penelo).
I didn't like the License Board because you could make everyone have the same magic, weapon, and armor. I like it when a certain person can only use a certain ". It shows their individuality.
And lastly, the storyline. It was a nice storyline, but much too rushed. Even though the game was long, so much happened in such little time, especially toward the end. At the end you just learn about Venaj(sp?) and how he's the real villain. Then suddenly a few more things and the game's over!

However, the graphics were beautiful, I liked the monsters and character design, and it had some of my favorite music from any FF. (With 7 and 8)

So did I enjoy the game? Definitely. But I was also really unfulfilled, and I was left thinking, WOW yet also IT'S OVER?? and also Huh...
 
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