FFXII Hate

[Tmoo]

Out of all the FF games except X-2, I'm surprised to see so much hate on it, and i mean hate, as in people nitpicking at its battle system, plot, characters, art style, music- everything. It seems to me like haters scour the game for any reason to hate it. Some have even put in over a hundred hours, only to say at the end that they despise it.

My question is, why? Is it because it's different? Is it because it bears the name Final Fantasy? Is it because there's no romantic subplot? Why do people hate this game so much, to the extent that they will contort facts to fit their reasoning against it and even call it trash?

I completely understand if you don't -like- the game, I don't understand how you could call it crap just because you don't like it and go on to mock/berate those who do. Don't try to pass off opinions as facts, that doesn't fly.

Personally, I've enjoyed all of the FF titles that I've played, the only ones I haven't played being XI and II. I go into each FF title with no expectations other than 'I like the FF's I've played so far, so why not', and each time I've been thoroughly impressed. So respond, why do you hate FFXII?

 

[Marill]

I'm with you Tmoo, I don't get it either. The game for me was mostly perfect, I enjoyed the hunts, all the other sidequests, I didn't mind the Gambit system, I loved the free-roaming (is that's what it called) and the world was huge. I keep getting tempted to play it again. Yeah the story didn't grip me as some of the other FF's did, but it certainly wasn't the worst main FF title story.

Some people do just love to hate I suppose.

 

[Omnislasher483]

Well, only speaking for myself, I can say I dont hate the game, but it is my least favorite FF after FFX-2. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed playing it through for the gameplay and the challenges, but never for the storyline or the characters.

IMO, this games main antagonist wasn't one to be feared or respected as a villian, the characters all had minimal background and were all pretty much the same in a fight with no individual abilities that allowed them to stand out from one another, the story though it was decent, I feel that they could've done a lot more with it. The best part of the game for me were the hunts, especialy Gilgamesh & Yiazmat. Gilgamesh cuz the fight was freaking halarious, and Yiazmat cuz I can honestly say it was the most stratigic and time conssuming fight of my RPG career.

The characters were not very likable either. The only characters that left an impression on me from that game were probably Reddas, Basch & Gabranth. All the other characters held no attraction to me whatsoever.

EDIT:

One more thing, IMO the summons sucked in this game. They had a really good backstory if you read them in the beastiary, but they weren't a big part of the story.....scratch that, apart from fighting them and Belias being King Raithwall's treasure, they had no part in the story at all. If the game would've involved a plot more relevant to the Espers, then the story and the game would have been more appealing to everybody.

 

[Gingerbread Lesbian]

I never hated it, I just think it was extremely underdeveloped. I don't see the point of people picking at the art style and music because overall they were extremely good. I can understand the first three though, the battle system, I thought was very well planned but poorly implemented, don't get me wrong for the first half of the game it was really enjoyable but it got really tedious from that point on, had the battle system been quickened (like in FFXIII) then it would have made a massive difference. As for the plot, I thought it was decent, a bit generic yes but overall it was well told. I can fully understand people nitpicking at the character development, it was poor at best.

 

[DarkSquall]

I think the game was really good. The fighting system is a bit new but it's not that bad. The game have some really great areas and cool monsters and the story line was really interesting. Vaan wasn't really a cool character and his voice really sucked, but I loved the part where you can actually take him off the party.

Everyone of those characters were amazing except for Vann and Penelo who really sucked! I liked the license points thing 'cause it's similar to the sphere grid system in FFX.

 

[Platinum_Lies]

Expectations. If I hadn't gone in expecting a deep story and great characters, which FF had spoiled me with up to that point, then it would have been either dislike or apathy.

I personally didn't care for the battle system and I felt the music was severely sub-standard. But neither of those were enough to make me hate the game. I was simply expecting a Final Fantasy to deliver a moving story with a cast of memorable characters that I can connect with. It was massively dissapointing when it failed to do so.

 

[I_AM_NANAKI]

Sorry to say that I am one of those people that XII.
Storyline-Terrible
Voiceovers-They all needed inhalers and needed to stop speaking ye olde English
Music-Good
Graphics-Very good
Battle system-Ok
Side quest-No point
Leveling system-Rubbish
Characters-Who the hell was who?

 

[Tmoo]

it isn't that people dislike the game that i'm surprised, it's more the hate that goes around when someone actually does like it.

 

[Ilyena]

it isn't that people dislike the game that i'm surprised, it's more the hate that goes around when someone actually does like it.

I've read many arguments for and against the game and they all seem fairly civil. I haven't really seen a lot of people belittling or mocking those who like/love the game.

As for me, I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. I enjoyed the hunts and the battle system. The graphics were great and all of the extra information you get in the clan primer and bestiary shows they put a great deal of time into world building at least.

The area that falls flat for me is story and characters. While the story wasn't bad, I would have enjoyed it more if I felt any connection with the characters. I didn't. They were very generic, boring and static. I enjoyed most of the supporting cast and the villains but the main party was not interesting at all. Throughout the game you find out almost nothing about the characters so it's impossible to feel anything for them. That's my opinion anyway.

 

[Platinum_Lies]

Maybe he has taken a stroll through gamefaqs... there are those that prod the fans of the game but then there are those fans of them game that basically call all detractors stupid and immature. It is almost always a warzone teeming with trolls there.

 

[Tmoo]

GFaqs is definitely one of the sites with haters. I posted this thread on a whim after reading a bunch of it so it looks awkward here :<

 

[Platinum_Lies]

I don't mind someone hating a game. I personally love FFX, but someone hating doesn't bother me as long as they don't run in and scream "it sucks and you're stupid, ". That does seem to be the issue with much of the FFXII hate on gfaqs. Well, and the love too.

I always try to give actual reasons behind my statements and there are quite a few posters, even a couple on Gfaqs, who have returned the favour and then we had a friendly discussion that was intelligent, respectful, and even enlightening.

For some reason, Gfaqs just doesn't treat such users kindly... though the FF boards are far better than the Star Ocean and even the Tales of boards. Frakking maniacs there... and sadly, I usually devolve in those boards myself . I admit it.

 

[HighwindPilot]

"The fighting system is a bit new"

New in what sense exactly? The fighting system is just a poorly executed version of KOTR's "loophold"/"D20" system. It's been done before.

But in this particular game, I didn't like it much, and so the gameplay became a pretty huge blow for me. It was just entirely too slow, no matter how much you could speed it up. KOTR was a lot faster in execution, and it felt like things were a lot more simultaneous and "P4P". But it was just too slow here, and if you're only using one party member at a time (as this system demands, I know), it just tends to give off a real "lag" feel. I'm glad XIII has apparently improved this.

Another huge aspect of the game I couldn't stand were the characters. In my opinion, the two most important factors of an RPG are the story and the characters. And to me, the more you can "stand behind" a character, the more you're willing to play through their story, and the more you can really become invested in a game. I just didn't get that from XII. I felt that they weren't so fleshed out as much, and that there was little to build on this because of the lack of "chemistry" or "interactions" amongst the main squad.

So to me, this game felt more plot-driven, which is perfectly fine, because I realize there are some who prefer this. But I didn't get the feel of too much creativity from the story. It felt, at points, like your basic war story, but futuristic. FF has done things like this before, but they usually add certain elements and aspects to put their own "fantasy" spin on it. Unfortunately, I didn't get the feel from this so much. And to make matters worse, it felt really short to me.

All that said, I don't hate this game. And I'm certainly not one to nitpick at the smaller things or blindly attack things like its graphics or soundtrack. But the above were just how I felt about certain major aspects of the game, and should be taken as nothing more than apersonal opinion. Again, I don't hate this game. I just felt that it missed the mark that other FFs surpassed.

Also, I think the best summation was offered by Hope, when he said that the game was "underdeveloped".

 

[New Age Messiah]

To be honest, it's one of my favourites! I didn't enjoy IX or X2, I dont understand why it gets hate.
It had some ingenious systems, It introduced the new battle system, the Gambit option was really clever, the animation/GFX were top notch for the time.

Why so many complaints?!

 

[WanderingAesthetic]

My question is, why? Is it because it's different? Is it because it bears the name Final Fantasy? Is it because there's no romantic subplot? Why do people hate this game so much, to the extent that they will contort facts to fit their reasoning against it and even call it trash?

Why do people hate it? Because it moved their cheese. It didn't do what they expected/wanted. They expected a sweeping, character-driven storyline, and a slight tweak on the ATB or wait battle systems. XII was a lot different. Much the same reasons people hated on VIII when it first came out, it wasn't like any of the FFs before. Same with the music, it's pretty good, but its purpose is more to establish atmosphere than Uematsu's stuff, which is really emotional and has really strong melodies. I imagine a lot of people missed him.

Hatred to the point of contorting facts never really makes sense, I'm afraid.

Now, slightly tangential, how I feel about XII: It's not my least favorite, but it's pretty low on the list. In one of Stephen King's writings (I think it was the forward to the expanded edition of The Stand, but I digress) he gives a summary of the story of Hansel and Gretel. It's a pretty good summary, but it doesn't include any of the details that make the story interesting, like the trail of breadcrumbs, and Hansel holding out the chicken bone to the witch and so forth. That's what FFXII feels like to me, the summary of a great story.

Also, there are long portions of the game where you're trekking across whatever landscapes to whatever goal, and there's nothing to do but kill more monsters and level up more. The sidequests are more of the same. There are no new plot points, no character development, no more cool abilities, and no real motivation to continue, except more of the same.

And some stuff which isn't necessarily bad, but not to my liking: You're pretty much forced to have your characters with all the same abilities and gambits, or at least a few of the same very useful ones, and I like to have more specialization. The battles don't have the same cinematic prettiness of the other games. You can't get a good angle on them, and your mist knacks apparently take place in null space. And the damned targeting lines and HP bars over your characters' heads. I get the target lines, and you can at least turn them off, but not the HP bars. I have the HP at the bottom of the screen, why do I need them over their heads, too? It makes battles look dorky to me.

Now, one question was whether people would feel better about it if it weren't Final Fantasy, or at least not a roman numeraled title. Maybe. I liked Tactics and Vagrant Story, but I didn't love them like most of the main Final Fantasy series. Still, I came into it knowing it was Matsuno's vision and would be a little different. So... yeah, that might have influenced some people's opinions.

Ultimately what bothers me about XII is that it could have been SO MUCH BETTER with a few relatively small tweaks.

 

[Ayumi Hamasaki]

Speaking from my personal experience with FF12, I disliked it because it took the sphere grid thing too far, and because I prefered the turn based combat. I thought that it was easy to manage, and more strategic, like chess, and that 12 moved more toward a FPS like game.

Then there's the story, which I found to be slightly lacking because of the gameplay system. When they took away characters having a specific job, they made them less detailed, and therefore I cared about them less. It's the same thing that happens in games like Oblivion and Fallout. Other than that, the plot was acutally quite good. The characters were the major weakness, IMO.

 

[ffking]

i believe ppl hate for the difficulty and kinda boring beginning
for me it ook a good 4 hours into i really got into the game
i believe that sum casual gamers that love FF hate this game cuz its too hard, i mean its pretty much made for experienced gamers, and in every FF game its usually easy to beat, but this game is haarrdd ( me being a casual gamer) lik if it wernt for the mists, id probably not even be half way throught the game.
I also believe the story had sumthin to do with it, since it was politcal and all but very good none the less, was it the best, no, but it is up ther

 

[.Tifa]

Don't know..

Reckon if you asked every FF Fan why they disliked Final Fantasy XII or even liked Final Fantasy XII they would give you a different reason because tastebuds differ from person to person..

But felt like SE tried more to focus on graphics and action rather than storyline. Storyline is usually the main glue that holds the game together and makes the game work like a charm.
But yeah it was like SE was too busy trying to design castles and airships in the background rather than adding in a decent backstory for the main characters. It's hard to explain.. but it was like SE was trying to make FF12 look good rather than feel good..

Also hated the big massive towns and usually just want to grab a Hi-Potion and a few Tents and get out of there... It kinda reminded me of Jak II how you had to follow a map and keep on following the map to get everywhere so the game would progress...

If FF13 has big towns is going to throw a X-box 360 controller at one of the SE staff..

 

[Tmoo]

I don't mind someone hating a game. I personally love FFX, but someone hating doesn't bother me as long as they don't run in and scream "it sucks and you're stupid, ". That does seem to be the issue with much of the FFXII hate on gfaqs. Well, and the love too.

Seems that way, though maybe it's more of an issue with a few being louder than everyone else...

But the above were just how I felt about certain major aspects of the game, and should be taken as nothing more than apersonal opinion. Again, I don't hate this game. I just felt that it missed the mark that other FFs surpassed.

No problems here, everyone's entitled to their opinions. My issue is with the elitists who berate both the game and its fans (and vice versa). Perhaps they're a variant of fanboys?

Ultimately what bothers me about XII is that it could have been SO MUCH BETTER with a few relatively small tweaks.

Now that I think on XII's soundtrack it gears more towards the world and not the journey, if that makes sense. Nobuo's music in FF usually depicts the characters and their situations, whereas XII's music plays more on their surroundings and atmosphere. The case isn't black and white, but for the most part I would think that's the difference. I can relate to the small tweaks issue, though I loved XII for a lot of things mentioned .

When they took away characters having a specific job, they made them less detailed, and therefore I cared about them less. It's the same thing that happens in games like Oblivion and Fallout. Other than that, the plot was acutally quite good. The characters were the major weakness, IMO.

Interesting, so the lack of predetermined specialization took away from the characters in your eyes. On my first playthrough I didn't want to spend hours grinding just to grant each character the same ability set, so they ended up each specializing in an area or two of combat - magic/melee, range/healer, technick/bait...you get the idea. I can see where you're coming from though.

i believe that sum casual gamers that love FF hate this game cuz its too hard, i mean its pretty much made for experienced gamers, and in every FF game its usually easy to beat, but this game is haarrdd ( me being a casual gamer) lik if it wernt for the mists, id probably not even be half way throught the game.

I want to say it's not hard...but I've been an RPG gamer since I was 7... One of my friends who rarely plays video games borrowed XII from me and half a year later gave it back and hadn't even gotten to barheim passage. She said she liked the game, but it was too hard for her (which is one reason why i'm getting my sis into RPG gaming now, among other things).

Reckon if you asked every FF Fan why they disliked Final Fantasy XII or even liked Final Fantasy XII they would give you a different reason because tastebuds differ from person to person..

That's exactly why I like to ask a lot of people all of us have different takes on everything.

 

[Platinum_Lies]

I never understood the "too hard" argument myself. Also being an RPG veteran, I have played games that give me fits... Atlus has a penchant for publishing those controller destroying games and Demon Soul looks to be just that too. My head is already hurting and it's still a few weeks away.

FFXII is a relative cakewalk, especially once most of the gambits are purchased and set correctly. Maybe all these people saying "too hard" are playing without the gambits on all characters... I tried that but the game becomes far too unweilding. After that I stuck with manual on one character only.