FFXII: Love It or Hate It?

I love this game and am baffled as to why people hate it. The battle system is great. It reminds me of KoTOR's battle system which I loved. Gambits added a bit more strategy to battling in my opinion. quickenings and summons are awesome. The story/characters are good, and I love that fact that it takes place in Ivalice.
overall it's a great game.
 
This is my favorite of all the games due to mainly the story, ive been waiting for one that has people like gabranth in it, and that is capable of great graphics for air battles and stuff like that...
 
Well, though I am no FF veteran, I'll step right up and say that I love this game. The battle system is something that I've never seen before, and I value originality. Okay, fine, gambits don't always work, but so what? They work 99.9% of the time. I love anything that will allow you to control all your characters' actions at once instead of having to switch from party member to party member, which is tedious. So, that .1% of gambit glitching time isn't that big a deal to me.

I did not find the music boring, the worlds were absolutely gorgeous, Balthier is chock full o' badassery, and I thought the writing was good. Vaan annoys me, but the ability to take the "main" character mostly out of the story helped ease that problem. ;]

I found it to be an awesome game, and I don't understand the hatred that some people have for it, nor how people could find it to be bland. Oh, well. To each their own.
 
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I thought this game was pretty solid. And that's a good thing. The plot doesn't have a love story kinda thing in it, which is totally cool. I'm not much of a romantic anyway =P. Ashe is probably one of my favorite characters in Final Fantasy 12 since she knows how to get things done and will do everything in her power to restore her kingdom of Dalmasca.

The battle system is great. I don't get why a lot of people don't like it. NO RANDOM ENCOUNTERS. C'mon now people! Do you REALLY like the transitions and the the whole glass breaking thing? Scares the hell out of me lol. ADB system is much easier for me when you use gambits and a real challenge to command everyone without gambits.

The music is wonderful. The Theme of the Empire rocks!

All in all, 12 is very enjoyable and I feel it has become underrated because of all the complaints others had with this game.
 
I love this game :) It is my 2nd favorite in the series (VII & IX are tied for first xD).

I do have a few issues with it though....I wasn't too impressed with the music first off. It wasn't horrible music, I just found it to be very boring and forgettable. I also couldn't stand Ashe...she was such a bitch most of the time xD Vaan was also one of the worst 'leading men' I've ever seen.

But, I loved the graphics, all the other characters, the storyline, the 'epic' feeling of the world, the locales, the battle system, so that all made up for my little quibbles x3
 
this game is what i'd call a one off a total revemp and different game then any other main FF but yeah as an FF game i was abit dissappoited i mean when i go out and pay $100+ for a game i expect it to live up to the name but on the other hand oh well because (because to all you over the top annoying FF fan boys/girls) as just a game and not thinking about the fact it bore the FF logo/name IT WAS AN ALRIGHT GOOD GAME and isn't that all we want in the end anyway? and plus FF 13 looks like it's sorta going back to the modern FF roots in a wierd way so this game is a one off i didn't really get close to any of the characters mainly became the story never really centred in on then personly and all the characters had annoying traits but yes thats all i have if you want to know what i really think about the game i posted a post ages back in this thread so read that if you want more of my annoyingness lol
 
It's an alright game so far, I haven't finished it yet. But so far it isn't anything special but it is alright.

The battle system is quite good, so I can give it that much. But them voice recordings sound so low budget its unreal! I hope thats not the case with XIII.
 
Love it like a fat kid loves cake. Great characters, great battle system, great locations, music, etc. The story is a little short in terms of pure chronology but there's constant linkage to the events of the previous 2 years so it seems longer.

My only gripe is the the flow is disrupted at time by the # of optional activities, monetary system and upgrading of equipment. You can oviously obliterate this with one of the several methods of automation but you're not going to know these out of the box unless you read ahead. For someone like me who only gets to play on weekends for a bit, it can be hard, because you kind of forget what you were doing (then again - that increases the replay value!!).

This is from an old-timer. I bought FFI the week it was released - I remember clearly reading through the issue of Nintendo Power when it was first previewed and thinking, "Hmmm, this could be big...".
 
I have to go with "Hate It."

Just too much about it that bugged the crap out of me.

Battle system: If you have the money, I'd recommend XI over XII every single day of the week. If not, then sure, play this to keep you from wasting money on XI.

Story: What story? Not to mention characters don't fit many parts of the story at all. And only one, ONE actual plot twist to make it interesting in any way, wasn't really a plot twist. Honestly, who thought Basch was dead? I demand honest answers. There is no way you would think he was dead by the time you got to... Ugh, I can't even remember the name of the floating city... Also, after the mountain, Mt. Bur... Omasace? Something, I went ballistic. Four areas, with what, 4 required zones each, to walk through, with virtually ZERO storyline what so ever? Not to mention those were some of the biggest areas and zones in the game.

Talking: Eh... could have been better. Even though there were no (that I can remember) cliches, it felt like every single sentence was one. And, to be honest, I don't care too much about lip movement matching sounds. That has never bothered me any where.

License Board: I liked the analogy way earlier in the thread, "a weird Sphere Grid." Yeah... I like having freedom, but I want freedom with limits. Extreme limits in the beginning, with them weakening as the game goes on. X spoiled me on that one.

Items: Don't even get me started on getting weapons and armor. Eh, I'll do it anyways. The "crafting" system, if you can even call it that, works great... In XI. Not in a single player. Especially when items are only selling for around 100 Gil each, and the weapon costs 60k. Ultimate weapons/armor? I'll let it slide big time. I see no reason or way to even add character specific "super" weapons/armor in this FF. The super weapons they put in the game though, beyond stupid. Don't open insanely specific treasure chests to get the strongest weapon in the game? And by the time you get the spear, you understand the game well enough to know that you wasted your time, since it rarely combos.

Summonings: Yes, I am aware that only like, what, half of the FF's actually have summonings. Still, in any FF that has summonings, if the monster is not only useless, but actually WEAKENS the bloody party, is an insane negative in my book. Why would I ever give up two good fighters for one mediocre fighter?

Graphics: Most graphics don't bug me. My first FF was VII, followed by X, followed by VIII. And then I went on to beat the rest I had. But when VII, which was basically testing this new cool thing called PlayStation, looks better and more realistic than XII, which, by that time, people pretty much knew what PS2 was capable of, then something's wrong. I cringed every time I saw Vaan or Ashe's face. For attacks and magics? Really, do we need a super fancy, elaborate, grand graphic for Cure anymore? We as FF players have probably cast the Cure spell, and upgrade, more than the number of hours we have slept in our lives. I for one am extrememly willing to sacrifice the Cure graphic to save memory and code lines for a realistic face on a person. Hell, I say we only need very basic graphics for all spells except big ones like Bio, Flare, Ultima, and summoning stuff.

Sidequests: Really, I have never figured out why every one likes the sidequests in this FF. Hunts? Rares? They're all right, but there is twenty billion fricking hunts and rares. Beastiary? I've accepted that as a now permanent part of the FF series, but having to kill multiple of the same guy? Seriously? Other than that... What sidequests?

Summation: I put in, I believe 70ish hours in to the game. Finally went ahead a few weeks ago after about a year break and just flew to Bahamut, only to be extremely disappointed in how they end the story. I'll never pull the cd out of the box again.
 
i really enjoyed this game, even the painstakingly long Yiazmat and omega battles, however i hated vaan and penelo. i thought that the game would have been great without them in there too clutter up the storyline. and also, im not really sure what it was about the game but it seemed like it wasnt finished (like it was a draft) which was a shame because i think they could have really revolutionised the series with this game, especially with the battle screen system scrapped. but other than that, no complaints. great game!!
 
Final Fantasy XII is one of my all time favorite FF games simply for the dialogue alone. The dialogue between MOST of the characters is very well written and intriguing since most of them possess these Old English-like accents that really make the world of Ivalice come to life. Ivalice in general is a beautiful realm crafted from the imaginary minds of some really amazing designers and programmers. FF12 is a wonderful game but I must question if the idea of placing Vaan as the main character was such a good idea.

Vaan did nothing for me as a main character and if at best seems nothing like a failed attempt to create a young and attractive hero for the girls to drool over. I honestly dislike Vaan the most out of all the characters in the game for he served no purpose other than being the young adventure of the group. Unlike Balthier and Basch who solidfy their purpose within the story since the beginning of the day, Vaan comes off as an empty shell of an character who serves no purpose other than to be a 'self-insert' in the game.

Unlike Link from Legend of Zelda, the SE folks dropped the ball to make him intriguing to the player and this is perhaps why some people dislike FF12. The main character was boring!

Besides this fact, FF12 is still a very enjoyable game but I would have enjoyed seeing Basch as the main character since SE originally did decide to make our fallen knight the main hero of FF12 but changed their minds because of the faildom of Vagrant Story.
 
Love it! But the thing i hate is that Vaan is the Main Character.
But the Game is pretty Awesome. ^_^
 
Nah..

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I hate it, but I certainly enjoyed it the least out of all the FF games I've played. I played through it once then I put it down.
Vaan was pretty much a useless protagonist, he had no interesting features at all. I also didn't like his character design and his voice made med cringe. They should have stuck with Basche as the protagonist as they had planned from the beginning.

Sure the battlesystem was alright, it did give the game a better flow, however I didn't like the gambit system. And don't even get me started on the license board..
I found the enviroments pretty boring. Half the time you were underground in a mine, or walking in these endless tunnels. The only thing that kept me semi-interested was because I really like the whole Ivalice lore. Other than that I don't know, I guess I just expected more from a main FF title.

 
I hate it and the reasons are:
1. Most of all, the story was so flat and not intriguing in the slightest. The lack of any sense of emotion or humanity from the characters only made this worse. I remember wishing the story wasn't so slow and kept playing cus I mean, this is FF, it has to get better right? WRONG! By the end I was like what the hell, that's the end?
2. Briefly mentioned this, but the characters were flat. No or little life to them. I didn't see much emotion and I didn't connect to any. Fran was the closest to being acceptable.
3. Nobuo Uematsu didn't work on this from what I hear. The music was bland and when it wasn't, it was mostly recycled.
4. They changed it waaaaay too much. If it didn't carry the name Final Fantasy, it would be an ok game, but SE, I expect way more from you guys!!! Please make up for this travesty with XIII!
 
I don't hate it, but I'm certainly not crazy about it either, it definitely breaks out as one of the bottom efforts put out by sqaure-enix that's for sure
 
Hmm, I'm so-so on this game. I liked the gambits and the whole idea of that an' whatnot I liked how you could choose whatever weapons you wanted the characters to have an didnt have to just stick to daggers for Vaan lets say. As far as the story and characters, not sucha big fan of other then Balthier... XD
 
i loved the game. i found the battle style easy to get use to. but i didn't like the idea that u didn't have to controle your other members of your party.
 
Honestly, I don't love or hate it. I waited for it for three years and was pretty pleased with what I saw. The only thing I don't like too much is that your whole party travels with you on screen, but I DO like that you can change who you control. The gambit system was a pain in the rear at first, but once you understand it, its really fun. Personally I don't like manually level grinding, so being able to just walk around with my characters and seeing them take care of the hard work was a plus. The story was pretty meh in all aspects. I think a lot of people lost it because it was a political story, but honestly that's the only thing that made the game's story enjoyable for me.
 
I just started this again today and i realized how much i love it! Though i think the other more "traditonal" style FFs notably IV, IX, VIII and X are that bit better, 12 really is a good game, the battles, graphics and environments i thought where particularly good, some pretty cool original monsters and bosses even recurring ones were cool e.g. gilgamesh wielding multiple swords from other FF heroes, awesome!!

Down side? Just two things bug me about it:

1: Story felt less.... Oniony? ....OK by that i mean the story wasnt as layered and deep as in other FF games no real connection between the primary antagonist and protaganists or shocking revelations which i love in FF games. The only real 'revelation' i can think of was that >>
Balthier was once a Judge Magister
<< but that wasnt exactly mind blowing.

2: The best piece of music in this game was the prologue, because Nobuo Uematsu composed it... see where im going with this cant ya?

Those points aside, awesome game...in fact im gonna go play it, right now


Mod Edit: I added spoiler tags for you. Please be sure to use these in the future when revealing plot points. This could possibly spoil parts of the game for those who haven't played the game. Thanks. :)
 
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I'd give it a 7.6/10. Not the perfect game, but yea. I don't like the battle system, I dislike the story, and I especially hate Vaan.

I liked the challenge of battling the superboss with 50 mil hp and the license board system wasn't that bad. The thing I like most about the game are the boss battles. And FF8 was a pretty good game too
 
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