[V2] Worst Final Fantasy Game?

[mikey_boson]

I've read many reports about the awfulness that is FF13 but I haven't played this game for one reason - FF12. FF12 was by far the worst FF i've ever played and one of the worst games i've ever had the misfortune of wasting 80-90+ hours on.

Why is it bad? Um, I don't know where to start really.

Contrary to reviews, I thought the graphics were very average - they just seemed too grainy to me. The thing is though, to navigate the world you spent the entire time looking at the dot on the map so you never really looked at the world.

Can't remember much about the music so i can't have been great. Unlike 7, 8 and 9 which had some of the most beautifully composed music in history that created genuine atmosphere, 12 just had music for music's sake.

Wasn't keen on the battle system either. In essence you could set your party up to do everything for you so you could run up an enemy and then go make yourself a drink of tea. Totally unengaging in my view. I thought the licence board was pretty crap too.

The absolute worst crime that FF12 committed was the appallingness that was the story. The graphics can be crummy on a game but if the storyline is top draw, everything else doesn't matter too much. As it was though, the entire story and characters were awful. They were a band of random people who, for no apparant reason, decided to become a team. I had no idea why they fighting who they were fighting and what the grand scheme of things was. The main bad guy Vayne didn't seem to do anything but for whatever reason, he was the main antagonist. There were judges who didn't do anything apart from get angry and go around killing people for no apparant reason. Quite often the characters would mention something about a war between Archadia and somewhere else (i can't remember where) but there were absolutely no signs of war anywhere!! The world itself seemed a pretty tranquil place where very little was happening but apparantly there was this huge war going off. The only time that anything war-like happened was right at the end of the game during the cut scene of you going into the Bahamut ship. It was embarrassing that a massive war was meant to be going on but the only time you saw evidence of it was for a few short minutes (maybe less) right at the end of the game. it didn't really matter though, I had no idea what the hell the war was about anyway.

There was 'apparantly' a reason that the characters were travelling from place to place but I can't remember why. The storyline just didn't make sense and the dialogue was very poor. Most of the time the people didn't talk coherantly - they spoke as if they were from the days of William Shakespeare crossed with Yoda's sentence structure. There'd be an important conversation and afterwards you'd think "WTF were they talking about?!" But back to them travelling from place to place - I really have no idea why they were doing it and what they were trying to accomplish. There was something called Magicite and Nethercite but I don't know what these things had to do with the storyline or their importance. Your 6 main characters just wandered from place to place to place which eventually felt like you went from here to there just to progress the game. Why they decided where to go and why I went from place to place, I haven't a clue. I didn't know what I was fighting for (save the world? rescue somebody? kill some bad guy?) so after maybe 10 hours of play, I was only playing on 12 just so I could finish it.

Unlike on 7, 8 and 9 where, as the game progressed, you got more involved with the characters and looked forward to saving the world and kicking the bad guy's ass, in 12 I can honestly say I couln't have given a monkeys about what happened to the party. You didn't engage them, you didn't like them, you didn't know them so you didn't care about them. I liked the characters in Tetris more than in 12.

All in all, the graphics weren't great, the music wasn't memorable, the characters were dire, the main bad guy was a random nobody, the storyline was awful, the dialogue was..........

I'm going to stop there because I'm beginning to run out of negative adjectives to think of. All in all, FF12 was by far one of the most boring, unengaging, uninteresting excuses of a game I've ever had the misfortune of playing on.

When SquareSoft became SquareEnix, FF died. Enjoy the games up to FFX because they're the only true FF you're going to get.

 

[kratoscar2008]

2 is the worst, the battle system and the magic upgrade are awful. And how much enemies you face and you have to kill them one by one because the magic is a joke.

The characters of 12 are forgettable but Fran ass will stick in my mind forever (God bless the camera ).

 

[C i d]

I got a feeling this discussion may turn into a flaming session.

Please take note that everyone is entitled to their opinions, yet we should respect others'.

So anyone replying to the recent posts, please try to do it in a calm and reasonable manner, or else I will not hesitate to delete the posts concerned. Thank you.

 

[kratoscar2008]

I think FF is more about characters battle system and great history, while FF 1-6 followed a medieval setting, they forged the path of the series that is more about the characters that the world itself, as it doesnt matter medieval, future fantasy universe where the characters develop as long as they are well created, the battle mechanics being inmersive and the history worth of a book release the game can still be FF, as Final fantasy X followed right while FF XII only managed one and FF XIII didnt do a single one.

 

[NeoTesseract]

I got rid of my post, sorry if I stirred up the fanboy in all of us.



The worst game in the series is Final Fantasy X

It did not have memorable characters (except Auron)

The storyline was very linear and predictable at times.

The pseudo-protagonist was the most annoying character in the history of gaming.

And many, many more things that I refuse to type here lest I be bombarded with negative comments.

Final Fantasy done all wrong.


Mod edit:
*Posts merged*
Also, thanks for your understanding

 

[Nitemaren]

i don't think it's really fair that xiii has gotten so many votes its got a stunning story and its the same battle system as number 8 and that so nothing is wrong with the game-play its just got no footholds as a newcomer against classics like 7, 8 and 10. so give it a little more credit.

 

[Zeroxys]

Lol i feel like im the ONLY one ive ever talked to that actually enjoyed FFXIII. But on a main point i Picked FFX-2. after playing X (which is my fav FF game) i thought x-2 would b excellent, have a great story with great combat system & everything... wrong wrong & wrong. u sing? wtf is that? no one sang in FFX except the hymns of the faith & stuff like that. but cmon... that was bad

 

[PinkRage]

FFXIII was HORRIBLE!
Boring unrelatable characters, Horrible story line and the game play OMG the freaking game play...

Not only were the characters boring and the dialog plain RETARDED. but the music was crap. Idk about you guys but when I think about Final Fantasy games i dont only think about the awesome story line i think how awesome the music is (like Balamb garden, One winged angel and Seymour's battle theme). The Music in FFXIII doesnt emphasize ANY scene or place... And i hated that they sang on the chocobo theme..

 

[Sheechiibii]

i don't think it's really fair that xiii has gotten so many votes its got a stunning story and its the same battle system as number 8 and that so nothing is wrong with the game-play its just got no footholds as a newcomer against classics like 7, 8 and 10. so give it a little more credit.

How is XIII's battle system the same as VIII's? They're completely different *confused*.

I think the thing is with XIII is that a lot of people hated the story and the characters, so it's not all the gameplay and the linearity. I know for myself I hated the game bacause there was nothing I liked in it - not the story or the gameplay so where in other games one had made up for the other this wasn't the case for XIII. That's why I disliked it anyway.

Xx..xX

 

[Razberry Knight]

i don't think it's really fair that xiii has gotten so many votes its got a stunning story and its the same battle system as number 8 and that so nothing is wrong with the game-play its just got no footholds as a newcomer against classics like 7, 8 and 10. so give it a little more credit.

Not true. You probably never played 8 in your life. I remembered when it was out on demo too. Heres the bottom line:

Ff13 controls one character completely while changing the way they battle for the others. So 2/3 is AI controlled in all battles. F it was an action RPG, it would be more excusable however its not.

And in ff8 you had limit breaks too! Where was that in 13? There wasnt and that made the gameplay incredibly tedious.

Granted 13 has an amazing soundtrack and great cinematic scenes. But when you take those out, storywise it didnt stick. You had to constantly read reports and the letters were quite small, it was annoying to get it. And once you did it was like "so what?"

 

[PhoenyxAngel]

XII

Why? This is probably the only FF that I legit could not get into. The story was beyond boring....it eventually led me to skipping the cutscenes. And I'm usually a fan of politics, so that's not really the reason it bored me to death. The dialogue may have been well written, I won't argue that, but it would have been much better off in a movie or something and not in a FF game. Because it made the story that much more boring. I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it's because I prefer my games to have an exciting, adventurous, fun, and fantasy-like storylines. Hence the name Final 'Fantasy'. XII just did not seem to be much of a final fantasy game to me. The only things in XII that had elements of FF were the Magicite and the fact that there was a Cid, oh and a few moogles. That's it. Even the summons where completely different from what a FF game should be. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for SE inventing new summons for each game. We don't have to have the same summons over and over again, but the fact that they were just SO different from the previous installments....and could we at least have Bahamut? Shiva? Ifrit? Hell, give me a chocobo summon at the very least. Bring back Doomtrain or some shit. The summons of XII, along with the characters and story, were completely forgettable.

That brings me to the characters. I have two words: Penelo and Vaan. Seriously? Talk about the most pointless characters in FF history. I could literally care less what happened to them. The only three characters I slightly cared about were Balthier, Basch, and Ashe. And of those three I really didn't care for Ashe either. I just didn't connect to her in the same way I connected/cared about FF females in the past. Like Tifa, Aerith, Rinoa, Terra, Celes, Rosa, Rydia, Garnet, Yuna, Rikku, etc. And I guess that's where my problem lies with FFXII: I just didn't care. I didn't care about the world, what was happening, the story, the characters, etc.

FFXII also has one of the worst final villains ever: Vayne. I honestly didn't even know who the main villain of the game was supposed to be until right before the final battle. Even then I felt no connection to him. I guess the same could be said for Yu Yevon from X. But even then we dealt with the religion of Yevon and it's corruption from the start. With Vayne there was nothing at all. We never interacted with him, we didn't see him doing any horrible deeds, etc. I didn't hate him. I didn't like him either. I just didn't care.

FFXII does make up for Vayne as a horrible villain in the form of Dr. Cid. He's one of the very few things I loved about the game. The only other redeeming quality was the battle system, which I did like. It was a fun game to play and I did enjoy the battles. But the leveling system was terrible. I couldn't stand the License Board.

Besides these things I also did not enjoy the music all that much. Which is a shame since I find every FF game to have a good soundtrack. But not so for FFXII.

I can't really think of anything else for XII. I may post more later when I'm feeling more up to speed.

Not true. You probably never played 8 in your life. I remembered when it was out on demo too. Heres the bottom line:

Ff13 controls one character completely while changing the way they battle for the others. So 2/3 is AI controlled in all battles. F it was an action RPG, it would be more excusable however its not.

And in ff8 you had limit breaks too! Where was that in 13? There wasnt and that made the gameplay incredibly tedious.

Granted 13 has an amazing soundtrack and great cinematic scenes. But when you take those out, storywise it didnt stick. You had to constantly read reports and the letters were quite small, it was annoying to get it. And once you did it was like "so what?"

I have to agree with you on this. FF8 and FF13 have nothing in common when it comes to the battle system. The only thing they have remotely in common are the odd weapons. Especially the whole gunblade thing.

That's pretty much where the similarities end

 

[chrisburr]

This is by far an easy call for me.

Final Fantasy XII was by far the weakest final fantasy game of the series to date.

The fact that you could not change at least the name of the main character took me by surprise at the time.

It also had the worst final fantasy villain in Vayne, he was so bland and easy.

Alot of the Villains in it (including Vayne) are not main villain material.

The game overall was good but its not great!

 

[Apricots]

For me it was VII and XIII. Besides the music there wasn't really anything in VII that I enjoyed, and XIII was really difficult for me to connect to (and I generally disliked the gameplay).

 

[kratoscar2008]

This is by far an easy call for me.

Final Fantasy XII was by far the weakest final fantasy game of the series to date.

The fact that you could not change at least the name of the main character took me by surprise at the time.

It also had the worst final fantasy villain in Vayne, he was so bland and easy.

Alot of the Villains in it (including Vayne) are not main villain material.

The game overall was good but its not great!

Yeah removing the chance to name your MC ripped off the little "Role"PG element of FF games, i hope they retake it in 15 as how the Persona series lets you name the MC and still have better dialogues that most FF games.

 

[chrisburr]

Lol i feel like im the ONLY one ive ever talked to that actually enjoyed FFXIII. But on a main point i Picked FFX-2. after playing X (which is my fav FF game) i thought x-2 would b excellent, have a great story with great combat system & everything... wrong wrong & wrong. u sing? wtf is that? no one sang in FFX except the hymns of the faith & stuff like that. but cmon... that was bad

Im playing FFXIII atm and I really enjoy it, one of the greastest ever so far

 

[Bleak]

My least favorite is XI. It might be XIV if I ever played it, but alas, I haven't.

I just hate MMOs. That, and it was just beyond stupid how you had to run around and battle? Want to get somebody a letter? Run around for an hour of irl time, then lose on your way back to a rabid chicken who is one level higher than you. Totally, totally dumb. Was there even a story at all for this game?

 

[Razberry Knight]

Yeah removing the chance to name your MC ripped off the little "Role"PG element of FF games, i hope they retake it in 15 as how the Persona series lets you name the MC and still have better dialogues that most FF games.

not really. Not every RPG game means you have to make your own role. Especially in most RPGs.

FF2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 12 didn't allow it. Final fantasy isn't persona. and to me it pisses me off to give a character a name, and not be canon. There really is no point. Oh wow, this character that canonly has this name allowsm e to change his name unofficially (sarcasm). Giving a character a name doesn't make it any more of an RPG.

To me, FF13 was the worst. because it didn't feel like a real ff game. At least with 12, you get freeroam and several other things. Sure, we see FF summons as airships but we see plenty of other things that are true to FF. Vaan may be the most annoying character i seen, but everyone else is "decent". For the most part the game looked like Balthier was suppose to be the main character.

But 13....it was just an acid trip. I couldn't grow into many of the characters. The only few being Hope and Fang...but even then those two seem a little steretypical. Way toolinear, had no RPG aspects whatsoever, because all you did was go in a stright line. As if the game needed a player.

 

[kratoscar2008]

not really. Not every RPG game means you have to make your own role. Especially in most RPGs.

FF2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 12 didn't allow it. Final fantasy isn't persona. and to me it pisses me off to give a character a name, and not be canon. There really is no point. Oh wow, this character that canonly has this name allowsm e to change his name unofficially (sarcasm). Giving a character a name doesn't make it any more of an RPG.

To me, FF13 was the worst. because it didn't feel like a real ff game. At least with 12, you get freeroam and several other things. Sure, we see FF summons as airships but we see plenty of other things that are true to FF. Vaan may be the most annoying character i seen, but everyone else is "decent". For the most part the game looked like Balthier was suppose to be the main character.

But 13....it was just an acid trip. I couldn't grow into many of the characters. The only few being Hope and Fang...but even then those two seem a little steretypical. Way toolinear, had no RPG aspects whatsoever, because all you did was go in a stright line. As if the game needed a player.

Thats called player choice, if you neglect player choice then you shouldnt be bashing FFXIII for being so restrictive and be so straight to the point instead of letting you reach to the point However you want, thats why in pre-FF12 you can name the character, because you can choose how you want the story of the game to unfold instead of how the developers want to.

Now back on topic FFXIII and II are the worst FF for me but unlike XIII and XIII-2 i finished 2 so XIII is the ultimate FF garbage.

 

[Razberry Knight]

Thats called player choice, if you neglect player choice then you shouldnt be bashing FFXIII for being so restrictive and be so straight to the point instead of letting you reach to the point However you want, thats why in pre-FF12 you can name the character, because you can choose how you want the story of the game to unfold instead of how the developers want to.

Now back on topic FFXIII and II are the worst FF for me but unlike XIII and XIII-2 i finished 2 so XIII is the ultimate FF garbage.

Im saying not having a character naming option doesnt make F12 any less of a RPG or an FF game. Plus it isnt the only one nor is it the first ff game to not have naming options.


Naming a character isnt really an RPG feature (for video games at least). Its an extra meaningless pointless feature that foes not maake games any more enjoyable. Ff13 however providd little to no freedom whattsoever.

 

[C i d]

I hate to repeat this, but *please* get back on topic. I have recently noticed that it's often the same members who post off-topic arguments. You can have debates in this forums, but please do not do so in threads that are created for other intentions. Either create a new thread or do so via PMs/VMs. Thank you very much for your cooperation.