Why all the hate?

FF XII is one of those games that never really kept my interest while I played it. I think I got to the part where you pick up Balthier and Fran(?) and you're in the sewers? Wherever it was I remember I was 6 hours or so into the game and I just put it down and quit. I've been meaning to go back and give it a shot but I don't have a copy anymore. So yeah.

I feel like now that I'm much older than I was back then that I'd appreciate the game and its plot alot more. Someday I'll get around to it.
 
The glory years of Final Fantasy were from 7-10. At that time Final Fantasy was commonly compared with Legend of Zelda as the greatest video game series ever. But after FFX came out, the series has been on a decline and is no longer what it once. The main reasons? X-2, XI, XII, and XIII. But where as X-2 and XI were seen as spin offs- and so their mediocre FF quality wasn't a big deal- XII was a main series game and was hugely disappointing.

The reasons?

- A weak, annoying protagonist who is pointless to the overall story
- Bland, boring main characters in Ashe and Basch
- A storyline with barely any signature Final Fantasy plot twists. The enemy at the beginning is the enemy at the end, and not a whole lot happens in between!
- Decent gameplay, but nothing excellent. A bit complex.. very similar to FFXI
- The only great character was Balthier, but he was basically just Han Solo as the story bares too much resemblance to Star Wars


Final Fantasy XII (and the frustrating XIII trilogy) is probably the main reason why the series is no longer what it once was. A decent game, but a huge disappointment.
 
No hate from me. It was the best FF since 8, and everything since has been crap.

Fans of the Original NES final fantasy games who like grinding, exploration into areas you are not physically ready for, etc, will love this game. People who love the linear "hold my hand and see the story" final fantasy games like 10 and 13 will hate it. The fans of 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 who want to play the story will be the same, while the guys who are completionists and play for the extra content will be more loving of the old style dungeon crawling.
 
It's all a personal matter of opinion really. You are going to get a lot of old-school gamers who loved FFVII and before, and to them the best games will always be the PS1 or before Final Fantasy games. And you can't argue with them that when they played those games, the characters, stories, graphics, enemies, all of it, meant a lot to them. It was as if "we the gamer" were right there in the main character's shoes battling it out and going through the ups and downs of the playthrough.

New gamers nowadays though look at the FFXII's and FFXIII's and to them, these are their favorite games. They love them, and possibly these were their introductions to the Final Fantasy series. Sure in the grand aspect of it, maybe the older gamers were "better", but that's all opinion.
 
It was only the narration and scrolling text that bored me. The rest of the game was a really effective Final Fantasy.
The battle selection from the characters would of made XIII a lot easier!
 
I was a bit put off with it originally, until I played IZJS. That's the way the game was meant to be done, according to the director.

I would have liked a bit more Vaan/Penelo development, but all in all I was satisfied. It presented a rather mature, political story. Balthier and Ashe took center stage. Fran and Basch had their moments. If I keep it in perspective, Vaan and Penelo were simple orphans that got flung into a huge political conflict.

Dungeons were sometimes crazy long it felt like, but IZJS made it more interesting with job allocation in my opinion.

I do love XII though, all in all. Definitely an underrated gem.
 
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