Final Fantasy XII

[Bananamatic]

ITT we post our opinions about this game.

I accidentally broke the disc a year ago(I take good care of my games, it was an unfortunate accident) and even though I didn't really mind at the time(because I was stuck with gil farming), but now I've decided to get it again...and I've been thinking about this game.

Figured out that it's probably the best FF so far.

I'm not really a story based gamer, but the story seemed cool enough to atleast pay attention to the cutscenes and the addition of skip scene on second and later playthroughs is a big plus compared to Final Cutscene Fantasy X.

The gameplay was pretty much perfect.
The only flaw was the spell queue, where there can be only a certain amount of actions at once.

I've seen complaints about "not doing anything" and "beating bosses without pressing anything"
What's bad about that again? It's not an action RPG, being able to customize your own AI compared to constant scrolling through menus is a good thing.

The game required a lot of gil grinding, but it's actually fast and fun once you figure out how - I was also frustrated at times(and fell asleep once chaining skeletons at the Paramina Rift...good times), but some early methods are much better than others.
Not to mention that mass spawning enemies to slaughter them with AoE is actually fun grinding which doesn't take long at all. I wish I knew about the Fira Jelly method earlier...

The boss bars were also cool - I like being able to see their HP drop without constant scanning.

But the fact that the battlefield and field you explore are the same thing - no more battle loading, no more hoping you escape or take 1 minute holding the shoulder buttons - sure, seeing 13'd huge plains with big enemies makes you drool, but the battle loading once you touch one kills it.

The marks also caught me off guard a lot - I remember walking around wondering where could it be, then suddenly a huge toad jumped out of nowhere. Made me almost need new pants.
Or the Behemoth King - you have to find him on a huge snowy plain with poor vision, the mist reflecting everything and you wonder whether this is a building or just another reflection - then you turn around - and he was right behind me, being 10x larger than my characters.

It's also the most open FF IMO - you can break the game before anything story based happens(Dustia, easy lv20 in an hour, early powerful weapons which aren't too hard to get), many cities and dungeons can be visited several dozen hours before you would reach them during the story.
Or you can play it normally, of course.

It's also the only FF capable of kicking my ass on a regular playthrough.
I remember getting completely destroyed by some marks...

What about you? :V

[ふねん1]

^ Whereas you liked the gameplay, I hated it. The gambit system was not intuitive to me, nor did the battles feel that exciting. And yes, I do know that their "special moves" (don't remember what they're supposed to be called in this game) looked flashy. But when I know something was made flashy just for the sake of being flashy, I can never appreciate it that much.

This is preference, but I'm not especially fond of battles that take place in the overworld, more because I'm used to battles taking place in separate screens. And in my opinion, menu systems usually work well anyway.

As for the story, it didn't interest me as much as other titles. It hardly felt like there were any real twists in the story, and looking back, I'm not even sure any of the characters (playable or not) stick out as memorable.

And let's not forget the bland music. Too bad Nobuo wasn't there.

[Matsuri]

Bored the hell out of me, and I don't say that often about Final Fantasy titles.

[Aisha]

I loved the battle system and the marks, but thought the story, characters, and music were unremarkable. I got up to the final boss, did all of the side quest shit, and put the game down.

[Cadmas]

The marks were and battle board were probably the best thing about this game.

Now the stuff I didn't like...

The battle system wasn't terrible, but it just didn't belong in a finally fantasy game.
I don't know why after getting turn based battle perfect in 10 that they decided to throw it out.
The gambit and running around to fight monsters on a map should be in a game for a different franchise not FF.
Give me back my random battle system.

The boss battles weren't all easy. Towards the start of the game there were some difficult ones.
The first magistrate guy you fight, that forest dragon thing in the elf forest, but at the end everything ended up tank n spank thanks to the shield block skill. There were some gimmicks that made other battles interesting  like not being able to use magick or melee. But overall there wasn't much depth to the bosses. You'd kill them and that was it and I would be like, "that was a boss?"

Music was a let down. I can't recall one tune from the game.
Other than the victory fanfare you got to hear sometimes.

Story was pretty much nothing more than Star Wars.
As I play JRPGs their story lines start to become really cliche.
It takes a bit to impress me and FF12 didn't do it.

For the characters. Their customs were fine, but their faces made them look like sunburned raccoons. 
I never got emotionally involved with any of the characters. I didn't care if any of them died or not.
The two guys I did like end up dying.

Spoiler:

The knight guy you get on the airship Shiva and the pirate with the pink pants

Fran was the most emotionless thing I have ever seen. I've seen androids with more emotion.

The summons were absolutely useless. I would never use them over my mist attacks which murdered most bosses.
 
And that's my FF12 rant. What an eye blister.

[Bananamatic]

Well, I've heard people calling it "Vagrant Story 2"(and yeah, I love VS) rather than a FF game.

Somehow, I liked the music better than most FFs. Especially thanks to the lack of the regular battle theme which gets old rather fast, and the boss theme is simply amazing.

No idea why people don't like the final boss theme either. Different opinions I guess.

And yeah, Vaan's model is kind of horrible. He's rather unevenly tanned and looks like a monkey overall :V
Fran's ass also got boring rather fast.

The quickenings got rather boring too with the 1 hour long sequences and summons which died way too fast.
But on the bright side, it encourages normal combat compared to some of 10's boss solutions where you pre-charged your overdrives and summon rushed the boss to oblivion or aura+meltdown gamebreaking in 8.

Can't remember one game where Square got limits correctly - 7 had them overpowered, 8 had them overpowered AND spammable, 9's were basically boss breakers and 10's were either useless or overshadowed by Quick Hit.
10-2 dumped them altogether which is a good thing. Best random battle combat system by far with chaining and all.

12 had them overpowered from the beginning, then suddenly from one boss they got useless.

[WHMZakeri]

As one of those who would consider themselves a fan of story telling and how the plot affects the characters, I can honestly tell you I can't get myself into this story. I don't know what it is, but every time someone in game opened their mouth, I just tuned out. I can't even get myself out of the intro anymore because of this.

I was actually able to connect with Vaan as the main character of the story. I mean he was never once relevant to what was going on in the story at all, and neither was I.

I think it largely has to do with the fact that the only two characters who I don't hate are Larsa and Penelo, and of the two, only Larsa do I think is sort of awesome. Yes, I admit I hate Balthier. You can take your leading man quote and stick it.

And Final complaint: Why were we only allowed to use Human characters (Barring a playboy bunny)? I wanted my 3d Bangaa party member! (That one hunt you do with a Seeq was fun enough that I kept trying to fight it even though I needed to go grind somewhere else to beat it).

As for the gameplay, I like the idea of the gambit system, but I don't think it was properly executed. For one thing missing gambits made it feel like your characters were retards. The thing that annoyed me most about it was that it seems like they purposely made the battle menu tiny, convoluted, and overall clunky just to corral you into using gambits. I do agree that customizing your own party's AI is a pretty awesome idea, and it should be worked on and implemented in other games (Specifically in Action RPGS where you have more than one party member at a time.)

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of "Click and wait" games. Any game where a majority of battle is going up to an enemy, clicking once, and waiting longer than 5 seconds before there's a need to click again kind of feels like I'm falling away from the action, rather than pulled into it. This is the reason why I don't like MMORPGs, and this is the reason why I don't like RTSes either. Well, that and in the latter, I have no concept of Micromanaging.

10-2 dumped [limit breaks] altogether which is a good thing.

And in their place, they had Special Spheres. It was like suddenly turning yourself into a Boss Fight. They need to work that back in somehow.
Limit Breaks are suppose to be overpowered though, otherwise there's really no point. I think the best Limit Break System Square has ever used was the one in FFVI, where it was rare and barely even hinted at in the strategy guide no less. Every time you saw one (If you saw one) You were left with an Amazing Story about how you just Deus Ex Machina'd your way to victory.

Pirate in pink pants

Oh, I know him. I was surprised to find out he was a Character from FFXII when I got far enough to meet him.

[Aisha]

I think the best Limit Break System Square has ever used was the one in FFVI, where it was rare and barely even hinted at in the strategy guide no less. Every time you saw one (If you saw one) You were left with an Amazing Story about how you just Deus Ex Machina'd your way to victory.

Haha. Yes. I remember one time I was playing the SNES version and Terra pulled out her desperation attack during the second boss fight in the game, doing something like 3300 damage. I was left speechless at the time, partly because I had no idea that desperation attacks existed. FFVIA increased their chance of occurring though; it was nice to finally see them all, years later.

[WHMZakeri]

I remember one time I forgot to equip my party members for a boss fight. They ran in naked. I was doing pretty okay considering I had no chance to survive it. Finally Gau, my biggest hope, was knocked down and only Celes was left alive. The very next turn, Spin cut. I Immediately got everyone set up and ran back to the Airship to rest.

[Garlyle]

I don't think Gambits really led to a "Do Nothing" situation.  Having played FFXII on full speed Active, I have to say, the game was hellishly hard as it was (Up until I was able to have Basch running around with Haste/Berserk/Shell/Protect/Bubble and the Zodiac Spear).  Gambits just cut down on a lot of the small-time tasks so you could focus on making the important decisions.

Kind of like how XIII only has you controlling one party member - if you had to control all three in XIII, it would be ridiculously impossible, or they would have had to slow the battle system down significantly.

[Rikter]

I honestly cannot get into this game at all. All I could bring myself to do was get the first mark.

I might get bored enough to get into it during spring break next week.

[MysTeariousYukari]

Level 27-ish by Dustia, hit about 33 farming Werewolves for the first Katana *-* Then I got the Zodiac Spear Early O_O Vaan went from hitting 500-700 to hitting 2900-3500. Never beat the game, see below for why.

The game had flaws, of course, but my biggest problem was I could never complete the 2nd last(I think) Mark, and thus couldn't fight the games biggest and most powerful foes(I always fight the strongest foes before beating a game), 1 of which beats out Disgaea games for an HP count! FYI, Disgaea games often hit 30+ Million HP and have a level cap of 9999 and no visible damage cap, that one Mark in FF12 has 50 Million HP, which is evil once you see the FF12 Damage Cap, 9999 dmg, and halfway into the fight, the cap is 6999 T-T

Fun game none-the-less, but the hate on this gem is severe and common

[Bananamatic]

Level 27-ish by Dustia, hit about 33 farming Werewolves for the first Katana *-* Then I got the Zodiac Spear Early O_O Vaan went from hitting 500-700 to hitting 2900-3500. Never beat the game, see below for why.

The game had flaws, of course, but my biggest problem was I could never complete the 2nd last(I think) Mark, and thus couldn't fight the games biggest and most powerful foes(I always fight the strongest foes before beating a game), 1 of which beats out Disgaea games for an HP count! FYI, Disgaea games often hit 30+ Million HP and have a level cap of 9999 and no visible damage cap, that one Mark in FF12 has 50 Million HP, which is evil once you see the FF12 Damage Cap, 9999 dmg, and halfway into the fight, the cap is 6999 T-T

Fun game none-the-less, but the hate on this gem is severe and common

You don't enjoy challenges, do you :V

Actually, I fell asleep twice while fighting the 50m mark because it took me 8 hours . But it's possible in 2 with some serious preparation and 1 hour with the perfect strategy.

Just reordered this game, can't wait :V

[Widermelonz]

I just popped this game in my PS2 right now and loaded up my file. I'm at this "Pharos" place. I have no recollection of how I got here or why I'm even here. I do remember the characters, however. I actually like most of the characters in this game.

So I'm at Pharos and my party members are around level 53. Vaan is at level 14 and Fran is at 13. Of the things that I do remember, I remember that I hated Vaan.

Well, I'm off to replay this game.

[WHMZakeri]

If at any given moment, your Vaan is not at least level 30 AND you have other characters, you are doing it wrong.

I don't blame you though, since FFXII's definition of doing it wrong is not following every single guide on gamefaqs.

[Cadmas]

Bah FF main characters are always uninspiring. Vann, Tidus, Cloud...

They are just so lame I rarely keep them in my party.
The only reason I keep Vann in my main line up was because he matched Ashe and Penelo.   

[Rikter]

So I actually turned this on and I got killed horribly by this... Wolf thing.

I also have no clue where to go.

[Widermelonz]

If at any given moment, your Vaan is not at least level 30 AND you have other characters, you are doing it wrong.

I don't blame you though, since FFXII's definition of doing it wrong is not following every single guide on gamefaqs.

Then I guess the way that I've been playing it is VERY wrong, considering that I have not once used a guide when I was playing this game.  :V

Maybe I should start using Gamefaqs once I start up a new save.

Oh wow, Split Infinity's Walkthrough on Gamefaqs is 4mb. 4 megabytes of just words.

[MysTeariousYukari]

You don't enjoy challenges, do you :V

Hey, I got to the Final Dungeon normally. The Dustia bit and all that was on my run that I had PLANNED on beating all the Ultimate Marks on.

[WHMZakeri]

Then I guess the way that I've been playing it is VERY wrong, considering that I have not once used a guide when I was playing this game.  :V

Maybe I should start using Gamefaqs once I start up a new save.

Oh wow, Split Infinity's Walkthrough on Gamefaqs is 4mb. 4 megabytes of just words.

Seriously, there are lots of little tricks that Squeenix seems to play on whoever decided to play this game. The four nondescrept chests you should never open is just the first example. Here's another: Everyone has a different firing speed with the gun and the bow'n'arrow. Some are faster than others, which leads to different results in DPS. Guess which two people you should never, ever, ever give a gun and a bow to respectively?

Spoiler:

Pro tip: Both of their "trademark", Starting weapons are the Gun and the Bow, respectively.

[Bananamatic]

Isn't Penelo also a little slower with a gun?

[Sen]

Oh wow, Split Infinity's Walkthrough on Gamefaqs is 4mb. 4 megabytes of just words.

You've never read a SplitInfinity guide before, have you :V

Anyway, never played XII, but watched my brother play it quite a lot. I just never really had any interest in playing it, and the only characters who didn't annoy me were Penelo and Balthier. Vaan is also the most irritating FF main character ever.


I still think FFX-2 was the best.

[Bananamatic]

I still think FFX-2 was the best.

Second best to XII IMO.

There was only one uber class, every single one has uses and without many, many NG+ including Via Infinito, you can't max everything.

The uber bosses also require strategy, lv80 and lv infinity bosses are near impossible to bruteforce.

Also, best use of ATB period. Stronger actions require more charge time, makes sense. Chaining also allowed some fun and strong combos.

[Widermelonz]

You've never read a SplitInfinity guide before, have you :V

Anyway, never played XII, but watched my brother play it quite a lot. I just never really had any interest in playing it, and the only characters who didn't annoy me were Penelo and Balthier. Vaan is also the most irritating FF main character ever.

I've used Split Infinity's guide for FFX and X-2. Their file sizes were 1973KB (combining the two parts) and 1599KB, respectively; whereas his FFXII one is at a staggering 4161KB. I don't think I've seen another guide larger than that. Man, I give props to him for his hard work. Must have taken quite a while to type that whole thing.

[trancehime]

I personally played FFXII the way MystearicaUtsuho played it. That is, breaking the game almost right from the beginning. The Gladius from the Lindbur Wolf allows killing of Werewolves extremely early with copious usage of Quickenings, and the thing gets even easier once you farm up Kotetsu from the werewolves. This allows extremely fast and easy levelling. I only did it up to around mid 20s, but it's still very doable to continue blasting past 30 if you're patient. I got the Zodiac Spear also extremely early, and was able to plow through most of the game with it, as well as gaining accessibility to extremely powerful enemies as long as I maintained my health - thanks to the Gambit system, this was made possible. Deathbringers, Francescas and similar weapons were obtained before reaching Phon Coast, and the Tournesol was made before I took on Yiazmat, the final mark in the game, boasting an insane amount of HP and at the minimum can take an hour to beat. In contrast, I beat the Hell Wyrm, a similar mark, which has around 5 times LESS HP in about 10 minutes.

[Bananamatic]

Hell Wyrm in 10 minutes? Using the Masamune low hp Decoy method I guess?

Took me an hour because I was only lv55 :V

also my copy just arrived

[trancehime]

Hell Wyrm in 10 minutes? Using the Masamune low hp Decoy method I guess?

Took me an hour because I was only lv55 :V

also my copy just arrived

Decoy+Reverse + Ultimate weapons barring Tournesol

Haste+Bravery

[Bananamatic]

Decoy+Reverse + Ultimate weapons barring Tournesol

Haste+Bravery

No berserk/low HP for Adrenaline and higher combos?

[MysTeariousYukari]

I used a similar method on some bosses, Haste, Bravery, Bubble, a skill that drains MP and puts HP at 10x of what you MP was, get back to 1 MP then use the skill again, Bersek on Vaan, Masamune(Vaan) or Zodiac Spear(Fran). Vaan and Fran hit pretty damn hard and a lot with this set-up. They of course have every Battle Lore and Adrenaline for even more damage

[trancehime]

No berserk/low HP for Adrenaline and higher combos?

Nah, I don't see it's necessary. I do pretty well without it.