How good is Final Fantasy XII?

It sucks ass. Really.

 

Its not a bad game, but I just could never really get into it. And I agree, Vaan is a terrible main character.

 

It doesn't if you love boss fights where the boss randomly becomes immune to all damage for long periods of time.

It's also a great game if you like grinding. If you like long hours of solid grinding, you'll love FF XII.

 

Been a couple of years since I played it, so I might be wrong on some small, specific details...

IIRC, for weapons yes. I don't remember about armor...want to say no, although maybe some minor things can change. Judging from some random screens, it seems like they wear more or less the same thing in every one.

Definitely Balthier. My favorite character in the game.

Right. IIRC, in a few places in the game, you have 3 characters plus a guest character. I used this to my advantage.

I think this is the case. Didn't really bother me, and it made things a little flexible. Don't remember what weapons looked the best...probably some of the "ultimate" or secret weapons.

Pretty much. I'd probably liken it to FF6 in that regard. It seems like Vaan is pushed as the main character, but he isn't really as important as some of the other characters IMO. I like to think of Balthier as the main character...and in fact, he insists that he is the "leading man" several times in the game IIRC.


I think the gameplay of FFXII is love it or hate it. Personally, I really enjoyed it, but I know others hated it. I think if you like it, you should have a great time. The story is pretty good (not great), but it starts to have some issues late in the game.

 

I forced myself to play it for awhile, I was about 7 hours in... but it just wasn't grabbing me.

Now, FFX... THAT's a great game.

 

Hmm...IIRC, I think maybe it does start off a little slow. I definitely didn't start appreciating the battle system all that much until late in the game, once I got most/all the gambits. I think one of the mistakes they made was not giving you full access to them early on. To be fair, this does allow the player to gradually adapt to the system, instead of being forced to figure it out all at once. Mob hunts got better too IIRC.

 

I forced myself to play it for a while, but lost interest rather quickly. I still own it, as well as my PS1, so maybe one day I'll get back into it. I still put Final Fantasy 3 for SNES as Final Fantasy 2 for SNES as my all time favorite Final Fantasy games. This would probably be a distant 4th behind Final Fantasy 1 for NES. <--Sorry, I know that's not what this thread was about, but I figured I'd mention it to let everyone know I'm not crazy, just old school

Pugs

 

I've played it in spurts and have not yet finished it. I plan on getting around to it sometime before XIII comes out. Its not that bad. I like the battle system, but the story doesn't really grab you. Vaan is a little feminine as a main character. Balthier is pretty cool. When I play I try to use everyone so there are no weak links, but Balthier, Basch and Fran are my favorite party.

 

I made it to the boss... died once fighting him, and have never played it again. That was about a year ago.

I thought the game was pretty good until I realized I was already at the boss. The game felt way to short to me, like the story never really got going.

 

I wasn't aware that the gaming world was so divided on this. You guys are really the first I've heard to receive the game negatively. Personally, I thought it was fantastic and the best since VII by far. It was refreshing, I think, to shake up the battle system and to have a story that deviated a bit from FF's standard "save the planet" scenarios. I put over 100 hours into this game and can honestly say I enjoyed every one.

 

I thought the story sucked ass. But the battle system as surprisingly addictive(at least for me anyway). So I did finish. Never replayed the game though. Probably the first time that has happened to me in a FF game.

As someone has mentioned FFX was better. And you could probably find a used one really cheap these days.

 

It kind of surprises me too. During the Japanese release and the first few months of the US release, I read really positive feedback about it ("Best FF since FF7"). Personally, I more or less agree with those impressions. But after a while, I noticed more and more negative feedback (both on this board and others). Definitely took me off-guard at first...thought some of it was sarcasm.

It is very different from the usual FF game (or even other JRPGs), so it probably isn't surprising that there isn't a general consensus on it.

 

I haven't gotten to it yet. I've tried to play them chronologically, and as of now, I'm playing FF IX. Very solid game, so far.

And I'm still pissed a lot about FF VIII. That game isn't necessarily impossible, but the boss at the end is impossible to beat without knowing a few secrets first, and due to the way it closes everything up at the end, unless you've saved correctly (which I didn't) you have to start all over again. I'm still debating if I want to do that or not. I played the game 5 years ago also, only to get to disc 3 and it not working, so it isn't my first rodeo with that damn game.

 

Its very different. Takes a while to adjust to the new battle mode. Story is a little on the weak side. I lost interest when I forgot where I was supposed to go. I got into doing things on the side and exploring the map. It is good enough that I still plan to finish eventually. I may use a guide though, because I don't have time to go exploring the whole world again.

 

FF12 is a lot different from traditional FF games.

Storyline - Epic war story without the love/romance that we are used to in previous FF games.

Design - No more Anime-ish style design instead it's Star War-ish.

Battle system- Pretty much a MMO style like FFXI.
1)Able to see monsters instead of having random encounters (Which I like a lot)
2)AI controlled party members (Not really my style since I like to be in full control.) Gambit system makes grinding bearable though.
3)Big world to explore and tons of NMs(Notorious Monsters) to kill for items/weapons.

I think each FF game appeals to a different kind of rpg audience hence why you get a lot of differences when you asked "Which one is the best FF EVAR?". Overall they are all rank pretty high. As for me, I thought it was okay but not great.

 

It's a quality rpg for sure, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone.

For one, it's pretty much a dungeon crawler. As in, you'll spend the vast majority of your time slogging through dungeons(or whatever terrain) battling enemies than you will reading story. There is a decent story in there, but I'd venture to say a lot of the people who liked the game didn't like it for the story. What it boils down to is if you like the battle system, you'll probably like the game.

Vaan is the main character in the first few hours of the game, but then the story steers away from him and he becomes a side character pretty much.

The weapons and shields show, Not the armor.

I personally don't like the trend of being able to level up the party the same way. If I play it again, I'll probably end up trying to make the characters as different as possible, at least early on.

I wish the game had been fleshed out a little more. As much as there is in the game(and I know it took forever to make), it feels like they left out stuff the producer wanted to put in the game. I wish the US would have gotten the international version.

I'm pretty sure I will play it again someday. The battle system is fun to tinker with and I just barely scratched the surface with it.

 

And by great, you must mean "absolute crap."

There hasn't been a decent Final Fantasy since IX. And there hasn't actually been a GOOD one since Tactics.

 

OT Pretty interesting list

Famitsu readers have voted on their all-time favorite 100 games..

http://www.edge-online.com/features/japan-votes-all-time-top-100?page=0%2C0

 

Famitsu has no journalistic credibility. They have sold integrity for more money from advertisers. The last decent game publication was EGM and the original 1up.

Go for podcasts and independent websites now. The guys that used to write EGM are still around.