Square-Enix Final Fantasy XII =/= A game

I am offically tired of this, I keep seeming to have this debate with people so now I'm making a thread calling out the game and it's fanboys. Because in all honesty, anyone who likes tihs game really is only that, a fanboy of final fantasy and star wars and this was just enough to make you sh*t your wee fanboy pants without having to have lightsabers in an FF. So to just spite this game, I'm reviewing it:

The first and most immportant thing every FF game must have is...

Story (2/10): The story in this game... is horrible. It is a cliche to the very core. Evil wins, politican murders, sky pirates, etc all sound really exciting but in the truth most exciting part in that is the 'etc.' And I don't mean what etc stands for, I mean the apreviation 'etc.' The evil twin thing is such an old and been done so many times it made me go watch tv land. The sky pirate thing is so predictable that a blind man could find it in a dark room with no socks or shoes on and nothing but needles on the floor. ANYWAY BACK TO THE REVIEW: The story starts off with a great character named Reks who is a soldier fighting for his family, admries his general, and gets betrayed. He is then replaced by his *** brother whose abs scare The Judges into defeat. Let me put it this game devs, when you have a good character STICK WITH THEM. Do not replace them right we fall for them. Here's exactly what it's like: it is like having a perfectly made grilled cheese sandwitch only to have some f*cktard's evil twin come up and take it right before we take a bite and replace it with two pieces of hardwood with a bit of ejaculate inbetween. So then the story follows Vahn, whose story and everyone he meets has been done already by Mr. Lucas. There is even a scene in this game where you will free a princess from an airship, you will then be forced to pause it and start quoting star wars with the nearest person you can find. Ok enough ripping up the cliche'd horrible story that already decapitates the game from being an FF, time to move on to....

Graphics(8/10): The one good thing about this game. the graphics in this game look brilliant, though they're tiem where you wish they sucked *cough*Vahn's abs*cough*. The environments look great and are somewhat diverse (though there is WAY too many caves) and the game grapihcs look great but all in all the CG scenes seem downgraded from that of FFX.

Gameplay(3/5/10): 3.5 is generous, only because I like the idea of expanding from turn-based. While I loved Lost Odyssey's revamped TBS, it didn't really seem to compete with action RPGs anymore. This game however tries to mix the elements of an MMO with that of action based game like .hack and Star Ocean, and it fails. First thing I want to rant out is something that annoys all plays of action RPGs: There is no dodging system. The game tries to be more real and actiony, but all you can reily on is your speed stat to dodge. Not actually moving out of the way of an attack because apparently all of them are heat seeking making me run around and nothing working. Next part, the upgrading system: It is so stupid, all us FF fans know it fails compared to sphere grid so NEXT. The Gambits: The gambits are the final nail in this coffin(lol cliche in a cliche'd game rant FUNNEH). The gambits take away this gmae's ability to be called a game or even be played. For those of you who don't know, you make it so your characters can be controlled by the game itself instead of inputting every move for all 3 party members, which is a good idea, I don't wnat ogo through endless menus slecting each attack in a real time system. However you can get overly detailed with this so your AI have no thought process at all and you do this for your own charatcer so that all you have to do is hold the controller and hold the joystick in the right direction if even that. Basically taking away all gaming aspect from this and maknig it programing, which even as a game designer I don't give a damn about. This would be great if the original Mario was watching the game play itself with Star Wars playing in the backround but isn't what makes a game fun now is it? Actually having control, using your brain to kill an enemy, and making a game on a personal level is what made all the original RPG's great in terms of fights. All in all this game can play itself, which is no fun. The idea of expanding is great, but in tihs way is jsut f*cking embarassing when you look and see what games like Rouge Galaxy, .Hack, Oblivion, KOTOR, and Mass Effect have accomplished as in branching out. All in all, it was am e,barassing f*ck up that makes you feel like this:

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y197/shadowjak88/?action=view&current=bored.jpg

Overall (4/10): This game is not a game but a way to sit on your couch bored and watch a parody of star wars play out through some guy with a sword and scary abs. The gameplay is a nice try but really this game is SE's way to get money and prepare for FFXIII.

Thank you FFXII lovers for making me go this far. =D

 

Wow just wow

 

i REALLY didn't want to read the whole thing
MAKE IT SHORTER!!!
im a little lazy.

 

Cliffnotes: FFXII sucks

 

I've been *****ing about this game's crappiness since it first came out. lol. Welcome to the club.

The only things worth praising about FFXII is its voice-acting and cutscenes.

I wouldn't say the story at its core was bad. It had loads of potential, but they miraculously managed to destroy it completely. Characters who actually had something interesting to say were never put into the spotlight, or were just killed off after two cutscenes. Many characters that actually had most of the spotlight had very little connection to the actual story and thus just made the entire journey feel redundant and unsubstantial. There's something wrong when they kill off characters like Drace and Vossler so early on, but let Penelo live and join you for the rest of the entire game.

Gameplay. In a nutshell; take FFXI's battle system and add nice little blue and red lines between characters and a ability grid and voila, FFXII's gameplay. It's a FFXI clone gameplay wise. In fact, many of the monster sprites were completely IDENTICAL to how they were in FFXI.

Square-Enix hasn't made a good Final Fantasy since X, and that's really sad.

 

Just await for FFXIII with character protagonist names like Lightning and Mr 33cm.

 

Ever since it was stated that VsXIII's protagonist was a little idiosyncratic, I actually started to have more hope in the game.

 

I sure hope so, I think Versus has potential to be really spectacular given that remix of the trailer, all of those events take place whilst sleeping, it's very intriguing.

 

Versus can be great if Nomura puts effort into it and make a worthwhile plot.

BTW: The site in your sig in beyond all godlines.

 

I totally agree with you on the story, it was great at the beginning, but it went downhill after that, it just got dull and just a small reason to go to A to B. It improved at the end, but all the bits inbetween lacked. And character development was crap at best.

But it's gameplay where I differ. I quite enjoyed it. Yes it was just using attack, but then again that's something you get in all FF's, just use the attack button, it's the same formula that changed from turn based to real time. So i'm not going to complain about that. Yes you level up really slowly, but I think the battle system is a step forward. I don't see it as the norm but rather a stepping stone for the evolution of RPG's.

You have to admit RPG's ain't what their used to be. Well except for Persona 3 which is a fantastic and original game. But now days they are all the same, so I think it's good to see that SE are taking steps to change it. Look at FFXIII, the battle system is looking like an advance on the FFXII one.

 

^ In the bud.

I quite liked it, but thats probably coz its the first Final Fantasy i've ever played.. Bit harsh the way you put the review though.

Viera's werent too bad either

 

haven't played it yet
coco told me it was suppoesed to be awesome o:

 

I bought this game when it came out to see what all the fanfare was about, and I like the game at the start, but then story and everything went downhill from there.

I don't classify this as a classic FF game.

Shadowjak - 1
FFXII - 0

 

I agree

XII could be alot better

 

Dear god, you poor soul.

 

I completely agree with this. I rented the game for like 7 days and only played it once. I put it in, watched the opening, played the first few levels and then took it out of my PS2 and was completely ashamed of ever having put such a shity excuse for a game in it. If that had been my first time playing FF I would have never touched another one. I know some one who only played XII and now he thinks every FF sucks because XII was lame.

 

What does this even mean, exactly?

Anyway back on topic. Hey, I personally enjoyed XII. <3 After your series of predictable assets from past FFs, FFXII was definately a more breathy/different approach for an FF title. At least for me. I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate your basis for labeling the WHOLE of XII's plot "cliché and predictable (and therefore sh!t)", because at the moment your point seems kinda moot. As far as I know XII had a number of clichés, but then again I do not know a single damned game, or any sort of media which DOESN'T have at least two rehashed elements. It's just a question of having a really large library of resources to be able to point similarities between two (or several) different medias.

But yeah; like several others said, the story is somewhat of a let-down during the end (but I was too busy with the side missions to even really care). There is presumably much more depth to FFXII than at first view; and it doesn't help how that goddamned formal speech restricts my (and several others) understanding. Also, I concur with DA about the gameplay.

And as a second add-on, I found blowing on a series of nailbats far more enthralling than having to sit through that enticing (read: bullsh!t) journey you go through in X. I won't (and can't) go as far as that, since I never finished it so much I felt I was just wasting my time with that game, and I really couldn't stand the characters.

With all that said, I'll point out how FFXII getting a perfect score of 10/10 is complete bollocks. It was far from a perfect game, I'll give you that. Enjoyable yes, but most definately not perfect.

 

I personally agree with SA.

And god Shadowjak, I DON'T care about your points, I enjoyed the game, can you PLEASE leave it alone?

It's not like anyone's trying to convert you into falling in love with the game.

 

Well, on your point of 'depth', SA. There *was* depth, but it wasn't explored. The progression was stagnant all throughout, with little hints here and there, but they either came to a standstill completely or it was just removed from the story altogether.

Balthier talks about how he used to be a Judge, but that info just seems to end with that scene. The delivery was poor in the sense that it just became a 'matter-of-fact' cutscene that in the end had very little impact on the overall story. It *does* come up again later when you fight Cid, but the resolution was plain and again, unsubstantial. FFXII does this many times where they present you with a whole lot of promising material, but as you progress through the game, each and every one of those promising elements just disappoints one after the other. Another part was the character Drace.

There was unsettlement within the ranks of the Judges. Drace (a woman who actually didn't conform to looking attractive for the male fanbase) had strong convictions against the current leadership and had felt strongly about preserving Larsa's future. This showed promise in there being an uprising within the ranks of the Judges and it would've been nice to see some characters 'cross the floor' in terms of good and bad. Again, instead of what I hoped to be an uprising (where Drace and Gabranth would eventually defect from the order of the Judges and assist the protagonists), Drace is killed off in her SECOND EVER ONLY cutscene, and Gabranth just disappears for a while before making his return in one of the most angsty emo cutscenes ever (albeit the voice-acting was good).

I digress--as usual--but essentially the only 'depth' to be found in FFXII to me is simply what 'could've' been, but the game didn't follow through on. Along with these disappointments, these elements were disorganized and made a lot of them seem just out of place or poorly directed in terms of keeping the flow of the storyline consistent. It was a story-telling disaster that depended on its thematic cutscenes and wonderful voice-acting to get people to overlook them. It just didn't cut it for me.

And again, while lots of people are praising the gameplay, it's just unfortunate that a majority of people haven't played FFXI. For if they did, they'd also see that there is hardly anything unique about it since it has already been done once before. That is, real-time movement with weapon delays instead of turn-based attacks. This is essentially what FFXI was based on, and if you ask me, FFXI's battle system still triumphs over FFXII for its inclusion of skillchains, magic bursts and job class specific abilities. And once again, to support this claim of laziness, it was appalling to see that many monster sprites in FFXII was exactly the same as they were in FFXI.

Example:
Mandragora in FFXI
Mandragora in FFXII

Let's keep in mind that FFXI released in JP in 2002, only a year after FFX. In the span of 4 years, FFXII's battle system sure didn't differ all that much from its predecessor.

All in all, a rehashed fighting system with a broken storyline, and recycled sprites.

But hey, at least it was better than FFX-2. Ahaha.

EDIT: Err, totally forgot to address your question, SA.

Idiosyncratic means that the VsXIII protagonist will have a peculiar personality, meaning that it can be easily regarded as strange or bizarre by many people. Nomura has specifically said that despite what is suggested in the trailers, the VsXIII protagonist is *not* an emo-oriented protagonist at all.

Why I feel this shows promise is because one, having a peculiar personality brings a whole lot more life to a character. Most of the time, developers try to keep protagonists somewhat mainstream and 'generic' almost so that it's easy for the players to relate and empathize with them. Making characters that are very specific and peculiar in nature make it harder for players to understand and/or connect with them. Nomura decided to go ahead and make the VsXIII protagonist that way anyway, which I feel is good.

I'll quote the proper part of the interview:

 

Thanks for the great balanced write-up. I have been nagged to play this 'great game' but have resisted so far due to me inbuilt cynicism switch. Thanks for confirming what I suspected.