Final Fantasy 12

[bad company]

It seems that everyone I talk to doesn't like this game, what are your opinions and why?

[OptimusPrime]

I liked the new batte system. I like the fact that you can set the actions of your party members-ie, if HP>50%, heal yourself, etc. Also I liked the new development table thing where you get your weapon proficiencies etc, where you have to work down different lines to be good with different weapons. Also, the summonning was good, although I wish you could have had all three characters running round each with a summon out-ALL AT THE SAME TIME! That could have been great, it would make it so bosses could be way more challenging.

 

The storyline bored me though. All the talk of the Empire and Judges and whatnot was great, but then it went away from all that, and I didnt really know exactly what was going on anymore; by that time on the other FFs, I would be on the hunt for Sephiroth, or have encountered Sin, or just know some of the main story. Im a sucker for a good story, but if I cant figure out where I am in that story, I lose interest fairly fast.

 

I really did like the new combat system though, you can have it so you dictate Vaans actions with the tactical options like the other party members. If you do it right, you can get into a fight and just put the pad down and let the party handle itself!

[LedZepMan]

is this the one with Vaan?

[Locke]

Yes.

 

I agree; I really liked the Gambits.  It just made fighting so much easier and simpler, at least with the way this battle system, which I liked, worked.  I like to have my gambits set so that my characters always have most of their HP + all the attribute bonuses such as haste, protect, and regen.  It does cost some MP to do that, but it's easily regained and keeps one's characters powerful.

 

Also, I really liked the Quickenings.  Those were fun to do and actually useful.

[bad company]

I would agree with the gambit system and the quickenings. However I found the summons were so weak that they were essentially useless (unlike in 10).

 

Storyline wise I can't comment since I've skipped through most of the cutscenes (would have been nice to have for some of the ones in 10).

 

But easily the best addition was that of no random battles. Damn I hated random battles so much.

 

Did anyone else use the balthiers beserk gambit?

[Locke]

I agree with you there.  The summons were pathetically weak and practically useless.

 

No.  I'm not a huge fan of berserk unless traipsing through an area of relatively weak enemies.

[Kaznen]

I would my party with missile weapons and then someone would decide they needed to charge the super hard monster with a bow (I gave them bows so they could stay out of the super hard monster's range).

 

And I didn't like the summoning.  When ever I called one up, if they didn't get killed right away, they hardly did any damage, and only two or three times did they last long enough to do their super attack.

 

But the chain attack damage thing (I forget what it was called, replaced limit break) was amazing.

 

I liked the story overall but Vaan and Penelo(?) bickering got old at times.

[bad company]

The storyline and characters were not the best, however in response to locke generally beserk was not that effective, however due to the fact that beserk made your move waiting quicker then haste and increased your attack, this coupled with balthier being notoriously slow but having guns that went through armour meant that I just had to have him beserked and he would kill almost everything but major enemies like gilgamesh with relative ease.

 

I didn't have to attack anything, balthiers would kill everything for me as long he was beserked.

(enkidu was such a pain to kill)

[bad company]

Okay different tatic.

 

How would you improve it if you could?

[Spiffiness]

I pretty much agree with everything Drekka said. I also loved how you could switch to your healer and keep her away from all the deadly AoE attacks then run in afterwards and auto heal everyone. Then there was also the ability to heal and revive characters outside the active party and then switch them back in when required. I miss that level of control in FF13.

 

If they'd used Basch or Balthier as the main character and got rid of Vaan and Penelo, it would've been way better, IMO. The characters and story were FF12's weak points.

[bad company]

Vaan wasn't horrible, didn't like penelo and only used her for quickenings.

 

It definately didn't have the caliber of Characters that 10 had for certain

[Spiffiness]

I liked Vaan and Penelo's stats and used them a lot in my party, but I didn't feel like they were necessary story-wise. They had nothing to do with the plot and were just tagging along for no (good) reason. I also didn't like Vaan's weird painted on abs, as I'm sure I've mentioned in other threads.

[OptimusPrime]

Totally agree about the weak characters. I think 12 gave you too much control over character development-with FF10, you had the sphere grid and everyone started in a place where abilities that fit the character come first, but 12 made them feel less... individual. Dissapointing, after the likes of the FF7/Crisis Core and FF10 lineups. Cloud, Sephiroth, Angeal, Genesis, Barret, Tifa, Auron, Kimahri, Jecht, Sin... Vaan? Penelo? Balthier? Where are the badasses?

 

FF7 was the first I played, and it set very high standards. So far 10 has been the closest to match it; 12 felt like it might get closer still but it just didnt hold my interest for long. Shame.

[bad company]

Well 10 was my first and I would say a pretty good one to start with.

 

And that sphere grid was awesome ;)

[SinisterDeath]

FF1 was my first. ;)

FF6 is the best that there ever was.

 

10 wasn't bad, nor was 10-2. Actually 10-2 has alot in common with FFXIII, combat wise. though with the amount of female characters in FFXIII, its definately trying to apeal to more than the male demographic, which FFX-2 started...

 

I hated FFXII, because as said before, the characters all felt like clones of each other, nothing really made anyone Unique.

 

That and the plot stank. WTH were the 'kids' the 'main characters', when its obvious that the lady and the knight shouldhave been?

[bad company]

I hated 10-2, it had all the problems of an in-between fightiung system

[Spiffiness]

I hated X-2 because I found the ditziness of the characters vaguely insulting and the fact that you have to press random buttons at times just to get the perfect ending is stupid. Also watching all those comm spheres was extremely boring and lame.

[bad company]

I just hated the battle system, only played the first 2 levels then never played it again