Support NeoGAF

[mieumieu]

Just don't open the first box you see in the game or you won't get the Zodiac spear- the strongest weapon in the game. That's a shitty move from the designer.

And now, maybe I can finish all the hunting quests. I liked those. I can't remember if I got all of them or not, but I do remember some of them were difficult.

This 'design flaw' was fixed in the IZJS version already. Stop beating a dead horse.

 

[Night Angel]

Imagine Final Fantasy 12 without Vaan.
It's not hard to do.
Nothing to get in the way of the plot,
No Penelo too,
Imagine all the others,
Telling their story in peace...

And then we'd all stop pulling Penelos in FFBE. What a world.

 

[Exentryk]

I missed the Zodiac spear back in the day as well. So looking forward to playing this game again with this new version. I don't know much about what this IZJS version has. Not buying it on the PS4 though.

 

[Shadowheart]

This 'design flaw' was fixed in the IZJS version already. Stop beating a dead horse.

That's not the copy I bought and it is good to know they changed it. However, stop beating a dead horse takes precedence to use. The game isn't your mother. Relax.

 

[Lady Bird]

Vaan is definitely the protagonist of FFXII, and the Vaan/Penelo story is meant to be one of commoners getting involved in a larger struggle against their will, and just being bystanders to a grand historical event. It could have worked. It just didn't really work.

It worked in the first 1/3 of the game, when Vaan had an actual character arc, and when Vaan's and Penelo's actions, dialogue or POV were actually meaningful at building the story and world.

It's clear that Mastuno knew what he was doing, while the other writer who replaced him and "rewrote" Vaan's and Penelo's segments did not.

 

[Niks]

Hopefully we will get another update or trailer at TGS?

 

[duckroll]

It worked in the first 1/3 of the game, when Vaan had an actual character arc, and when Vaan's and Penelo's actions, dialogue or POV were actually meaningful at building the story and world.

It's clear that Mastuno knew what he was doing, while the other writer who replaced him and "rewrote" Vaan's and Penelo's segments did not.

Honestly, I don't think we'll ever really know how much of the script was Matsuno and how much was "rewrote" or added after his departure. I honestly find it odd because development started in what... 2001? Matsuno left in... 2005. This was after the E3 2004 showing where the game looked pretty much complete, had the entire opening segment with Reks, etc. Unless Matsuno was totally incompetent, how can you be developing a FF game for 4 years and not have a complete script? What the hell happened?

 

[Lady Bird]

Honestly, I don't think we'll ever really know how much of the script was Matsuno and how much was "rewrote" or added after his departure. I honestly find it odd because development started in what... 2001? Matsuno left in... 2005. This was after the E3 2004 showing where the game looked pretty much complete, had the entire opening segment with Reks, etc. Unless Matsuno was totally incompetent, how can you be developing a FF game for 4 years and not have a complete script? What the hell happened?

Watanabe stated in interviews that he rewrote Vaan's and Penelo's story completely. So whatever was written beforehand was scrapped. Vaan was meant to become a sky pirate mid game, and that was then changed to only happen at the ending. Most of Watanabe's script for Penelo's lines was also cut.

Maybe it was a situation similar to Versus XIII -> FFXV? Nojima also had a script for versus, and look how that turned out.

 

[encephalon]

Honestly, I don't think we'll ever really know how much of the script was Matsuno and how much was "rewrote" or added after his departure. I honestly find it odd because development started in what... 2001? Matsuno left in... 2005. This was after the E3 2004 showing where the game looked pretty much complete, had the entire opening segment with Reks, etc. Unless Matsuno was totally incompetent, how can you be developing a FF game for 4 years and not have a complete script? What the hell happened?

Exactly. People talk about FFXII as if they developed the game, in story order, and made it up as they went along.

 

[duckroll]

Watanabe stated in interviews that he rewrote Vaan's and Penelo's story completely. So whatever was written beforehand was scrapped. Vaan was meant to become a sky pirate mid game, and that was then changed to only happen at the ending. Most of Watanabe's script for Penelo's lines was also cut.

Maybe it was a situation similar to Versus XIII -> FFXV? Nojima also had a script for versus, and look how that turned out.

The difference between FFXII and Versus is that a significant portion of FFXII is clearly Matsuno's story though, and at some point it feels less so. If they were simply unhappy with the story he wanted to tell, it would have changed much earlier in development. I've always wondered after finishing FFXII if the changes were made because they simply couldn't finish the game. What if the ending of FFXII -was- the midpoint of the original game? What if Matsuno had intended on going into Ordalia after that? If the game was so bloated that they couldn't finish it, it makes sense that he was forced out and the team had to rearrange the game to make it conclude without having to make tons of new content. Just a guess. Is there anything in the Ultimanias to back that assumption up?

 

[balgajo]

In the first part of FFXII I always thought that Penelo would be netorared by Ashe. Though nothing happened after that.

 

[badcrumble]

"Kiss Me Goodbye" sure seems like it's written for an earlier version of Penelo who's in love with Vaan but he's mooning over Ashe and too busy dreaming of greatness to think of her as more than a little sister. It also has like NO thematic relation to anything existing in the final game lol

 

[balgajo]

"Kiss Me Goodbye" sure seems like it's written for an earlier version of Penelo who's in love with Vaan but he's mooning over Ashe and too busy dreaming of greatness to think of her as more than a little sister. It also has like NO thematic relation to anything existing in the final game lol

Exactly this! In my headcanon Penelo loves Vaan who loves Ashe who loves the kingdom...XD

But for sure that at some point they completely changed the story.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

The difference between FFXII and Versus is that a significant portion of FFXII is clearly Matsuno's story though, and at some point it feels less so. If they were simply unhappy with the story he wanted to tell, it would have changed much earlier in development. I've always wondered after finishing FFXII if the changes were made because they simply couldn't finish the game. What if the ending of FFXII -was- the midpoint of the original game? What if Matsuno had intended on going into Ordalia after that? If the game was so bloated that they couldn't finish it, it makes sense that he was forced out and the team had to rearrange the game to make it conclude without having to make tons of new content. Just a guess. Is there anything in the Ultimanias to back that assumption up?

That certainly makes sense. The main villain in FFXIV was trying to defy the Occuria right? If there was a second part (or a 3rd act) it would be the team trying to defeat the rest of the Occurias.

 

[Foxxsoxx]

It's been over a decade but I can't get the character designs of Vaan and Penn out of my head.

They really are just horribly designed characters. I know they won't but I hope they have alternate outfits because I already can't wait to replace them in my party.

 

[Lady Bird]

The difference between FFXII and Versus is that a significant portion of FFXII is clearly Matsuno's story though, and at some point it feels less so. If they were simply unhappy with the story he wanted to tell, it would have changed much earlier in development. I've always wondered after finishing FFXII if the changes were made because they simply couldn't finish the game. What if the ending of FFXII -was- the midpoint of the original game? What if Matsuno had intended on going into Ordalia after that? If the game was so bloated that they couldn't finish it, it makes sense that he was forced out and the team had to rearrange the game to make it conclude without having to make tons of new content. Just a guess. Is there anything in the Ultimanias to back that assumption up?

I remember an interview where Watanabe stated what I posted, and one much older interview where Matsuno also confirmed that Vaan would grow into a man mid-game.

I don't know much more beyond that, but it's clear that things got cut.

I assume that there was a big sky pirate story arc that got scrapped. Think about it. 4 out of the 6 party characters are sky pirates or want to be sky pirates. The entire Vaan's arc in the first 1/3 of the game was about him growing up and wishing to fly, until he suddenly disappeared from the story. He was originally meant to be a sky pirate mid-way. There are uniquely designed sky pirates in one of the later towns that were kind of wasted. And there are several ties between Ashe's/ Vayne's story arc and the involvement of sky pirates. It's possible that they scrapped that arc to focus entirely on Ashe's and Vayne's power growth.

 

[soul]

Back in the day I played FFXII on my PS2 after great anticipation. Stopped halfway through since there was basically no plot. Absolutely nothing and I was bored out of my mind. I love the FF franchise, that game disappointed me so much.

 

[AXE]

I was like this 61 pages. Man time flys

I'm still high fiving myself. An absolute gem of a game and the first FF I've enjoyed since IX.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

Back in the day I played FFXII on my PS2 after great anticipation. Stopped halfway through since there was basically no plot. Absolutely nothing and I was bored out of my mind.

Really? I loved with what little the plot they gave.

Then again I was happy just spending my time chasing bounties, and trying to custom my team's gambits into fighting bounties higher than my level a fun challenge.

FFXII remains the only one in the series I spent more than 100 hours on.

 

[duckroll]

What really killed me in FFXII was the Pharos. I defended the game to my death up until that point. Even when the story became much more sparse after the first act, I still appreciated all the little touches. it felt like there was still going to be pay off for everything once the characters got to the point they needed to. Then suddenly, there was this huge dungeon that went on... and on... and on... and on. And it started throwing one summon battle after another at me, like they were cut content from various parts of the game just dumped into one long gauntlet. But I kept going, and I got to the top, and then to my horror the entire story began to unravel from that point. Character motivations falling apart, one dumb scene after another, it was a nightmare. :/

 

[balgajo]

What really killed me in FFXII was the Pharos. I defended the game to my death up until that point. Even when the story became much more sparse after the first act, I still appreciated all the little touches. it felt like there was still going to be pay off for everything once the characters got to the point they needed to. Then suddenly, there was this huge dungeon that went on... and on... and on... and on. And it started throwing one summon battle after another at me, like they were cut content from various parts of the game just dumped into one long gauntlet. But I kept going, and I got to the top, and then to my horror the entire story began to unravel from that point. Character motivations falling apart, one dumb scene after another, it was a nightmare. :/

I'm with you in this. Pharos is one of the reasons I never replayed the game even though it probably is my favorite FF. I have the sensation that some cutscenes after that were created before they changed/cut a lot of story stuff.

 

[Foxxsoxx]

I'm with you in this. Pharos is one of the reasons I never replayed the game even though it probably is my favorite FF. I have the sensation that some cutscenes after that were created before they changed/cut a lot of story stuff.

I never finished the game but is the Pharos the dungeon in the desert? I think that's the part of the game I ended at, though I'm not sure it's been almost a decade.

 

[duckroll]

I never finished the game but is the Pharos the dungeon in the desert? I think that's the part of the game I ended at, though I'm not sure it's been almost a decade.

It's the lighthouse. If you've been there, you can never forget it. It goes on and on and on.

 

[Foxxsoxx]

It's the lighthouse. If you've been there, you can never forget it. It goes on and on and on.

Ah I don't remember a light house. I remember some sort of desert dungeon and some

Spoiler

betrayal

happening on a ship with one of the party members and Basche.

Anyway I can't remember the order of which one was further in, but I regret never beating the game back in the day.

 

[Lady Bird]

It's the lighthouse. If you've been there, you can never forget it. It goes on and on and on.

I thought the final cutscenes there with Gabranth and Cid were quite good. But everything that happens after is a straight rush to the end.

 

[Spiritwalker]

I honestly didn't like XII all that much at lunch, but it slowly grew on me over time and now it's one of my favourite games.

Pharos was.. tedious. I kinda liked it though.

 

[silva1991]

It's the lighthouse. If you've been there, you can never forget it. It goes on and on and on.

The place where all enemies drop purple orbs or something? God that place was awful.

 

[Nohar]

The Lighthouse was the last straw for me when I replayed the game a year or two ago. The Great Crystal area was already too long and tedious, but the Lighthouse is just too long and annoying. It is a marathon level with very similar areas which just doesn't stop.
The music is great though.

 

[Tiamant]

I... liked the Pharos? It's the game's true final dungeon. A far cry from Ultimecia's Castle but I enjoyed it.

 

[balgajo]

The Lighthouse was the last straw for me when I replayed the game a year or two ago. The Great Crystal area was already too long and tedious, but the Lighthouse is just too long and annoying. It is a marathon level with very similar areas which just doesn't stop.
The music is great though.

Wow, Pharos was so bad that I forgot about the Crystal. It's pretty tedious.

 

[duckroll]

Holy shit! I forgot all about the Grand Crystal too. That area was annoying as fuck. But nothing compared to the horror of the Pharos.

 

[encephalon]

FFXII could have been so good. In a better world, the FFXII Remaster would be accompanied by a new story arc that actually went somewhere. Maybe one where the repercussions of living under the will of the Occuria became clear. Not "What a coincidence, you want to become Queen, the Occuria want you to become Queen. Keep going, you're on the right track! No twists here."

 

[Spiritwalker]

I found Grand Crystal to be worse when I went back to do the optional shit there in IZJS. Such a confusing layout.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

That certainly makes sense. The main villain in FFXIV was trying to defy the Occuria right? If there was a second part (or a 3rd act) it would be the team trying to defeat the rest of the Occurias.

Spoiler

Vayne isn't so much trying to defy the Occuria as he is being influenced by Venat, the rogue Occuria. But yeah, I can totally see a version of FFXII where Ashe and company take down Vayne (because it's necessary), and then move on to try and rid mankind of the Occurian influence forever.

 

[CrimsonSquall]

Is the Pharos the place where u get to take that guest character piratish guy with u?

 

[duckroll]

I think FFXII really drives people insane. Like this: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/681990-lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii/65266264

 

[llehuty]

One excerpt form this fantasic review of the game (Click on the button to change the background for better reading), for the people insisting that his game has "no story".

The story, for what it is and what it’s surrounded by, is surprisingly okay. Some have said that “nothing” happens in the story. This is false: enormous things happen in the story, sometimes with the utterance of a few words, sometimes with the collapse of a kingdom. That such a great deal of it plays out with a subtlety uncommon in the genre and medium could account for the naysayings; as in, no, there are no cloaked priests murmuring about evil gods’ resurrection, no men wearing jock-straps on their faces and searching for the ultimate expression of monotone angst.

Bonus on Vaan's design:

In a way, the narrative lens of Van, as a dusty orphan and the “lowest” part of the game-world’s society, heightens the scale of the occurring events. What meets his eyes and ours is all the more cataclysmic. Vaan doesn’t become the Hero of Legends, but he doesn’t need to: he survives, and the world around him changes from his own decisions, and those of his companions and enemies. Whatever that choice may have been about who occupied the lead slot, we’re pretty satisfied with the way things are. Even the visual design of Vaan works as an elaborated, Japanese version of Disney’s Aladdin, snugly set in the context of his city’s bustling markets. It’s far from the result of Mr. Nomura gurgling over the photograph of a lederhoser-wearing Gackt. We could, however, do without the amazing shortness of the princess’ skirt that makes us wonder, now and again, how she sits around all those guys.

 

[Shin-chan]

I know it's kind of a half baked solution, but the destruction of the Sun Cryst was enough in the game to throw off the Occuria since that's the mechanism that they used to influence man and history.

Obviously killing them would be a more permanent solution, but I never got the impression in the game that they were necessarily evil. I suppose in an hypothetical additional act they would go to extra lengths to ruin what you'd achieved and at that point you'd have to kill them with the help of the empire or something.

I do wish the story had been finished and wasn't so sparse during its back half (some of the dungeon crawling is a bit of a slog, especially Pharos) but since I was like 17 when I played the game a second time I've always liked the story despite all of its missed opportunities.

 

[Mailbox]

I played FF12 on ps2. I have so many gripes and annoyances regarding some very very questionable design decisions (i have some SERIOUS gripes about licenses and gambits), weird textures (not "bad" textures, weird ones like how the eyes ALWAYS look sunken slightly, or how Vaan has painted on abs), moogles being... yeah, the running animation being the most boring slow ass traversal i've ever had to endure in a game, and quite a few other things that i just can't enjoy from the game. And yet... somehow, I really think i'll be buying this hd remaster. Its a game with lots of effort put it, that super evident and many of its part are actually thought out quite well i think.

This game and me have a very love-hate relationship...

 

[Kain]

The Pharos was annoying, long and obtuse the first time around, the second time I didn't have such a hard time, mainly because I came in prepared: my chars were all leveled up and op as fuck and I breezed through it, but that first time... shit was hard. I don't remember if the IZJS fixed it, but they should do something because I'm sure a lot people dropped the game at that point. Remember that first part were you had to pick some dark orbs so that some random door at the edge of the map opened? And the shitty criptyc poems that suppossedly said how to proceed but they were impossible to understand? Or that fucking crystal area with no map? Or the gauntlet of bosses at the end? At least I remember there was one xD

Still, what a cool game, I just want to play in my Vita and hunt away mmmmmmm

Oh, and Vayne and Cid were right. #NeverForgetTheirSacrifice

 

[Lady Bird]

I think FFXII really drives people insane. Like this: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/681990-lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii/65266264

1truth has been insane for years.

 

[BossDarkseid]

One excerpt form this fantasic review of the game (Click on the button to change the background for better reading), for the people insisting that his game has "no story".



Bonus on Vaan's design:

Heh, that's quite interesting. I adore XII, but I wonder if some of the criticisms some people have - to some degree at least - are due to how they are conditioned by most FF stories having obviously evil people doing obviously evil things and huge events having a cutscene or setpiece to go along with it. There's a way to do it though *gazes at FFXV's newspaper thingy*.

It doesn't forgive the lesser parts of the story but so much of XII was really cool, makes me hope that one day Ito gets to direct an FF on PS4/XB1/PC or beyond since he said his idea for a full scale battle system made what was in XII look like a drop in the ocean.

 

[kromeo]

Ah I don't remember a light house. I remember some sort of desert dungeon and some

Spoiler

betrayal

happening on a ship with one of the party members and Basche.

Anyway I can't remember the order of which one was further in, but I regret never beating the game back in the day.

You're remembering Raithwall's tomb I suspect, the lighthouse is much later on

 

[DiipuSurotu]

I remember an interview where Watanabe stated what I posted, and one much older interview where Matsuno also confirmed that Vaan would grow into a man mid-game.

I don't know much more beyond that, but it's clear that things got cut.

I assume that there was a big sky pirate story arc that got scrapped. Think about it. 4 out of the 6 party characters are sky pirates or want to be sky pirates. The entire Vaan's arc in the first 1/3 of the game was about him growing up and wishing to fly, until he suddenly disappeared from the story. He was originally meant to be a sky pirate mid-way. There are uniquely designed sky pirates in one of the later towns that were kind of wasted. And there are several ties between Ashe's/ Vayne's story arc and the involvement of sky pirates. It's possible that they scrapped that arc to focus entirely on Ashe's and Vayne's power growth.

Is this the source by any chance?
"removing fake statements spread by G-Zay; expanding with reliable sources: see ban discussion"

Then again it's true that the dozens of pages of interviews in the four FFXII Ultimanias have never been translated, so who knows.

 

[encephalon]

Is this the source by any chance?
"removing fake statements spread by G-Zay; expanding with reliable sources: see ban discussion"

Then again it's true that the dozens of pages of interviews in the four FFXII Ultimanias have never been translated, so who knows.

He has also been banned from other sites for doing these things, and has engaged in sockpuppetry on those sites as well. This includes creating accounts in online cafes in order to avoid topic bans, so I any action taken here should take that into account.

Jesus christ, some people are nuts.

 

[Airan]

It's the lighthouse. If you've been there, you can never forget it. It goes on and on and on.

Oh shit, I remember now myself - had no MP items and was struggling so hard to reach the next save point. I don't know how I made it, but I did. Next time I'm gonna pack all the MP items in the world.

 

[DrROBschiz]

They should have let Matsuno tell his damn story

Seems like his brand of storytelling was not looked kindly upon leading to FFTA 1+2 and FF12 going into wildly different territory

No more Ogre battle, no true FFT sequel, no Vagrant Story sequel....

Nope just more shit like FF7,10, 13 and now 15

Actually hoping 15 isnt too bad since the Anime did a decent job setting up the characters in a more compelling light

Sad we will never know what the original FF12 was supposed to be

 

[The Silver]

I can't believe they didn't take this chance to fix Vaan's abs or give him a fucking shirt.

Tragic.

 

[Nohar]

I can't believe they didn't take this chance to fix Vaan's abs or give him a fucking shirt.

Tragic.

His FFTA2 outfit is so much better than his vanilla one. Sadly, no costume for this remaster.

 

[Kuraudo]

The thing that always bothered me with FFXII's story was how the religious iconoclasm comes out of nowhere near the end. It's almost as if they scrapped the whole final act of Matsuno's plot and - in trying to figure out something to replace it - just grabbed one of the most tired JRPG clichés.

It's possible the opposite is true and relgion was more overt throughout Matsuno's version and they simply suppressed those elements early on. But in its current state that whole plotline just feels like it comes out of nowhere and ends up feeling a lot weaker than FFX or even FFXIII's inconoclasms.