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In Defense of Final Fantasy XII

While not as divisive as FFVIII, FFXII certainly did have its rather larger than usual share of hate and love. I am actually surprised that it is nearly beloved here in NeoGAF. Everywhere else I lurked at before, there were a lot who had issues with the music (non-memorable), the story (too convoluted and forgettable, horrible pacing), Vaan (too uninteresting and bland), and the battle system (lol auto-MMO).

Really, I think people who think that FFXII does not need any defense probably did not dive into various message boards after it was released.

For the record, I loved its gambit system and its visuals. I couldn't care less about the pacing of the story and none of its music stood out to me long after I finished the game.
 
qualitydisc said:
If Ito is not working on FF16 right now, then I have literally no idea why Square continues to employ him.
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He said he will work on whatever the president tells him to work on. We need inception to persuade the president. Double win if it also gets them to drag Matsuno back
 
Pellegri Testament said:
Only thing I would question when it comes to defending any part of this game is the character development(or complete lack of).

Vaan/Penelo - you find out at the beginning of the game that they lost their family during the war, instead of go into any form of detail about this like half the Final Fantasies before would have, they leave it at nothing more than what is said in the first 10mins after the intro is over. "I want to become a sky pirate" is Vaan's only dream throughout the entire game, this does not change at all even after everything he has been through.
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I disagree. His journey is much like Ashe's, though he resolves much of his issues once he realizes Basch isn't the one who killed his brother. He starts the game off as an angry, directionless youth. However, has he becomes involved in the story's events, he mellows out and learns to channel his anger into a productive way, by assisting Ashe in her quest. And again, his role is as a sort of moral anchor. It is in large part because of Vaan that Ashe doesn't lose herself to her own anger and seek to use the nethicite.

Pellegri Testament said:
Ashe - one of the few characters that had anything remotely interesting to be said about. The story clearly revolved around her and her pursuit to take back her kingdom, choices are made throughout the game that could have developed her character more if they actually seemed to sway her focus, but in the end she did exactly what she set out to do. Any kind of deterrence to her cause would have made her a much more interesting character, in the end though you knew exactly what she wanted to do in the beginning of the game and she did exactly that, nothing different.
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She had tons of development! Her inner conflict stemmed from her temptations to succumb to the will of the Occuria. And to give into her hatred and simply bring down the empire out of a quest for revenge, rather than to liberate her people. The game spends a significant amount of time dwelling over these struggles for her. And eventually she chooses a path that avoids wanton destruction, which sets her apart as a leader from a character like Vayne, who chose the path of destruction to achieve his goals.

Pellegri Testament said:
Fran - no interesting story until you got to her village where she was the outcast amongst her people. You go into the town, find out everyone hates her, do a few side stories that don't develop her, leave. She had no background story before her village and as soon as you left it she once again went to the back of line rarely to talk again. She could have found a way to ease everyone's hatred towards her when you entered her village, instead she wanted nothing more than to remain an outcast.
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I'll give you Fran. But she also has one other important feature: She is there to explain the more supernatural elements of the story.

Pellegri Testament said:
Balthier - "the leading man" or in the end "nothing more than a supporting character". Another potentially interesting character that seemed pretty cool and could have a lot of story to him. Gives you the airship, provides some comedy relief along with Vaan, knows a few characters that he doesn't want to talk about, that's it. Oh hey he did mention that he used to be a judge, surely that could provide some interesting backstory on why he ended up leaving and not following the empire....nope? oh well, they tried with the 2mins they gave him in the sandsea. Something that could have been done here, actually talk about him being a judge and his relations with the characters he knew but didn't want to go into any detail over?
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Uh... What? Balthier is absolutely a fantastic character. His story regarding his relationship with Dr. Cid was one of the emotional parts of the game. The fact of the matter is that him being a judge wasn't that important. What was important is why he was a judge. His father made him become a judge as part of his obsession to fight the Occuria. That is why he fled the empire, because he just couldn't handle his father's "madness" any longer.

[/QUOTE]
 
Tookay said:
I feel like a weirdo for thinking this game was a chore.
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I also felt some of the dungeons were too long and pulled the focus away from the plot because of that. The game would have benefitted from some spoken dialogue by your party members to add some interest to your travelling. Problem with regular areas is that your gambits take care of things for you, so it's a bit too hands-off for my tastes. Turning off gambits didn't really work out for me because the pace was too fast and made it kind of inefficient for me. IIRC there was a wait mode too, but wait kind of kills the momentum.

That said, FFXII had some of the most gorgeous visuals for a PS2 game. It had interesting characters like Fran and Balthier too. Plot was decent, and dialogue was excellent.
 
This game probably needed a defense when it first came out, but now it's seen by a lot of people as one of the best in the series. Still a bit controversial, but not NEARLY as much
 
it's not a very good game. it's a sickly patient. i played it when it came out, and i noticed that something had gone wrong in development few hours into the game. the battle system is not engaging. once you've set up your gambits it's basically over. i don't remember dying in the main quest. loot distibution is horrid. there are urns or chests scattered around the world with a very low % chance of good loot dropping. you will only pass those urns once and miss out forever. there is no battle music. the story is utter garbage. you'll notice there was supposed to be something there, but there was no time or no will to implement it properly. matsuno got robbed. sidequests with humiliating rewards.

the voice acting was good. the world was vast and nice looking. soundtrack was good, but the absence of battle themes while traveling hurt it.

overall a big disappointment. maybe the biggest of the PS2 gen. maybe they will put more effort into a remake.
 
Glorious OP, a pleasure to read something that doesn't invoke lists or is full of passive aggressive opinion.

FFXII is by far my favourite FF. I came into it pretty hot from having left WoW not too long before, and it's style of gameplay was exactly was I needed to get back into single player games.

I adored the gambit system and the amount of tweaking involved around them, if you so choose. The way the world sprawled out from the main city, the monster hunting side quests: oh man, I might have to look into emulation and dig my disc out of the cupboard to play through it again. Or dig the 60gb PS3 out.
 
I didn't finish 12, but I'll buy the HD version on day one!

I loved the combat and the world. Vaan annoyed me, and I felt there were too many characters that were just unused. And the plot kind of fizzled out for me.
 
FFXII had my favorite battle system. when i found out XIII wasn't going to expand on that it was a dealbreaker

It's a tragedy, really... could've easily been the best FF if not for the development troubles
 
Good read OP, but I have to strongly disagree. Your recounting of the story was infinitely more compelling and interesting than the way the game presented its plot. The pacing in the game is just unbearable and frankly game-breaking for what I thought would be an RPG that's more than just a dungeon-crawler. I quit the game cause I couldn't take what felt like endless repetitive battles and wandering with little to no motivation. I also didn't feel attached to the characters at all, and really hated playing as Vaan. Him merely being a vehicle to bring the cast "together" is great and all, but he still felt like dead-weight. I really don't like it when characters are reduced to what feels like a blank canvas just so that they can be the "common man" or an avatar that the player identifies with.

As for the gameplay, I can't comment on direct similarities to XI, but the game does feel like an MMO without the social-features. Which, if I was gonna play an MMO, that's the one draw the genre would have. (At least for me personally.)

I was one of the fans that skipped XI because MMO FF's feel like spin-offs as opposed to mainline titles to me, and XII being what it is was the antithesis of what I wanted to see after XI.

The music was actually OK, but I didn't find a single piece that left an emotional connection with me, or became memorable throughout the years.

If I had to find positive things about XII, the only things that come to mind are the gorgeous environments, and fantastic localisation. Everything else though felt like a let-down.
 
FFXII's localization is so good, I didn't even touch on that but I really should have!

You made me think about FFT PSP's localization. Infinitely better than the PSX localization, but I think they made a few missteps. They went a little too overboard with making everyone wax poetic. That's fine for characters like Ramza's brothers and other nobility. I think it would have been interesting to mix things up. Give "low born characters" more grounded natural styles of speech, and "High born" characters poetic, flowery manners.
 
It's indefensable to me, the worst RPG I've ever played. But I do get the impression that most here enjoy the suffering that is playing that turd and I don't see why it needs any defending. I'd rather just forget it exists.
 
Beautiful game.

I flip between this and FFX as being my favourite in the series. We really need FFXII IZJS HD Remaster with uncompressed music and dialogue.
 
I should probably point out that going in, I was actually super pessimistic. Prior to playing FFXII, the last FF I had enjoyed was FFVII. I disliked FFVIII's art style enough to skip that entry (I ended up playing FFVIII a few years ago and ended up liking it quite a bit). I missed FFIX as well, though now I also enjoy FFIX. I did play FFX and hated it. So in November of 2005, I was quite a downer on the franchise. But then I played the demo of FFXII included with DQVIII (Dragon Quest is my favorite JRPG franchise). It wasn't a great demo. I wouldn't even say it was a good demo. It lacked some of the features that really made FFXII stand out to me. But what was there was enough to really get me excited. Excited enough to buy the collector's edition even.

Curious enough, I actually ended up enjoying FF12 quite a bit more than I enjoyed DQVIII
 
Megalosaro said:
Frankly I'm surprised so many people on GAF like it. I've been ostracized from some boards on GameFAQs because I've had the audacity to speak up in support of FFXII.
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I highly doubt you will find that here. FFXII, while different (combat) is w/o much doubt one of the pinnacle games of the series and the era.
 
FFXII has any number of flaws but it's still a solid game and certainly doesn't embarrass itself being a mainline numbered title.

It's sad to think that after XII we had the FFXIII Trilogy and FFXIV 1.0 and nearly a decade of Squenix lost in the desert before they started turning things around.
 
Megalosaro said:
I've heard many people criticize the game's gambit system. Why? The gambit system is amazing. It can help relieve repetitiveness so much. Because the game "plays itself"? Hardly. I don't care how good you are at setting up your gambits, there is no way you can program it to think of every situation that would arise. Besides, it's kind of like playing a football simulator in a way. Much of FFXII's challenge comes from setting up your party for upcoming situations, so in this regard setting up gambits would be akin picking a play before each down in Madden. It still requires player interaction for situations that are unpredictable. The Zodiac Job System version makes the gambit system even better by allowing players access to every gambit at the beginning of the game, making the system even more useful.
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My main problem with the gambit system is that its customization is time consuming and the lack of gambit profiles. If I change the gambits to suit the enemy I'm currently fighting, I have to overwrite/delete the previous gambit settings. That results in me just not doing any changes at all even though in some areas depending on the enemy you would like to switch between two sets of gambits.

Also, even simple gambits will get you through the game and there is no need to ever manually use magic or items unless to cure a vicious status aflictions (mostly virus really). I think you can even make gambits for that.

If you play it conveniently, all you'll ever do is move your party around. Then it plays itself.

Also, as you pointed out character position hardly plays a role at all. Maybe because a gambit system that would incorporate AI for positioning would have been very complicated? My problem is, they made an unnecessarily complex system (Do I really need to choose the exact percentage of HP at which my character should heal? How does it really differ from "concentrate on healing", "concentrate on offense", "fight balancedly"?) and then they made the game far too easy because they knew their mainstream audience would struggle otherwise.

I much prefer FFXIII's paradigm system. Simple to use but deep in application, and that game has challenging battles in abundance in the main quest.

Story in XII was good, just not as good as you'd expect from Matsuno. Soundtrack was great, setting was too, I really only disliked the overly simple battles resulting from an unnecessarily complex gambit system.

And, yes people told me that the optional enemies require strategy beyond the simple 3 to 4 gambits that will bring you through the rest of the game. Doesn't make the main quest anymore interesting gameplay wise though.
 
The best Final Fantasy doesn't need to be defended. Great gameplay, awesome music, beautiful graphics... FFXII has it all.

Speaking of which, do we know if they are planning to release FFXII HD? I'd love that.
 
I appreciate your effort OP, but Final Fantasy XII is really one game that doesn't need defending, a really good entry to the series!
 
extralite said:
My main problem with the gambit system is that its customization is time consuming and the lack of gambit profiles. If I change the gambits to suit the enemy I'm currently fighting, I have to overwrite/delete the previous gambit settings. That results in me just not doing any changes at all even though in some areas depending on the enemy you would like to switch between two sets of gambits.

Also, even simple gambits will get you through the game and there is no need to ever manually use magic or items unless to cure a vicious status aflictions (mostly virus really). I think you can even make gambits for that.

If you play it conveniently, all you'll ever do is move your party around. Then it plays itself.

Also, as you pointed out character position hardly plays a role at all. Maybe because a gambit system that would incorporate AI for positioning would have been very complicated? My problem is, they made an unnecessarily complex system (Do I really need to choose the exact percentage of HP at which my character should heal? How does it really differ from "concentrate on healing", "concentrate on offense", "fight balancedly"?) and then they made the game far too easy because they knew their mainstream audience would struggle otherwise.

I much prefer FFXIII's paradigm system. Simple to use but deep in application, and that game has challenging battles in abundance in the main quest.

Story in XII was good, just not as good as you'd expect from Matsuno. Soundtrack was great, setting was too, I really only disliked the overly simple battles resulting from an unnecessarily complex gambit system.

And, yes people told me that the optional enemies require strategy beyond the simple 3 to 4 gambits that will bring you through the rest of the game. Doesn't make the main quest anymore interesting gameplay wise though.
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No it doesn't. I made it all the way through using a simple flowchart with no problems. Only the summons required any change in tactics.
 
This game was great. Correct me if I'm wrong but Toriyama wasn't involved in this game and it really shows. No awkward or cringeworthy dialogue can be found.
 
Glad too see pretty much everyone agrees. For me it's by far the best 3D FF, and one of the best post-SNES RPGs. I really liked how pretty much from the beginning, so many areas opened up, and you could get to some pretty late game areas without progressing the story at all if you wanted. Probably does end-game content better than any other RPG I've played; felt just right. With a lvl 99 party, the hardest bosses still posed a challenge.
 
It's Matsuno's most disappointing work. Detached from any higher expectations about the writing, it's a solid mid-tier Final Fantasy. I'd like more if I didn't detest the excessively large focus on boring hunts or if it had been paced better.
 
kunonabi said:
No it doesn't. I made it all the way through using a simple flowchart with no problems. Only the summons required any change in tactics.
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What did you do during battles? Compare that to XII where you have to do nothing except if you haven't set the gambit yet. Once you set it you never have to do anything again.

XIII requires timing, when to change paradigms. Unless maybe if you're overleveled. I wouldn't know. You don't need to be overleveled in XII.
 
Megalosaro said:
FFXII's localization is so good, I didn't even touch on that but I really should have!
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As much as I love Matsuno's works, I have to give credit to Alexander O. Smith's translations and concede that his narrative voice shapes a lot of it. Starting with Vagrant Story, Smith essentially set a new high-bar standard that did not exist before for JRPGs.
 
AsuraJak said:
That was a great read and I'm really glad Gaf likes FF XII. Easily one of my favorite games of all time. Kinda sad you didn't mention Gabranth though, he was such a great character, especially after watching this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2iJ3kYyqWw

Certainly helps that his VA was amazing :D
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Yeah, Gabranth is certainly a highlight as well. In fact, the three main villains of the game, Vayne, Dr. Cid, and Gabranth are my favorite villains in the series.

Gabranth is an excellent foil to Basch. "Even a stray has its pride."

A shame they didn't use Gabranth's va in Dissidia
 
Yup, no defense is needed. The game was fantastic. Easily my favvorite FF next to VIII. Both had relatively mature, political plots (XII more so). Both had an interesting cast of characters. But what really set XII apart from the pack was its willingness to really contemporize the formula with MMORPG systems. It was quite a bold, and creative, move for games in that genre, especially for its time.

I really hope we get an HD remix.
 
Soulflarz said:
It doesnt need defense imo :3
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This. Most anyone that says it's terrible are the ones that brought the "decline" of the series with FF13->on on themselves. :|

Lanrutcon said:
Pity the zodiac edition never reached us.
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Import International, rip the disc, patch with English patch. Play on PCSX2. ????. PROFIT.

I'm nearly tired of waiting for Square to give me a portable version of FF12:I:ZJS in HD at this point to replay International. :(
 
FFXII has the best translation of all time. No need to defend that. However, gameplay wise, it is a bit of a mess. A complete lack of character individualization, a poor and annoyingly lengthy limit break system, weak Espers, poor ability selection (only Telekinesis had any merit), and major queue issues hurt the game's playability. I can't praise the International version enough for fixing the individuation issue but the other problems sadly remain.

Calling FFXIII a terror? Please. I vastly prefer 13's gameplay to 12's due to how much smoother it is and how every ability and spell in 13 matters for survival. The fast forward feature of International does lessen that gap thankfully. 13 and 12's storylines are apples to oranges so there is no real comparison there.

edit: Actually, as an ardent FFXI fan, that may explain my bias against it.
 
I loved everything about 12. It was a sigh of relief that even though ff will never go back to greatness of the snes games that it might continue from this awesome reboot. Then there was 13 and all hope was lost:(
 
You can very clearly tell the part of the game where the new director got involved in.

The game starts off really strong but ends poorly from a story standpoint. Everything else, the music, art style, battle system, and characters are fantastic. Just a poor last 3rd to the game.
 
The triad of Sakimoto, Ito, and Matsuno have made two of my favorite games of all time (Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics).

I'd give anything to see them together again.
 
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