Appeal of Final Fantasy XII

[Disgaean]

Share with us why you like this game!
I just beat it the other day and did not like it lol.
The art design is gorgeous, no room is without detail, no character without appeal.
The soundtrack by the team who would later become BasisScape is amazing as well.

But in the end this is a videogame, and the game part sucks doo doo buttcheeks.
The crux of the matter is that the game plays itself and I cannot see the appeal in that,
people say that they find satisfying to watch the characters follow their commands properly,
but if its about watching something satisfying, I could just open youtube idk.

I tried to give it a good shot which is crazy because I was kinda not enjoying it lol,
beat the game and did a good part of the hunts and some "difficult" fights that ended
up just being laborious, not really a test of anything other then "Do I have the right
accessory that negates this status effect?", "Did you tell your characters to not use the
attack that benefits the boss?", "Is your level high enough?".

Anyway I gave it go, what do you guys think? Please don't tell me "You didn't fight yiazmat dude"
or "You didn't do the challenge run dude" or "You have to control your main party member dude" thank you.

 

[JellyjamLu]

I'd say the main draw for me is collecting the ultimate weapons, fighting and earning the Espers, the hunt marks, uncovering more of the license boards and organizing the gambits.

I got the most out of this game using a strategy guide for the above back in the day.

 

[4C374552A1CA2638]

The programming is part of the appeal for me. I can't name any party-based action RPG where your other party members aren't handled by the AI (but surely one exists somewhere), so having such a fine degree of control is very interesting. Instead of getting your teeth kicked in and hoping the healer saves your ass in time, you can set exactly when they heal or what status effects they cure. And if things blow up, you can't blame the AI this time! :D

Did you really put everyone on automatic control?

 

[Strategist Strategist]

The auto-control/game plays itself thing is overstated. If it bothers you that much, you can not activate any gambits and do full manual commands. And most boss fights require some amount of manual control. In my opinion, having the characters auto-attack isn't too different from selecting fight every round. I like the strategic aspect of setting gambits, but I admit it needed to be a little deeper for it to be compelling for a whole 60+ hr game.

I think Xenoblade Chronicles implemented a similar combat system more successfully. In XBC, you do get auto-attacks but there's also a timing aspect to building up your special attacks and combos that requires the player to pay attention to the action. We also have to keep in mind that FFXII and XBC were the first JRPGs to come out after the massive success of World of Warcraft so it isn't suprising they took elements from MMOs where autoattacks and automation is more common. In the case of FFXII, it took a lot of ideas from FFXI, which was also an MMO.

 

[PhaseJump]

It's a mature RPG plot with all the peripheral things that make Final Fantasy games worth playing. Pausing & automated gambit mechanics are completely locked out of early gameplay by being equipped variables, so playing itself is a not even an argument.

The worst part about it is the insufferable young lead characters they shoe horned into it due to production changes. Even then, it is better than X and the rest of the series after it.