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.

 

[Noon]

Gameplay is fantastic. making different gambits that can snap together or apart with other characters feels so creative, there’s dozens of ways to fight even the same regular enemies, like making weird machinery. I find it’s best to only put in gambits what you can’t do manually, kinda like quick conditionals like healing bad ailments or poaching, and then manually manage the party as a whole. Trying to put everything into gambits will just feel unbalanced at times and boring when it works.

I’ll repeat this a thousand times (especially to myself) if I have to, games are like music instruments, if you don’t do anything interesting with them they won’t do anything interesting for you.

Post automatically merged: Today at 6:36 PM

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.

Even Vaan doesn’t realize he was turned into the protagonist lol

 

[Eduardo2010]

Played it 20 years ago and loved it. Especially rabbit woman.

 

[PSVitaForever]

At least you have played it. I tried FOUR times, and once I got where you have to spread gossips or something like that, but for me it was weird: playing without gambits was almost impossible (everytime you must open the menu), using gambits felt quite complicated with all those different options... and so I gave up, though I would have liked to like it because it's a FF, a saga I love.

 

[Disgaean]

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?

Yus

Post automatically merged: Today at 7:12 PM

Played it 20 years ago and loved it. Especially rabbit woman.

Fran

Post automatically merged: Today at 7:13 PM

Gameplay is fantastic. making different gambits that can snap together or apart with other characters feels so creative, there’s dozens of ways to fight even the same regular enemies, like making weird machinery. I find it’s best to only put in gambits what you can’t do manually, kinda like quick conditionals like healing bad ailments or poaching, and then manually manage the party as a whole. Trying to put everything into gambits will just feel unbalanced at times and boring when it works.

I’ll repeat this a thousand times (especially to myself) if I have to, games are like music instruments, if you don’t do anything interesting with them they won’t do anything interesting for you.

Post automatically merged: Today at 6:36 PM

Even Vaan doesn’t realize he was turned into the protagonist lol

Don't agree at all, but cool that you think that

Post automatically merged: Today at 7:15 PM

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.

I liked the plot when it was ashe and the insurgents trying to stop a war, when it became about stupid crystals and gods fighting each other I mentally tapped out.

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

I love it, my favorite Final Fantasy

Design are good (not amazing), graphics are incredible, music *chef kiss*, but the story can be a little too combulated for its own good.

BUT gameplay wise is where the cake is, peak RPG in my opinion and I cant understand why Square just dropped it after wards, to the point we now just have actions games.

 

[Don Patch]

Yeah, I love everything about it except the battle system.
Wish they'd have iterated on FFX-2's ATB .But, alas...

 

[Daman_1985]

I remember FF XII, I was hyped as hell for the game, coming from FF X and FF X-2 I expected another masterpiece for the PS2. I bought the game in a pack with the game, the official guide and the DVD with the movie FF VII: Advent Children (funny, in the end what I liked most was the movie).

So I started the game, I have no idea of anything about the game (I hadn't yet internet on those times), and proceed with the tutorial. I didn't understand nothing, was an action-rpg? No, wasn't a turn rpg or ATB? No. It was something strange, some sort of hybrid where you can move freely butt you need to input everytthing manually. It was chaotic, for me at least, then tthe gambits clearly helped a little to understand more but not so much.

I didn't like the characters, I didn't like the combat system, I didn't like the license system, etc... I tried, I tried a lot to like the game but was impossible, I just give up in a side quest you need to hunt a special green malboro or something like that. I had completed a huge bunc of the license tabler... It didn't matter, the characters were very weak. I'm sure that I did something wrong back there... But, what was the point? Clearly the game wasn't FF X or FF IX.

The only thing I liked was that the game happens on Ivalice, the same world as FF Tactics Advance, one of my favourites, and even on the FF XII main clan, Montblanc the moggle appear again. But obviously that wasn't enough for me.

Years after that I thought lots of times to try and give a chance to Zodiac System FF XII Edition, I know that edition fix a lot of things of FF XII original but again... What's he point? I know I'm not gonna enjoy the game and that's it.

 

[Graw]

FFXII just felt very bland to me. I don't like it but I don't hate it. It just kind of exists. I got about half way through it and just got too bored to keep playing.

 

[Sheepy765]

I love Ivalice as a setting, the designs for the different races are amazing (the Moogles in particular are my favorite, and the Viera are iconic), I enjoy the music, the story, the art, the gambit system, it all tickles the right parts of my sheep brain.