Spira is the one thing that stops me from fully liking 10. I hate tropical island settings AND anything to do with tribals. I was excited at the beginning but it all evaporated when he got to actual Spira.
16 reminds me a lot of 12. But for all of 12's narrative flaws, it fleshed out Ivalice spectacularly. Teleporting all over the world map into relatively empty locations didn't do it for me with 16.
>world with proper lore and worldbuilding because its creator is a massive autist obsessed with politics and ethnic tensions
No shit it's better than a world created by a guy whose claim to fame was working in a genre based around fetch quests and killing X amount of creatures.
The game had an interesting opening but after ashs give up nethicite power, the game become nonsense even in as anime.ff16 is far better than ff12 in terms of stories.
The voice acting in 12 was so bad I dropped the game twice immediately after getting to Fran's Forest commune. Everyone sounds like they chose to talk through St. Anger's snare drum when recording.
>Stuggle for freedom
I'll take a look at this.
I loved the Zodiac board changes, but the game simply wasn't balanced for it. OG version was much harder, and wasn't even hard.
Statuses gets thrown everywhere now stock up on items.
>The voice acting in 12 was so bad I dropped the game twice immediately after getting to Fran's Forest commune. Everyone sounds like they chose to talk through St. Anger's snare drum when recording.
The dub is actually great. Get some taste.
Although, I will agree the sound quality is shit at times, yeah. SE probably didn't want to pay more to ship the game on a dual layer disc.
Cause they're classical theatrical actors and the English dialogue was deliberately written to be theatrical rather than natural sounding. It gives the game a certain class that no other FF ever managed to replicate.
Only some. You got Gideon Emery doing his standard voice for just about everything and Phil LaMarr as Reddas, which was pretty good. Cid's VA is the major standout in performance.
You're thinking of DQ8 and DQ11. The real difference is that FF12 uses western animation VAs who are very clearly a far higher tier than anime dubbing VAs which is pretty much the lowest of the low. Fricking Grandia II has better voice acting than any Persona game for the same reason. And anime dubbing VAs now are worse than the '90s/2000s once since a lot of those older VAs came from the stage (community theater, granted) whereas most now are Youtubers who at best have experience in fandubs or amateur skits like Ashley Burch. The only current dub VA that's worth a shit is Eden Riegel surprise surprise, she came had an extensive acting background (in daytime soap operas) before getting into dubbing, not being plucked from youtube for being cheap/non-union.
You're right, because I don't pay attention to dub VAs and will always choose JP voices aftet having to shit through so many shitty dubs. I only know when I played, say, SF6, that the voices suck so I change that shit immediately.
Because they performed some fricked up voodoo alchemy bullshit and somehow created a brief window where Square gave a shit about localization. They hired thespian actors to perform the lines and fricking professional playwrights to translate them.
Ivalice Alliance will never, ever be surpassed. It was literally too good for this sinful earth.
Have you heard that they intentionally localized the Occuria to speak in iambic tetrameter, but made Venat speak in iambic pentameter to demonstrate that they were a traitor? I never kneeled so hard to a localization effort as the day I found that out.
I bet I was one of the few people who actually noticed that Gerun was speaking in iambic tetrameter during the game, and it was literally only because we were studying poetic form in class that week.
It’s truly a shame that the efforts were wasted on a game that sucks to play as much as FFXII. It’s a hardcore title through and through, even to a fault.
Because they performed some fricked up voodoo alchemy bullshit and somehow created a brief window where Square gave a shit about localization. They hired thespian actors to perform the lines and fricking professional playwrights to translate them.
Ivalice Alliance will never, ever be surpassed. It was literally too good for this sinful earth.
In the original? It was compressed. They literally needed the space to fit it on the game disc.
It really only applied to the voices, and honestly, it wasn't very poor. I am speaking as a nearly 40-year-old man who is used to hearing cassette tapes play in the car, though.
I honestly never hated it. I basically remember thinking that I wished it was a traditional FF game again, but at least it wasn't another fricking MMO. Man, I had no idea how bad things could still get back then.
12 sucks. Its a shitty offline mmo whose story attempts to rip off star wars until the halfway point where it totally loses the plot and sends you into a series of filler dungeons to collect macguffins. I haven't played 16 and probably never will.
>STILL no single-player version
I'd pay full-price. Right now. It's a crime what's likely the best FF story is going to be lost when it pulls the plug.
And the vast majority of MMOtards are wrong. Game stories are bad as a baseline, FF stories are generally quite bad, FF11 is decent in a sea of shit. That makes it one of the best.
>pretty much everyone who worked on the game said Penelo's their favorite character >almost all of her content was cut for time/space and we'll never know what it was
>Stuggle for freedom
I'll take a look at this.
I loved the Zodiac board changes, but the game simply wasn't balanced for it. OG version was much harder, and wasn't even hard.
I literally had just started playing it right now for the first time. This thread must be an omen. What should I know before going balls deep? I'm playing the OG PS2 version.
Don't attack the T-rex.
Turn off gambits when you see a huge floating ball of energy.
Set Foe HP 100% = Steal.
Game opens up after raithwall, you can make some interesting detours for big gear upgrades.
You should get the IZJS, with English translation patch, in the original version everyone has the same license board so in the end everyone ends up as a carbon copy of each other.
Are you implying the original was difficult? IZJS has 2x speed, more identity to jobs, trial mode, better MP scaling without mist charges,controllable guests, better spell allocation, controllable espers, removed damage cap, removed the ridiculous requirement for the zodiac spear and most importantly, every pharos enemy has a 100% black orb drop rate instead of 33%. I'm only suggesting IZJS because he seems to be playing on a PS2 emulator. The toughest game mode would be zodiac age with the struggle for freedom proud mode mod.
zodiac also has you use your first 300 LP by level 15 to purchase tier 3 armor and weapons, tier 4 spells, and then 2300 bonus HP, five swiftnesses, and more bonus damage through battle/magick lore than you will naturally gain by stats until Cerobi Steppe
I get what you mean but I find breaking the game with knowledge to be fun, like getting a Vrscika and Arcturus even before entering the stillshrine.
10 months ago
Anonymous
> breaking the game with knowledge to be fun
Okay, but that makes it unquestionably incredibly easier. And no, calling it 'easy mode' doesn't imply that the original is overly difficult. Only Sith deal in absolutes.
IZJS boards do have more copies of certain lores compared to the vanilla game but on the same hand, you're definitely not going to have all of that shit with the first 300 LP you have because they're also generally more linear as well. Using Swiftness for example which caps out 3 lores in both games, not every job has 3x swiftness naturally. Not to mention that 3x swiftness is a tad overrated for mages because their action speeds are bottlenecked elsewhere.
The average player is also not going to get shit like the ultimate axe/hammer as soon as its available either. Even getting the early Arcturus in both games requires a lot of patience and luck.
Don't attack the T-rex.
Turn off gambits when you see a huge floating ball of energy.
Set Foe HP 100% = Steal.
Game opens up after raithwall, you can make some interesting detours for big gear upgrades.
You should get the IZJS, with English translation patch, in the original version everyone has the same license board so in the end everyone ends up as a carbon copy of each other.
I personally don't think it's that great, because you have to go for it on your grid, and your going to miss a lot of powerful abilities and weapon proficiencies. I always give vaan the masamune, and I give basch the zodiac spear
All female characters are better with magic. All males are better with physical roles. Assuming it's the same in orginal compared to zodiac. I haven't played the original since I was like 15. There are lots of missable weapons in original. Look up the wiki when you get to end game or you'll miss out on some of the best gear like the genji set.
I know that this is from the remaster but it's still mindboggling how they made the game look nearly that good on a ps2. late PS2 games hold up remarkably well even in the modern day.
For me, it's the characters' faces
It's like such a perfect blend of 'you know they're video game characters, but they feel human'
Meanwhile, so much mocapped shit nowadays looks nothing but off
For me, it's the characters' faces
It's like such a perfect blend of 'you know they're video game characters, but they feel human'
Meanwhile, so much mocapped shit nowadays looks nothing but off
For me, it's the characters' faces
It's like such a perfect blend of 'you know they're video game characters, but they feel human'
Meanwhile, so much mocapped shit nowadays looks nothing but off
It's impressive what SE did with XII's character models. They had like half the polygon count of X's characters but they still manage to look great because of stellar art direction.
Ashe is the main character, Vaan is the perspective character. It's really not as bad as everybody says it is when you consider it like that. Yeah, he's not a great character, but he's also easily ignored.
I think Vaan deserves a bit more credit. I agree that Ashe is the true main character of XII's story but some of her development is tied to Vaan and how their situations mirror each other.
>eye lids opening in surprise >blinking in regular pattern >heads wienering at angles >hands and arms suggesting >eyebrows extremely expressive >quick, sudden head jerk movements >slow, passive motion >natural pace
This game's presentation is outstanding.
it bugs me because it reminds me too much of Luna and Seymour
10 months ago
Anonymous
>Yuna
10 months ago
Anonymous
Al-Cid is certainly a royal playboy using his role in politics to gain what he wants... except, he's GENUINELY a playboy. All he wants is, truly, to bang tons of hot girls from all over Ivalice, from any class.
While Yuna may be "upper class" since she's the daughter of the High Summoner Braska, she's naive and childish and not royal at all. Ashe, however, has been a princess her whole life, in a city that praises her. She was married and Gabranth KILLED her husband to start this game and she is MURDEROUS in her revenge for the man she loved.
And while Seymour may certainly be smooth talking and also very upper-class given that he's the son of the leader of the Guado people and his human mother to seal their political bond... he's nefarious. Al-Cid? Nope. He's supremely royal, but 3rd in line for the thrown, so he gets to just play all day every day without a care in the world or future responsibility. So what does he do? Plays all day and every day. Borderline narcissistic, he's actually extremely social and a massive flirt who characteristically loves to swoon women over to him. Even Ashe, the angry royal who very very very recently had her loved murdered, enjoys his traits and the attention he gives.
I mention all this just to say, I don't really see a grand comparison between the two. Seymour is important, Al-Cid is not. And dang do people like Al-Cid Margrace for being a playboy.
10 months ago
Anonymous
Gabranth didn't kill Rassler, you goober. Gabranth killed Ashe's dad.
late PS 2 games and late ps1 games are strikingly similar visually, they nail the presentation of a lived in visual aesthetic. hair feels like hair, it sits like hair, it functions as hair, clothes look like clothes, etc.
vagrant story at the end of the ps1s lifecycle felt the same way. Square has always had a keen eye for the way in game models should interact with the fashion of their times, and in game models always do well representing their real world counterparts.
Art direction trumps fancy graphics every time. I think pound for pound DQ8 is still among the most beautiful games ever produced and I don't think much, even DQ11, compares to it.
Ashe is the main character, Vaan is the perspective character. It's really not as bad as everybody says it is when you consider it like that. Yeah, he's not a great character, but he's also easily ignored.
At the end of the day, it's an ensemble cast, and everyone gets their limelight
I think the obsession over the 'set the stage' character than is Vaan is very silly, and touted mostly by people who never got past I'M CAPTAIN BASCH
Truthfully, not much would've changed besides the intro. Instead of bumping into the adults, you pick up Vaan and Penelo, but overall once the party is together, it focuses on Ashe's motives and actions regardless.
Ashe is the main character, Vaan is the perspective character. It's really not as bad as everybody says it is when you consider it like that. Yeah, he's not a great character, but he's also easily ignored.
He's also more important to the course of the plot than a lot of people make him out to be.
the story fricked everyone (except Fran, who has her own self-contained story). Vaan is just the worst victim, and Ashe is just the most unscathed being a central motivator for most of what's left of the story.
Basch is Gabranth's twin brother and he doesn't do ANYTHING for the whole game until his final fight with Gabranth where he has 1 scene.
Balthier says he's the leading man but if you actually pay attention he doesn't actually have much going for him. He has no apparent motivation for most of the game other than money, and even when the game drops two massive reveals on him being a former judge and Cid being his father, he still has no role in the story other than being a tourguide in Archades and talking smack to Cid in 1 scene.
The game would have been better if they actually committed to Vaan being a good main character, because they actually set him up really well to be a main character but then just forgot to write a story.
You're much too focused on >X character has to DO THIS and DO THAT
and not realizing what support having a cast of characters entails. Don't claim Basch does nothing when his very existence, so close to the most important people in the game, is what spurs them. Or how Balthier is trying so hard to be impressive he literally tells you he is, except you can tell by watching him it's simply passive-aggressive egoism and even he is smart enough to know it's an act (though he enjoys it). It's one of the reasons Fran sticks around with him (and that he is, genuinely, rich and talented as frick).
The game would NOT have been better if "commited" to Vaan to take action after action after action. The story was not about Vaan. It didn't need to be about Vaan, either. He was very much a plot element. And he filled his role well as a naive, uneducated, orphaned teen who hated his disposition and was learning most of what he knew was a facade or lies and that he needed to be open-minded to a world he didn't even know exist. So many other people, even those who were wealthy beyond measure, had a life so much harder than his. He goal, like he states many times from the beginning, is really just escape from dealing with himself. It makes his perspective relatable for the audience when exposed to the extremely politcal, and magical!, story centered around the world-ending Shard-wielding Humes of Ashe(Raithwall) and Vayne.
I disagree >Don't claim Basch does nothing when his very existence, so close to the most important people in the game, is what spurs them. Or how Balthier is trying so hard to be impressive he literally tells you he is, except you can tell by watching him it's simply passive-aggressive egoism and even he is smart enough to know it's an act
Both Balthier and Basch could have been dropped from the party like Larsa was. That's how poorly the game made use of them. >The story was not about Vaan.
Of course it's not about Vaan, it ends up being about nothing except Ashe. Everyone else ended up having almost nothing to do after the first few hours of the game. >It makes his perspective relatable
No, you're retroactively relegating him to a perspective character because the game doesn't do anything with him after the first few hours.
You'll see that I'm saying "after the first few hours" repeatedly because the game actually has good writing at the start, and you can see how they're setting him up to a tremendous main character. He already starts of with TWO major motivations (frick the Empire, break into life of freedom and become a sky pirate). Look at how he's set up: >Thief with a heart of gold >Wants to rise above his status and become a sky pirate -> Meets Balthier, the best sky pirate ever, and BARGAINS with him into taking him along >Wants to get back at the empire -> Meets Ashe, princess-on-the-run and leader of the resistance. Also he and Ashe both suffered personal losses from the war and are the only two who can see ghosts, capturing both the royal and the general citizenry's responses to the war >Wants to get revenge for his brother -> Meets Basch, the person he thinks betrayed and nearly killed his brother, and who ironically turns out to be a True Knight >Wants to go on all these adventures -> Ends up getting Penelo in trouble
(1/2)
I disagree >Don't claim Basch does nothing when his very existence, so close to the most important people in the game, is what spurs them. Or how Balthier is trying so hard to be impressive he literally tells you he is, except you can tell by watching him it's simply passive-aggressive egoism and even he is smart enough to know it's an act
Both Balthier and Basch could have been dropped from the party like Larsa was. That's how poorly the game made use of them. >The story was not about Vaan.
Of course it's not about Vaan, it ends up being about nothing except Ashe. Everyone else ended up having almost nothing to do after the first few hours of the game. >It makes his perspective relatable
No, you're retroactively relegating him to a perspective character because the game doesn't do anything with him after the first few hours.
You'll see that I'm saying "after the first few hours" repeatedly because the game actually has good writing at the start, and you can see how they're setting him up to a tremendous main character. He already starts of with TWO major motivations (frick the Empire, break into life of freedom and become a sky pirate). Look at how he's set up: >Thief with a heart of gold >Wants to rise above his status and become a sky pirate -> Meets Balthier, the best sky pirate ever, and BARGAINS with him into taking him along >Wants to get back at the empire -> Meets Ashe, princess-on-the-run and leader of the resistance. Also he and Ashe both suffered personal losses from the war and are the only two who can see ghosts, capturing both the royal and the general citizenry's responses to the war >Wants to get revenge for his brother -> Meets Basch, the person he thinks betrayed and nearly killed his brother, and who ironically turns out to be a True Knight >Wants to go on all these adventures -> Ends up getting Penelo in trouble
(1/2)
The only character he doesn't have a strong connection with is Fran. Who else has these many meaningful relationship in the party? Balthier? At best he's connected with Fran and Vaan. Ashe? Basch and Vaan. Penelo? Vaan is the central point of the whole party.
Now you might want to respond that him being the central point just makes him a Really Good Perspective Character, to which I disagree again. You don't set up a character as "aspiring to be a sky pirate" and then have him do nothing relating to being a sky pirate for the whole game (except stealing the car microphone at once point). You don't set him to hate the empire and then have him passively sit in the background and say this is someone else's story. If you look at what's been set up, it's very natural what his arc is meant to be >learns sky pirating from balthier, and become more worldly >have some kind of "rally the rebellion" thing to accompany Ashe's attempt to overturn the empire's rule >learn about true chivalry from Basch and maybe help him fight Gabranth, THE GUY WHO BETRAYED AND DESTROYED HIS BROTHER >at some point realize that his reckless actions are not just putting himself at risk but also those around him, when there's some imperial repraisal against the people of Rabanaste for Vaan fighting against them
This is not to say that Vaan is the only character who should be doing anything. Like I said, ALL the characters got fricked. Basch and Ashe should have been the strategic leaders of the party, making war and politics plans. Balthier should have had his background revealed much earlier and maybe the plot would actually do something with it, using both his former aristocratic and now illicit connections to get around. Fran probably should have more to do and say about humans fricking up the world.
If it's not already clear, I fricking love the first few hours of FF12 and am still assmad 17 years later about how it was all squandered.
(2/2)
I liked it but I wish there was more of the sky pirate bit where you're not just saving the angel dragon dudes islands and ending evil
hearing the music through ds compression sucks too, bigly
I purchased it and enjoyed it thoroughly. It maintains the FFTA atmosphere for Ivalice with an RTS rock-paper-scissor gameplay alongside flying people and half-eared bunny girls. It's not some huge storyline (there is story, of course), but it's fun to follow the world of Ivalice some more in the renegade fun of a sky-pirate. There is a large, world-saving goal, too.
Honestly, what I remember the most was being able to collect a large team and grind any time I wanted to, including the end-game.
I purchased it and enjoyed it thoroughly. It maintains the FFTA atmosphere for Ivalice with an RTS rock-paper-scissor gameplay alongside flying people and half-eared bunny girls. It's not some huge storyline (there is story, of course), but it's fun to follow the world of Ivalice some more in the renegade fun of a sky-pirate. There is a large, world-saving goal, too.
Honestly, what I remember the most was being able to collect a large team and grind any time I wanted to, including the end-game.
>12s aesthetic and worldbuilding mogs literally every other final fantasy game.
A part of that is because the bestiary alone has a novella's worth of worldbuilding.
Genuinely, no, and I doubt there is.
In terms of amount, Siralim blows it out of the water and has a similar style in that the bestiary entries are lore-based and not necessarily just one-line descriptions of the monster, but the writing quality in that isn't remotely comparable to what you see in FF12. That's the closest I can think of, too.
nothing even comes close, honestly. the fact that most entries got both a main entry for the actual subject and a bonus entry purely for flavor was mind blowing. I would go out farming enemies just so I could see what the bonus entries were.
Sometimes it felt like they were just writing shit for the world and were like 'Oh shit this is good, where can I put it?' and then another guy was like 'uuuuuh bestiary' and so they just dumped massive amounts of lore because it was already there and they might as well.
There are actually quite a large number of Square games set in the world of Ivalice. Even Ivalice, itself, is no where close to being a "global" setting; it's actually a very small part of the map. Maybe 20% of the world, maximum, and it's focused mostly around its medieval magic and tech somewhere in what we would consider the Mediterranean and Middle East.
what I meant was an Easter egg like in tactics, or even vagrant story. that would be sweet to summon in a soldier from another dimension like why Ramaza and Mustadio did. just as a fun little secret.
Wellllllll... While the plot of FFXII certainly could make character references and team summons and what not towards other Ivalice games, the story absolutely could not.
Tactics (FFT, FFTA, FFTA2, etc) had very large barracks of playable characters that had a line and never spoke again. It had a few main characters that was really about 2 or maybe 3 and then support after support after support.
But with FFXII's Ivalice, even 6 members of your team was big for its story. They ALL played parts, spoke lines, and integrated into why they were there doing those things, even as incidentally destined it may have seemed. Simply including too much was distracting from this very theatrical storyline. Many don't even remember Ba'Gamnan.
yeah I agree, but just as a fun secret they should have had a secret side quests finding ancient technology that focused with the crystals, and possibly summoned Mustadio from fft. he could be like a Balthier replacement. they did allow him in fft wotl.
>FFT remaster soon.
I hope it has the same cheat options as the pixel remaster games (ie. increased gold, exp etc) because I will crank the JP boost way up for chapter 4. Frick having to grind all those characters to make them good.
I don't even consider that shit cheating, it's just lessening having to do the same shit over and over. I played the FF6 one and cranked the money and AP modifiers to x4 because frick having to do sit around forever grinding ghosts in WoB to get Maduin's spells or whatever. It's a bit different than the FF7 one where your health and limit refill every round... which I did use to make limit grinding faster since I always make sure I have all of them by the time I get Cid anyway in every other playthrough.
I've played this game through 3/4 multiple times but always got bored. This is the start of the death of final fantasy. It had a nice premise, but the mmo-like quests just got worse and worse with every game. RIP
Vaan completes his character arc and becomes a heroic sky pirate
License system actually allows meaningful customization and specialization rather than everyone becoming red mages
Probably Espers playing a bigger plot role
The judges were the most underwhelming part of FFXII for me. I was expecting them to be these super badass No More Heroes style bosses but they fricking sucked my balls.
You guys got me to replay the game again. I'll use that Struggle mod.
Is there any good way to guarantee more consistent Rare game spawns for the hunt dudes?
They all felt like 'Just look it up or be lucky' and frick if I can remember them now
>Is there any good way to guarantee more consistent Rare game spawns for the hunt dudes? >They all felt like 'Just look it up or be lucky' and frick if I can remember them now
a lot of rare game spawns are extremely conditional and you wouldn't run into them naturally. some are super common and borderline pests like the helvinek and negalmuur while others are just weird like gray molter. >In-game timer must be between :10 and :20 minutes.
my favorite is the Molen one where you have to enter this secret passage behind a sandfall and stand at a peak and look at this particular tunnel from there to get it to spawn in another part of the map.
I think I played it around 2004 and fell in love immediately as well, it's very self consistent. It's very nice when you can play a game and tell from the onset that it's going to deliver.
No. I got memed into it playing it back in 2018 because of all the hype people on Ganker were spouting in favor of it (despite having played it before and finding it to be boring as shit), and sure enough, it never got any better. It burned me out pretty substantially.
x sucks dude. it doesn't get good until end game, and the only reason I give it credit is for blitzball, and being able to recruit your team. it's a haw game and jam all the good stuff right at the end.
I like ff12, and the zodiac age. the thing is don't understand why they even made a $60 strategy guide for it. the game is easy as shit. I remember wasting gilgamesh in the hunts like he was nothing. the game is just too easy
Gilgamesh isn't giga hard, but the fight is great. Hell Wyrm, Yiazmat, Zodiark, Omega and probably some other hunts I forgot are harder. King Behemoth. Haven't even mentioned Trial 100 which is brutal.
The reason why there's a strategy guide because some side quests are really hard to do without using GameFAQs. Locating the end game hunts are also really hard without it as the game doesn't tell you. This game and even more so FFX-2 benefit from using guides/GameFAQs.
>2.5-4 hour boss fight
Trial 100 was fricking insane. The worst part was that part of the recommended build in the vanilla version was to get the Yagyu Darkblade which was the most cancerous fricking grind I’ve ever endured in my entire life. The only other game I’ve played that had such little regard for human concepts of real time was WoW.
And your reward for completing it is this useless piece of shit.
>similar to Dragon quest sword
It IS Loto's sword, from Dragon Quest 3. It's outright called Tolo's sword (loto backwards) in the JP version
The whole gag is that in the process of traveling across dimensions (different final fantasy games) gilgamesh at some point visited a dragon quest setting and found that.
10 months ago
Anonymous
>We will never have Gilgamesh show up as a superboss in a Dragon Quest game
>Gilgamesh fricking visited the DQ1-3(and 11, lol) world >mfw nothing came out of this(so far)
for fricks sake they better add him as a secret boss in DQ3HD
I liked the aesthetics and overall way the game played but genuinely couldn't give a single flying frick about any of the characters or the main story and always wished I could just turn it into a pseudo dungeon crawler with my own custom party.
>Dude what if we made literally half the cast be inconsequential to the story >Dude what if we made multiple cutscenes where the main character has no idea what's going on and just stands in the background while people who matter speak >Dude what if we made a character who's literally just a random girl off the street >Dude what if we made a character with an interesting and nuanced backstory and then only let the player use him in one dungeon, at the end of which he dies >Dude what if we made a villain who has zero emotional connection to the heroes and doesn't even meet them until the last ten minutes >Dude what if we took an established setting with a million interesting species and then only included humans and bunny humans as playable characters >Dude what if we gave the narrator a comical Apu accent >Dude what if we made a complicated political plot and then ruined it by turning it into standard ancient god shenanigans halfway through >Dude what if we made a plot where the heroes have almost no impact on what happens until 95% of the way through the story, and they spend their time tromping from one ancient temple to the next >Dude what if I'm Captain Basch >Dude what if we took everything 100% seriously and had zero levity outside of Balthier and Cid >Dude what if we wrote all of the dialogue to sound like a Renaissance Fair >Dude what if we we had no overworld and all travel was handled by a menu or floating teleport crystals >Dude what if we made a level-up system where all of the characters become literally identical in function >Dude what if we made summons useless except for opening doors >Dude what if we put all of the interesting and unique content in sidequests >Dude what if instead of having fun side games like the motorcycle chase and Triple Triad we had nothing >Dude what if Star Wars
>and in the end you had just 3 brutes auto attacking mindlessly
tbf this wasn't because autoattacks were particularly strong. spell queue just fricking sucked in vanilla and handicapped magic dps.
I always liked vanilla XII but after replaying it on the Zodiac version I've come to appreciate it even more. The attention to detail is fricking mesmerizing and exploring the dungeons/rounding up loot is still fun. I've even found new appreciation for the Great Crystal which filtered the frick out of me as a kid.
>play it until you get to control idiot hero after the tutorial >turn the game off after 10 minutes and never touch it again
FF16 doesn't have a protagonist who makes me go and trade the disc the same day I played it for the first time.
I always thought people liked ff12
I didn't play it because I hated the full 3d final fantasy games
I didn't realize why until I saw ff16 npc interaction and how fricking awful in that game
the standing perfectly still with shit mouth movements was just too much for me
12 was beautiful in every way.
It was also too slow and long for its own good.
The speed up feature of the ZJS version made 12 much more fun with me.
Gambit is an amazing system, and I love that it was even included in dragon age origins.
FF12 > any xenoshit game
12's setting is so fricking weird when it comes to the level of tech on display. Why are armies still primarily fielding ground troops with swords and fullplate when airship armadas exist? How the hell did IVs even become a thing when healing magic exists?
>Why are armies still primarily fielding ground troops with swords and fullplate when airship armadas exist?
anon this was addressed in the opening fmv. there are these things called palings that stop airships from moving in so the imperials had to get in there with infantry and kill the mages keeping up the paling before the airships could provide air support. airships also can't cross over jagd areas because their magic skystones don't work there.
12's setting is so fricking weird when it comes to the level of tech on display. Why are armies still primarily fielding ground troops with swords and fullplate when airship armadas exist? How the hell did IVs even become a thing when healing magic exists?
Why aren't the infantry armed with rifles?
Why the frick would a nation capable of producing fighters opt to use BOWS over guns?
Why is mundane medical technology so advanced in a world where healing potions are commonplace? They wouldn't have any reason to invent stethoscopes and IVs when magic exists.
>Why aren't the infantry armed with rifles? >Why the frick would a nation capable of producing fighters opt to use BOWS over guns?
all the guns are relatively primitive and take a bajillion years to fire in-game with the basic attack. irl there was a period in which guns, bows, and crossbows were all fielded simultaneously so it isn't unheard of. >Why is mundane medical technology so advanced in a world where healing potions are commonplace? They wouldn't have any reason to invent stethoscopes and IVs when magic exists.
magic and items don't do everything automatically. if they were the be all end all solution to medical problems the nearby attendants would have just dropped an antidote and phoenix down on emperor gramis and giga cucked vayne's plan.
All of the fighters have full auto guns and they aren't that big going by the POV shots. Hell Cid even has a fricking minigun. It's absurd that there isn't a single rank and file Arcadian soldier seen firing a gun.
Because there's magic but not necessarily communications technology so not everyone is playing on equal fields. Sort of the same situation when Europeans first came over to America and were shitting on native archers and slingers with guns, cannons, and naval vessels.
its the FFT theme/ location and setting. thats why its so good. ivalice should have been the setting for ff16, and it should have been dark gritty with good writing and less gimmicky QTE cutscenes
I'm enjoying FF16 but holy mother of frick was Annabelle a better villain than Barnabas.
Every single cutscene he's in is exactly the same, he's so boring
why the shit did square think a dude who only knows five words and two of them are different ways to say Ultima, is more engaging that your own evil stepmother who killed your family out of a desire for political power?
Dropped after the marquis betrays you.
Boring auto play, boring long ass dungeons and hallways, boring progression, boring characters. The only good things were Balthy and aesthetics.
I love XI and I thought I could like this one, but they're nothing alike.
>opening is straight out of Ep1 >Balthier is Han Solo, Fran is Chewie >Basch is Kenobi >Ashe is Leia >Vaan/Penelo is Luke >Gabranth is kind of like Vader
Vaan even gets to become a space pirate later on so it's kind of a Luke situation but a bit shifted
By later you mean the next game, basically, so I don't think it counts.
Basch is... not Kenobi. They don't even share any similarity besides being veterans.
Ashe/Balthier/Fran are correct though.
The argument was definitely with one of those people who got too high on their own "you just call everything with an evil empire 'Star Wars'" circlejerk
If you think a farm boy saving a princess and fighting an evil wizard who corrupted an empire is specific to star wars, then I don't know what to tell you. It's not "star wars" you basedshit. That's european fantasy in general. Just in space.
>really enjoyed 12 >tried 14 but got absolutely filtered by it being an MMO
12 worked so well for me but actual MMOs to me are as low as sports game. Truly unplayable, mindless boring garbage. MMOs just feel like glorified chat rooms to me. The whole game was just fetch quest spam.
MMO's are garbage. I'll never understand how people play that shit.
12 is one of my favorites but I played Zodiac Age first
The only issue I have with FF12 is that because you get to explore on your own quite a bit the story beats get spread too far apart for the narrative to convey any sense of urgency.
This hurts the story, which actually develops quite nicely, because you simply forget about it by the time you reach the next key location.
I think this irked a lot of the classic FF fans beacuse on top of them not "getting" the new combat system (which you could play EXACTLY like the regular FF one if you so choose by not using gambits at all) they couldn't get into the story since it was too spread out.
>really enjoyed 12 >tried 14 but got absolutely filtered by it being an MMO
12 worked so well for me but actual MMOs to me are as low as sports game. Truly unplayable, mindless boring garbage. MMOs just feel like glorified chat rooms to me. The whole game was just fetch quest spam.
16 is just so... brown. Not only literally. Everything about it feels brown. 12 isn't brown, 12 is more iridescent. Instead of mixing all the colors until they become one color, it mixes them just enough to get a bunch of metallic patterns.
they aren't going for remotely the same kind of fantasy but there's something to be said for the environment designers of XII being able to pull off what they did on the PS2. XII was truly the last of the greats.
Funnily enough, that's the one part of FF13 I liked. Why pretend that this is an open world MMORPG? If I wanted that I'd just play an open world MMORPG. Why create branches just to accidentally go down the right one first and back-track?
A clean line IS a design. Can you answer your own question? There are plenty of successful JRPGs that have very linear map design. I mean have you ever studied how pathetic KH2's maps are? If anything the fact that so many reviewers were distracted by FF13's map design is that the individual lines between each segment were too long and that the combat occupying them was so unsatisfying and unnecessarily tedious. Plenty of JRPGs out there follow the same "constant action, constantly pushing the plot forward and burning all bridges behind them until maybe opening up for re-exploration at the very end" approach.
>make game with actual RPG mechanics >everyone loses their minds >game tanks
Remember to never listen to your fanbase, ever. That's the reason we got XIII, too.
Zesty
In a better timeline where this game had been properly finished, he would have been a proper party member.
SQEnix going the moron route killed ivalice alliance for good didn't it?
This is unfair, nothing will ever surpass Ivalice, NOTHING.
I think Spira gets close visually but it dosent have the same depth
Spira is alright but the cultures it uses as inspiration to mesh together for its aesthetics come off as off putting.
It's a weird mixture of south east Asian, Polynesian, and Nike aesthetic.
Granted half of the outfits in 12 put lulu's fricking belt dress to shame.
Spira is the one thing that stops me from fully liking 10. I hate tropical island settings AND anything to do with tribals. I was excited at the beginning but it all evaporated when he got to actual Spira.
Spira improves once you get away from the cartoon tropical island aesthetic of the very beginning (after leaving Zanarkand obviously)
I'll admit it does but I still somehow disliked the setting. At least the game has a good mc, soundtrack and its turn based.
16 reminds me a lot of 12. But for all of 12's narrative flaws, it fleshed out Ivalice spectacularly. Teleporting all over the world map into relatively empty locations didn't do it for me with 16.
>world with proper lore and worldbuilding because its creator is a massive autist obsessed with politics and ethnic tensions
No shit it's better than a world created by a guy whose claim to fame was working in a genre based around fetch quests and killing X amount of creatures.
The game had an interesting opening but after ashs give up nethicite power, the game become nonsense even in as anime.ff16 is far better than ff12 in terms of stories.
1
2
>mogs
posting in a basic b***h thread
How come the VA for this was godly and since then we got literal garbage for VA ever since. Balthier and Larsa were amazing.
The voice acting in 12 was so bad I dropped the game twice immediately after getting to Fran's Forest commune. Everyone sounds like they chose to talk through St. Anger's snare drum when recording.
Holy shit I've never seen this level of shit taste on this board before.
I think he's complaining about the compression
Mad he insulted your favorite nu-FF with the truth kek? The only and last good VA FF had.
You're incredibly stupid.
Compression to fit on a CD =/= bad voice acting, homosexual
It was going pretty good till HARK!
then I just started laughing.
The HARK was kino dont lie to yourself
Statuses gets thrown everywhere now stock up on items.
>The voice acting in 12 was so bad I dropped the game twice immediately after getting to Fran's Forest commune. Everyone sounds like they chose to talk through St. Anger's snare drum when recording.
The dub is actually great. Get some taste.
Although, I will agree the sound quality is shit at times, yeah. SE probably didn't want to pay more to ship the game on a dual layer disc.
Cause they're classical theatrical actors and the English dialogue was deliberately written to be theatrical rather than natural sounding. It gives the game a certain class that no other FF ever managed to replicate.
Only some. You got Gideon Emery doing his standard voice for just about everything and Phil LaMarr as Reddas, which was pretty good. Cid's VA is the major standout in performance.
You're thinking of DQ8 and DQ11. The real difference is that FF12 uses western animation VAs who are very clearly a far higher tier than anime dubbing VAs which is pretty much the lowest of the low. Fricking Grandia II has better voice acting than any Persona game for the same reason. And anime dubbing VAs now are worse than the '90s/2000s once since a lot of those older VAs came from the stage (community theater, granted) whereas most now are Youtubers who at best have experience in fandubs or amateur skits like Ashley Burch. The only current dub VA that's worth a shit is Eden Riegel surprise surprise, she came had an extensive acting background (in daytime soap operas) before getting into dubbing, not being plucked from youtube for being cheap/non-union.
does grandia 2 get good
from the moment you turn it on
name 5 dub VA's that are worser than the 90s/2000s dubs I'll wait (: bet you can't lol
You're right, because I don't pay attention to dub VAs and will always choose JP voices aftet having to shit through so many shitty dubs. I only know when I played, say, SF6, that the voices suck so I change that shit immediately.
Have you heard that they intentionally localized the Occuria to speak in iambic tetrameter, but made Venat speak in iambic pentameter to demonstrate that they were a traitor? I never kneeled so hard to a localization effort as the day I found that out.
I bet I was one of the few people who actually noticed that Gerun was speaking in iambic tetrameter during the game, and it was literally only because we were studying poetic form in class that week.
Yeah and that shit is legendary
Every single monologue in this game is Shakespearian bullshit and I love it so much.
It’s truly a shame that the efforts were wasted on a game that sucks to play as much as FFXII. It’s a hardcore title through and through, even to a fault.
Because they performed some fricked up voodoo alchemy bullshit and somehow created a brief window where Square gave a shit about localization. They hired thespian actors to perform the lines and fricking professional playwrights to translate them.
Ivalice Alliance will never, ever be surpassed. It was literally too good for this sinful earth.
why was the recording sound quality so poor
In the original? It was compressed. They literally needed the space to fit it on the game disc.
It really only applied to the voices, and honestly, it wasn't very poor. I am speaking as a nearly 40-year-old man who is used to hearing cassette tapes play in the car, though.
It's certainly not bad in absolute terms, but when you play it you can certainly tell that it's worse than it ought to be.
I honestly never hated it. I basically remember thinking that I wished it was a traditional FF game again, but at least it wasn't another fricking MMO. Man, I had no idea how bad things could still get back then.
Balthier’s VA is literally in FF7R.
He's also the Crusader in Diablo 3, I was so shocked to hear him in there.
Voice acting in 12 wasn't as good as 14 or 16.
He was also Urianger in A Realm Reborn, but got replaced by a better voice actor in the expansions who is actually English.
12 sucks. Its a shitty offline mmo whose story attempts to rip off star wars until the halfway point where it totally loses the plot and sends you into a series of filler dungeons to collect macguffins. I haven't played 16 and probably never will.
It is amazing how much bullshit you spewed. Did you read or think before posting this?
you're discussing with an AI poster, anon
>star wars
Black person are you moronic
>star wars
t. I read a bunch of reviews and have never played the game. Sad!
Ff12 is normie filter. You’re a midwit normie moron
>offline mmo
>star wars
>macguffins
Tell you didn't play the game without telling me you didn't play the game.
>mogs every other FF game's aesthetic and its not even close
There were a lot of boring empty areas in XI, but shit like Promyvion and Al'Taieu are nonpareil.
Those music-less empty areas just add to the charm
>STILL no single-player version
I'd pay full-price. Right now. It's a crime what's likely the best FF story is going to be lost when it pulls the plug.
>best FF story
Every MMOtard says that about every MMO they play and the stories are always shit
14 pulls everything from 11. 14 will never beat 11's soundtrack though.
And the vast majority of MMOtards are wrong. Game stories are bad as a baseline, FF stories are generally quite bad, FF11 is decent in a sea of shit. That makes it one of the best.
>decent
Not even in the top 5
MMOs, by their very nature, cannot have good stories.
Why not just play with trust? People still jump in.
I'm pretty sure there are private servers
I love FF12 but its a true normie filter.
Its not going to click with a frick ton of people
3
4
Every FF mogs GoT "aesthetic", even the 2D ones
It's my favorite cast of FF characters. It's one of my least favorite to play. Thank god the music is fricking 9/10 to 10/10 throughout.
only chads enjoying 12
Fran's Big Bunny Butt!
>The duality of man
>pretty much everyone who worked on the game said Penelo's their favorite character
>almost all of her content was cut for time/space and we'll never know what it was
You are welcome
penelo imho
WOOHOO AI SLOP
Playing it with the Stuggle for freedom mod now. I think I've spent over 300 hours on FF12 including my childhood hours.
>Stuggle for freedom
I'll take a look at this.
I loved the Zodiac board changes, but the game simply wasn't balanced for it. OG version was much harder, and wasn't even hard.
I literally had just started playing it right now for the first time. This thread must be an omen. What should I know before going balls deep? I'm playing the OG PS2 version.
Don't attack the T-rex.
Turn off gambits when you see a huge floating ball of energy.
Set Foe HP 100% = Steal.
Game opens up after raithwall, you can make some interesting detours for big gear upgrades.
You should get the IZJS, with English translation patch, in the original version everyone has the same license board so in the end everyone ends up as a carbon copy of each other.
>You should get the IZJS, with English translation patch,
Sure, if you want to play easy mode.
Are you implying the original was difficult? IZJS has 2x speed, more identity to jobs, trial mode, better MP scaling without mist charges,controllable guests, better spell allocation, controllable espers, removed damage cap, removed the ridiculous requirement for the zodiac spear and most importantly, every pharos enemy has a 100% black orb drop rate instead of 33%. I'm only suggesting IZJS because he seems to be playing on a PS2 emulator. The toughest game mode would be zodiac age with the struggle for freedom proud mode mod.
zodiac also has you use your first 300 LP by level 15 to purchase tier 3 armor and weapons, tier 4 spells, and then 2300 bonus HP, five swiftnesses, and more bonus damage through battle/magick lore than you will naturally gain by stats until Cerobi Steppe
I get what you mean but I find breaking the game with knowledge to be fun, like getting a Vrscika and Arcturus even before entering the stillshrine.
> breaking the game with knowledge to be fun
Okay, but that makes it unquestionably incredibly easier. And no, calling it 'easy mode' doesn't imply that the original is overly difficult. Only Sith deal in absolutes.
IZJS boards do have more copies of certain lores compared to the vanilla game but on the same hand, you're definitely not going to have all of that shit with the first 300 LP you have because they're also generally more linear as well. Using Swiftness for example which caps out 3 lores in both games, not every job has 3x swiftness naturally. Not to mention that 3x swiftness is a tad overrated for mages because their action speeds are bottlenecked elsewhere.
The average player is also not going to get shit like the ultimate axe/hammer as soon as its available either. Even getting the early Arcturus in both games requires a lot of patience and luck.
>Turn off gambits
Not a problem with foe>party leader target
No the entites get all uppity and will wreck you when you cast any kind of magick near them. Like cure.
Bro. How far did you even get?
And also:
DONT SELL CERTAIN LOOT until you are ready to. Off the top of my head these include
>Giant serpentskin
>Mallet
Big thanks, king!
You might want to check a guide so you for a particular easy missable weapon called the Zodiac spear which can be missed if you open certain chests.
that's the ultimate weapon
Imagine how bummed out he's going to be knowing he missed it. I know that feeling.
I personally don't think it's that great, because you have to go for it on your grid, and your going to miss a lot of powerful abilities and weapon proficiencies. I always give vaan the masamune, and I give basch the zodiac spear
same weapon you can steal from elmdor in the psx version of fft
Well, shit, guys, thanks for the heads up but I have already opened one of those chests. How the hell was I supposed to know?
you can't be that far in. recommend getting it if you've never got it before. it's kind of overrated
you're not, it's a secret.
it's like feeling bad about not entering an infinite health cheat before pressing start in a game.
learn quickenings as soon as you can afford them, don't put it off like idiot me on my first run while trying to run a mage build
and on that note, don't run a mage build
All female characters are better with magic. All males are better with physical roles. Assuming it's the same in orginal compared to zodiac. I haven't played the original since I was like 15. There are lots of missable weapons in original. Look up the wiki when you get to end game or you'll miss out on some of the best gear like the genji set.
DONT OPEN THE CHESTS
Just look up miss-able stuff, that's all you should worry about.
Sex with Fran
This woman was so damn hot, she managed to get an entire race into XIV
you want to frick a rabbit?
The older I get, the more I enjoy FFXII
Based
I know that this is from the remaster but it's still mindboggling how they made the game look nearly that good on a ps2. late PS2 games hold up remarkably well even in the modern day.
For me, it's the characters' faces
It's like such a perfect blend of 'you know they're video game characters, but they feel human'
Meanwhile, so much mocapped shit nowadays looks nothing but off
It's supremely well-detailed.
How do you respond to this without sounding mad?
Just gotta take the L and move on and not take it to heart. If the whole friend group shits on you there is simply no rebuttal.
It's impressive what SE did with XII's character models. They had like half the polygon count of X's characters but they still manage to look great because of stellar art direction.
I think Vaan deserves a bit more credit. I agree that Ashe is the true main character of XII's story but some of her development is tied to Vaan and how their situations mirror each other.
>eye lids opening in surprise
>blinking in regular pattern
>heads wienering at angles
>hands and arms suggesting
>eyebrows extremely expressive
>quick, sudden head jerk movements
>slow, passive motion
>natural pace
This game's presentation is outstanding.
it bugs me because it reminds me too much of Luna and Seymour
>Yuna
Al-Cid is certainly a royal playboy using his role in politics to gain what he wants... except, he's GENUINELY a playboy. All he wants is, truly, to bang tons of hot girls from all over Ivalice, from any class.
While Yuna may be "upper class" since she's the daughter of the High Summoner Braska, she's naive and childish and not royal at all. Ashe, however, has been a princess her whole life, in a city that praises her. She was married and Gabranth KILLED her husband to start this game and she is MURDEROUS in her revenge for the man she loved.
And while Seymour may certainly be smooth talking and also very upper-class given that he's the son of the leader of the Guado people and his human mother to seal their political bond... he's nefarious. Al-Cid? Nope. He's supremely royal, but 3rd in line for the thrown, so he gets to just play all day every day without a care in the world or future responsibility. So what does he do? Plays all day and every day. Borderline narcissistic, he's actually extremely social and a massive flirt who characteristically loves to swoon women over to him. Even Ashe, the angry royal who very very very recently had her loved murdered, enjoys his traits and the attention he gives.
I mention all this just to say, I don't really see a grand comparison between the two. Seymour is important, Al-Cid is not. And dang do people like Al-Cid Margrace for being a playboy.
Gabranth didn't kill Rassler, you goober. Gabranth killed Ashe's dad.
late PS 2 games and late ps1 games are strikingly similar visually, they nail the presentation of a lived in visual aesthetic. hair feels like hair, it sits like hair, it functions as hair, clothes look like clothes, etc.
vagrant story at the end of the ps1s lifecycle felt the same way. Square has always had a keen eye for the way in game models should interact with the fashion of their times, and in game models always do well representing their real world counterparts.
Art direction trumps fancy graphics every time. I think pound for pound DQ8 is still among the most beautiful games ever produced and I don't think much, even DQ11, compares to it.
god, 18yo me was such a moron for not being able to appreciate Fran's precious ass
Good man.
This was such a good scene.
Brought a tear to my eye when The Wood still loved Fran.
Both are trash
Whats everyone's opinion- Would the game have been better if Balthier, Ashe, or Basch were the mains?
My opinion is that that's not a real question.
Ashe is the main character, and anyone who played past the Leviathan knows that.
Ashe is the main character, Vaan is the perspective character. It's really not as bad as everybody says it is when you consider it like that. Yeah, he's not a great character, but he's also easily ignored.
I like imagining that basch is the main character, because he has the true hero back story. I know he isn't.
At the end of the day, it's an ensemble cast, and everyone gets their limelight
I think the obsession over the 'set the stage' character than is Vaan is very silly, and touted mostly by people who never got past I'M CAPTAIN BASCH
basch is my favorite character in 12.
Truthfully, not much would've changed besides the intro. Instead of bumping into the adults, you pick up Vaan and Penelo, but overall once the party is together, it focuses on Ashe's motives and actions regardless.
He's also more important to the course of the plot than a lot of people make him out to be.
the story fricked everyone (except Fran, who has her own self-contained story). Vaan is just the worst victim, and Ashe is just the most unscathed being a central motivator for most of what's left of the story.
Basch is Gabranth's twin brother and he doesn't do ANYTHING for the whole game until his final fight with Gabranth where he has 1 scene.
Balthier says he's the leading man but if you actually pay attention he doesn't actually have much going for him. He has no apparent motivation for most of the game other than money, and even when the game drops two massive reveals on him being a former judge and Cid being his father, he still has no role in the story other than being a tourguide in Archades and talking smack to Cid in 1 scene.
The game would have been better if they actually committed to Vaan being a good main character, because they actually set him up really well to be a main character but then just forgot to write a story.
You're much too focused on
>X character has to DO THIS and DO THAT
and not realizing what support having a cast of characters entails. Don't claim Basch does nothing when his very existence, so close to the most important people in the game, is what spurs them. Or how Balthier is trying so hard to be impressive he literally tells you he is, except you can tell by watching him it's simply passive-aggressive egoism and even he is smart enough to know it's an act (though he enjoys it). It's one of the reasons Fran sticks around with him (and that he is, genuinely, rich and talented as frick).
The game would NOT have been better if "commited" to Vaan to take action after action after action. The story was not about Vaan. It didn't need to be about Vaan, either. He was very much a plot element. And he filled his role well as a naive, uneducated, orphaned teen who hated his disposition and was learning most of what he knew was a facade or lies and that he needed to be open-minded to a world he didn't even know exist. So many other people, even those who were wealthy beyond measure, had a life so much harder than his. He goal, like he states many times from the beginning, is really just escape from dealing with himself. It makes his perspective relatable for the audience when exposed to the extremely politcal, and magical!, story centered around the world-ending Shard-wielding Humes of Ashe(Raithwall) and Vayne.
Plus, FFXII's setting is phenomenal.
I disagree
>Don't claim Basch does nothing when his very existence, so close to the most important people in the game, is what spurs them. Or how Balthier is trying so hard to be impressive he literally tells you he is, except you can tell by watching him it's simply passive-aggressive egoism and even he is smart enough to know it's an act
Both Balthier and Basch could have been dropped from the party like Larsa was. That's how poorly the game made use of them.
>The story was not about Vaan.
Of course it's not about Vaan, it ends up being about nothing except Ashe. Everyone else ended up having almost nothing to do after the first few hours of the game.
>It makes his perspective relatable
No, you're retroactively relegating him to a perspective character because the game doesn't do anything with him after the first few hours.
You'll see that I'm saying "after the first few hours" repeatedly because the game actually has good writing at the start, and you can see how they're setting him up to a tremendous main character. He already starts of with TWO major motivations (frick the Empire, break into life of freedom and become a sky pirate). Look at how he's set up:
>Thief with a heart of gold
>Wants to rise above his status and become a sky pirate -> Meets Balthier, the best sky pirate ever, and BARGAINS with him into taking him along
>Wants to get back at the empire -> Meets Ashe, princess-on-the-run and leader of the resistance. Also he and Ashe both suffered personal losses from the war and are the only two who can see ghosts, capturing both the royal and the general citizenry's responses to the war
>Wants to get revenge for his brother -> Meets Basch, the person he thinks betrayed and nearly killed his brother, and who ironically turns out to be a True Knight
>Wants to go on all these adventures -> Ends up getting Penelo in trouble
(1/2)
The only character he doesn't have a strong connection with is Fran. Who else has these many meaningful relationship in the party? Balthier? At best he's connected with Fran and Vaan. Ashe? Basch and Vaan. Penelo? Vaan is the central point of the whole party.
Now you might want to respond that him being the central point just makes him a Really Good Perspective Character, to which I disagree again. You don't set up a character as "aspiring to be a sky pirate" and then have him do nothing relating to being a sky pirate for the whole game (except stealing the car microphone at once point). You don't set him to hate the empire and then have him passively sit in the background and say this is someone else's story. If you look at what's been set up, it's very natural what his arc is meant to be
>learns sky pirating from balthier, and become more worldly
>have some kind of "rally the rebellion" thing to accompany Ashe's attempt to overturn the empire's rule
>learn about true chivalry from Basch and maybe help him fight Gabranth, THE GUY WHO BETRAYED AND DESTROYED HIS BROTHER
>at some point realize that his reckless actions are not just putting himself at risk but also those around him, when there's some imperial repraisal against the people of Rabanaste for Vaan fighting against them
This is not to say that Vaan is the only character who should be doing anything. Like I said, ALL the characters got fricked. Basch and Ashe should have been the strategic leaders of the party, making war and politics plans. Balthier should have had his background revealed much earlier and maybe the plot would actually do something with it, using both his former aristocratic and now illicit connections to get around. Fran probably should have more to do and say about humans fricking up the world.
If it's not already clear, I fricking love the first few hours of FF12 and am still assmad 17 years later about how it was all squandered.
(2/2)
FFXII is an ensemble cast no matter how much the game tries to pretend otherwise.
I love FFXII but I never got around to playing Revenant Wings. Is it worth checkihg out?
I liked it but I wish there was more of the sky pirate bit where you're not just saving the angel dragon dudes islands and ending evil
hearing the music through ds compression sucks too, bigly
Sounds like a nice time. Thanks guys.
I purchased it and enjoyed it thoroughly. It maintains the FFTA atmosphere for Ivalice with an RTS rock-paper-scissor gameplay alongside flying people and half-eared bunny girls. It's not some huge storyline (there is story, of course), but it's fun to follow the world of Ivalice some more in the renegade fun of a sky-pirate. There is a large, world-saving goal, too.
Honestly, what I remember the most was being able to collect a large team and grind any time I wanted to, including the end-game.
I will now post the pillars of nosgoth cutscene for absolutely no reason.
I will not elaborate further.
I hate knowing that everything I like might be the result of an elaborate shilling operation on multiple levels.
Is PC version good?
That's hardly fair. 12s aesthetic and worldbuilding mogs literally every other final fantasy game.
>12s aesthetic and worldbuilding mogs literally every other final fantasy game.
A part of that is because the bestiary alone has a novella's worth of worldbuilding.
This is neither bait nor a leading question:
Does anyone know of a better bestiary than this? It's got so much fricking love it's unreal
Genuinely, no, and I doubt there is.
In terms of amount, Siralim blows it out of the water and has a similar style in that the bestiary entries are lore-based and not necessarily just one-line descriptions of the monster, but the writing quality in that isn't remotely comparable to what you see in FF12. That's the closest I can think of, too.
nothing even comes close, honestly. the fact that most entries got both a main entry for the actual subject and a bonus entry purely for flavor was mind blowing. I would go out farming enemies just so I could see what the bonus entries were.
Sometimes it felt like they were just writing shit for the world and were like 'Oh shit this is good, where can I put it?' and then another guy was like 'uuuuuh bestiary' and so they just dumped massive amounts of lore because it was already there and they might as well.
>malbussy
Pikmin 2
nope, ff12's bestiary is the fricking gold standard for rpg bestiaries
this is the last game I would consider a true final fantasy game
>mogs mog mog
>just got game cuz steam sale
>find out about bunny girl
>still year of the bunny
I swear everything I do is for china now days.
>bestiary consists of over 1,000 different colored clones of wolves
Nah, thanks.
>Look up IRL beastiary
>1000 different clones of wolves
what kind of bugs me about 12 is it takes place in the same world as ffT. I wish there was a secret character you could summon from another ff game.
12 was allegedly a prequel to tactics, wasn't it?
It's a different era of the world. Vagrant Story also takes place in Ivalice, but you'd never know it without knowing the lore.
Ivalice was a setting, not just a one-shot for a single video game.
There are actually quite a large number of Square games set in the world of Ivalice. Even Ivalice, itself, is no where close to being a "global" setting; it's actually a very small part of the map. Maybe 20% of the world, maximum, and it's focused mostly around its medieval magic and tech somewhere in what we would consider the Mediterranean and Middle East.
what I meant was an Easter egg like in tactics, or even vagrant story. that would be sweet to summon in a soldier from another dimension like why Ramaza and Mustadio did. just as a fun little secret.
Wellllllll... While the plot of FFXII certainly could make character references and team summons and what not towards other Ivalice games, the story absolutely could not.
Tactics (FFT, FFTA, FFTA2, etc) had very large barracks of playable characters that had a line and never spoke again. It had a few main characters that was really about 2 or maybe 3 and then support after support after support.
But with FFXII's Ivalice, even 6 members of your team was big for its story. They ALL played parts, spoke lines, and integrated into why they were there doing those things, even as incidentally destined it may have seemed. Simply including too much was distracting from this very theatrical storyline. Many don't even remember Ba'Gamnan.
yeah I agree, but just as a fun secret they should have had a secret side quests finding ancient technology that focused with the crystals, and possibly summoned Mustadio from fft. he could be like a Balthier replacement. they did allow him in fft wotl.
forgot pic
it would have been fun to see Ashley Riot skulking about in a few background scenes or showing up as a kid for some reason just for the fan service
no I'm talking about final fantasy 12. Ashley is already in the game
Bunny girl is literally objectively worse than all other characters. You are just gimping yourself for the shit eye candy.
less than all 6 characters
Actually vile.
I want more Ivalice games!
Ivalice Alliance is dead
It's over
>ramza looks back, hooded, and rides off into the wild on his chocobo
>12
>tactics a2
>wings
At least we're maybe gonna get FFT remaster soon.
tactics and the tactics advanced games are all really good.
>FFT remaster soon.
I hope it has the same cheat options as the pixel remaster games (ie. increased gold, exp etc) because I will crank the JP boost way up for chapter 4. Frick having to grind all those characters to make them good.
>tfw you get TO:R's overtuned no-fun-allowed system
I don't even consider that shit cheating, it's just lessening having to do the same shit over and over. I played the FF6 one and cranked the money and AP modifiers to x4 because frick having to do sit around forever grinding ghosts in WoB to get Maduin's spells or whatever. It's a bit different than the FF7 one where your health and limit refill every round... which I did use to make limit grinding faster since I always make sure I have all of them by the time I get Cid anyway in every other playthrough.
does this mean yall don't hate tactics a2 anymore?
TA2 was always empty plot good gameplay
name 2 examples of the plot being "empty" most people who say that never played the game
I can't because I don't remember anything of value in it, other than there's a book and there's a girl
when FFTa2 gets a remake soon ya will change your mind on saying it has empty plot
maybe, I'd be open to being corrected
I like A2 but as an isekai it's automatically F tier plot
Can we say that FF12 is to FF11 as FF16 is to FF14?
I've played this game through 3/4 multiple times but always got bored. This is the start of the death of final fantasy. It had a nice premise, but the mmo-like quests just got worse and worse with every game. RIP
what would XII but actually finished be like
we can ask that question for most of the 3d psx games
Probably not the most disappointing FF game ever made.
Vaan completes his character arc and becomes a heroic sky pirate
License system actually allows meaningful customization and specialization rather than everyone becoming red mages
Probably Espers playing a bigger plot role
Honestly, looking at what all of the extra time in the kitchen did to FF13, a finished version of FF12 would just be the judges scene for 20 hours.
The judges were the most underwhelming part of FFXII for me. I was expecting them to be these super badass No More Heroes style bosses but they fricking sucked my balls.
>but they fricking sucked my ball
they were legitimately harder in vanilla. every boss is a mook in the remaster.
I’ve only played the vanilla. For them to be even less intimidating in the Zodiac Age update is just sad.
You guys got me to replay the game again. I'll use that Struggle mod.
Is there any good way to guarantee more consistent Rare game spawns for the hunt dudes?
They all felt like 'Just look it up or be lucky' and frick if I can remember them now
>Is there any good way to guarantee more consistent Rare game spawns for the hunt dudes?
>They all felt like 'Just look it up or be lucky' and frick if I can remember them now
a lot of rare game spawns are extremely conditional and you wouldn't run into them naturally. some are super common and borderline pests like the helvinek and negalmuur while others are just weird like gray molter.
>In-game timer must be between :10 and :20 minutes.
my favorite is the Molen one where you have to enter this secret passage behind a sandfall and stand at a peak and look at this particular tunnel from there to get it to spawn in another part of the map.
As you can expect from "MMO-like" games, it really is about grinding and luck, most times.
I never played it until 2020 but I liked it almost immediately.
I think I played it around 2004 and fell in love immediately as well, it's very self consistent. It's very nice when you can play a game and tell from the onset that it's going to deliver.
a bunch of people were filtered by the PS2 version and eventually came back and played it with Zodiac + hyperspeed.
No. I got memed into it playing it back in 2018 because of all the hype people on Ganker were spouting in favor of it (despite having played it before and finding it to be boring as shit), and sure enough, it never got any better. It burned me out pretty substantially.
I never hated it, I also liked ff5 since the first time I played it when it came to the US.
Everyone likes 5. Its the best game in the series.
it's not the best, but it's the most fun. whenever I think of final fantasy franchise the ff5 opening theme song just pops into my head
Panties on outside moronic.
And hot.
she the best character in the game
it's the last real final fantasy game. it's better than X I'll tell you that.
12 is less of a FF than 13.
No. It's final fantasy expanded. XIII is final fantasy reduced.
It’s definitely not better than X, not by a country mile. X is a classic— XII is a niche game for autists.
x sucks dude. it doesn't get good until end game, and the only reason I give it credit is for blitzball, and being able to recruit your team. it's a haw game and jam all the good stuff right at the end.
>it jams all the good stuff in the end
Viera do not wipe
>giantess bunny poo poo on my dingus
Based
eww
I like ff12, and the zodiac age. the thing is don't understand why they even made a $60 strategy guide for it. the game is easy as shit. I remember wasting gilgamesh in the hunts like he was nothing. the game is just too easy
Gilgamesh isn't giga hard, but the fight is great. Hell Wyrm, Yiazmat, Zodiark, Omega and probably some other hunts I forgot are harder. King Behemoth. Haven't even mentioned Trial 100 which is brutal.
The reason why there's a strategy guide because some side quests are really hard to do without using GameFAQs. Locating the end game hunts are also really hard without it as the game doesn't tell you. This game and even more so FFX-2 benefit from using guides/GameFAQs.
>2.5-4 hour boss fight
Trial 100 was fricking insane. The worst part was that part of the recommended build in the vanilla version was to get the Yagyu Darkblade which was the most cancerous fricking grind I’ve ever endured in my entire life. The only other game I’ve played that had such little regard for human concepts of real time was WoW.
And your reward for completing it is this useless piece of shit.
you know, now that I'm really looking at it...
isn't that literally just the binding blade from fe6 but with a red paintjob?
Loto's sword predates binding blade by over a decade
It's also similar to Dragon quest sword and one of the final swords in FFIX
>similar to Dragon quest sword
It IS Loto's sword, from Dragon Quest 3. It's outright called Tolo's sword (loto backwards) in the JP version
The whole gag is that in the process of traveling across dimensions (different final fantasy games) gilgamesh at some point visited a dragon quest setting and found that.
>We will never have Gilgamesh show up as a superboss in a Dragon Quest game
>Gilgamesh fricking visited the DQ1-3(and 11, lol) world
>mfw nothing came out of this(so far)
for fricks sake they better add him as a secret boss in DQ3HD
I liked the aesthetics and overall way the game played but genuinely couldn't give a single flying frick about any of the characters or the main story and always wished I could just turn it into a pseudo dungeon crawler with my own custom party.
those dungeons sucked though lol
worst dungeon was the warp dungeon
>Dude what if we made literally half the cast be inconsequential to the story
>Dude what if we made multiple cutscenes where the main character has no idea what's going on and just stands in the background while people who matter speak
>Dude what if we made a character who's literally just a random girl off the street
>Dude what if we made a character with an interesting and nuanced backstory and then only let the player use him in one dungeon, at the end of which he dies
>Dude what if we made a villain who has zero emotional connection to the heroes and doesn't even meet them until the last ten minutes
>Dude what if we took an established setting with a million interesting species and then only included humans and bunny humans as playable characters
>Dude what if we gave the narrator a comical Apu accent
>Dude what if we made a complicated political plot and then ruined it by turning it into standard ancient god shenanigans halfway through
>Dude what if we made a plot where the heroes have almost no impact on what happens until 95% of the way through the story, and they spend their time tromping from one ancient temple to the next
>Dude what if I'm Captain Basch
>Dude what if we took everything 100% seriously and had zero levity outside of Balthier and Cid
>Dude what if we wrote all of the dialogue to sound like a Renaissance Fair
>Dude what if we we had no overworld and all travel was handled by a menu or floating teleport crystals
>Dude what if we made a level-up system where all of the characters become literally identical in function
>Dude what if we made summons useless except for opening doors
>Dude what if we put all of the interesting and unique content in sidequests
>Dude what if instead of having fun side games like the motorcycle chase and Triple Triad we had nothing
>Dude what if Star Wars
tltr break it down for me
>18 dudes
high score for homosexual of the year
but anyway enough about FF4
I'm still mad that I the OG you had no classes and in the end you had just 3 brutes auto attacking mindlessly.
>and in the end you had just 3 brutes auto attacking mindlessly
tbf this wasn't because autoattacks were particularly strong. spell queue just fricking sucked in vanilla and handicapped magic dps.
I always liked vanilla XII but after replaying it on the Zodiac version I've come to appreciate it even more. The attention to detail is fricking mesmerizing and exploring the dungeons/rounding up loot is still fun. I've even found new appreciation for the Great Crystal which filtered the frick out of me as a kid.
Too bad they didn't even try to balance Zodiac Age.
>le offline mmo
>good
Holy polygonface!
Star Wars is shit tho
>play it until you get to control idiot hero after the tutorial
>turn the game off after 10 minutes and never touch it again
FF16 doesn't have a protagonist who makes me go and trade the disc the same day I played it for the first time.
12 is even worse than 13.
I always thought people liked ff12
I didn't play it because I hated the full 3d final fantasy games
I didn't realize why until I saw ff16 npc interaction and how fricking awful in that game
the standing perfectly still with shit mouth movements was just too much for me
12 was beautiful in every way.
It was also too slow and long for its own good.
The speed up feature of the ZJS version made 12 much more fun with me.
Gambit is an amazing system, and I love that it was even included in dragon age origins.
FF12 > any xenoshit game
12's setting is so fricking weird when it comes to the level of tech on display. Why are armies still primarily fielding ground troops with swords and fullplate when airship armadas exist? How the hell did IVs even become a thing when healing magic exists?
>Why are armies still primarily fielding ground troops with swords and fullplate when airship armadas exist?
anon this was addressed in the opening fmv. there are these things called palings that stop airships from moving in so the imperials had to get in there with infantry and kill the mages keeping up the paling before the airships could provide air support. airships also can't cross over jagd areas because their magic skystones don't work there.
tl;dr magic
Why aren't the infantry armed with rifles?
Why the frick would a nation capable of producing fighters opt to use BOWS over guns?
Why is mundane medical technology so advanced in a world where healing potions are commonplace? They wouldn't have any reason to invent stethoscopes and IVs when magic exists.
>Why aren't the infantry armed with rifles?
>Why the frick would a nation capable of producing fighters opt to use BOWS over guns?
all the guns are relatively primitive and take a bajillion years to fire in-game with the basic attack. irl there was a period in which guns, bows, and crossbows were all fielded simultaneously so it isn't unheard of.
>Why is mundane medical technology so advanced in a world where healing potions are commonplace? They wouldn't have any reason to invent stethoscopes and IVs when magic exists.
magic and items don't do everything automatically. if they were the be all end all solution to medical problems the nearby attendants would have just dropped an antidote and phoenix down on emperor gramis and giga cucked vayne's plan.
All of the fighters have full auto guns and they aren't that big going by the POV shots. Hell Cid even has a fricking minigun. It's absurd that there isn't a single rank and file Arcadian soldier seen firing a gun.
>It's absurd that there isn't a single rank and file Arcadian soldier seen firing a gun.
you fight soldiers with guns in the game, anon.
Because there's magic but not necessarily communications technology so not everyone is playing on equal fields. Sort of the same situation when Europeans first came over to America and were shitting on native archers and slingers with guns, cannons, and naval vessels.
its the FFT theme/ location and setting. thats why its so good. ivalice should have been the setting for ff16, and it should have been dark gritty with good writing and less gimmicky QTE cutscenes
I'm enjoying FF16 but holy mother of frick was Annabelle a better villain than Barnabas.
Every single cutscene he's in is exactly the same, he's so boring
why the shit did square think a dude who only knows five words and two of them are different ways to say Ultima, is more engaging that your own evil stepmother who killed your family out of a desire for political power?
woah tall lady
I made Fran into the ultimate Black mage
I’d love this game if the plot wasn’t disjointed. At least we got a cool setting to explore in FFTA2
Dropped after the marquis betrays you.
Boring auto play, boring long ass dungeons and hallways, boring progression, boring characters. The only good things were Balthy and aesthetics.
I love XI and I thought I could like this one, but they're nothing alike.
12 is Star Wars aesthetic though.
I'm still mad that I've had to argue with people who insisted that FF12 had nothing that looked like Star Wars, not even the opening scene.
>opening is straight out of Ep1
>Balthier is Han Solo, Fran is Chewie
>Basch is Kenobi
>Ashe is Leia
>Vaan/Penelo is Luke
>Gabranth is kind of like Vader
Vaan even gets to become a space pirate later on so it's kind of a Luke situation but a bit shifted
By later you mean the next game, basically, so I don't think it counts.
Basch is... not Kenobi. They don't even share any similarity besides being veterans.
Ashe/Balthier/Fran are correct though.
The argument was definitely with one of those people who got too high on their own "you just call everything with an evil empire 'Star Wars'" circlejerk
>typical tropes
>STAR WARS
oh we found one of them
>Fran is Chewie
Viera in general are "wookies/ewoks but sexy women"
If you think a farm boy saving a princess and fighting an evil wizard who corrupted an empire is specific to star wars, then I don't know what to tell you. It's not "star wars" you basedshit. That's european fantasy in general. Just in space.
MMO's are garbage. I'll never understand how people play that shit.
Zodiac is better in a lot of ways.
12 has a scifi aesthetic though. Did you miss the star wars dogfight?
The only issue I have with FF12 is that because you get to explore on your own quite a bit the story beats get spread too far apart for the narrative to convey any sense of urgency.
This hurts the story, which actually develops quite nicely, because you simply forget about it by the time you reach the next key location.
I think this irked a lot of the classic FF fans beacuse on top of them not "getting" the new combat system (which you could play EXACTLY like the regular FF one if you so choose by not using gambits at all) they couldn't get into the story since it was too spread out.
Don't pin FF12's plot issues on "classic FF fans" or moronic gambit haters.
12 is one of my favorites but I played Zodiac Age first
I'M
>really enjoyed 12
>tried 14 but got absolutely filtered by it being an MMO
12 worked so well for me but actual MMOs to me are as low as sports game. Truly unplayable, mindless boring garbage. MMOs just feel like glorified chat rooms to me. The whole game was just fetch quest spam.
Thinking of replaying it. Any good mods ?
16 is just so... brown. Not only literally. Everything about it feels brown. 12 isn't brown, 12 is more iridescent. Instead of mixing all the colors until they become one color, it mixes them just enough to get a bunch of metallic patterns.
they aren't going for remotely the same kind of fantasy but there's something to be said for the environment designers of XII being able to pull off what they did on the PS2. XII was truly the last of the greats.
ff 12 story and characters are one of the worst i've seen
Loved it back then, still love it. gays were mad that it wasnt their donut steel storytelling post FF7
Just imagine the timeline where FF continued to be more like X XI and XII instead of the downward spiral that started with XIII
>more like X XI and XII
none of these games are the same
>started with XIII
You mean X. X started the linear walkways shuffling you from cutscene to cutscene.
Funnily enough, that's the one part of FF13 I liked. Why pretend that this is an open world MMORPG? If I wanted that I'd just play an open world MMORPG. Why create branches just to accidentally go down the right one first and back-track?
>why have map design?
golly jee idk anon
A clean line IS a design. Can you answer your own question? There are plenty of successful JRPGs that have very linear map design. I mean have you ever studied how pathetic KH2's maps are? If anything the fact that so many reviewers were distracted by FF13's map design is that the individual lines between each segment were too long and that the combat occupying them was so unsatisfying and unnecessarily tedious. Plenty of JRPGs out there follow the same "constant action, constantly pushing the plot forward and burning all bridges behind them until maybe opening up for re-exploration at the very end" approach.
>make game with actual RPG mechanics
>everyone loses their minds
>game tanks
Remember to never listen to your fanbase, ever. That's the reason we got XIII, too.
What's wrong with Square Enix? Why do they keep making Final Fantasy games about boy band characters instead of fantasy? You've got one job
The art direction of 12 is peak, its not even a debate. Arguably the only thing that beats it is vagrant story