I had some fun with Zodiac Age, but as far as an entry into the Final Fantasy series a lot of people seem to really love or hate it and the people who don't like it tend to attribute it to the downfall of the series in some ways. It also feels incomplete story wise for being such a long game, there's a lot of beats that you might expect that just don't exist. People also fricking hate Vaan.
Story is ok but its pretty much Star Wars and the main character isn't a Jedi
every time i see some moron going "MUHSLASH VEE NO PLAY NO BIDYO GAYMZ" just because he disagrees with some homosexual OP, i get reminded there's still some truth to it for a dead meme
It is OK.
Story sucks because I think aliens thing is moron and the game tried too hard to copy star war.
Gameplay is OK but I am not big fan of turn based combat.
environment looks pretty good.
absolutely great game and I love it, but in terms of design it really suffered from the obvious push SE wanted to give to the official guide, and you fricking needed it to 100% it.
overall the game isn't perfect, but there really wasn't anything like that at the time that I can think of, and with such god tier atmosphere (even by today's standard it looks great). but I'll be honest, it MASSIVELY benefits from the speed up version it received with later releases
parallelism with star wars were pretty evident even on release
So it's not worth playing for the story?
>So it's not worth playing
absolutely >for the story?
no. it's not atrocious but bland. starts off strong but loses steam quickly
I love 12, but it's ost is not amazing, and the story falls apart in the end. I love the battles though, cool fricking system.
Imagine if 12 had the party banter during exploration that 7r (and 16 supposedly) has, the game would have been MUCH better.
>but it's ost is not amazing,
fight me Black person. it might not be uematsu but the OST was great and perfectly fit the tone the game was going for
Not the guy you're responding to, but many FF games without Uematsu had amazing music. FFXIII and XIV have some of the best OSTs in the series. But FFXII was...not one them. It's actually very strange since Sakimoto's other works sound so much better. With subdued themes and a very distinct style. Then FFXII comes out and it's overly fast and can't stick to one theme. And it's clear he was trying to imitate John Williams (probably because the games producers were telling him to, since the visual design and story was).
Basically, FFXII sounds like the exact opposite of Sakimoto's other works. It also didn't follow FFTactics style at all. Which makes no sense given it was suppose to be a Ivalice game. But I suppose that makes sense, given how FFXII didn't match FFTactics in any other way either.
The main plot isn't, besides the usual "rebels fighting empire." But a lot of the character archtypes are very much like Star Wars. There's a reason people joke Ashe is Leia, Balthisar is Solo, Vaan is Luke, etc.
Beyond this, the music is very reminicent of John Williams. Though I'd say it's more like Hook than Star Wars in a lot of parts. And the FMVs are blatantly copying the Star Wars Prequels, complete with the opening scene of soldiers and flying vehicles taken right out of the final scene in Phantom Menace. And so on and so forth.
This is not unique to FF12 by the way. Most FF games take heavy insperation from other properties. And hardly hide it. FF7 and 8 took a ton from Eva. FF9 is basically Dragon Ball. FF4 takes a lot of Tomino. FF2 and 6 also borrow from Star Wars. Etc.
>Most FF games take heavy insperation from other properties.
FFXVI is also a game that has a lot of influences on its sleeve. >The Count of Monte Cristo >Hamlet >Berserk >Devilman >Attack on Titan >Ultraman >Evangelion >Kamen Rider >Toshiki Inoue >Tetsuya Nomura >CLAMP manga like Code Geass >Mobile Suit Gundam 00 >Final Fantasy Tactics >Vagrant Story >Final Fantasy XII >Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward >Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix >Final Fantasy Versus XIII
The main plot isn't, besides the usual "rebels fighting empire." But a lot of the character archtypes are very much like Star Wars. There's a reason people joke Ashe is Leia, Balthisar is Solo, Vaan is Luke, etc.
Beyond this, the music is very reminicent of John Williams. Though I'd say it's more like Hook than Star Wars in a lot of parts. And the FMVs are blatantly copying the Star Wars Prequels, complete with the opening scene of soldiers and flying vehicles taken right out of the final scene in Phantom Menace. And so on and so forth.
This is not unique to FF12 by the way. Most FF games take heavy insperation from other properties. And hardly hide it. FF7 and 8 took a ton from Eva. FF9 is basically Dragon Ball. FF4 takes a lot of Tomino. FF2 and 6 also borrow from Star Wars. Etc.
>Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Which itself was inspired by Vagrant Story, Death Note, Code Geass, and X1999. Nomura even got the Vagrant Story guy to go back to the Tokyo Team after FF12 just so he could work on Versus. But is Akiyama not working on 16?
>Nomura even got the Vagrant Story guy to go back to the Tokyo Team after FF12 just so he could work on Versus.
Is that why Stellagay was looking forward to Versus 13? >But is Akiyama not working on 16?
I don't think so.
>dooood so much references >doooood all those influences
Reminder that homosexuals with referential / association based mindset are the plague of this world and should be purged out of the existence. They are unable to analyze any story or concept properly and, to tell the truth, are unable to think.
I think you're reading into it a lot to connect to half of those, but if it's influenced by all that cool shit, how come it turned out as a shitty "Devil May Nioh: A song of Ice and Fire (and Knuckles!)" ?
It's obviously a spiritual successor to Vagrant Story, even remaking some of the characters like Joshua, but its biggest influences are obviously DMCV and GoT.
I don't know how you read AoT or Berserk into it. To say it's AoT-inspired because it has big monsters is kinda shallow.
>I don't know how you read AoT or Berserk into it. To say it's AoT-inspired because it has big monsters is kinda shallow.
AoT was explicitly stated by Yoshi-P to be an influence. I don't get the Berserk connection but I see people say it. I also say it takes a lot from not only Versus under Nomura but Tabata's 15 too
Which is a shame because the gambit system is incredibly solid. Gameplay is great however the narrative isn't the best and Vaan and Penelo feel like outliers in the cast.
It should have been a Balthier & Fran adventure. Vaan is the blonde prettyboy that squeenix thought had to exist, but his link to the events of the game are tenuous at best. Balthier would have still met Ashe in the sewers without Vaan, and they would have gone on to save Basche no matter what. Vaan(and by extension Penelo) have no defining powers or purpose other than to be a constant reminder to Ashe and Basche of Dalmascan peasants and the residents they're fighting for. You could remove V&P and nothing would be lost.
It is OK.
Story sucks because I think aliens thing is moron and the game tried too hard to copy star war.
Gameplay is OK but I am not big fan of turn based combat.
environment looks pretty good.
nice of you to comment twice, but did you fall on your head while watching star wars or how come you see it everywhere?
i didnt really care for the story but the voice acting is seriously great. even with that ff 12 is still in the giant pile of final fantasy games ive never finished.
The story/plot is just a continuous hunt for MacGuffins and by the end it turns out it was all just a waste of time and your actions only helped the empire and hurt the real good guys that were fighting against the empire behind the scenes.
It's mentioned plenty. Just like FFIX, contrarians want to seem cool for liking one of the less popular games.
The story is lackluster, because well, it's a Final Fantasy game. But also because they shifted directions halfway through development. The original writer/director left and the new people who took over took it into a new direction. And as someone already said, it's mostly a bunch of unconnected fetch quests, then suddenly you're fighting the final boss out of nowhere.
Absolutely not. The game’s pacing is incredibly bad so it’s hard to remember what the frick is even going on as you move at a snail’s pace from point A to point B, and even then there are only maybe one or two well-directed scenes that are memorable. The CG cutscenes are so fricking lame that it’s nothing short of baffling. Every FF game that came before it had fricking incredible CG cutscenes throughout their entirety. NONE of FFXII’s are memorable or interesting.
Most people who talk about the game are too moronic. Both the people who hate the game because they skipped dialogue and then realized they dont understand the story or various character motives, and on the other side the people who liked zodiac age and the class system.
The class boards are completely fricked by removing all of the 'empty' license plots in favor of lumping every single good license within 1k points of the start of the board, and they completely frick the game balance. You will enter sandsea with 6 swiftness and a dozen battle/magick lores and oneshot everything, including the second wall that was supposed to be a massive challenge. By the time you get access to bubble you wont even need it because everyone will have more HP+ from licenses then their natural HP from levels. Youre so overstatted that even rare hunts are trivial, until the game difficulty finally starts to catch up around lighthouse when the game actually expects you to have reached all 4 corners of the license board.
The VIIR devs said they were interested in making a FF game with a gambit system, but I imagine they'll be too busy to do it in the next 5 or so years.
Game is old and still gets brought up in threads and got 2 remasters. Last FF developed before the merger and.the last decent FF as well with quite a few strong points. >extremely beautiful unique world >still the best moggle design >god tier bong VA that is still the best english dub created to date that kinda kickstarted hiring Theater VA from there. >hunts basically became a staple due to it
The only divisive part is the combat and only if you really abuse gambits by looking up guides online.
>hurrrrr why is vaan even along for the ride
The bad guys killed his fricking brother, his only family, at the beginning of the game you absolute morons
People do absolutely nothing but jack off to "how good 12 was".
It wasn't terrible, it was mostly ok, it's just that everything after it was a garbage fire so it seems better in comparison.
I don't think so.
The suits bullied Matsuno out of the company so he wasn't involved in the next ones.
You'd expect FFTA2 to have some sort of connection (unless I'm forgetting plot details) to the Occurria, but the main plot of the Advance series are the Grand Grimoires, which I think are a bigger Eldritch force than the Occurria collectively.
unironically, a FFXII-3 will be needed then, or maybe a Vagrant Story 2. has Matsuno talked about coming back to working on the series or is he just sticking with remasters and DLC for now?
Don't think he'll be back ever. They also killed the Ivalice Alliance group after the "Fortress" deal fell through.
He's worked in some tie in stuff with the FF14 guy but I will never expect anything more.
FF has always had a schizo identity crisis and depth to the lore has never been a strong suit, a persuit, or even thought of as something to be carried forward between titles. I think this is what's hurting it after the merger and their post FF12 era.
The best they can do is hand it to team Asano, have Matsuno consult for the story and plot, give them enough resources for development and an actual marketing budget since Square Enix loved to kill their non-FF games by doing the bare minimum in publicity.
Also, all FF7 trannies should neck themselves. Nomura should be hanged for the damage he's done to the company.
yeah, its a bit of a shame overall really. irony is that i genuinely think the company 'still' has that talent lying around inside, but mismanagement just keeps interfering too much imo. I think if they were to make another FF12 in some form, their best bet is to bring in the XVI team since nearly everyone working there has been giving it a lot of support (with the exception of Nomura, strangely).
Nomura imo, genuinely needs to leave KH behind and find a way to make his dumb Versus game. Him being stuck in Disney hell can't be very healthy.
Base game is actually bad
Zodiac Age makes it better, but Vaan is literally not a character until the fricking DS game because he wasn't supposed to even be in the game
Bosses feel turn-based, the only unwelcome element is the positioning you may or may not have to do. Some boss fights like the tree dragon require constant pausing to optimize fast status recovery. The game playing itself via running around with gambit on slaughtering enemies on autopilot is boring and I lost interest shortly after the wall mini bosses in the temple, wherever you go after that, I just stopped caring.
I only played Zodiac Age and it is by a long shot the best FF in my opinion. The story and settings are essentially a mix of Star Wars but with a good plot and I liked all the characters including Vaan.
I feel SE could had expanded on this series but I am so glad they didn't.
i bought the steelbook CE when it first came out. i tried playing it several times. every time i try, I get autismfiltered and stop playing within about an hour by the microstutters caused by the constant sheathing and unsheating animations.
>best character in the game >can't use him for 2/3 of it >trademark dumb FF plot twist involves him
It's like they were trying to make people hate the game.
Because famous 12gay Stellagay hasn't come to this board in a while. He's the first 12gay to mindbreak Barry, Dreamboum doing so on Twitter isn't an isolated case. Barry must really hate FF12.
I've 100% it once and it took me like 200-300 hours (there's A LOT of optional content), so I never bothered to play any of Zodiac versions after that
Cast is pretty damn bad - 5 humans and a bunny b***h in a world full of different races, and 2 of those humans are Vaan and Penelo. And somehow side characters (Larsa / Ondore / Reddas / etc.) actually do more vital stuff to the plot than your party.
Plot pacing is bad ("here are 3 filler locations before you actually get to location where plot finally moves forward, and of course each of filler location has at least 30 minutes of exploration and one boss fight") and sometimes game wastes even more time on shitty "minigames" before letting you advance (looking at you, Archades).
License Board was bad because it was the same for all six party members (but I know Zodiac versions fixed it and split the big one into 12 classes).
Espers were fun to fight but as summons they were absolutely garbage starting from midgame and jobbed to trashmobs in few seconds (dunno if they were buffed in Zodiacs versions or not).
Zodiac Spear triggers were moronic (and apparently it was fixed in Zodiac versions... only to be replaced with INVISIBLE weapons in INVISIBLE chests, which is even more moronic).
Pharos and Giruvegan are badly designed dungeons. Pharos is literally your typical Matsuno's utimate postgame dungeon (Deep Dungeon / Iron Maiden / Palace of the Dead) but this time it's not, and Giruvegan has timed gates activated by levers in a dungeon with no map and enemies running between rooms (unless the enemy issue was fixed in Zodiacs versions)
Bazaar system is bad, you're basically forced not to sell anything without looking up the guide to see which / how many items you need to sell for something to pop up
Eventually I appreciated FFXII not for its story or gameplay but for its vast amount of side content, and back then I had a ton of free time so I enjoyed doing stuff like hunting marks and rare mobs
Shit story.
Shit characters, except for maybe Balthier.
Shit dungeons.
Shit combat.
Bland and uninteresting Star Wars wannabe setting.
The only good things about this game are the voice acting and the graphics, which for a PS2 game were incredibly and the best looking game on the system hands down. But other than these 2 things FF12 was soooo meh. Nothing memorable about it at all. A game only hipsters, contrarians and game journalists pretend is the best FF game only second to FF6, another hipster favorite. I don't know why they can't admit that FF7 is the best FF.
>graphics, which for a PS2 game were incredibly and the best looking game on the system hands down.
I thought at the time it was bad, because the brown and bloom style, along with the fuzzy textures, didn't show up well on CRT TVs. Same problem Twilight Princess had. This was kind of fixed upon the Zodiac Age re-release as things were made crisper and you could play it on an HDTV. But of course, it looks dated in some ways now.
Meanwhile, I think Dragon Quest VIII looked better back in the PS2 era. And still does today. Because cel shading and cartoon styles age better than styles going for realism.
Gonna be straight with you I bought it on sale on steam haven't played it since PS2 I'll give it a try some time but god damn the concept of a new game minus is hilarious.
Here's a quick recap:
- Ashe is the protagonist and main character of XII, it's not Basch and it's not Balthier, neither of them has much relevance to the game's plot. Vaan's presence drops to almost nothing after Ashe joins your party permanently because he's just the tutorial protagonist
- Zodiac Age sucks ass, it retains all the changes from IZJS but double classing makes you too powerful and nothing in the game was readjusted to balance it out. IZJS is the best way to play XII even if it has the spell queue due to the PS2 not being able to handle so many simultaenous effects
- The game uses the same ATB as every "turn based" Final Fantasy before it, if you input commands manually for every character it is functionally indistinguishable from the previous ATB games save for the fact that melee and spells have a range attribute, although characters will automatically move into attack range if they can see the enemy
- Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
- Jote is sexier than Fran
>Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
fr fr ff7 remake would have been great with a gambit system
>- Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
It's high time someone agreed. Nomura should add Gambits to 7R and KH4. 16 should have Gambits too.
>The gambit system isn't obrigatory
I say this with all seriousness, I'd like to see this in 7R.
>Nomura needs to add Gambits in 7R
Why do I keep seeing this every time the word 'gambit system' gets mentioned? Do we know who started it?
>- Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
It's high time someone agreed. Nomura should add Gambits to 7R and KH4. 16 should have Gambits too.
>The gambit system isn't obrigatory
I say this with all seriousness, I'd like to see this in 7R.
I mean, I don't care for VII:R at all, shit's dead to me, but why would you want that?
The game doesn't even allow you to pick upgrades, it just has the crystarium for no fricking reason as it's completely irrelevant to gameplay.
Gambits aren't good because they're automated gameplay, and because they're more of a pain to set up than it is just select commands in the moment, but among all the autoplay systems they're obviously the best one by a long shot.
Mostly because you're forced to unlock options and slots for them with the same currency you need for spells and armor, which turns the automation into a luxury rather than a convenience.
The best of the bunch by far, but the whole bunch doesn't belong in any of these games.
Just press attack dude. It's not that hard.
The problem wiht 7R and KH3 and other Nomura action games is that the AI is shit. Gambits would solve that problem but people have said so long Square won't let you can't change Gambits in battle and they aren't enabled on the character you're playing in 7R/Sora/Roxas/some buttfrick clone in KH, it would work.
VII:R lets you input commands as the characters. The only thing that is automated is the autoattacking, and you do the rest yourself, so idk where gambits would fit in.
Do you really need a : if (break); then (use X) so Tifa always expends her charges to add to the stagger multiplier automatically?
just press the button
as for KH, you have setups and whatnot, but you're not supposed to rely entirely on Donald for heals or anything. They're also pretty easy games in general, critical mode data battles don't let you have teammates anyway so idk where it would fit there either.
>Do you really need a : if (break); then (use X) so Tifa always expends her charges to add to the stagger multiplier automatically?
Do you realize how much better non-Classic mode would be if Nomura did that (with 3x enemy HP?)
11 months ago
Anonymous
No, I think it would've been considerably worse actually.
I don't see any merit in staying on Cloud while my teammates do attacks by themselves, when the game is designed with switching in mind.
>- Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
It's high time someone agreed. Nomura should add Gambits to 7R and KH4. 16 should have Gambits too.
Bought Zodiac Age PC version, played some hours (can't recall exact number), liked the story and characters so far but combat filtered me, felt too much of a chore and I didn't feel it was challenging even with my half assed gambits. I uninstalled it a year ago always saying "I'll give it another try someday" but never got into it... does it get better in terms of combat? Friend who finished it told me it doesn't and after a while it becomes auto-combat with the right gambits...
I started this game a few weeks ago, and got filtered a few hours in. Vaan just isn't very likeable, which is frustrating because his older brother in the tutorial both had a better character design and was very likeable. Balthier is also much more likeable and has main character energy.
Idk I think there's some cognitive dissonance between Vaan supposedly being an orphan but looking like a Jpop star.
Hope in FFXIII is a similar character in a lot of ways, but is also a lot more likeable: probably because Hope is a sheltered suburban kid who gets pulled into the conflict.
Idk. I'm just really filtered by Vaan and I think that's the reason: his character design mismatches his actual character.
>Hope in FFXIII is a similar character in a lot of ways, but is also a lot more likeable
you liked the kid who does nothing but mumble, grunt and look at his knife better than a wide-eyed street urchin with big dreams who keeps taking risks to make his dreams come true?
I like the IDEA of Vaan, he's supposed to be the scrappy street urchin/Aladdin type, survivor in a rough world, etc. etc., but besides his brother dying we don't see him face a lot of actual hardship (at least in the first several hours, I can't be bothered to play any more at the moment), and he's too much of a pretty boy. The game is too tame to show him suffering any real cruelties as a societal lowlife, and he walks around with perfectly styled anime hair instead of messy hair and dirt on his clothes from playing around in the sewers, getting into scraps, and stealing food to survive....
So no, I don't like him. He's a walking contradiction. He's literally just too clean looking for what his character is, or is supposed to be. And he's not helped by the fact that he seems almost irrelevant to the actual story of the game. It almost feels like there was some mandate from upper management to put a twink in for the fujo audience, and the writers didn't actually care at all about the character. I get this sense because I found out the writer is the guy who did Vagrant Story which is a pretty damn good story. The political scenario of FFXII feels like that style of writing, and Vaan just seems to be irrelevant to that story being told. Maybe my impression is wrong, maybe Vaan was a character the writers really liked, but to me that's how it comes across.
Hope is a spoiled suburban kid. He's a brat who gets thrown into hardship like he's never faced before, and he grows as a character from being a total sheltered wimp to a little trooper. His pretty boy design makes sense in the context of that story, and I like his character arc. Does Vaan even really have a character arc in the story? because besides getting revenge for his brother I generally don't see any setups for his character's story yet
My only complaints:
The Gambit system makes the game a bit too easy.
The Zodiac Spear is bullshit and frick Squenix for making it so convoluted to obtain that you HAD to basically buy the guide. Frick Squenix forever for that bullshit.
I never finished it
It's shit
I had some fun with Zodiac Age, but as far as an entry into the Final Fantasy series a lot of people seem to really love or hate it and the people who don't like it tend to attribute it to the downfall of the series in some ways. It also feels incomplete story wise for being such a long game, there's a lot of beats that you might expect that just don't exist. People also fricking hate Vaan.
every time i see some moron going "MUHSLASH VEE NO PLAY NO BIDYO GAYMZ" just because he disagrees with some homosexual OP, i get reminded there's still some truth to it for a dead meme
>falls for various invaders doing false flags
It's your fault for being weakminded enough to fall for propaganda.
It is OK.
Story sucks because I think aliens thing is moron and the game tried too hard to copy star war.
Gameplay is OK but I am not big fan of turn based combat.
environment looks pretty good.
>aliens
>star wars
Which YouTuber is responsible for feeding these moronic opinions to people?
No one moron
I think it’s actually some gameFAQs shit not YouTube
absolutely great game and I love it, but in terms of design it really suffered from the obvious push SE wanted to give to the official guide, and you fricking needed it to 100% it.
overall the game isn't perfect, but there really wasn't anything like that at the time that I can think of, and with such god tier atmosphere (even by today's standard it looks great). but I'll be honest, it MASSIVELY benefits from the speed up version it received with later releases
parallelism with star wars were pretty evident even on release
>So it's not worth playing
absolutely
>for the story?
no. it's not atrocious but bland. starts off strong but loses steam quickly
>but it's ost is not amazing,
fight me Black person. it might not be uematsu but the OST was great and perfectly fit the tone the game was going for
Not the guy you're responding to, but many FF games without Uematsu had amazing music. FFXIII and XIV have some of the best OSTs in the series. But FFXII was...not one them. It's actually very strange since Sakimoto's other works sound so much better. With subdued themes and a very distinct style. Then FFXII comes out and it's overly fast and can't stick to one theme. And it's clear he was trying to imitate John Williams (probably because the games producers were telling him to, since the visual design and story was).
Basically, FFXII sounds like the exact opposite of Sakimoto's other works. It also didn't follow FFTactics style at all. Which makes no sense given it was suppose to be a Ivalice game. But I suppose that makes sense, given how FFXII didn't match FFTactics in any other way either.
I played it for the first time last year and the only thing I remember is man this is just starwars.
Good morning sir
>game tried too hard to copy star war
Why do you idiots keep saying this. The story is nothing like Star Wars.
The main plot isn't, besides the usual "rebels fighting empire." But a lot of the character archtypes are very much like Star Wars. There's a reason people joke Ashe is Leia, Balthisar is Solo, Vaan is Luke, etc.
Beyond this, the music is very reminicent of John Williams. Though I'd say it's more like Hook than Star Wars in a lot of parts. And the FMVs are blatantly copying the Star Wars Prequels, complete with the opening scene of soldiers and flying vehicles taken right out of the final scene in Phantom Menace. And so on and so forth.
This is not unique to FF12 by the way. Most FF games take heavy insperation from other properties. And hardly hide it. FF7 and 8 took a ton from Eva. FF9 is basically Dragon Ball. FF4 takes a lot of Tomino. FF2 and 6 also borrow from Star Wars. Etc.
>Most FF games take heavy insperation from other properties.
FFXVI is also a game that has a lot of influences on its sleeve.
>The Count of Monte Cristo
>Hamlet
>Berserk
>Devilman
>Attack on Titan
>Ultraman
>Evangelion
>Kamen Rider
>Toshiki Inoue
>Tetsuya Nomura
>CLAMP manga like Code Geass
>Mobile Suit Gundam 00
>Final Fantasy Tactics
>Vagrant Story
>Final Fantasy XII
>Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward
>Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix
>Final Fantasy Versus XIII
>Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Which itself was inspired by Vagrant Story, Death Note, Code Geass, and X1999. Nomura even got the Vagrant Story guy to go back to the Tokyo Team after FF12 just so he could work on Versus. But is Akiyama not working on 16?
>Nomura even got the Vagrant Story guy to go back to the Tokyo Team after FF12 just so he could work on Versus.
Is that why Stellagay was looking forward to Versus 13?
>But is Akiyama not working on 16?
I don't think so.
>dooood so much references
>doooood all those influences
Reminder that homosexuals with referential / association based mindset are the plague of this world and should be purged out of the existence. They are unable to analyze any story or concept properly and, to tell the truth, are unable to think.
You tell 'em Cloud.
God, I want to SeeD that uniform.
I think you're reading into it a lot to connect to half of those, but if it's influenced by all that cool shit, how come it turned out as a shitty "Devil May Nioh: A song of Ice and Fire (and Knuckles!)" ?
It's obviously a spiritual successor to Vagrant Story, even remaking some of the characters like Joshua, but its biggest influences are obviously DMCV and GoT.
I don't know how you read AoT or Berserk into it. To say it's AoT-inspired because it has big monsters is kinda shallow.
>I don't know how you read AoT or Berserk into it. To say it's AoT-inspired because it has big monsters is kinda shallow.
AoT was explicitly stated by Yoshi-P to be an influence. I don't get the Berserk connection but I see people say it. I also say it takes a lot from not only Versus under Nomura but Tabata's 15 too
>The story is nothing like Star Wars.
It's no 1:1 or a straight up ripoff but it's there
Stop projecting moron. If you think the story is nothing like Star Wars then the only real idiot here is you.
Many FF has aped SW to some degree (6) but 12 was incredibly blatant about it
AI generated post.
It's a 17 year old game, anon. Not exactly current
>2006 was 17 years ago
Holy frick, I am old.
Great game. Last entry before FF went to shit
I finished everything even i beat that 1 billion hp optional boss in 12 hours stragiht
Which is a shame because the gambit system is incredibly solid. Gameplay is great however the narrative isn't the best and Vaan and Penelo feel like outliers in the cast.
It should have been a Balthier & Fran adventure. Vaan is the blonde prettyboy that squeenix thought had to exist, but his link to the events of the game are tenuous at best. Balthier would have still met Ashe in the sewers without Vaan, and they would have gone on to save Basche no matter what. Vaan(and by extension Penelo) have no defining powers or purpose other than to be a constant reminder to Ashe and Basche of Dalmascan peasants and the residents they're fighting for. You could remove V&P and nothing would be lost.
So it's not worth playing for the story?
Story is ok but its pretty much Star Wars and the main character isn't a Jedi
nice of you to comment twice, but did you fall on your head while watching star wars or how come you see it everywhere?
i didnt really care for the story but the voice acting is seriously great. even with that ff 12 is still in the giant pile of final fantasy games ive never finished.
Honestly play it and form your own opinions. Some people love it and some hate it. Personally I found it to be shit but loved the gambit system.
The story/plot is just a continuous hunt for MacGuffins and by the end it turns out it was all just a waste of time and your actions only helped the empire and hurt the real good guys that were fighting against the empire behind the scenes.
It's mentioned plenty. Just like FFIX, contrarians want to seem cool for liking one of the less popular games.
The story is lackluster, because well, it's a Final Fantasy game. But also because they shifted directions halfway through development. The original writer/director left and the new people who took over took it into a new direction. And as someone already said, it's mostly a bunch of unconnected fetch quests, then suddenly you're fighting the final boss out of nowhere.
>The original writer/director left and the new people who took over took it into a new direction.
Matsuno left six months before launch.
Which is probably why the final arc drops off.
Absolutely not. The game’s pacing is incredibly bad so it’s hard to remember what the frick is even going on as you move at a snail’s pace from point A to point B, and even then there are only maybe one or two well-directed scenes that are memorable. The CG cutscenes are so fricking lame that it’s nothing short of baffling. Every FF game that came before it had fricking incredible CG cutscenes throughout their entirety. NONE of FFXII’s are memorable or interesting.
It's not very good
my 2nd favorite FF game
Most people who talk about the game are too moronic. Both the people who hate the game because they skipped dialogue and then realized they dont understand the story or various character motives, and on the other side the people who liked zodiac age and the class system.
Explain why Zodiac and classes are bad.
The class boards are completely fricked by removing all of the 'empty' license plots in favor of lumping every single good license within 1k points of the start of the board, and they completely frick the game balance. You will enter sandsea with 6 swiftness and a dozen battle/magick lores and oneshot everything, including the second wall that was supposed to be a massive challenge. By the time you get access to bubble you wont even need it because everyone will have more HP+ from licenses then their natural HP from levels. Youre so overstatted that even rare hunts are trivial, until the game difficulty finally starts to catch up around lighthouse when the game actually expects you to have reached all 4 corners of the license board.
Probably true but I've never played the base game. Only the struggle for freedom mod which solves all of these problems.
Why do people defend the story of every single FF game?
I dont remembwr too too much. Couldnt find that 50th hunt, or all the Espers
FF6, Tactics and 12 are all S++ tier
I keep wondering why no one expanded on the gambit system. It was visionary
The VIIR devs said they were interested in making a FF game with a gambit system, but I imagine they'll be too busy to do it in the next 5 or so years.
I only remember princess ass and Captain Basch of Arabasta.
Game is old and still gets brought up in threads and got 2 remasters. Last FF developed before the merger and.the last decent FF as well with quite a few strong points.
>extremely beautiful unique world
>still the best moggle design
>god tier bong VA that is still the best english dub created to date that kinda kickstarted hiring Theater VA from there.
>hunts basically became a staple due to it
The only divisive part is the combat and only if you really abuse gambits by looking up guides online.
Last good final fantasy
i haven't played it yet, too busy with xenosaga and unlimited saga
yes
I love 12, but it's ost is not amazing, and the story falls apart in the end. I love the battles though, cool fricking system.
Imagine if 12 had the party banter during exploration that 7r (and 16 supposedly) has, the game would have been MUCH better.
Great fricking game, last good FF before the series went to shit.
Because it's boring.
the last good mainline game
>hurrrrr why is vaan even along for the ride
The bad guys killed his fricking brother, his only family, at the beginning of the game you absolute morons
I like it. It was one of my fav PS2 games but the story is boring or non existing. I think is because the lead writer was fired halfway in development
People do absolutely nothing but jack off to "how good 12 was".
It wasn't terrible, it was mostly ok, it's just that everything after it was a garbage fire so it seems better in comparison.
>Occuria were set up as the big bad the whole time (shocker)
>You don't even really confront them or get to see their weird city
Was this ever addressed in the other Ivalice games?
I don't think so.
The suits bullied Matsuno out of the company so he wasn't involved in the next ones.
You'd expect FFTA2 to have some sort of connection (unless I'm forgetting plot details) to the Occurria, but the main plot of the Advance series are the Grand Grimoires, which I think are a bigger Eldritch force than the Occurria collectively.
unironically, a FFXII-3 will be needed then, or maybe a Vagrant Story 2. has Matsuno talked about coming back to working on the series or is he just sticking with remasters and DLC for now?
Don't think he'll be back ever. They also killed the Ivalice Alliance group after the "Fortress" deal fell through.
He's worked in some tie in stuff with the FF14 guy but I will never expect anything more.
FF has always had a schizo identity crisis and depth to the lore has never been a strong suit, a persuit, or even thought of as something to be carried forward between titles. I think this is what's hurting it after the merger and their post FF12 era.
The best they can do is hand it to team Asano, have Matsuno consult for the story and plot, give them enough resources for development and an actual marketing budget since Square Enix loved to kill their non-FF games by doing the bare minimum in publicity.
Also, all FF7 trannies should neck themselves. Nomura should be hanged for the damage he's done to the company.
yeah, its a bit of a shame overall really. irony is that i genuinely think the company 'still' has that talent lying around inside, but mismanagement just keeps interfering too much imo. I think if they were to make another FF12 in some form, their best bet is to bring in the XVI team since nearly everyone working there has been giving it a lot of support (with the exception of Nomura, strangely).
Nomura imo, genuinely needs to leave KH behind and find a way to make his dumb Versus game. Him being stuck in Disney hell can't be very healthy.
because it's not that's nuchal better than ffx
Base game is actually bad
Zodiac Age makes it better, but Vaan is literally not a character until the fricking DS game because he wasn't supposed to even be in the game
Was the DS game good or did I just have a boner for anything RTS?
It was alright, both story and gameplay. Story took a huge nose dive for me once Ashe showed up and made everything boring again.
I'd have liked it a lot more if it had been turn based
It technically is still turn based. Its more like a hidden ATB system.
Bosses feel turn-based, the only unwelcome element is the positioning you may or may not have to do. Some boss fights like the tree dragon require constant pausing to optimize fast status recovery. The game playing itself via running around with gambit on slaughtering enemies on autopilot is boring and I lost interest shortly after the wall mini bosses in the temple, wherever you go after that, I just stopped caring.
You can make it turn based. The gambit system isn't obrigatory
>The gambit system isn't obrigatory
I say this with all seriousness, I'd like to see this in 7R.
You're still going to be running around and what not no? I just want it to be like ffx to put it plainly.
>ffx
Which is the inferior PS2 game. Only Dirge is below it and X-2
>Which is the inferior PS2 game
Thanks for letting me know but I don't remember asking.
I only played Zodiac Age and it is by a long shot the best FF in my opinion. The story and settings are essentially a mix of Star Wars but with a good plot and I liked all the characters including Vaan.
I feel SE could had expanded on this series but I am so glad they didn't.
i bought the steelbook CE when it first came out. i tried playing it several times. every time i try, I get autismfiltered and stop playing within about an hour by the microstutters caused by the constant sheathing and unsheating animations.
>XII
Vayne Solidor did many things wrong and could've done better if he co-operated with his father and brother.
Shut up, Ondore.
Loved the game but I laughed out loud when the game turned him into a jacked bodybuilder.
cause it's good and people here only like complaining (me included)
He's a true leader, indeed.
>best character in the game
>can't use him for 2/3 of it
>trademark dumb FF plot twist involves him
It's like they were trying to make people hate the game.
Because famous 12gay Stellagay hasn't come to this board in a while. He's the first 12gay to mindbreak Barry, Dreamboum doing so on Twitter isn't an isolated case. Barry must really hate FF12.
>Stellagay
>Dreamboum
Did they ever say why 12 is their favorite?
Why can't you mexicans write a simple and grammatical English question?
>Why nobody never talks about this game here?
Kek it’s pretty funny how he butchered it now that I’ve reread it.
I've 100% it once and it took me like 200-300 hours (there's A LOT of optional content), so I never bothered to play any of Zodiac versions after that
Cast is pretty damn bad - 5 humans and a bunny b***h in a world full of different races, and 2 of those humans are Vaan and Penelo. And somehow side characters (Larsa / Ondore / Reddas / etc.) actually do more vital stuff to the plot than your party.
Plot pacing is bad ("here are 3 filler locations before you actually get to location where plot finally moves forward, and of course each of filler location has at least 30 minutes of exploration and one boss fight") and sometimes game wastes even more time on shitty "minigames" before letting you advance (looking at you, Archades).
License Board was bad because it was the same for all six party members (but I know Zodiac versions fixed it and split the big one into 12 classes).
Espers were fun to fight but as summons they were absolutely garbage starting from midgame and jobbed to trashmobs in few seconds (dunno if they were buffed in Zodiacs versions or not).
Zodiac Spear triggers were moronic (and apparently it was fixed in Zodiac versions... only to be replaced with INVISIBLE weapons in INVISIBLE chests, which is even more moronic).
Pharos and Giruvegan are badly designed dungeons. Pharos is literally your typical Matsuno's utimate postgame dungeon (Deep Dungeon / Iron Maiden / Palace of the Dead) but this time it's not, and Giruvegan has timed gates activated by levers in a dungeon with no map and enemies running between rooms (unless the enemy issue was fixed in Zodiacs versions)
Bazaar system is bad, you're basically forced not to sell anything without looking up the guide to see which / how many items you need to sell for something to pop up
Eventually I appreciated FFXII not for its story or gameplay but for its vast amount of side content, and back then I had a ton of free time so I enjoyed doing stuff like hunting marks and rare mobs
Ashe is a muted mc.
>Ashe Muted
If only. b***h needed to shut up. And the fact that 75% of the plot focuses on her is why it's so bad.
It gets discussed here more than 1-6 and more than 9 and possibly even 8. You have no clue what you are talking about.
Where?
And what is there to discuss about FFXII anyway?
>And what is there to discuss about FFXII anyway?
Why ecelebs like Dreamboum and Stellagay like it so much
Shit story.
Shit characters, except for maybe Balthier.
Shit dungeons.
Shit combat.
Bland and uninteresting Star Wars wannabe setting.
The only good things about this game are the voice acting and the graphics, which for a PS2 game were incredibly and the best looking game on the system hands down. But other than these 2 things FF12 was soooo meh. Nothing memorable about it at all. A game only hipsters, contrarians and game journalists pretend is the best FF game only second to FF6, another hipster favorite. I don't know why they can't admit that FF7 is the best FF.
>graphics, which for a PS2 game were incredibly and the best looking game on the system hands down.
I thought at the time it was bad, because the brown and bloom style, along with the fuzzy textures, didn't show up well on CRT TVs. Same problem Twilight Princess had. This was kind of fixed upon the Zodiac Age re-release as things were made crisper and you could play it on an HDTV. But of course, it looks dated in some ways now.
Meanwhile, I think Dragon Quest VIII looked better back in the PS2 era. And still does today. Because cel shading and cartoon styles age better than styles going for realism.
Do you also complain when people say Dark Souls 1 or Elden Ring are better than Bloodborne?
https://arch.b4k.co/v/search/text/final fantasy XII/
>6105 results found
https://arch.b4k.co/v/search/text/final fantasy 12/
>2519 results found
I liked the gameplay but the story didn't draw me at all
I recommend people to read the FFXII manga. Its a thousand times better than what we got in the game. Van actually has character.
Gonna be straight with you I bought it on sale on steam haven't played it since PS2 I'll give it a try some time but god damn the concept of a new game minus is hilarious.
Here's a quick recap:
- Ashe is the protagonist and main character of XII, it's not Basch and it's not Balthier, neither of them has much relevance to the game's plot. Vaan's presence drops to almost nothing after Ashe joins your party permanently because he's just the tutorial protagonist
- Zodiac Age sucks ass, it retains all the changes from IZJS but double classing makes you too powerful and nothing in the game was readjusted to balance it out. IZJS is the best way to play XII even if it has the spell queue due to the PS2 not being able to handle so many simultaenous effects
- The game uses the same ATB as every "turn based" Final Fantasy before it, if you input commands manually for every character it is functionally indistinguishable from the previous ATB games save for the fact that melee and spells have a range attribute, although characters will automatically move into attack range if they can see the enemy
- Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
- Jote is sexier than Fran
>Ashe is the protagonist and main character of XII
Which is why I never finished it.
>Jote is sexier than Fran
Neither of them hold a candle to Penelo and you goddamn know it
>Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
fr fr ff7 remake would have been great with a gambit system
>Nomura needs to add Gambits in 7R
Why do I keep seeing this every time the word 'gambit system' gets mentioned? Do we know who started it?
I mean, I don't care for VII:R at all, shit's dead to me, but why would you want that?
The game doesn't even allow you to pick upgrades, it just has the crystarium for no fricking reason as it's completely irrelevant to gameplay.
Gambits aren't good because they're automated gameplay, and because they're more of a pain to set up than it is just select commands in the moment, but among all the autoplay systems they're obviously the best one by a long shot.
Mostly because you're forced to unlock options and slots for them with the same currency you need for spells and armor, which turns the automation into a luxury rather than a convenience.
The best of the bunch by far, but the whole bunch doesn't belong in any of these games.
Just press attack dude. It's not that hard.
The problem wiht 7R and KH3 and other Nomura action games is that the AI is shit. Gambits would solve that problem but people have said so long Square won't let you can't change Gambits in battle and they aren't enabled on the character you're playing in 7R/Sora/Roxas/some buttfrick clone in KH, it would work.
VII:R lets you input commands as the characters. The only thing that is automated is the autoattacking, and you do the rest yourself, so idk where gambits would fit in.
Do you really need a : if (break); then (use X) so Tifa always expends her charges to add to the stagger multiplier automatically?
just press the button
as for KH, you have setups and whatnot, but you're not supposed to rely entirely on Donald for heals or anything. They're also pretty easy games in general, critical mode data battles don't let you have teammates anyway so idk where it would fit there either.
>Do you really need a : if (break); then (use X) so Tifa always expends her charges to add to the stagger multiplier automatically?
Do you realize how much better non-Classic mode would be if Nomura did that (with 3x enemy HP?)
No, I think it would've been considerably worse actually.
I don't see any merit in staying on Cloud while my teammates do attacks by themselves, when the game is designed with switching in mind.
>- Gambits are still the best party AI system Square has come up with, and should've been featured in all their real time combat games where you don't manually input commands for everyone
It's high time someone agreed. Nomura should add Gambits to 7R and KH4. 16 should have Gambits too.
Sex with ashe
If you did not finish it on new game minus, you did not finish the game.
New game minus is the intended way to play this game!
If you do not play on new game minus, you can literally 1-shot even late game bosses, which cannot possibly be intended.
>this
Ng- was like playing the base game on ps2/pcsx. Zodiac age makes your characters way too powerful
How is it even possible to beat the game with level 1 characters?
Brown bunny
Bought Zodiac Age PC version, played some hours (can't recall exact number), liked the story and characters so far but combat filtered me, felt too much of a chore and I didn't feel it was challenging even with my half assed gambits. I uninstalled it a year ago always saying "I'll give it another try someday" but never got into it... does it get better in terms of combat? Friend who finished it told me it doesn't and after a while it becomes auto-combat with the right gambits...
Play it on new game minus
I started this game a few weeks ago, and got filtered a few hours in. Vaan just isn't very likeable, which is frustrating because his older brother in the tutorial both had a better character design and was very likeable. Balthier is also much more likeable and has main character energy.
Idk I think there's some cognitive dissonance between Vaan supposedly being an orphan but looking like a Jpop star.
Hope in FFXIII is a similar character in a lot of ways, but is also a lot more likeable: probably because Hope is a sheltered suburban kid who gets pulled into the conflict.
Idk. I'm just really filtered by Vaan and I think that's the reason: his character design mismatches his actual character.
>Hope in FFXIII is a similar character in a lot of ways, but is also a lot more likeable
you liked the kid who does nothing but mumble, grunt and look at his knife better than a wide-eyed street urchin with big dreams who keeps taking risks to make his dreams come true?
I like the IDEA of Vaan, he's supposed to be the scrappy street urchin/Aladdin type, survivor in a rough world, etc. etc., but besides his brother dying we don't see him face a lot of actual hardship (at least in the first several hours, I can't be bothered to play any more at the moment), and he's too much of a pretty boy. The game is too tame to show him suffering any real cruelties as a societal lowlife, and he walks around with perfectly styled anime hair instead of messy hair and dirt on his clothes from playing around in the sewers, getting into scraps, and stealing food to survive....
So no, I don't like him. He's a walking contradiction. He's literally just too clean looking for what his character is, or is supposed to be. And he's not helped by the fact that he seems almost irrelevant to the actual story of the game. It almost feels like there was some mandate from upper management to put a twink in for the fujo audience, and the writers didn't actually care at all about the character. I get this sense because I found out the writer is the guy who did Vagrant Story which is a pretty damn good story. The political scenario of FFXII feels like that style of writing, and Vaan just seems to be irrelevant to that story being told. Maybe my impression is wrong, maybe Vaan was a character the writers really liked, but to me that's how it comes across.
Hope is a spoiled suburban kid. He's a brat who gets thrown into hardship like he's never faced before, and he grows as a character from being a total sheltered wimp to a little trooper. His pretty boy design makes sense in the context of that story, and I like his character arc. Does Vaan even really have a character arc in the story? because besides getting revenge for his brother I generally don't see any setups for his character's story yet
Revenant Wings is better.
offline MMO
not interested back then, not interested now.
My only complaints:
The Gambit system makes the game a bit too easy.
The Zodiac Spear is bullshit and frick Squenix for making it so convoluted to obtain that you HAD to basically buy the guide. Frick Squenix forever for that bullshit.