The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Final Fantasy XII, does it get better?
tbloxham
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
FFXII only came out recently here in the UK and I of course excitedly bought it on launch day. Since that time however Ive not really gotten into the game. Im only in up to the point where you
but Ive so far found the story to be vaguely generic and to not match the epic feel that X had. I dont really care what happens to my guy, or to any charecter in the party except the Sky Pirate.
Also the music seems really really badly scored, often totally ruining the tension in a scene with jolly plinky plinky scores.
In addition the license board is nowhere near as fun as the sphere grid, it makes everyone feel so generic. Each charecter always seems to be like 10 minutes away from having the exact same powers and abilities as the rest. The sphere grid would let you do this, but you knew it would be a huge effort to make charecter X like Charecter Y.
I love the new combat, but find it immensely frustrating that there seems to be no.
Maintain distance from eneamies gambit for your healers. And with only 3 people in the party at a time, I seem to find myself ignoring most of my charecters.
So the question I ask is, does it get better.
Does the license board eventually make sense and give you distinct feeling charecters?
Does the story become epic again? With world spanning plots and despicable villains scheming to destroy eveything?
Will I start to feel more interest in the main charecter? After tidus he just seems pathetic.
When do I get hugely powerful and absurdly apocalyptic special summon moves?
What am I supposed to do during the quickenings? They have a bar and the instructions on screen say R2 - shuffle. Should I be pressing buttons for more damage?
Escape from the big airship after rescuing the princess after being on the sky island thing
but Ive so far found the story to be vaguely generic and to not match the epic feel that X had. I dont really care what happens to my guy, or to any charecter in the party except the Sky Pirate.
Also the music seems really really badly scored, often totally ruining the tension in a scene with jolly plinky plinky scores.
In addition the license board is nowhere near as fun as the sphere grid, it makes everyone feel so generic. Each charecter always seems to be like 10 minutes away from having the exact same powers and abilities as the rest. The sphere grid would let you do this, but you knew it would be a huge effort to make charecter X like Charecter Y.
I love the new combat, but find it immensely frustrating that there seems to be no.
Maintain distance from eneamies gambit for your healers. And with only 3 people in the party at a time, I seem to find myself ignoring most of my charecters.
So the question I ask is, does it get better.
Does the license board eventually make sense and give you distinct feeling charecters?
Does the story become epic again? With world spanning plots and despicable villains scheming to destroy eveything?
Will I start to feel more interest in the main charecter? After tidus he just seems pathetic.
When do I get hugely powerful and absurdly apocalyptic special summon moves?
What am I supposed to do during the quickenings? They have a bar and the instructions on screen say R2 - shuffle. Should I be pressing buttons for more damage?
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
tbloxham on
0
Posts
The plot isn't as interesting or as epic as previous final fantasies, this one seems to focus on a more interesting and challenging combat system.
And as for quickenings, you press R2 to shuffle in the hope that it allows somebody else to Mist Charge and then you can use quickenings again allowing you to chain several together for excitingly large damage which makes the hunts actually possible.
That said, Balthier is awesome
Then I got the summons, figured out the quickening system and how to properly use the license board, and got to the bit with all the political intrigue and was very much chuffed. Yes, Balthier is awesome, though I wish his voice actor would emote a bit more.
And I believe when FFX came out quite a lot of idiots complained about its storyline being 'outlandish' and 'hard to follow', so blame them if square have toned down the epic. Personally, I'm having a much harder time following this one, I'm still not sure which side everyone is on.
LoL: failboattootoot
First off, I think the License Board is FAR better than the Sphere Grid. Why? Because I hated having to handle stats in the Sphere Grid. I don't want to play the game for 150 hours to get all my characters with full stats! I tried to do it but I ended up quitting out of boredom.
Secondly, I love the soundtrack for the game. Sure it doesn't sound like a Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack but it's still freaking awesome. I can't remember any 'jolly plonky' music ruining the tension in any scenes.
You really shouldn't be thinking of Vaan as the main character. Sure he's the guy the story is told to you through, but IMO Ashe is by far the main character in the game.
And lastly, sorry to disappoint but summons haven't been hugely powerful (or useful) since FFVII. They were absolutely useless in FFX and in FFVIII/IX I hardly ever used them.
FFXII definitely has its flaws (story and the lack of depth in the gambit system are too big ones I can name) and I wouldn't name it in my top 3 FF's (which would go to FFVII, FFT and one of FFVIII/FFX-2/FFV) but I am still really enjoying it.
What bizarro universe is this statement true in?
In 10, you prepare for every boss fight by maxxing out your overdrives on all your summons, leaving the boss nearly dead by the time by the time they finish...
VIII arguably had some of the most powerful summons, thanks to being able to summon them unlimited times in a battle, and fully trained summons firing off extremely fast after you select the command. Of course, it's not that fun to sit through Eden multiple times in the same fight. Utility summons were always useful too, eg Cerberus (triple cast Magic per turn).
Knights of the Round is in a class of its own though.
Anyway back to the topic - I've been watching my brother play this, and the combat seems so boring that it's putting me off playing it myself.
I agree about the music too, it's just so drab and lifeless, it sucks the atmosphere from the game.
As for making sense, it did for me from the get go so I can't help you there.
That IS the story, you just haven't gotten to it yet. Except you span countries, not the world. I enjoyed the story up until a little bit past where you are, and after that I thought it all went downhill. But that's just me; maybe you'll like the change.
Vaan isn't the main character. I'd say Ashe is.
You get summons, yeah, but they're mostly useless.
Mojo answered that.
Oh and I love the music. Hitoshi Sakimoto does great work, though I'll admit that it doesn't sound like Final Fantasy music.
I just feel the license board makes my group of cookie cutter heroes even more cookie cutter than they need to be, since not only are they a group of fantasy stereotypes they are a group of fantasy stereotypes who have identical skills and abilities! I can definately understand why people didnt like the sphere grid, it could have been too limiting to people who love to maxout their charecters, but I think the license board is a step too far in the other direction.
And I dont demand a storyline as good as FFX, I just want to be reassured that there is something coming up to make it seem more than meandering about with no real purpose. X threw you right into the story, and gave you some fantastic villains. I guess the judges are acceptable baddies, but right now everyone seems to be acting with decent intentions and I can really get worked up to save the world from invaders who really only want to secure their borders and secure energy harvests.
Tell me at least theres some kind of bad guy with a despicable and unlikely plot for me to thwart?
And that at least one of the summons performs an attack which could destroy the entire planet. I dont car ehow useful such an attack is. My favourite part of FFX was always using those minotaur brothers who threw the moon down and blew the planet up followed by a big MISS appearing over the bosses head
edit - someone answered some of my questions in a previous post which appeared inbetween me pressing reply and posting this
Square(enix) really let me down with FFXII.
I think this is officially the Dumbest Complaint ever. Like official officially.
Oh I'm sorry, I thought that people actually like to... you know... PLAY the game, not just WATCH it.
While it is possible to have every character learn every skill on the License Board, trying to make Balthier into your mage and Penelo into your tank will result in an extremely difficult playthrough. Stat growth is very different for each character, and this is what determines their role more than the License Board. If you know what you're doing, you pay attention to their stats and purchase Licenses accordingly. If your just randomly buying the same Licenses for each character, then you need to pay better attention to how the system works.
Also, there is no "main character," so don't go looking for one. It's an ensemble cast, like FFVI, and I happen to think it's a relatively strong one at that. Some obviously have more of an impact on the story than others, but the supporting cast in this game is excellent (wait until you meet Al-Cid).
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
Edit: Voiced by Nicole Fantl
Why make every character powerful when you can not give them the basic Augments that they all will eventually need. Magick Casting time down? Well everyone can cure, that's helpful for everyone. Gimping your party so one person does white magic, another black, blah blah, so that you can say how DIVERSE and DIFFERENT each character can really be, is a terrible excuse to try to make the game better than it comes off as to a Default player.
But I mean.. if they all had the same skills to learn, and started on different sides of the.. Oh no wait, that was FFX.
Yeah I can make them all have different Jobs, and wear my sunglasses as night, to show you all how bad ass I am..
But the Jobs don't exist in this ivalice-world.
Sure. It's more realistic because most people can learn.. MOST things. But like a truckload of real world applications - it's boring to tears.
Oh, back on subject, I actually quite like the game but I think I'll never enjoy another RPG as much as FFX plainly because of the fantastic storyline. (That's only in my eyes of course)
I ask because once you start unlocking more Gambit slots and getting more precise Gambits, the entire system becomes less of an "auto-battle" and more of a nuanced programming language that gets really good at approximating how you'd be tossing commands manually. Rather than pausing the action every four seconds and inputting actions, I could give each person a battle plan to stick to and then isssue occasional commands to break up the flow. It's less grunt and more commander, although I know the system ain't for everyone.
I was totally against the Gambit system philosophically -- until I read more about it and then actually played the game. It was fan-fucking-tastic, but then again I like tinkering and I've always had a penchant for coding.
'Open Menu > Select Hero > Choose Hit > Target Baddie > Confirm' is hardly 'playing a game' either. But that's all you need to do for 99% of most RPG games. There may be the odd variation when you encounter a boss and need to heal or bust out a summon, but you still need to do that in FFXII too.
Disclaimer: I love RPG's.
I found summons in FFX to be FAR stronger than in any ff game before them. They were damage sinks AND did huge damage, they were stupid good.
like broke the game and made it really easy good.
The license board is definitely able to be abused and I wish they had set limits on the characters. However in FFX I had all of my characters covering all of the sphere grid as well so it's not like it's the first FF game to let you over power your characters.
I don't think I've ever seen someone say that before...
FFXII's storyline is much less like other Final Fantasies and more like FFTactics, which makes sense given the designers. The bad guys are much more real, then in previous games. I liked the storyline overall however some areas I would spend too long leveling up my characters that I would get disconnected from the storyline.
Summons are just disappointing in this game. I believe that the summons have special attacks that may be cool but you have to have an enemy that fulfills that summons required condition before it will use it. Most of the time the summons do not last long enough for you to achieve that.
Yeah, because that's exactly what I said. :roll: Obviously there are a number of useful generic skills that everyone can benefit from, but using each character as a generic "red mage" rather than using them according to their specialties makes the game harder, not easier. Certain healing and buff spells are useful for everyone, but you will always have much greater success choosing a direction for each character and sticking to it until you have more LP to spread around.
You do have some flexibility to choose what that direction should be, but even then the characters' growth stats will determine what kind of "classes" work best with each character. Just because I can give Basch a staff and max out his white magic doesn't mean he's just as good a healer as Ashe or Penelo. And even though I'm far enough in the game that he has both mid-level Cure magic and some magic enhancements, I still have him use potions most of the time because it's faster and more efficient.
Commander, exactly. You might liken it to an RTS, telling all your guys to attack a target and merely making sure it goes smoothly...you intervene is when someone's health is low and go back to directing the action when the target is down. Maybe that's a bad analogy, but I think it's similar enough. Heck, FF12 DS looks exactly like an RTS.
A friend of mine was against gambits too...I was mainly curious, but the demo was terrible in that regard, not letting you adjust any of it at all. Tinkering with them ingame was actually fun.
Well I guess that's my problem with this game. Having 5 more Magic than one person does not make them a mage. It's such a sliver of stats it doesn't even feel like it makes a difference. And it doesn't. Beat the game, got all the Espers, with only using the three men.
I shouldn't have to make a game harder for myself, on purpose, just to enjoy it.
Some people prefer being able to mold everyone into whatever they want, and others want forced uniqueness to encourage taking advantage of all characters throughout the game. I feel that 10 was the best FF at getting this balance right, though 6 was good also with unique skills but customizable magic.
I set all my characters to cast cure on characters with less than 50 HP. And during combat, all they *ever* do is cure.
Or throw potions at characters with critical hp. They rarely, if ever, hit the enemy. And quickenings and summons requiring full mp bar means I never get to use them outside the start of the battle.
I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong.
That and why are characters I don't ever use so low level? Will I have to go through the entire game again to train them when I do want to use them?
The big issue I had with the license system was that you were basically flying blind on it. You shouldn't have to reference an outside source for that kind of thing. It was like they gave you a map with all the roads and cities placed on it, but no labels so you had a vague idea of where to go but not what you were really going to find when you went that way. I'd think the beauty of a system like that would be specializing your characters from the get go, but you can't do that if you don't know where to take them.
The combat system just wasn't that fun for me, in any fight that mattered I was choosing all my characters individual actions anyways so the gambit system was useless and not being more turn-based like previous games was just making it more difficult to use.
I honestly didn't play too far into it, so perhaps it gets better, I just got sick of it so fast I didn't want to play more to find out. I gave it to a friend of mine so maybe I'll try it again some day.
You sound like your're relatively new to the game. Are you sure you didn't pick the greater than 50 hp gambit or something by mistake? [Don't recall when that one is available.]
I love G&T.
Right, you say all they ever do is cure...is that because characters are actually below 50 HP, or aren't they? Because if they aren't, the gambits are set up wrong somehow. If they are, then you need to set it to heal at a lower HP.
50 HP sounds wrong too. Are you sure it's not 50%? EDIT: Ah.
And on a different note, why are some magicks only available from one out-of-the-way merchant? The magick shop in a big city should stock these things.
Everything your saying bad about FF12 is just nitpicking. The gambit system is far more complex then what your making it out to be.
For me this is the best FF i have ever played (and I've played them all). Story, battle system, sound, graphics every goddam pixel about this game says timeless classic.
I disagree with pretty much everything in your post. But, 'tis your opinion, and I shall only answer this.
I had hugely powerful and absurdly apocalyptic summons before the area you're at. Just had to use the license board to my advantage.
That, and the fact that the sphere grid can work against you if you aren't careful.
To make them unique and special and something to seek for. Early FFs did this all the time. FF1's best level 8 magic was off a hidden exit in Lefein. FF3's best spells and summons are at the end of an optional dungeon. FF6's most powerful espers can only be obtained by finding hidden areas and/or defeating difficult bosses.