FF began to suck balls?

[Treize]

Maybe I should say this right away. Final Fantasy isn't going downhill just from Final Fantasy XII. That seems to be the only thing people are focusing on... Just ignoring Final Fantasy XII for a moment, about every other Final Fantasy game since Final Fantasy X has been pretty bad in my opinion.

• I know that I have not liked any of the Crystal Chronicles or Chocobo spin-off games.
• Also the new Tactics games haven't even come close to being as good as the original except for the battle system.
• Final Fantasy X-2 had a pretty bad story. It's battle system was fun, but the story pretty much ruined it for me.
  
  @Zargabaath: Square shouldn't even make games if they aren't going to put a "full effort" into them.
• Dirge of Cerberus is just horrible. I don't even think I can name one good point.
• I have not played Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, but I haven't heard anything good about it. From what I have heard, it doesn't seem to be that great of a game.

Someone please tell me if there is another game that was made since Final Fantasy X that is any good. If there is, I would certainly like to play it, but I haven't seen any.

I ask: do you know how hard it is for a sequel's story to be as good as the original? Expectations should be set lower because it was a sequel and it was not a full effort from Square. Being that it was not a full effort from Square, why have high expectations?

Like I sad before, if Square isn't going to put an effort into making games, it shouldn't make them. I really don't want to hear "it was not a full effort." That is one of the worst excuses I've heard. Even still, my expectations were set low, and the story was still bad. Also this relates to what I was saying earlier. It seems like almost all the recent Final Fantasy related games do not have the full effort from Square. This is why I've been disappointed.

Also in my opinion, setting story aside, Final Fantasy XII isn't much better than Final Fantasy X-2... That doesn't seem too good when a game where the company "wasn't even trying" is just about as good as a game that they were developing for five years.

As Unknown Entity said, Square is offering their earlier works to the new generation so that may experience the games and become a bigger fan of the series. I also think with the increase in development time for games, let alone a Final Fantasy, Square needs to get some revenue. It is unfortunate and sad that it takes longer for the next Final Fantasy game to come out, though Final Fantasy XIV will be out late 2010 so we will have had two Final Fantasies released in one year, but I'd rather wait longer than Square to go under and there be no new Final Fantasies.

Maybe I should clarify myself. I am not against Square remaking some of their classic games, but it has gone over board. All of these games have been remade several times except for Final Fantasy III and Tactics. I think the original Final Fantasy can be played on almost any system now. I think it is bad if the majority of the games you release are just remakes, or even random spin-off games that are crap for that matter. If Square wants to make some revenue, they should be coming out with some more new, innovative games instead of just rehashing the same games over and over again. I don't want a company who is just going to throw out crap for years, and can hardly even make good games anymore.

What parts did you like?

My points before were trying to convey how it is worse than previous games. Just about everything was acceptable, but I was expecting a little more after waiting for five years--the time that it took to make five other games that are much better.

Like I said before, the battle system is pretty addicting. I also liked the change in that you could see the monsters on the map. This may not be the best, but it isn't bad to change the battle system up every once in awhile. This may not matter to some people, but I also like the graphics. Sure, the character designs weren't the greatest, but the cities and the different areas look pretty good.

Again, Final Fantasy XII isn't horrible. It is just worse than a lot of previous games.

All the previous FFs can be summed up to be generic, however in each game, FF XII included, there is a lot more to the story.

I do not think that FF IV, VI-VIII, and X can even be considered generic. Maybe FFIV a little now, but back when I last played it, it did not seem that generic. Even Final Fantasy IX, which was very generic in a lot of ways, was far better than Final Fantasy XII. As I've said before, in my opinion the story in Final Fantasy XII isn't as great when comparing to previous Final Fantasy games. This is an opinion, so I can't really change your mind if your opinion differs.

And other FFs could have been the story to any other RPG and other RPG could have been a FF story. But, when you turn FF XII's story into "basically it is ..." then yes it would appear to be like a story from another RPG as other Final Fantasies could be.

As I've said before, previous Final Fantasy games seem a lot more original to me. Final Fantasy XII just seems a lot like some other Square games that have been made. For a lot of Final Fantasy games, I can't even name a game that has a comparable story or very similar themes. That is not true about Final Fantasy XII, though.

While FFT's story was original not translated well, from what I gathered the story was greatly liked.

I wasn't trying to say that FFT's story isn't liked. I think that FFT was more made for the battle system than anything else. With a game like Final Fantasy Tactics, I place the battle system over the story. However, in a traditional RPG like Final Fantasy XII, the thing I'm looking forward to the most is the story. It was expecting a better story than FFT, and in my opinion, FFXII didn't match my expectations. Lets face it, there aren't that many great innovations in FFXII that are worth looking forward to more than the story should be. Maybe if I would have lowered my expectations like you said I should have done for FFX-2, I would have liked it more, but I feel like I should not have to keep lowering my standards. I would think that the games would be better, and I could raise my expectations, but I guess not.

And the characters of the other Final Fantasies can be just as generic. The FF XII characters had depth, but they didn't take as many lines as past games did in creating that depth. Final Fantasy XII used less lines and less words however, what you got out of their lines was more than what was said on a scale never before done in Final Fantasy. It took the player to think about what the characters words meant, it was not spoonfed. Also, not only did they use less lines to convey their characters, but with body language/facial experessions as well.

Dr. Cid, Gabranth, or Ashe were not interesting? (To name a few)

I'm not saying all of the characters are completely generic. Some characters did have depth. However, If I remember right, there really are not that many characters who are more generic than Vaan and Penelo. This might be a little too extreme, but to me they are comparable to the Thief and Black Mage in the original Final Fantasy. Once again I've not completed the game yet, so if they somehow have these major parts at the end of the game, then I may be wrong, but from what I've played, they have contributed little to nothing to the entire game.

It is not difficult to complete the License Board, but how often has it been hard to "break" the system or to become "beast" in any other Final Fantasy game?

At least in other games you had to work towards it. In this game it is so easy to complete the License Board, that it is a little ridiculous. These are just comparisons to specific games that I liked. In Final Fantasy IV, there really wasn't much of a way to "break" the system unless you leveled a lot and were at a really high level, but then again this took some work to do. In Final Fantasy VII, there are some ways to "break" the system with your materia, but even then a lot of the bosses are quite challenging and it would be next to impossible to win without doing this, and you could still level materia, or use different materia. In FFXII, once you mastered the License board, that was it. What was left to do? Buy the stuff? In Final Fantasy VIII, you could somewhat "break" the system with your Junctions, but even then since the monsters leveled up with Squall, the game still had increasing difficulty. In Final Fantasy IX, the only way I saw to "break" the system was to level up to really high levels, but that would take extra time. In Final Fantasy X you could "break" the system, but it takes a lot or extra time and work to do that. In Final Fantasy XII it just happens naturally on its own.

I know you haven't forgotten about farming for loot to gain weapons via the Bazaar. Also, what level did you complete the License Board? I am around level 65 and none of my license boards are complete, though I probably could complete it with the excess license points I accumulated.

I completed the License Boards in my 40s. Even then there are a lot of spaces that you would never use, so you could get every possible square that you would use in the late 30s probably. Farming for loot was fun, but you do not have to defeat some enemies a lot just for loot. From what I remember, there were only certain enemies that you had to defeat to get the loot that you needed. In the license board on the other hand, it was useful to defeat any type of enemy.

And there a few Final Fantasies where the characters are distinctively different. Most Final Fantasy games have allowed for loads of character customization, Final Fantasy XII is not different yet garners more heat.

When I go to the Final Fantasy VI gamefaqs boards I see plenty of topics or posts about the best set-up for a party, for getting the most out of the characters with great detail about what is best. In Final Fantasy XII, the characters do have grades in the stats, yet I see nothing of the same for FF XII as in FF VI, for example. The same thing can be done for Final Fantasy XII, the best tank, the best damage dealer, mage, etc., but it has not been done on the same scale. But why is there hate on FF XII and not on the other games? It's because it is a blind hatred toward the game because of the change, not on the quality of change which is good.

I have not seen another Final Fantasy game where a character can do everything. I like some more diversification. In my opinion, it was annoying that any character could equip any weapon/armor/accesory, use all magick/skills, and pretty much do anything any other character could do. At least in other games there was always at least some differences between characters unless you chose to have them all be the same. For Final Fantasy XII, you don't choose for your characters to be the same. They just are.

And setting up your gambits is optionally and how many you set-up is optional as well. Are you telling me you don't like being able to have an option to turn off the gambits? Would you have preferred that you had to use gambits for all the characters? Unlike past Final Fantasy games where if you didn't like the battle system you couldn't change it much - in Final Fantasy XII you could change it more than any prior game. The developers did not limit the player, appreciate their genius to allow such an option.



Keyword: could. You realize this, yet still try to penalize the battle system regardless. The option to turn the gambits on or off nulls that point. Thought is still required because you have to set-up your gambits to the situation which changes as many have said that during the tough fights they had to change their gambits. So, you don't like any AI system in a RPG? The gambits gave control to the player like never before. Square said, "We won't make pre-rendered tactics, but we will allow the player to create their own system, to try and figure out the best set-up". There have been bad AI systems in RPGs before, why players would hate having control like never before bewilders me; do players not like having control?

I was trying to say that I do not like that there is even an option for the player to be able to set the gambits up so that they can literally win without having to even enter any command. I do not specifically hate the gambits, but I do dislike this option of "playing" without even doing anything. This is optional to turn off or not use to its fullest, but I still find this to be a downside.

It does appear that children read less and less, I was not one of them, however if you played Final Fantasy XII - if you listened or read - you would know that Final Fantasy XII is the best game for young minds. I had recently started FF VI up again, though I may hold off on it for a while, but it amused me how basic the vocabulary was in the game and it is the same throughout the series - except for Final Fantasy XII. For any young mind there are more words that they would have to look up than in any previous Final Fantasy. The sentence structures in the past games were also simplistic, yet take a look at Final Fantasy XII and you will have to stop to think about what the character said because of the complex sentence structure and the fact that there was more in the sentence than what was just said - something not done by past Final Fantasy games. In the end, Final Fantasy XII is great for kids as it teaches them BIG words and involves critical thinking.

P.S. There are also subtitles availabe so they could read it as well.

Maybe it isn't the best game for kids if they aren't going to understand half the plot... It will most likely seem even more boring than it already is. I don't think most kids have the initiative to be looking up a lot of words while playing the game.

This doesn't really relate to what you posted, but I think it would be nice if the Japanese voice track was included. Then you could have better voice actors, and can read the subtitles if you don't understand Japanese. I've liked when this was done in other RPGs, but I think that Final Fantasy just becomes too localized and this will probably never happen.

Finally about FFXIV being released in the same year, I don't even really care. I am not going to pay this monthly fee in order to play it. I probably would not be able to play enough to make it worth the money anyway. These online games are good for some people, but I really wish that Square would come out with more console games that are actually good.