FF began to suck balls?

[Zargabaath]

In the cut-scene as you use the airship to get onto the Bahamut, Vayne is talking with his brother who is asking him to surrender. Vayne then turns to his soldiers, and shouts "For Arcadia!" The way the soldiers shout back doesn't sound right. It's as if they all have the same voice (with minor tweaking), and whoever acted the voice didn't put enough umph into it.

Quite true, that was a low-point for the voice-acting for Final Fantasy XII. The cast, the characters whom were distinguishable and not "grunt(s)", did a splendid job.

Also, Penelo's voice annoyed me slightly.

While she didn't annoy me, there was something about Penelo voice-acting that could put a blemish on the voice-acting of Final Fantasy XII.

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.

My apologies, I wasn't clear in what I was trying to convey. By a "full effort" I meant that certain games get more funding, support, and a bigger development team than other games. A main entry in the Final Fantasy series gets a "full effort" from Square, while smaller series, spin-offs, sequels, or remakes don't get the same amount of effort. Now if you want Square to put the same amount of effort as a main Final Fantasy entry to all their games then those are lofty expectations and would be quite tolling on the company.

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.

From this I take away that you think the battle system for FF X-2, the graphics for both games, the music for both games, the voice-acting for both games, the body language for both games were comparably bad? I would suggest going to youtube and watch the scenes that you have seen to refresh your memory on the voice-acting and body language of Final Fantasy XII; it was superior to that of Final Fantasy X-2.

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.


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.

Four youths trying to save the world from eventual ever-lasting darkness
A group of youths trying to free the world from an evil empire
Four youths trying to stop the world for being drowned in darkness
A band of heroes trying to save the population of the planet from annihilation
A band of heroes trying to save the world from the void
A band of heroes fighting against an evil empire
A band of heroes trying to stop a man
Youths trying fighting against the sorceress
A band of heroes trying to stop the destruction of their planet's population
A Summoner and her guardians journey to stop an evil force
A Princess and her group's journey to restore her kingdom

Simple are they not, yet when you play the games there is a lot more.

And you must realize that the games will be similiar and themes may be re-used because there is hardly any originality left because somewhere that story was used before. Final Fantasy VI took from Final Fantasy II in fighting against an empire but there was more in FF VI than just that and both games branched out differently. Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V both have heroes chosen by the crystals yet are different. What games does Final Fantasy XII seem to be like? There are games that have used the same or similiar themes as Final Fantasy, don't be naive to think that Square somehow always found a new theme to touch on.

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.

Square kept their standards on story with Final Fantasy XII. There are sour spots in each final fantasy game where something could have been done to make the story better - Final Fantasy XII is no different - but, people complained because how the story was presented made it appear that the story was bland and generic and that the characters were dull and undeveloped.

I don't know if you are aware of its existence but a person on gamefaqs made a great thread on the defense of FF XII's story from all inaccuracies and they do a masterful job at defending the story and use the game as the evidence (it does contain spoilers). In the thread which is quite long, he shows those who were blind the character development and the story of Final Fantasy XII; some people don't know what character development is in this age of video-gaming as they are used to it being blatantly obvious to see and with FF XII people forgot what is a "story".

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.

How is Vaan generic? When I went back to watch FF XII on youtube for research purposes I was surprised that I had forgotten how many lines Vaan had and how they shaped his character. It was said in the beginning that Vaan and Penelo were supposed to the "commoner", they were not some legendary heroes who were capable of crushing the evil in one second or who turned out to be something special or magical as in past FFs. Vaan's and Penelo's lines and actions show very well the commoner aspect in the grand scope of things and how a commoner would think/behave. Would you want a commoner acting like nobility - if Vaan talked like Ashe, Bergan, or any other higher-educated character? I'm pretty sure you have gone through some parts of the game where you did not realize Vaan's importance as a commoner to the story, however, a commoner realistically shouldn't become too important to the story - they are afterall a commoner.

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.

In Final Fantasy II the Blood Swords really made the final boss and a lot of the enemies ridiculously easy and the ability to wack yourself and was tons of mp in battle made leveling up your stats very easy. It may take time but time doesn't make something more difficult neccesarily just more time-consuming.

In the old version of Final Fantasy III the Ninja and Sage broke that game, now it has been better balanced on the DS version though the spell "protect" still makes the final fight easy.

In Final Fantasy V mastering certain jobs allows for certain passive ablities of that job to transfer over to the "Bare" and "Mimic" job classes which made that game very easy; the ability to dual-cast Bahamut.

In Final Fantasy VI there are plenty of set-ups that allowed the player to break the game, the older version was easier to break but I think with the newer versions they did balance the game a little bit.

If you are referring to two bosses in Final Fantasy VII then that is not " a lot", however once again it was simple to be a power-house in FF VII.

I thought the monsters leveled up with the parties level not Squalls? I believe that is so. In FF VIII the player couldn't "somewhat" break the junction system they could definitely break it. With the proper set-up battles were a breeze, also Aura first round then crush any who opposed you. It was not hard at all to break FF VIII and for that whole "the monsters level with you" trait which never got troublesome - the Level Down ability.

It seems you have forgotten about the abilities of certain characters in Final Fantasy IX that would allow them to do 9999 outside of trance; those skills didn't require the player to level up to break the system though you would through the battling.

Final Fantasy X was one of the easiest to break and though it added more time most weren't that difficult at all. My first playthrough of FF X I was doing 99,999 damage with Tidus, Wakka, Auron and put 92 hours in the game; compare my FF XII file of 115 hours I was nowhere close to doing 99,999 damage with each hit. You also got the spheres needed quite easily to get to new parts of the sphere grid.

Something I realized today about that last line of yours in the quote above. "In Final Fantasy XII it happens naturally". Really? Just because you fill out the license board doesn't make you a beast, you had to find the necessary components to actually use them. So yes go ahead and fill out the license board but if you don't have the Wrymhero Blade having that license isn't going to give you a special boost during battle. Now getting all those weapons and armour will take more time than any other Final Fantasy game (since you liked the other games taking a long time to "break" the system, you should be entralled about this game) and there are some very challenging boss fights to acquire the components as well.

I don't know how many people missed this but another complaint was " I have the weapon but because I don't have the license I can't use said weapon - meaning the license board sucks". What many people apparently missed is the explanation as to why this system was used - "As for the license system, he explained that needing "licenses" to perform certain actions was a natural extension of the rigid structured society of Archadia, as epitomized by its Judges" taken straight from the battle designer which kind of reminds players of the laws of FFTA. Gasp.

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.


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.

That diversification was quite small and the characters could still do anything any other character did albeit better, compareable, or not as well. As I said before, the FF VI boards on gamefaqs you'll see people talking about the perfect set-up yet for Final Fantasy XII there is nary a thread. It can be done with FF XII - Basch has a max magick power of 57 or 59 while Penelo's is at 69, so would you make Basch a mage or Penelo. Of course you could make Basch a mage but he wouldn't be as good as Penelo, just like in FF VI you could use a set-up for Cyan to become beast but guess what? Cyan sucks. Most of the other characters can do what Cyan does and greatly better. Equipping certain weapons in FF XII, armour, and accesories could allow the best set-up for a mage, but why do it on Basch who is not as good as Penelo or Ashe. The characters in FF XII are different you just haven't gone in-depth with the system. Remember RPGs are a numbers game so getting the most damage out of your "damage classes" and having the best tank to take the least amount of damage is what is looked for - this doesn't have to be followed but if you choose not to then don't complain about FF XII.

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.

The american voice-actors did a superb job, I get tired of people complaining that american voice-actors suck and japanese are so superb. Most don't live in Japan, speak Japanese natively, nor know how japanese voice-actors are received in Japan. Because it sounds foreign they think it is better - pretentious fools.

A reason why Final Fantasy XII is the most mature Final Fantasy game. What's wrong with learning new words? And that's why a lot of the younger people who didn't like the story complained because it went over their head but the game would help them with in their literary skills and in turn help them understand the story more and appreciate it. Also, I know I wouldn't want Final Fantasy to cater to kids; having something similiar to FF XII would be nice.