FF began to suck balls?

[rascalz]

I’m not really looking for an answer I just want to find out if I’m not alone in this way of thought. But after Final Fantasy 9, the whole game has just gone downhill completely.

I first played FF7 way back in the days and from then it turned me into a gamer. I then played up till 9 and the previous FF’s loving them all in their glory. I played FF10 and although quite enjoyable there was something very wrong. But now, I’m sorry, they have simply just begun to sucked.

FF12 was just horrible... I didn’t even bother finishing it because it just bored me. For some strange reason they went from having a game with a the most amazing narratives, imagination and playability into the same old shit any game developers can make. If you think FF12 has good imagination, think again. It just didn’t feel like a FF at all and I hope older FF players agree with me. I know there trying to keep up with today’s market but why take away things that made the game what it is and change it to fit newer players. What happened to looking after the older and loyal player’s! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

I know people are going to say they don’t give a **** what this guy thinks but I just want to get some opinions from other FF fans. I’m not trying to start a rant.

p.s. Oh and I might be the only FF7 fan saying this but please don’t do a FF7 remake. It was a gaming work of art and it doesn’t need a graphic update at all. It would be like stencilling a Ipod on the Mona Lisa! ok maybe too far

Looking forward to responses.
rascalz

[GypsyElder]

For me, after X I became less and less interested in the newer games, hence why I'm playing all of the older ones now like V and VI.

I played XII, which I thought was okay not horrible, but I wasn't as stoked to play that one as say IX and X, I just got a little bored with XII. Never got around to playing XI and I probably won't any time soon. X-2...it was kind of fun sometimes but overall that game was fail.

Waiting for XIII.

[Andromeda]

I've enjoyed all of the FF games that I've played. I have not found any of the quality or interest to be lacking when I played them. The only FF game I haven't played repeatedly was FFXII and that was because at that point I had purchased too many RPGs that I couldn't replay it immediately. But you also have to keep in mind that a RPG is enjoyable to me on varying merits. In general, FF RPGs are enjoyable for the story while other RPGs are enjoyable for their gameplay or quirkiness.

If anything I found FFIII and FFIV to be lacking. Though they are both on handhelds, the versions I own. So that sort of hurts them before they were even out the door. I have yet to finish either of them primarily because they are on handhelds. FFIV had an interesting story, though it wasn't strong enough for it to over power my disinterest in handhelds. Which is why I may end up replaying it on the PS1. I'll probably enjoy it more there. I haven't finished any of the FFs under FFVII yet.

I'll admit that FFVII had a pretty epic quality to that has not really been matched since. But all of the stories afterwards have been enjoyable for me to keep replaying them over and over again.

As for FFXII I enjoyed it for the different approach it took. If you look at it the world really was not coming to an end. You were just looking to stop an empire that threatened your country. That was about it. Which was nice, you stuck is a small part of the entire world and had a small adventure there. It was far more political at times and the main character was more an observer than the main character. But I could enjoy those differences. It was a different story telling experience, plus I loved the combat system. I couldn't get enough of it. I played the demo like 4 times because I loved the combat so much. When a game makes combat that enjoyable that I actually loved grinding or farming you know you have a winner. I'd go back and replay it in a heart beat if I wasn't trying to get through 50 other RPGs currently.

[Dodie16]

I think that I did enjoy the PSone era of the FF games the most, but I don't think that the newer ones "suck balls". I happen to enjoy FF XII very much. I know that there is a lot of criticism over the changes made in that game, but I think it was pretty refreshing myself. At least Square-Enix is trying something different so they aren't doing the same-old, same-old.

I am also eagerly awaiting FF XIII, although I think I'm a little more excited for Versus XIII. I'm trying to steer clear of finding out too much information about the game before it gets released to the States.

Posted by rascalz
What happened to looking after the older and loyal player’s! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

I sort of get what you're saying, but I think that it's important for developers to appeal to the newer audiences sometimes. If you keep appealing to the same demographic who pretty much want the same thing, how can there be any innovation?

[Psiko]

*prepares to get flamed*

VII

Allow me to explain myself here. In my mind the Final Fantasy games can be grouped into three categories (not going to try to include XI because most people skip it anyway)

The Bad: II, X, X-2, XII

The Decent: Mystic Quest, V, VII, VIII

The Great Ones: I, III, IV, VI, IX, Tactics

I frown when I think of the Playstation era and beyond. Of course, by decent I don't mean that any of those ones are terrible games. There are many parts of all four of those that I truly cherished and enjoyed. Yet they lacked a certain...something that just didn't make me sing praise for the game. The Great Ones all define the best that an era had to offer. Square got it right with IX on the return to its roots. I understand you may disagree.

Don't begrudge me for my opinions.

And

if the word "graphics" is used as part of anyone's defense in a response to my post I will immediately STOP reading. Fair warning.

[Andromeda]

Graphics...hehe... ^^;

But seriously, visuals are certainly not an issue for me. I mean I'm still playing and enjoying PS2 RPGs while everyone is saying they're ugly now with HD. I love the sprite based PS2 RPGs that are still slowly coming out. And I plan to get around the other FF games I haven't finished, handhelds just end up tainting my experience significantly. I own all of the console versions of the games minus FFIII so that'll be chore to beat. Can't stand FFTA for two reasons, one a handheld and the law system.

Cheers for FFIX being one of your best games though. I love FFIX to death, it was also my first FF. But I do wish that they would make more true fantasy FF RPGs like that. I miss the days when fantasy was not unceremoniously merged with sci-fi. I don't really mind it all with FFVII, but I do love my fantasy and sci-fi divided neatly in two different corners.

Poor, poor FFXI getting left in the corner because its different. Don't worry I still care you about FFXI.

But you put X and X-2 in the same boat? ; ; X-2 brought back the job system from III/V/Tactics and X finally allowed you to change party members in battle. X was also far more strategic than any FF since FFT. I love active time battles, but you could plan out and arrange your party to deal with an unforeseen threat. You could judge if a move was going to waste too many of your slots putting you on the other side of a boss's attack. It has some good merits. I won't fight you on the story or characters since that comes down to a personal preference and that battle never ends. ^^; But gameplay wise FFX is a pretty solid game.

[Freya]

First off: I don't want to offend anyone here. Just my two cents.

Why the heck does everyone dislike XII? Why?!
Even if it doesn't feel like a FF (many didn't, for me) it's still a good game. It has a decent story, many nice side-quests, battles, bosses, an antagonist who's just crazy, Cid... it has everything a FF needs.
For many the story isn't that great, but you should give it a try. I didn't get the story either when I first played the game. But after ~20 hours I finally got it and then it was great. Okay, too much politics for me, but even if you skip that part, it's still a good story. It's not just Empire VS Rebels. (Besides, if anyone thinks that it is... VI and VII had the same story. And VIII kinda, too.)

FF12 was just horrible... I didn’t even bother finishing it because it just bored me.

I may be hated know but... I didn't really like FF7. Yes, 7 - SEVEN - VII! This is no typing mistake. <.<"
But you know, I played it to the end, because there still was a glimpse of hope in me that said that the game could get better. You can't just judge a game by the beginning. How far have you gotten? Did you even get the chance to understand the story? (No offense - I know you can't possibly get the whole story at the beginning. <<)

People, that's what I dislike about FF fans, really. I'm sorry, but you can't judge any FF if you haven't played it to the end. We should all know that FFs develop throughout the game. I even found FFVI quite boring in the beginning and after playing it it became my favorite.


Really sorry if it sounded offensive (I get the impression it did), but I can't stand any XII-bashing anymore...

[dapofola]

Graphics...hehe... ^^;

But seriously, visuals are certainly not an issue for me. I mean I'm still playing and enjoying PS2 RPGs while everyone is saying they're ugly now with HD. I love the sprite based PS2 RPGs that are still slowly coming out. And I plan to get around the other FF games I haven't finished, handhelds just end up tainting my experience significantly. I own all of the console versions of the games minus FFIII so that'll be chore to beat. Can't stand FFTA for two reasons, one a handheld and the law system.

Cheers for FFIX being one of your best games though. I love FFIX to death, it was also my first FF. But I do wish that they would make more true fantasy FF RPGs like that. I miss the days when fantasy was not unceremoniously merged with sci-fi. I don't really mind it all with FFVII, but I do love my fantasy and sci-fi divided neatly in two different corners.

Poor, poor FFXI getting left in the corner because its different. Don't worry I still care you about FFXI.

But you put X and X-2 in the same boat? ; ; X-2 brought back the job system from III/V/Tactics and X finally allowed you to change party members in battle. X was also far more strategic than any FF since FFT. I love active time battles, but you could plan out and arrange your party to deal with an unforeseen threat. You could judge if a move was going to waste too many of your slots putting you on the other side of a boss's attack. It has some good merits. I won't fight you on the story or characters since that comes down to a personal preference and that battle never ends. ^^; But gameplay wise FFX is a pretty solid game.

X-2 sucked. I liked the new game+ feature. But that's about it. I hated the fact that if you fought a certain boss @ lvl 16 it's HP would be maybe 1650. BUT if you fought the excact same on @ level 30 -- it would be maybe 3000 hp. In other words: you could beat the game @ level 22.

[matt]

I think that XII was amazing i loved the way they tried somink new

But you put X and X-2 in the same boat? ; ; X-2 brought back the job system from III/V/Tactics and X finally allowed you to change party members in battle. X was also far more strategic than any FF since FFT. I love active time battles, but you could plan out and arrange your party to deal with an unforeseen threat. You could judge if a move was going to waste too many of your slots putting you on the other side of a boss's attack. It has some good merits. I won't fight you on the story or characters since that comes down to a personal preference and that battle never ends. ^^; But gameplay wise FFX is a pretty solid game.

couldnt hhave said it better myself X-2 bit girly but i did like it the whole job class thing was nice, ill always have a soft spot for X and i cant wait for the remastered edition ill buy a psvita for that game alone. (When its out at least)

[Dodie16]

Posted by Freya
Really sorry if it sounded offensive (I get the impression it did), but I can't stand any XII-bashing anymore...

This is how I feel as well. I don't really understand why people just feel the need to hate on this game. I also feel that way about people who hate on VII. I know people are entitled to thier opinions, but to outrightly BASH it is something that I feel is not really all that necessary...

In XII's defense, I say that there was indeed changes made that allowed Square-Enix to try something to see if it works or not. For some it did, and for others it didn't.

I personally really REALLY liked how I could customize any of the playable characters to my liking. I could either have all my characters' licences unlock so they could do everything or I could focus thier abilities and create characters who specialized what I needed them to do (Black mage, White mage, Long range fighter, etc.). I think that kind of customization is wonderful! Think about it. Say you really REALLY liked a character, but thier abilities were not what you were accustomed to using or thier fighting style was a little less than desirable. You don't have that problem in XII, because you could make any character do anything that you wanted/needed them to.

Also I must touch on the story. Yes it's not as long, but I personally found it to be quite enjoyable. I thought that the political aspect was a nice touch. It wasn't JUST about someone/something out to destroy the world so there are these guys that you play as that are going to stop them/it. The politics of Vayne's actions made it seem a bit more real, which I suppose defeats the purpose of it being a fantasy game, but in a way it made it more appealing to see the events unfold in such a way that could really happen in real life.

One other thing that I think is pretty amazing is how when you wander around the world map, you see how the enemies are interacting with the environment. It's just a little something that I think should be done with many more games. Seeing your foes BEFORE you fight them adds a bit of tactical aspect to the game, imo. You see an enemy (NOT RANDOMLY ENCOUNTERED) and you choose the best course of action, whether you face them head on, study thier weaknesses so you can figure out your advantages, or if you decide to avoid them for whatever reason.

Well, there's my two cents about XII.

[Josh_R]

No final fantasy game in the entire series sucked ballz the people who hate them suck ballz. And there is no reason for XII bashing the stroy of XII was amazing I did not enjoy the battle system because I am a turn based kind of guy but at least they tried something new. To sit here and say the series got worse as it went on is blaspheme and should be punished....To the guillotine with you...

[rascalz]

Quite a lot to read, i know, i had time on my hands...

Well to start with, FF12, it just seemed like any other RPG game that is out there, offline and online. And I will list a couple examples of where they went wrong... which was pretty much the whole game

Final fantasy to me isn’t about graphics or ‘game play’ (<- not game mechanics) it’s about the storyline and imagination. FF12 seems to me to be the end result that people with little FF imagination and originality would think up. The settings, clothes and environment just seem so basic and unoriginal compared to what FF 1-10 has offered.

1. The game mechanics. Instead of picture based environment or whatever it’s called, they changed it to the typical third person camera mode. You might say what’s wrong with that and I would have to say ‘nothing’, for another RPG game, but FF should have stuck to what made it what it was. I think the previous style is what made it interesting and gave FF its unique look.
2. Battle system. What were they thinking!? Seriously. It might be enjoyable for some but for me and I’m sure most of the original (if you can say that) FF players, it was a bad decision and, in my eyes, it was what ruined the game for me. I heard that after a while of playing you could effectively make your characters run an attack sequence automatically without the need of the players interaction. What’s the point of playing then? I don’t know if this is %100 true but I do remember I could macro a lot of moves for other players. Also, starting in FFX the summoning moves. The best thing about the summoning spells was the cinematic videos that came with it. I remember when I first saw Kotrt... it went on for like 2 minutes. It was amazing... at the time
3. The Airship... Not being able to control it, why would they take that away? The world map? These are the things that started to change in FFX but these are the little quirks that made FF what it was.
4. Voice acting. This doesn’t really bother me to much but it would bother me in the slightest if they still had it silent. I’m sure kids don’t read that much these days, and it was good for me as a 10 year old. The reason for this is not that i think about it at this age, my imagination of some of the voices for FF characters were just that, they were left to my imagination and thats better than some of the wimply ass boyband voices they've give us.

And I’m pretty sure I know the reason for all this change. Simply it was the change in designers and management. I actually (being quite bored right now) just went to look of the credits for the FF games and I notice during the time of the game play/mechanics shift there have been a shuffle of old square employees with newer ones. So it’s not that they’ve tried something new, its that it’s there first time trying something at all and they want to make their mark on the game world.

I know a guy that was involved with the character dialogue of FF12 and he said a lot of theses younger game development teams are trying to hit a wide ranged target and maximise distribution. Quite simply make more money. Look at FF-X. Not once have they made a prequel to a FF game but as soon as power starts shifting hands bam! Look at Hollywood movies and how they milk films for all there worth. But what can I do about it now.

Sorry if I sound preachy but when it comes to this game I am quite sentimental. It just seems a independent company has been spotted by money grabbing business men who only care about one thing, marketing! And I’m quite sure that ‘most’ of the big FF 12 fans are from a younger generation... and if I’m wrong big deal, it doesn’t change that fact that FF has lost it. A little comparison in the music world - i dont know the age group of these forums but if anyone is a hiphop fan 'Original FFs' (as i put it) would be the Roots, tribe called quest, pharaoh monch etc where as FF12 is solder boy/lil wezzy

To sit here and say the series got worse as it went on is blaspheme and should be punished....

From FFX-2 The series got worse. There I said it. No wait. The series completely lost the plot!

I may be hated know but... I didn't really like FF7. Yes, 7 - SEVEN - VII! This is no typing mistake

Well thats a shame but whatever man. Now if you dont like 9 ALSO then you dont know what FF is

Even if it doesn't feel like a FF (many didn't, for me) it's still a good game. It has a decent story, many nice side-quests, battles, bosses, an antagonist who's just crazy, Cid... it has everything a FF needs.

Thats your definition of an FF game? So everything you said apart from everything that made FF what is was... sorry im lost in your logic? Bosses, battles and Cid have nothing to do with it man, it’s the fact that uniqueness has been replaced by the same old same old. I’m not saying it’s a ‘bad’ game but it’s just NOT a Final Fantasy.

[Zargabaath]

1. It just didn’t feel like a FF at all and I hope older FF players agree with me. I know there trying to keep up with today’s market but why take away things that made the game what it is and change it to fit newer players.

2. What happened to looking after the older and loyal player’s! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

3. I know people are going to say they don’t give a **** what this guy thinks but I just want to get some opinions from other FF fans. I’m not trying to start a rant.

1. Creating the most mature story in the Final Fantasy franchise is catering to newer/ younger players; I added younger in their because the series is aimed toward the teengaer/twenty year olds. Be that as it is, newer players would most likely be younger. A lot of people have criticized FF XII for not being as emotional as prior Final Fantasy games - this is true. However, Matsuno's Final Fantasy Tactics, focused more on politics and had emotion in the game; emotion was not the driving force just like Final Fantasy XII yet, people hate on Final Fantasy XII. There is plenty of emotion in Final Fantasy XII but it is not central to the story; I would suggest not trying to debate this as I have just watched the game over on youtube for research - I saw emotion in the characters and I gained a better understading of the story and the game overall. If you or any other would choose to debate that I will just point you to scenes in the game where there is emotion, which are bountiful, and sit upon my command chair in the Alexander as victor. The series has always been everchanging, never becoming stale, if you do not like change then it would be most wise to leave the series as that is the true nature of the series - not the desires of fans to stifle the series into repitiveness; each Final Fantasy game brings new innovation and changes.

2. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy is not Final Fantasy. Many people who claim to be fans of the series oft forget that Final Fantasy does not stick to a strict formula; some things transfer over (deep characters, great storyline, fantastic music, etc.) and some things change (battle system, story, setting, etc.). Cause if I want to get down to it, I could use that philosophy of not changing and say that a majority of Final Fantasies are not a real Final Fantasy. Some examples: every game that was not directed by Sakuguchi is not a real FF (FF VI and on); every Final Fantasy that is not turn-based is not a real FF (FF IV-FIX, FF XI, XIV FF XII); every online FF is not a real FF (FF XI & FF XIV, though I believe Sakuguchi once said that an online FF is what he always envisioned for the series and many players of FF XI say that the Chains of Promathia story is one of the best in the entire series); every FF game with a female main character/main protagonist is not a real FF (FF VI, FF X, FF XII, & most likely FF XIII); every FF game where the main character/protagonist becomes unable to play is not a real FF (FF VI & FF VII); whenever the villian accoplishes their goal(s) is not a real FF (FF VI); a FF game that is very opened-ended is not a real FF game (FF VI). Of course, they are all Final Fantasy games fans should not try to brand the series so consveratively it does the series no good.

3. Actually this site is very good about respecting people's opinion; people here won't respond with "nobody gives a f**k about your opinion" or "this is a troll topic". They will debate you as some already have and as I am. This site is not like gamefaqs or vgchartz where what you said is very true. I am glad I am a part of this site and not others because they are just savages elsewhere; TFF has a sophistication that makes it shine.

1. Why the heck does everyone dislike XII? Why?!

2. Okay, too much politics for me, but even if you skip that part, it's still a good story. It's not just Empire VS Rebels. (Besides, if anyone thinks that it is... VI and VII had the same story. And VIII kinda, too.)

3. People, that's what I dislike about FF fans, really. I'm sorry, but you can't judge any FF if you haven't played it to the end. We should all know that FFs develop throughout the game. I even found FFVI quite boring in the beginning and after playing it it became my favorite.


4. Really sorry if it sounded offensive (I get the impression it did), but I can't stand any XII-bashing anymore...

1. The reason why people hate Final Fantasy XII so much is because... I'll let Obama tell you why; Obama you have the floor.

Obama: CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most people hated the change but the reasons they give show just how dim-witted the Final Fantasy fan base and players of the game are; this revelation first came about with FF VIII, but I believe that with FF XII it was more severe.

2. The "Empire vs. Rebel" theme is used in Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy VI and to some extent: Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII. I'll add the whole "it was Star Wars" here. No story that is done now will be 100 percent original, yes there can be similiarities between FF XII and Star Wars but Rogue Galaxy had more similiarities than FF XII to Star Wars. The developers said that they were not influenced, inspired, or took from Star Wars - subject matter closed. In Japan, there was not this problem because Star Wars is not big or as big there as it is in the West, who when playing FF XII will think Star Wars. On a final note, didn't George Lucas borrow heavily from Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress? Yeah, I thought so and I don't hear people bashing Star Wars; maybe in Japan they do because The Hidden Fortress is a Japanese movie I don't know, but if they did that would be hilarious.

3. This is quite true. When I first played Final Fantasy V I thought it was boring and not that good, but now it is my favourite of the SNES era and my favourite 2-D Final Fantasy game. My first experience with Final Fantasy II was not that good, but after my second playthrough I like it a lot more. If I had stopped playing Final Fantasy VI once I got into the World of Ruin I would have had a better judgment of it, since I beat the game it lost of few points.

4. I too get tired of the FF XII bashing especially when they bring their faulty points to the debate, it amazes me how stupid a lot of people can be.

No final fantasy game in the entire series sucked ballz the people who hate them suck ballz. And there is no reason for XII bashing the stroy of XII was amazing I did not enjoy the battle system because I am a turn based kind of guy but at least they tried something new. To sit here and say the series got worse as it went on is blaspheme and should be punished....To the guillotine with you...

Here, here. While I enjoyed very much the battle system, the guillotines sound good to me or how about being struck down and sent to the oblivion by Judge Magister Zecht!!! (An awesome scene in FF XII)

0. Final fantasy to me isn’t about graphics or ‘game play’ (<- not game mechanics) it’s about the storyline and imagination. FF12 seems to me to be the end result that people with little FF imagination and originality would think up. The settings, clothes and environment just seem so basic and unoriginal compared to what FF 1-10 has offered.

1. The game mechanics. Instead of picture based environment or whatever it’s called, they changed it to the typical third person camera mode. You might say what’s wrong with that and I would have to say ‘nothing’, for another RPG game, but FF should have stuck to what made it what it was. I think the previous style is what made it interesting and gave FF its unique look.
2. Battle system. What were they thinking!? Seriously. It might be enjoyable for some but for me and I’m sure most of the original (if you can say that) FF players, it was a bad decision and, in my eyes, it was what ruined the game for me. I heard that after a while of playing you could effectively make your characters run an attack sequence automatically without the need of the players interaction. What’s the point of playing then? I don’t know if this is %100 true but I do remember I could macro a lot of moves for other players. Also, starting in FFX the summoning moves. The best thing about the summoning spells was the cinematic videos that came with it. I remember when I first saw Kotrt... it went on for like 2 minutes. It was amazing... at the time
3. The Airship... Not being able to control it, why would they take that away? The world map? These are the things that started to change in FFX but these are the little quirks that made FF what it was.
4. Voice acting. This doesn’t really bother me to much but it would bother me in the slightest if they still had it silent. I’m sure kids don’t read that much these days, and it was good for me as a 10 year old. The reason for this is not that i think about it at this age, my imagination of some of the voices for FF characters were just that, they were left to my imagination and thats better than some of the wimply ass boyband voices they've give us.

5. And I’m pretty sure I know the reason for all this change. Simply it was the change in designers and management. I actually (being quite bored right now) just went to look of the credits for the FF games and I notice during the time of the game play/mechanics shift there have been a shuffle of old square employees with newer ones. So it’s not that they’ve tried something new, its that it’s there first time trying something at all and they want to make their mark on the game world.

6. I know a guy that was involved with the character dialogue of FF12 and he said a lot of theses younger game development teams are trying to hit a wide ranged target and maximise distribution. Quite simply make more money. Look at FF-X. Not once have they made a prequel to a FF game but as soon as power starts shifting hands bam! Look at Hollywood movies and how they milk films for all there worth. But what can I do about it now.

7. Sorry if I sound preachy but when it comes to this game I am quite sentimental. It just seems a independent company has been spotted by money grabbing business men who only care about one thing, marketing! And I’m quite sure that ‘most’ of the big FF 12 fans are from a younger generation... and if I’m wrong big deal, it doesn’t change that fact that FF has lost it. A little comparison in the music world - i dont know the age group of these forums but if anyone is a hiphop fan 'Original FFs' (as i put it) would be the Roots, tribe called quest, pharaoh monch etc where as FF12 is solder boy/lil wezzy

0. Final Fantasy XII had a mixture of medieval Mediterranean countries as inspiration for the setting, along with India and New York. Final Fantasy XII looked to be quite unique compared to the other Final Fantasies. The developers took Sanskrit to be used in Bhujerba; when did another Final Fantasy use another real language, much less Sanskrit, and incorparate it into the speech of a city? If having a medieval look is basic then what about the first few Final Fantasy games with their European medieval look? The buildings of Final Fantasy XII are very detailed structures and there are many different cultures within the game.

1. Really? Pre-renedered backgrounds (I think that is the correct terminology) gave off a "Final Fantasy" feel? There are many things fans get wrong about what the series is about, but this I have not seen before. I guess Final Fantasy XIII won't feel as much as Final Fantasy because most likely you can rotate the camera.

2. Such conservative views of the battle system would then not have allowed for the ATB system in the series. The battle system changes from each iteration and it changes its nature as well every so often (Turn-based, ATB, ADB, CTB). Innovation does not come about from rehashing old ways; it takes something new. It is true that with the correct set-up a player would not need to touch the controller, though there are those who say that there is still need to change up the gambits with the hunts; however if you read the instructional booklet you will notice that you could TURN OFF the gambits. Now, I always controlled one character as is done in the Tales of series, Star Ocean, Rogue Galaxy, and other games like them; the gambits were the perfect AI system for the player because it allowed for precise tactics *cough* Dragon Age *cough*. The player would control exactly how they wanted that character to act and they could change it up in the midst of battle, unlike other games where you would have to select a "strategy". In FF XII, the player could turn off all the gambits and play in "wait mode", "active mode" is very hectic and too much for no gambits, and with that set-up it is very similiar to the ATB system - problem solved.

But! Do the players do this?
No!
Why?
Because they can't think outside the box, mindless drones are they.

3. The airship as it once was is most likely gone due to hardware limitations. While it was cool and fun that is something that has changed as the series has progressed. I don't cry or make a fuss about it because there are more important things then being able to control the airship.

4. The voice acting in Final Fantasy XII was superb; I didn't know that all 17 year olds were supposed to sound like they could stop and earthquake by stomping their foot on the ground (Yujiro Hanma - Baki the Grappler). I don't know who you would call wimpy? Vaan? The guy who took up Gabranth's blade and struck the mortal blow against Vayne? That's pretty wimpy. Some notables: Dr. Cid, Balthier, Reddas, Gabranth, and Bergan were great. After watching it on youtube, I never realized how many great lines and scenes there were in Final Fantasy XII; it is all the hate the they are not appreciated more- tis a shame.

5. Most of the people who worked on Final Fantasy XII are Matsuno's team who worked on: Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, Ogre Battle, and games of Matsuno. They had plenty of experience.

6. The funny thing is... Final Fantasy XII is not a sequel. And sequels were something that was not Final Fantasy, but they haven't been atrocious.

7. I may be considered part of the younger generation only because I got into Final Fantasy at such a later stage in my life and in the series; my first Final Fantasy that I beat was Final Fantasy X. I did go back and beat every game in the main series before that and have done so for the main series excluding FF XI. However this may be an advantage because I was more matured; childhood memories of things are looked back as being better however sometimes those evaluations are not right and it makes people blind to the new (I don't think I worded this right as what I'm trying to convey is a bit tricky, hopefully it will be understood).

[Darkdragoon]

I dont really care about graphics ^^'
(Since im playing LOD for the 3rd time, and it has 4 discs O.o)
But... I think the new FF's are getting a little to...
techy... Guns... Ugh...
Now Final Fantasy 9... That was the last, great FF game to me =) FF XII is "Okay" but it's not... "Great"... The battle system is okay too... But... I like the normal FF battle systems...
(I'm, hopefully, gonna get FF X some time ^^')

O.o That's my opinion... ^^

[Treize]

I also think that Final Fantasy is falling downhill. I did like Final Fantasy X, but it was not as good as its Playstation predecessors, and in my opinion there hasn't been a really good Final Fantasy game since (I have not and do not plan to play FFXI so it is pretty much not included). I like the battle system in Final Fantasy X-2, but the story just isn't even comparable to the original. I think Square Enix is not as good as it once was.

This doesn't really relate completely to the topic, but I'm pretty disappointed now. It has been eight years since Final Fantasy X, a good Final Fantasy game, was released. Final Fantasy Tactics, VII, VIII, IX, and X, which are all great games, were released in five years. I'm getting pretty sick of waiting for Square Enix to get their act together.

I really have not liked what Square Enix has been making these past few years. It seems that they have been more interested in making remakes and horrible spin-off games than continuing the improve the main series. They have remade FFI(2), FFII(2), FFIII, FFIV(2), FFV, and FFVI despite the fact that all of these except for FFIII have already been remade... They also made these "kiddy" Tactics games, which in my opinion have not compared to the original in any way except for maybe the battle system. I'm not even going to talk about Crystal Chronicles or Chocobo's Dungeon.

I'm not sure about other people's opinions, but I'm pretty hesitant with Final Fantasy XIII right now too. I guess we'll just have to see how it turns out. I just hope it isn't worse than Final Fantasy XII.

First I would like to say that I do not completely dislike FFXII. It is just that I feel it is inferior to the majority of the previous FF games. I enjoyed some parts of it, but there were several parts that I did not like.

@Zargabaath
Final Fantasy XII is not bad simply because it "changed." I would be completely fine with change as long as the changes are to improve the game and the series as a whole.

I'll just list the reasons why I feel Final Fantasy XII isn't as good as it's predecessors. These are mainly just opinions, but you can take them as you will.

1. The Story: I have not finished this game yet, so I cannot fully comment on the story, but from what I have played, it is certainly not as good as the previous FF games. The story here seems pretty generic, and I feel this could have been the story to any RPG because it seems very familiar to other games story wise. I also saw this compared to Final Fantasy Tactics. In my opinion even the story in Final Fantasy Tactics is better than this story, and Final Fantasy Tactics isn't even known for it's story. Also the characters in the game are pretty generic as well. Fran and Balthier are pretty cool, but the others aren't very interesting.

2. The Battle System: I admit that the battle system in Final Fantasy XII is pretty addicting initially, but later on in the game, the flaws start to appear. First of all, the License Board is very easy to complete. After this, the game kind of loses its incentive for level grinding, and just battling random monsters in general. This also makes all of the characters exactly the same. Easily, all your characters will have the same skills, magick, and be able to equip the same weapons and armor. This leads to the characters being generic once again. Also the Gambit System turns out to be pretty ridiculous. You could set up all your characters so that they would automatically attack, heal, and everything else so that in battles you no longer had to do anything and could destroy just about anything by only walking up towards it and letting the characters fight with their Gambits. This might have worked well for the characters you weren't controlling, but it just turned out to be bad that you could have all of your characters do everything without any thought from the player. This took a lot of the difficulty out of the game. I know that it is possible to control your characters without the Gambit system, but I don't think there should even be such an easy way out as the Gambit system.

3. Mobility: This has been said before, but I still miss the ability to move about the world freely in an airship or other vehicle like was in previous games. I also missed this in Final Fantasy X. This isn't a major issue, but it still is a downside in my opinion.

I could go on, but I've been typing this for awhile now, and I'm tired. Maybe I'll come back and post some more at a later point.

[Rydia Lover]

2. The "Empire vs. Rebel" theme is used in Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy VI and to some extent: Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII. I'll add the whole "it was Star Wars" here. No story that is done now will be 100 percent original, yes there can be similiarities between FF XII and Star Wars but Rogue Galaxy had more similiarities than FF XII to Star Wars. The developers said that they were not influenced, inspired, or took from Star Wars - subject matter closed. In Japan, there was not this problem because Star Wars is not big or as big there as it is in the West, who when playing FF XII will think Star Wars. On a final note, didn't George Lucas borrow heavily from Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress? Yeah, I thought so and I don't hear people bashing Star Wars; maybe in Japan they do because The Hidden Fortress is a Japanese movie I don't know, but if they did that would be hilarious.

well actually i imediately noticed the strong similarities, but that is actually why i really enjoyed the story to this game as i am a HUGE star wars nerd lol.

[Unknown Entity]

*prepares to get flamed*

Really sorry if it sounded offensive (I get the impression it did), but I can't stand any XII-bashing anymore...

Same here. Everyone I've known who hated it couldn't tell me one thing they liked... but only have one or two reasons as to why it sucked.

No final fantasy game in the entire series sucked ballz the people who hate them suck ballz.

Init.

I don't think Final Fantasy is going downhill, just not many people respond well to change. New generation consoles are coming out every couple of years. People are ditching the old CRT televisions for something larger, flat screen, and High-Definition to play games on (and movies, but we're talking about games here).

I dislike the digs at Final Fantasy XII because everyone I've spoken who didn't like it didn't give it credit for the parts they did like. Everyone is quick to make the negative pointers list, and the game wasn't bad.

1. The game mechanics. Instead of picture based environment or whatever it’s called, they changed it to the typical third person camera mode. You might say what’s wrong with that and I would have to say ‘nothing’, for another RPG game, but FF should have stuck to what made it what it was. I think the previous style is what made it interesting and gave FF its unique look.

This is something I liked. It gave you more to look at and admire about the work that went into the game levels and characters. It didn't remove that Final Fantasy feeling at all for me - if anything, it made me look forward to when Final Fantasy hits the Playstation 3.

2. Battle system. What were they thinking!? Seriously. It might be enjoyable for some but for me and I’m sure most of the original (if you can say that) FF players, it was a bad decision and, in my eyes, it was what ruined the game for me. I heard that after a while of playing you could effectively make your characters run an attack sequence automatically without the need of the players interaction. What’s the point of playing then? I don’t know if this is %100 true but I do remember I could macro a lot of moves for other players. Also, starting in FFX the summoning moves. The best thing about the summoning spells was the cinematic videos that came with it. I remember when I first saw Kotrt... it went on for like 2 minutes. It was amazing... at the time.

The new battle system, I'll admit, was a risky move. But it worked. The gambits I thought were a stroke of genius. Yes, you could be lazy and set gambits so that you wouldn't have any input whatsoever, but they help a ton in the heat of a battle when you have very little time to enter a command. All I will say to those who got lazy is... you got lazy, and you missed out.

3. The Airship... Not being able to control it, why would they take that away? The world map? These are the things that started to change in FFX but these are the little quirks that made FF what it was.

This:

One other thing that I think is pretty amazing is how when you wander around the world map, you see how the enemies are interacting with the environment. It's just a little something that I think should be done with many more games. Seeing your foes BEFORE you fight them adds a bit of tactical aspect to the game, imo. You see an enemy (NOT RANDOMLY ENCOUNTERED) and you choose the best course of action, whether you face them head on, study thier weaknesses so you can figure out your advantages, or if you decide to avoid them for whatever reason.

And:
Why would you need to control the airship? It was a feature that was pretty good in the older games, but... okay, Oblivion reference: if you can "fast-travel", why take the horse? You take the horse because you want to explore every nook and cranny of every area. I rarely used the airships in Final Fantasy XII because I ran pretty much everywhere. Sometimes multiple times, collecting loot, items, and shit tons of exp (Embroidered Tippet ftfw). It's how I levelled so fast.

4. Voice acting. This doesn’t really bother me to much but it would bother me in the slightest if they still had it silent. I’m sure kids don’t read that much these days, and it was good for me as a 10 year old. The reason for this is not that i think about it at this age, my imagination of some of the voices for FF characters were just that, they were left to my imagination and thats better than some of the wimply ass boyband voices they've give us.

If it doesn't bother you much, and would bother you if it was silent, then... why such negativity? As for kids not reading as much these days... that is somewhat a point, but if a game can cater for kids that want to read, then by all means. The voices weren't always the greatest, but they weren't "wimply ass boyband voices". Lets face it - dubs usually suck.

But... I think the new FF's are getting a little to...
techy... Guns... Ugh...

Agreed. Here's to hoping Final Fantasy XV goes medieval.

I really have not liked what Square Enix has been making these past few years. It seems that they have been more interested in making remakes and horrible spin-off games than continuing the improve the main series. They have remade FFI(2), FFII(2), FFIII, FFIV(2), FFV, and FFVI despite the fact that all of these except for FFIII have already been remade... They also made these "kiddy" Tactics games, which in my opinion have not compared to the original in any way except for maybe the battle system. I'm not even going to talk about Crystal Chronicles or Chocobo's Dungeon.

I don't think the remakes are a bad thing. Some of the spin-off's sucked, but the remakes are okay. Square Enix can't just move forward and forget the master pieces they've left in the past to rot along with the older consoles (NES I'm talking about sadly - don't hate me), and they need to appeal to a fresher audience. I would never have played Final Fantasy I if it wasn't for the PSP version. I'd love to play it on the NES and get a feel for how it was meant to be played, but that takes a good eye, trust in the people you're buying a NES from, money for the console, the game and anything else you'd need. I can't see a twelve year old asking for a NES this Christmas.

I'm not sure about other people's opinions, but I'm pretty hesitant with Final Fantasy XIII right now too. I guess we'll just have to see how it turns out. I just hope it isn't worse than Final Fantasy XII.

If you're a true Final Fantasy fan, you'd at least rent it and give it the time of day.

*cough* Dragon Age *cough*

That had better not be a dig at Dragon Age.


... phew.

[Phantom]

I agree, after X, the games begun going downhill quickly. Where to start? FFX2! To me, that failed as a true sequel to the fantastic original. That game was just to female orientated, through I love Yuna and Rikku, come on! Add in some past male party members like Wakka or Kimarhi! Or add in some new males like Naaj or Barliel (I know I spelled his name wrong). While the final bosses like Vegy and Shuyin were awesome and the romantic love story between Lenne and Shuyin was cute, the story just didnt scream RPG style to me. And you need a 100% story rating to get the perfect ending? No, just no.

Next is FFXI: I admit, I've played FFXI for a long time, and I really enjoyed it, but that monthly fee has started to be bother me, especially with this recession, they accidently charged me twice, but to them "They let me play free for a month" yeah whatever POL. And to be honest FFXI has lost its magic, back in the early days, well when I started as a noob back in 2006 the game was fantastic, I made quick friends, leveling buddies, friends that helped me out with gil to get me started, and the parties through difficult at first began to grow on me. Back then when blms were monster destroyers, and before TOAU came out, I had an amazing time. Now, even with this new level sync, blms still get shuned to just missions, or to Manaburn parties, which even now are somewhat rare. I've just grown bored with it to be honest, plus I dont have the money to keep up the payments, because now it feels like a waste of time and money.


Next is FFXII: At first, I found FFXII to be very boring and time consuming having to deal with loot instead of the old fashioned kill monsters and bosses to get gil method. I admit, I sold the game. Now I happened to rebuy it back to give it another chance, and I admit, I think I like it now then I did back in 2006, through they need to work on the story more, like who is supposed to be the main? Vaan or Ashe? Even through FFXII is great, I think after I beat it, I might not play it again. The Bosses (some) are hard as heck, I've had some close calls but luckily managed to pull out a win, especially on the Ahriman Boss fight, that was tough, to tough. I'm close to finishing the game now, so I might just resell it after I beat it. Through FFXII is a good game, its definitely (to me) not replayable.


To me, FFI Through FFX were the best. Especially FFIX, my all time favorite! I love it! The NES to the PS1 era was the best period. FFX was the only PS2 FF I really enjoyed. Oh and FF Tactics Advance for the GBA was enjoyable too.

EDIT: If FFXIII beyond is anything like FFXII, I don't know if I would even touch it, well I can't anyway, I dont have a PS3! XD

[Zargabaath]

I dislike the digs at Final Fantasy XII because everyone I've spoken who didn't like it didn't give it credit for the parts they did like. Everyone is quick to make the negative pointers list, and the game wasn't bad.

Quite true, it seems as though they are blinded by the negatives that forget the positive or view the game as entirely as negative.

And:
Why would you need to control the airship? It was a feature that was pretty good in the older games, but... okay, Oblivion reference: if you can "fast-travel", why take the horse? You take the horse because you want to explore every nook and cranny of every area. I rarely used the airships in Final Fantasy XII because I ran pretty much everywhere. Sometimes multiple times, collecting loot, items, and shit tons of exp (Embroidered Tippet ftfw). It's how I levelled so fast.

Very nice point.

If it doesn't bother you much, and would bother you if it was silent, then... why such negativity? As for kids not reading as much these days... that is somewhat a point, but if a game can cater for kids that want to read, then by all means. The voices weren't always the greatest, but they weren't "wimply ass boyband voices". Lets face it - dubs usually suck.

What voices did you find to be "not the greatest"? This is out of curiousity

That had better not be a dig at Dragon Age.

It was not a dig at Dragon Age. If you look in the sentence where I "coughed" you will see "gambits" and "tactics"; "tactics" are the "gambits" of Dragon Age. That "cough" was to show the influence and impact of Final Fantasy XII that was all.

I like the battle system in Final Fantasy X-2, but the story just isn't even comparable to the original.

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?

I really have not liked what Square Enix has been making these past few years. It seems that they have been more interested in making remakes and horrible spin-off games than continuing the improve the main series. They have remade FFI(2), FFII(2), FFIII, FFIV(2), FFV, and FFVI despite the fact that all of these except for FFIII have already been remade... They also made these "kiddy" Tactics games, which in my opinion have not compared to the original in any way except for maybe the battle system. I'm not even going to talk about Crystal Chronicles or Chocobo's Dungeon.

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.

First I would like to say that I do not completely dislike FFXII. It is just that I feel it is inferior to the majority of the previous FF games. I enjoyed some parts of it, but there were several parts that I did not like.

What parts did you like?

1. The Story: I have not finished this game yet, so I cannot fully comment on the story, but from what I have played, it is certainly not as good as the previous FF games. The story here seems pretty generic...

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 feel this could have been the story to any RPG because it seems very familiar to other games story wise. I also saw this compared to Final Fantasy Tactics. In my opinion even the story in Final Fantasy Tactics is better than this story, and Final Fantasy Tactics isn't even known for it's story. Also the characters in the game are pretty generic as well. Fran and Balthier are pretty cool, but the others aren't very interesting.

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.

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

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)

2. The Battle System: I admit that the battle system in Final Fantasy XII is pretty addicting initially, but later on in the game, the flaws start to appear. First of all, the License Board is very easy to complete.

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?

After this, the game kind of loses its incentive for level grinding, and just battling random monsters in general.

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.

This also makes all of the characters exactly the same. Easily, all your characters will have the same skills, magick, and be able to equip the same weapons and armor. This leads to the characters being generic once again.

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.

Also the Gambit System turns out to be pretty ridiculous. You could set up all your characters so that they would automatically attack, heal, and everything else so that in battles you no longer had to do anything and could destroy just about anything by only walking up towards it and letting the characters fight with their Gambits.

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.

This might have worked well for the characters you weren't controlling, but it just turned out to be bad that you could have all of your characters do everything without any thought from the player. This took a lot of the difficulty out of the game. I know that it is possible to control your characters without the Gambit system, but I don't think there should even be such an easy way out as the Gambit system.

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?

4. Voice acting. This doesn’t really bother me to much but it would bother me in the slightest if they still had it silent. I’m sure kids don’t read that much these days, and it was good for me as a 10 year old. The reason for this is not that i think about it at this age, my imagination of some of the voices for FF characters were just that, they were left to my imagination and thats better than some of the wimply ass boyband voices they've give us.

I did not add this response to my previous post because I did not want to have this overlooked as I find it to be quite a great point against the quote about.

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.

[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.

[Andromeda]

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.

If you're referring to FFVII-FFX being released look at it from this point of view. Each game is not started when the last is finished. FFVII ended and FFVIII was not suddenly started and finished in a year. It only looks that way from the outsider. In fact FFVII was started back on the N64 and when they switched over to the PSone for FFVII they were already developing FFVIII. A year or two into the development of FFVIII FFIX was started. Suddenly you have three games in parallel development at different stages. You're able to offset the cycle and release games back to back quickly. However, each game still took two to three years of development time. FFVIII and FFIX were not pushed out in a year with the level of detail and quality that were put into them. It is just not physically possible to do this.

The same went for FFX it was in development while they were releasing FFIX. Once they got the new PS2 dev kits they were hard at work on it. Remember back in 2000? Square announced FFX, FFXI and FFXII at all the same time. They already had three games planned to ship. It's how they work and FFX and FFXI came out pretty fast. However, FFXII had staff problems. The guy directing the game had a mental break down during production. When the guy with the vision leaves the team. It's going to cause a ripple effect through the entire development team. The reason the same took 6 years to make was because they have to fix the staff issues. Production was slowed down.

And also look at what Square is doing with FFXIII. They announced 3 titles all at the same time. Just like back in 2000. The game development cycle works a lot differently than the customer realizes. The reason for the delay on FFXIII? They were building a new engine, the White Engine for FFXIII. Engine development takes time and you can't even built a game without the engine. You can draw on paper and design and make things on your computer. But you can't put it together without the engine and even then until you have the engine you can't even really start doing the real work because you have to adapt and change your creation and pipelines to fit into the new engine. Games are getting complicated these days. It is nothing like the NES and SNES days. Building high quality HD art assets takes time. The longest process for a game these days is the art creation. Designers already have their stuff done and doing iterations and tweaks while the artists are still building the final models for their games.

I speak from experience here since I worked for a game company for 3 years and saw an entire game from pre-production to sale. I understand this process better than most who just simply go to a store and buy the game when it comes out.

As for games that make you able to be everything. You are forgetting FFX with the sphere grid. Every single character were completely identical they just started in different locations. The only thing that changed who they were was the weapons. Also FFVIII every character was the same. You had magic drawn. You customized who had what, but in the end you could make them all completely identical and you probably did because you were the strongest that way. FFT, story characters excluded, every single soldier you recruited were all the same. They could all be the same jobs, the only thing that made them different was gender and faith/brave. In the end you could have an army monks if you wish. They were all just jobs. FFVII everyone was the same the only thing that changed them was their weapons and limit breaks. You had materia to equip that is the only way you changed them and you could still easily equip them all with the same. In fact if you're playing to win you probably did. Look at my save files everyone has quadra magic, 4x cut, long range w-summon master materia. Because its the best in the game, but they were all the same then. FFIII, what I played of it has the same thing as FFT. It's all jobs so they are all the same, they don't even have weapons that make them unique like FFVII. FFXII may allow you make everyone the same, but when you get down to half of the FF games actually do. At least in FFXI races made a difference as well as merit points.

[Unknown Entity]

What voices did you find to be "not the greatest"? This is out of curiousity.

A lot of when the characters were supposed to be displaying emotion, I felt it lacked a little. Imagine a character lashing out at another one, you'd expect them to be shouting something angrily. Instead, you get this fake anger which sounds just like two kids arguing while the parents are asleep next door. It's not often though.

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.

Also, Penelo's voice annoyed me slightly.

It was not a dig at Dragon Age. If you look in the sentence where I "coughed" you will see "gambits" and "tactics"; "tactics" are the "gambits" of Dragon Age. That "cough" was to show the influence and impact of Final Fantasy XII that was all.

I was kidding.

[loaf]

Final Fantasy has no been going downhill. Never has, it's just all the fans who scream out that the older games should be the only way to make the games now. If I recall, X got a perfect 10 and XII got a 40/40, sounds like SE did a horrible job.

I know why some people might not like XII, because I hated it too when it first came out, for no listening to the cut scenes, plus it was political. Then I actually played it, LISTENED to the story and ignored the fact it was all political ,so I knew what was going on and hell the game was great, had great action, great moment, could have been better but it was good for what it had.

And Rascalz, you are right about FFXII being like all the other RPGs, because FF is the main stream of RPGS. Go to somewhere like Japan, a lot of RPG gamers would probably make fun of you for being a huge Final Fantasy fan, FF isn't huge in japan like it is here in the states, a lot of other RPGs over there are considered way way better then Final Fantasy.

In my eyes, if you're talking bad about one Final Fantasy, then you are talking bad about all of them.

[Treize]

FF isn't huge in japan like it is here in the states, a lot of other RPGs over there are considered way way better then Final Fantasy.

From the statistics I've seen FF is pretty huge in Japan. I saw that Final Fantasy XIII sold over 1.5 million copies on its first day. That's more than one percent of the population of Japan, and remember, that was only on the first day it released. Final Fantasy X and XII also sold more than 2 million copies in Japan. Also I think for every Final Fantasy game more copies have been sold in Japan than the US despite the US having almost 2.5 times the population of Japan. Finally Final Fantasy is the second best selling RPG franchise after Pokemon, so I believe it is pretty popular. Final Fantasy is bigger in Japan than in the US.

I've probably said this all before, but I still think this is important to consider, and it seems most of the people are just ignoring this. I think that most people are still only considering Final Fantasy XII when they are making this judgment. Just about everyone has to agree that Final Fantasy XII is at least decent, but if you look at the other games between Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII, it is almost all disappointments.

Square-Enix has resorted to re-re-rereleaseing games in order to make profits instead of coming up with new Final Fantasy games in order to make a profit. It seems that rereleasing these games are more profitable than taking the time to come up with a new game even. Final Fantasy IV did not need to be released on the GBA and the DS. Final Fantasy I and II did not need to be released on the GBA and the PSP. Final Fantasy Tactics probably did not even need to be remade. I could maybe go as far to say that Final Fantasy I, II, IV, V, and VI didn't even need these further remakes in the first place because their previous remakes for the Playstation are readily available new for under $20, at least in the US.

Also Square-Enix has started to make bad spin off games, and horrible continuations and side games. The two new Tactics games are pretty bad and have become childish. Dirge of Cerberus is just bad. Crystal Chronicles is pretty bad if you compare it to any game in the main series. As a matter of fact I cannot think of any Final Fantasy game besides Final Fantasy XII that was made in the past 8 years that were at least decent. Final Fantasy X-2, Dissidia or Crisis Core could be considered good if you are into them, I guess, but I am certainly not that interested in any of them. That is possibly 4 "good" games out of the 10 plus Final Fantasy games that have been put out not including remakes. Still none of these games are great, or as good as the previous five games in the series. You could possibly argue for XII, but the others, I don't see an argument.

I was getting overly worked up with Final Fantasy XII earlier when I shouldn't have. What I wanted to mainly talk about in the first place were the games besides Final Fantasy XII, but I got a little carried away.

Unfortunately I've also heard that Final Fantasy XIII isn't that good even. I have actually only heard bad things, but maybe that is to be expected with such a mainstream game? I'm not going to go into details since I have not even played it yet, but I'm almost shirking to play it when it comes out to avoid the further disappointment I'm feeling with this series. I am just hoping it is better than Final Fantasy XII, but that isn't looking to be the case.

[Pete]

I would love to see FF's actually return to their roots, like the Nintendo generation.

The Sony-era games were good, hell they were even great games, but they were all super serious. VII did this pretty well, balancing between oh shit lets save the world and having some comedy. VIII was very angst-filled. IX was a nice attempt at going back to the light heartedness, but I wanted to slap Garnet. X was alright, but it just felt awkward at points. XI doesn't count and XII was solid, but the character felt rather flat. Anytime a character came in for comic relief or a lighthearted feel, like a Selphie, who would've been the norm for IV-VI, they get written off as something of a ditz or a shitty character.

I understand that saving the world is serious business, but not everyone can be super serious all the time. This is especially so if the characters are generally in the 18-30 age range. I mean how many of us are super cereal all the time?

[Meier Link]

I would love to see FF's actually return to their roots, like the Nintendo generation.

Old school FTW. I have to completely agree with this statement.

Really to me there was a defining moment in FF history that started the series to the less good side of things and that was the introduction to the PS era. I am not saying FFVII, VIII, or IX where bad games and neither was X or XII. I just think that the focus shifted from a good solid story line with well developed and very diverse characters ruled supreme to how flash can we make a turd and slap the FF logo on it. Lets face it most of the newer games out be considered outstanding RPGs IF (yes that is IF) SE hadn't thrown the FF title on it.

FFXII wouldn't of caught near as much shit if it was titled something other then what it is. I think it is funny because most compairsons strictly come down to how FFs fare up against other FFs instead of the multitude of RPGs related around the same time.

[Cain Highwind]

FFXII wouldn't of caught near as much shit if it was titled something other then what it is. I think it is funny because most compairsons strictly come down to how FFs fare up against other FFs instead of the multitude of RPGs related around the same time.

Yeah FFXII is actually a simplified version of Vagrant Story, another installment of the Ivalice Series. In a way I do like FFXII because playing VS, I just COULD NOT get a hang of all the tricky subsystems of that game with targeting multiple parts. It's probably the only game I've ever reluctantly given up on because of the gameplay. It's a shame because from what I played, the mood and setting and the invoking plot is great, even better than XII's. But again that's because Matsuno retained FULL control of that title.

[Zargabaath]

FFXII wouldn't of caught near as much shit if it was titled something other then what it is. I think it is funny because most compairsons strictly come down to how FFs fare up against other FFs instead of the multitude of RPGs related around the same time.

I find it to be a slippery slope when comparing games, more so when they are generations apart; each game is different and should be graded unto itself. Judging a game based off another game or games is silly - the game in judgment is not the game being used as the standard; as to why people do this shows a defficiency in intelligence on the matter. As the capabilities of gaming have progressed there have been higher standard expectations of RPGs or games in general however I would use that standard loosely otherwise greatness could be strictly defined.

Tales of Legendia is not Dragon Quest VIII. Final Fantasy X is not Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Final Fantasy XIII is not Dragon Age: Orgins. Fable II is not Mass Effect. Star Ocean: The Last Hope is not the Star Ocean Series. Breath of Fire III is not the Breath of Fire series. Final Fantasy V is not the Final Fantasy series. Tales of Vesperia is Tales of Vesperia. Valkyria Chronicles is Valkyria Chronicles. Lost Odyssey is Lost Odyssey.

[dapofola]

Well after FF X (The best Final Fantasy in my opinion) square enix has gone down. Final fantasy XI was an MMO, strange, and FF XII was really a 7.5. But, the RE-MAKES of FF VI for the GBA and FF IV for the DS were 8.0 for FF IV and 9.0 for VI (some may disagree with me, though). But FF XIII sold platinum after one day, better than most CD's in the US. Hopefully after 4 years since the last one. On march 9th 2010, we will get the FF of all FF's. FF sucking, depends. But, even when Square Enix makes crappy FF's they still sell well. And now, Square Enix is making Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Mobilized and reflex in Japan.

[Nero]

I like X-2*Then again I am a Yuna and Tidus fan so...*and I'll admit when I first saw it I thought I'd hate XII but the more I read about it the more I wanna play it.It just sounds so fun.