FFXII... why the hate?

[rees263]

Unpleasable Fanbase. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnpleasableFanbase]

They Changed It, Now It Sucks. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks]

It's The Same, Now It Sucks. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlezx89c5u5txaj?from=Main.ItIsTheSameNowItSucks]

Study well, young Padawan, to understand the odious ways of the deepest depths of gaming Fan Dumb. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanDumb]

^ What this guy said.

Take any game series with a sufficiently large fanbase and you get these situations.

Now I am a big fan of the more recent FFs (7-13) and I've spent quite a lot of time on various Final Fantasy message boards and without exception every one has had some form of "this FF is better/worse than that other FF" topic repeated on a regular basis.

It's worth baring in mind that:

a) FF has one of the larger fanbases in gaming.

b) It's a fanbase that has been going for over 20 years, so it has some real die-hards.

c) (This one is totally conjecture on my part) FF games with their focus on story and character developement seem to evoke some very strong emotions from people about what they feel is a good/bad character or story which is exacerbated by:

d) People who dislike something are much more vocal than people who are content. Happy people have no reason to make themselves heard or "troll" others. In this regard there's nothing worse than a Final Fantasy fanboy (love the alliteration!) who has been disappointed by the newest FF yet again because it's not the same as FF6/7/pick-your-favourite.


As for my views on FFXII, I enjoyed it a lot. I found it pretty difficult to get into at first because it was so different to what I was used to but in the end I put about 160 hours into it and basically completed everything. I loved gambits, licences, no random battles etc. I thought the story was good but I thought it was told very poorly. I didn't mind Vaan at all but it just felt so slow and often by the time I reached the next story progression I'd forgotten what I was supposed to be doing or why.

Now you may wonder why I underlined that piece above. This is will have contributed a large amount of the hatred you are talking about I think (Vaan accounts for much of the rest). I consider myself a pretty easy going guy who is willing to give anything a chance which is why it didn't bother me (I also have time to spend playing games). Other people are much quicker to lash out at a game and condemn it before they've played very far.

EDIT: I don't care how they do it in MMOs, random drop chests can all (insert most horrific death imaginable here) and suck my balls.

 

[Thaius]

In the end, it was the character development. The story was fantastic on the level of a grand narrative and a political thriller, but Basch, Ashe, and Balthier were the only characters to get the development they deserved. And that's where it fell apart: the characters. Especially compared to the character-driven quality of the stories of Final Fantasy VI or X, it simply didn't measure up. Most of the characters were barely developed, and some (namely Penelo and Vaan) simply were nothing in particular. In the end, it just failed to deliver any semblance of a personal tale. When I don't care about the characters, a story suffers a lot.

The battle system was amazing, though. My third favorite of the series. The soundtrack was... okay, but not up to Uematsu standards (since he didn't do it), and not even up to the standards of XIII (which was a fantastic score).

In the end, it was just underwhelming. Not a bad game, just not the amazing quality that is associated with the Final Fantasy name.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

While I think the approach to story, where you control the character who is not central to the actual plot and events, was rather interesting, the story and characters weren't all that compelling to me. I think I got about 7-10 hours into the game and just stopped caring about what was happening. I also wasn't particularly fond of the gambit system and the way combat generally controlled. I've been fairly happy with more turn based approaches in the FF series.

 

[Jfswift]

I really don't think it's that bad a game. My only real complaint is Vaughn and his endless complaining about how epic fail he is. Aside from that it's fun and utilizes a live combat control scheme which is a breath of fresh air imho.

 

[JudgeRicand]

Frankly, The game was alright. Hardcore Turned based FF fanboys might not have liked it's nearly-active battle system, but they got a throwback to FFVII with XIII, so they can shut it.

 

[Chancie]

I'm with you, TC. I don't get it either. I thought change is good? Especially when you're on the 12th freaking one in the series? xD You need to change it up then.

But I thought the gameplay was fun and I loved the characters. Plot was a little slow but that was ok. My biggest issue with it was that the difficulty could never make up its mind and it constantly went up and down. Er...or maybe that was just me.

 

[The Rockerfly]

Horrible shallow characters
Real time battle system was lame
Music was all orchestral and comparing it to say Final Fantasy IX which had orchestral, big band, ukulele and every other type of band
Dull story
Characters who look like the opposite gender

 

[ultrachicken]

My guess is people hate it because they didn't think it was fun?
I didn't even play it for more than 2 hours because the combat bored me to tears.

 

[Catalyst6]

I've never really been a big fan of FF for one reason: I hate games where my success and failure can be based solely on luck of the roll. Yes, I like RPG elements like levels and such, but many (non-JRPG) RPGs include combat systems which are in a large part "hands on". I simply despise the whole Character -> Attack -> Enemy menu face.

 

[kahlzun]

I'm not really sure, but XII just didn't 'drag' me in the way that 7 through 10-part-two did. Even 9 (which i passionately dislike) had more immersion.

I guess I don't like the games where you play as a thief character?

 

[Baldr4500]

Deleted

 

[DracoSuave]

-snip-

You've no idea how much I love you for saying this. I found that XII had the similarity to VI in that it didn't revolve around just one character and that more than just Terra (or in XII's case Vaan) played a large role in the plot.

I also liked how XII took a step away from the epic adventure story and a step closer to the political unrest story, sort of like Tactics (no surprise as XII was made by the same folks who made Tactics) and it makes for a much deeper story in my opinion.

Ironicly, I actually felt FF13 had a closer story structure to FF6, which is what gave me a lot of enjoyment.

But really, any comparison to FF6 is a favorable one, that game was -hella- good.

And the music... oh yes.

 

[Manji187]

The story was okay but mostly what got the ire of the fans was this guy

He was the person you played as yet he had no essential part in the main story Basch should have been the main person you controlled.

Yeah...but you know how the Japanese feel about a FF main character who is older than 21.....that's like OMG geezer!!

 

[Joshroom]

Some people who liked previous FF games didn't like this one because of the combat. FFXII was, I think, a good game, but it wasn't really Final Fantasy in the same sense that titles 1-X were.

I think this sums up my opinion as well. I enjoyed it myself and I'm no FF newbie but it did change a lot of the core mechanics that fans had come to expect and that was bound to cause aggrivation for certain fans. Also, Vaan didn't help; whiny, dumbass main character that he was.

 

[fenrizz]

I don't know to be honest.

I liked it.