Final Fantasy XII

[Axeli]

As promised... PedroSteckecilo. No spoilers here, though most of you probably have already played the game. And I'm writing this around 3:00AM by the way, so don't mind the typos and such, I'll fix them soon.


Square is having some trouble keeping me convinced that Final Fantasy equals to quality nowdays, and perhaps I should thank them for cutting the birth cord before I decide which expensive console I buy next.

You see, Final Fantasy XII sucks. Where do I begin with this, I don't know, so let me tell what it does right first. In fact, FFXII is superb on some areas. The world is simply beautiful, so much that I actually had to regulary stop watching it, the same way I had to stop to listen to the music in many of the previous games.

And unlike FFX, the world isn't just a tunnel you walk through and it manages to pull off that illusion of freedom without an overworld map. Artifical walls are cut into minimum and it's almost worth it to explore the areas just for the heck of it... And sadly, that's usually all there is to it, thanks to a new treasure chest system. In XII, every once in a while the chests respawn with random treasure, apparently to keep the exploring fresh. Unfortunately, the treasure is nearly without an expection so puny that it's not worth going after even in the first place, making the new fancy system only take away from the exploration of the world, which is a pretty bad thing in this case... Consider: An RPG where treasure chests are purely a waste of time.

But none the less, the world manages to be immersive thanks to it being so huge but so detailed. There are multiple races and countries, all having their own cultures and accents. Also, the NPC's lines are updated reasonably often as the people face new problems and issues though the course of the game or when you finish or are doing sidequests in the area. Something that many developers tend to overlook now shows it's importance in creating an illusion of a living and breathing world.

Also helping the problem with (or lack of) treasure hunting, is the possibility to collect items from slain monsters instead of gold, that can later be either sold or used to make new items and weapons. And the monsters are now roaming the plains freely, as opposed to the random encounter system that is finally gotten rid of, and are besides the item hunting just pretty darn awesome looking running around in numbers. In fact, you could say that the decision to make them roam freely is in the end pretty cosmetic, as avoiding contact with them is so hard that they'll manage to bug you through the game almost as much as random encounters.

Speaking of monsters, the difficulty is finally a bit on the harder side of things. Even the regular foes can give you trouble, especially when right from the beginning you can find yourself against an enemy way out of your league if you aren't careful. The monsters aren't same in levels in each area, but vary a lot. You can easily in a heat of a battle against lower level enemies drift too close to some bigger and badder monster that will smash your group if you don't start running quick.
But the bosses are the main attraction and they'll give you more than enough trouble without being ridiculously hard. It is very refreshing to see an RPG that really expects you to give it all to beat a boss. And I mean all: couple holy stones, few elixirs, hastega stones, and you have taken the boss down with one man barely standing... Those stuff you usually have forgotten deep into your item list because the game never makes you resort to them.

The battle system itself is bit of an oddball. Good doesn't really describe it, bad seems harshly simplified. Instead of you controlling the characters all the time the characters have gambits, which are simple instructions of what action to take when a certain condition takes place (such as when HP goes under 50%, use Cure). While it's intresting, it's also pretty baffling. You can't give detailed enough orders to make them work reasonably independedly, but on the other hand it feels you haven't set the gambits right when things don't go smoothly. Also it's quite annoying when a single type of foe with some special attributes can render a perfectly fine gambit settings into suicidal.
Also the battles are quite fast paced, yet the characters seem to react pretty stiffly, partly thanks to one small little problem the developers didn't seem to think was worth fixing. You see, there can be only one magic animation at time on the screen, meaning that a magic, especially a longer spell puts all other spells that would be otherwise ready for casting on hold. This wouldn't be a problem if it halted melee action aswell, but no. Magic side of the combat (especially towards the end) is tangling while melee goes smoothly forward. And that sucks for healing, and if healing doesn't work, nothing works.
It's not like it breaks the game but is more than enough irritating. In all it's stiffiness, FFXII's combat feels like one of from an MMORPG, which it apparently intentionally mimicks. Only one question rises: Why at its worst overly clumsy MMO system in a single player game?

But alas, the real issues with Final Fantasy XII come from utterly failing at those things that can be considered the cornerstones of the series: Story, characters, music. I must first say though, that music doesn't fail utterly, or even fail.
It's in fact very atmospheric, and that's what it's good at; Creating atmospheres for each area of the game. What it lack is the ability to bring up stronger emotions in the player in scenes where that would have been needed. When those come across, I sure miss Nobuo.

But characters franly do fail utterly. Yes, I know that having voice acting limits the amount of script somewhat, but for god sake... The characters barely talk to each other. It was almost funny when near the end became a scene where the characters claimed their friendship with each other, I would be stunned by the fact that they even liked each other. There's absolutely nothing going on between them, which is understandable when there's no dialogue either. It's truly sad when your fingers are enough to count the times a main character talks in a story driven game.
Not that they develop much on an individual level either. Vaan and Penelo quickly become just couple brats that hang out with the rest for no good reason, Basch hardly talks after being introduced. Fran does one time show to be more than two dimensional, but that's about it. It wouldn't be awfully little if there was more going on with the rest of the group...
Balthier and Ashe aren't as dull, though Ashe's revenge or not -dilemma does fall a little flat, even if it actually reaches a conclusion of some sort, as it seem that we finally see what kind of person she is when she chooses rather than that the choice is the result of the way her character has developped... Probably because there's no character development. Balthier does perhaps most developping or at least showing more sides of himself and even actually acts in some way toward other characters, but there's sadly not much of a story with a point in his background and development, more of a random knowledge and some encounters with his father, and thus he falls way too short to drive the game.

Intrestingly enough, The new Cid and Basch's brother, Noah actually strike as much more deep and intresting than anyone with the little time they have on the spotlight, while I am left to ponder if things are getting anywhere with the main characters right until the game is about to end. The main villains are just as bad, as their motives are left hazy at most, nor do they even meet the heroes until the final battle.

Where lies the problem the plot itself has; The heroes are simply too outside the political scheming and rest that make the core of the story. Their journey running around Ivalice just is too irrevelant to the main plot, which happens largely on the background, making a perfectly nice story distant and weak. It's not very good storytelling when you feel something of a carrier boy running around some stones while big things are happening elsewhere.


Overall, even while the world is beautiful, detailed and intresting, it just doesn't justify weak story and characters, especially when the battle system is far from flawless.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Fair enough review. I'd agree with you on the charecters. and the battle system- fuck, what is wrong with the magic.

Still, I like it enough.

 

[RentCavalier]

WARNING! SOME SPOILERS. THIS IS ALSO A LONG POST/RANT. READ AT OWN RISK.

*Sigh*

And so it spills over here. This is the great debate that blazes across Gamefaqs, and no matter how much you argue on either side, no body is satisfied.

First off, good review. You touched on the game's biggest failing, it's abysmal treasure chest system, and you touched on a few points with the combat...but, you also failed to mention that your gambits can be changed and altered whenever, wherever, even in the heat of combat, and it is more than possible to pause the action and give detailed orders to your team mates whenever you want, which adds limitless flexibility and makes up for the somewhat lacking gambit choices. The gambits themselves work fine and there are tons of great tactics to design around them--Reverse/Decoy being the most popular. A bigger failing would have been that most of the gambits in the game must be purchased, which is really aggravating early on.

Your opinions on the characters are the crux of the game's debate, so let me say that, I respect your opinion, but let me try to convince you otherwise.

Final Fantasy games have a tradition, for good or for ill, to focus on their characters to an insane degree. Final Fantasy VIII is a great example of this, despite its characters being the most emotionally craven group of super-soldiers ever conceived, and FFX is very character driven, with the heart of the story being Yuna's self-sacrifice, Tidus' outsider perspective, yadda yadda, meh.

Final Fantasy XII *is* different. It's built around a seperate structure that a lot of gamers aren't familiar with--taking more tips from Shakespeare and more classic tales, ignoring more modern-day provisionals to center around a larger meta-plot. Of course, the game cannot possibly rival Shakespeare, who did many character-centric tragedies, for which he is best remembered, while keeping heavy political undertones, but Shakespeare had the advantage of not having to explain the world to the audience, it being assumed that it takes place in our own. In FFXII, the world of Ivalice is just as much a character as it is a setting, a departure, if you will, from the earlier FF's, and the characters within it are all parts of a greater machine.

That's the major point a lot of people don't get. Your group of heroes is not, in fact, the main drivers of the plot. The main instruments of the plot are the high political characters, such as Marquis Ondore or Vayne or Dr. Cid. Your characters are, in effect, exploring a subplot that ties in at the end to the main plot, and that leaves a lot of people out in the cold because they misinterpret that as being unimportant or unconnected.

The thing is, though, FFXII does NOT need to have six extremely deeply designed characters. Frankly, these characters at least feel real to me, and they have roles. Basch and Vaan influence Ashe's final decision just as much as anyone, and Penelo--while the weakest link of the bunch--at least provides a side perspective, a connection for Vaan to keep him from being alienated from the group. The major players are Balthier and Ashe, with Fran and Basch being close seconds. In Shakespeare, not every character is explored--in fact, Shakespeare usually includes little backstory at all, preferring his characters' personalities to reflect in their current standing. He doesn't need to justify them with exposition, and neither does FFXII. We know everything we need to know about each character within the first few minutes of meeting them, and there is absolutely no way to refute this. I'll give an example for each:

Basch is technically introduced twice, in the beginning and then later one, showing both sides of him--the courageous, driven military man and the self-sacrificing, stoic, almost guilt-ridden warrior. Love it or hate it, you know everything you need to know about him as soon as you meet him, and any other detail is useless.

Vaan is, well, Vaan. He's a cheery kid who is constantly frustrated at his low standing and dreams of something more. He's killing rats in a sewer for crying out loud, and he knows it sucks--he practically says it. The idea of a simple, dull life is too bland for him, and Penelo exists to bring him back to earth--their relationship, too, is very obvious from the first scene together with them. We don't need much else outside of what we are given, and even though he himself isn't a particularly huge character in the main plot, neither are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet, or even most of anybody in Macbeth besides Macbeth, but without Banquo, Macbeth wouldn't be Macbeth. Consider Vaan a less tragic Banquo, who's simplicity and one-sided nature influence Ashe more profoundly than any other character. Penelo just exists to cement Vaan's importance, but without him, the plot would lose a lot of connection to the average gamer as it does, as Vaan provides a perfect--albeit fairily bishounen--template for the gamer to reflect his own thoughts and perceptions, and this is added by the fact that, in terms of dialogue, Vaan and Penelo speak in average, normal english, while Ashe and Basch speak in very rich, royal tone--another throwback to Shakespeare, who had all of his royalty speak in poetry.

Balthier is easy. He's a scoundral pirate, and Fran is his sidekick, providing knowledge on the Mist and the magical items in the initial scene with them and throughout the game, functioning primarilly as Balthier's foil. That's all we need, and fuck: she actually GETS a backstory, as does Balthier. They are, in regular terms, the most developed characters of the game, especially Balthier, who rejects his usual life philosophy of freedom and escape in order to do what he knows he must, and pay peneance for the sins of his father.

Ashe is the game's main character, in terms of playable ones, and she IS directly connected to the plot, be it either organizing the initial resistance movement or, as in the majority of the game, working to undermine the Empire's overwhelming military objective. She's headstrong and rash, and we see this within SECONDS of meeting her--it's not even hard in her case to get a portrait of her personality, and she too gets development, through a continuing tragic love story and a genuine sense of manipulation and indecision in the air. She is tasked with the hardest moral choice in the game, and the whole crux of the story hinges on it.

The character don't have NOVELS behind their intentions and motivations, but they don't NEED them. That's my point: They function as part of a whole, filling in their neccessary gaps and continuing to provide support throughout. In Shakespeare, when a character did what he needed, he either died or walked off stage. Here, it's the same thing, except that we have to have a group of playable characters and so, while each one isn't consistently driving the plot forward every step of the game, they are realistically fighting together to support the ones who are, and that's all you need.

You don't NEED deep characterization. You have it already, any more would be ostentatious filler. The story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and the biggest flaw is that you have so much stuff that you, the player, can DO througout the game that you forget about the current plot point, but every cutscene is at least INTERESTING. You don't have long-winded dull diatribes about the nature of love, or ridiculous, over-the-top fight scenes that you don't control. In fact, you can say that this game works very well as a game because you actually PLAY IT. I mean, you spend 80% of this game actually controlling your characters, fighting bosses, monsters, doing the PLETHORA of sidequests and genuinely immersing yourself deep into the game's world, Ivalice, which is one of the best, most vibrant and richly detailed fantasy worlds ever developed, in video games or even otherwise, if I may be so bold. If you don't like the story, I suppose I can understand it, but at least give credit where credit is due--the game isn't a melodramatic soap opera, and it isn't a ridiculous, ill-thought out political mishmash, like Lost Odyssey. The story is just that--a story--and it has a LOT of supporting characters, each fulfilling their role, be it as emotional support, a lynchpin in a certain scene, or maybe just an excuse to showcase the depth and richness of the games world, but every character has a PURPOSE.

Ask yourself that of games like FFX. How much of a purpose did any of the characters outside of Yuna, Tidus and Auron serve? Was Kimhari particularly important? Or even Rikku? Wakka stops being interesting after you leave Luca, and what the fuck is Lulu up to? What about FFIV, everyone's bloody favorite? Half the characters in that game actually DIE, and the ones that don't--Edward the fucking Bard--do jack shit the entire time they are on screen, in party and out of it.

I'm not asking you to love the game's story as I do, and I'm sorry for writing too long--alchohol and mountain dew should not mix--but at least take a moment, a brief moment, to think of the bigger picture, to think of the game as a whole, as a sum of multiple parts, and each person in it, each character, a simple cog in those parts--and while some cogs are bigger than others, without even the smallest cog, the biggest wouldn't turn at all.

 

[Axeli]

Ask yourself that of games like FFX. How much of a purpose did any of the characters outside of Yuna, Tidus and Auron serve? Was Kimhari particularly important? Or even Rikku? Wakka stops being interesting after you leave Luca, and what the fuck is Lulu up to?

Okay, I probably went little off my own point... You see, Rikku does play a part: She looks up to Lulu, tries to support Yuna, befriends Tidus. Even Kimhari, besides obviosly caring for Yuna, shows to like Rikku. His brickwall way of acting is just taken down every now and then to show he actually thinks of something about the rest of the characters. The characters have relationships, something they just don't have in XII.

FFX was already pretty short on dialogue compared to other FFs, but it got that much through. You pointed out some things about the characters in XII, but it seems to me the situations when they come through mostly occur near the beginning of the game, and that's just not nearly good enough when the game is easily 80 hours long, and they appear as if they didn't give a shit about each other, becaue there simply isn't enough dialogue outside those highlights of the plot and explaining something to the player through them...

It's not like they have to have both well developed relationships and meaningful back- or sidestories... While that would be ideal, it has been demonstrated that if a character has a decent personality, they might be intresting enough.

What about FFIV, everyone's bloody favorite? Half the characters in that game actually DIE, and the ones that don't--Edward the fucking Bard--do jack shit the entire time they are on screen, in party and out of it.

Not my favorite, never even played it myself, but to be fair, it is the first FF on SNES, so what can you really expect...

 

[RentCavalier]

Ask yourself that of games like FFX. How much of a purpose did any of the characters outside of Yuna, Tidus and Auron serve? Was Kimhari particularly important? Or even Rikku? Wakka stops being interesting after you leave Luca, and what the fuck is Lulu up to?

Okay, I probably went little off my own point... You see, Rikku does play a part: She looks up to Lulu, tries to support Yuna, befriends Tidus. Even Kimhari, besides obviosly caring for Yuna, shows to like Rikku. His brickwall way of acting is just taken down every now and then to show he actually thinks of something about the rest of the characters. The characters have relationships, something they just don't have in XII.

FFX was already pretty short on dialogue compared to other FFs, but it got that much through. You pointed out some things about the characters in XII, but it seems to me the situations when they come through mostly occur near the beginning of the game, and that's just not nearly good enough when the game is easily 80 hours long, and they appear as if they didn't give a shit about each other, becaue there simply isn't enough dialogue outside those highlights of the plot and explaining something to the player through them...

It's not like they have to have both well developed relationships and meaningful back- or sidestories... While that would be ideal, it has been demonstrated that if a character has a decent personality, they might be intresting enough.

If you call those meaningful relationships, the game's bloody full of them. In fact, almost every interaction from the Tomb of Raithwall on usually involves development of a similar tie. I mean, it's clear that Penelo is jealous of Fran, Vaan is enamored (But not in love) with her, he looks up to Balthier as a hero-figure (who, likely unintentional, teaches him some tools of the trade.), and is initially distrustful, but later looks up to Basch as well.

There's examples of this throughout--in every party-centric cutscene, in the background, we see various clusters of characters interacting outside of whatever the main conversation is, detailing alternative relationships without distracting from the main issue on hand. It may not focus on it as much as FFX, but to be fair, it also is telling a FAR LARGER TALE than FFX, as well as adding better, larger gameplay, better graphics and more sophisticated camera dynamics, as well as rehauling an entirely new core battle system.

Tic for tac, I can HONESTLY have been more than happy to exclude Rikku's hero worship of Lulu for a more interesting gameworld to explore. Spira started to get old REAL quick after you realize that it has four basic environments: Tropical Island, Rocky Wasteland, Cold Frigid Hellhole, and Submerged Lost City--with the occasional spattering of Desert and Flat, Expanseless plains. Hell, I don't even care about the game world if we didn't have a story that, at best, takes about twenty cliches from JRPGs--including a "quiet, meek female character facing fatalism with a determined smile", the "quiet, mysterious warrior who knows more than he tells" and a "plucky swordsman/hero/love interest for the quiet, meek female".

I mean, I'm sorry. I enjoyed FFX a lot--back when it was called TALES OF SYMPHONIA.

 

[Axeli]

If you call those meaningful relationships, the game's bloody full of them. In fact, almost every interaction from the Tomb of Raithwall on usually involves development of a similar tie. I mean, it's clear that Penelo is jealous of Fran, Vaan is enamored (But not in love) with her, he looks up to Balthier as a hero-figure (who, likely unintentional, teaches him some tools of the trade.), and is initially distrustful, but later looks up to Basch as well.

As I said, near the beginning. Tomb of Raithwall was still around when you thought things were getting somewhere eventually, but it's not enough that the story shows potential. I was shocked when I realized the game will end soon, because I still thought the characters had potential at the moment, despite being well over 100 hours into the game. Things start well, but as I have said, the dialogue is quickly forgotten from there on.
Nothing seems to reach a conclusion, and climax cannot be spoken of, when there's nothing building for it outside a few plot points.

There's examples of this throughout--in every party-centric cutscene, in the background, we see various clusters of characters interacting outside of whatever the main conversation is, detailing alternative relationships without distracting from the main issue on hand. It may not focus on it as much as FFX, but to be fair, it also is telling a FAR LARGER TALE than FFX, as well as adding better, larger gameplay, better graphics and more sophisticated camera dynamics, as well as rehauling an entirely new core battle system.

Vaan and Penelo fighting in the background? That also happens within the first quarter of the game, and I can't really remember much more scenes like that, nor do I think that it's enough to completely rely the characters' personalities into that kind of story telling.

Tic for tac, I can HONESTLY have been more than happy to exclude Rikku's hero worship of Lulu for a more interesting gameworld to explore. Spira started to get old REAL quick after you realize that it has four basic environments: Tropical Island, Rocky Wasteland, Cold Frigid Hellhole, and Submerged Lost City--with the occasional spattering of Desert and Flat, Expanseless plains. Hell, I don't even care about the game world if we didn't have a story that, at best, takes about twenty cliches from JRPGs--including a "quiet, meek female character facing fatalism with a determined smile", the "quiet, mysterious warrior who knows more than he tells" and a "plucky swordsman/hero/love interest for the quiet, meek female".

So a game has to sacrifice character development for gameplay elements? You see, the problem with you saying that, though you don't mean it that way, leads to the conclusion that you admit the story might suck, but you like the gameplay over it.

And this wasn't a conversation about FFX, which I never really claimed to like that much, though at least I cared about the characters in the end.

 

[RentCavalier]

I guess I'm a bit of an FFXII fanboy.

I mean, I'm not saying it isn't without flaws--I'm just saying is that the flaws there are are not nearly enough to ruin the game experience.

At the very least, it's better than FF X-2, or the Kingdom Hearts games, and in all likelihood, it's gonna be a lot better than FFXIII

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

I've never been a FF fan (or an RPG fan of any type, except Pokemon, GO CHARIZARD, etc.), but I've always loved the kind of swords-and-magic thing about Zelda and Soul Calibur, and people said that FFXII was good, and it was cheap in Gamestation.
I've never really got into it, I played for 10mins and it said I had an hour on the clock, purely because of the massive, gorgeously soft-focused, cutscene that I felt obliged to watch to get into the story, which was over-complicated at the very beginning and after the dull tutorial level was as gripping as soapy butter.
And the combat system, my CHRIST! Stand around until you can attack. Stand whilst being attacked. Attack, wait and repeat. Not fun, or interesting, or challenging in any way. Not even visually anyhting to write home about. I'd prefer the standard choose-from-a-list-and-whoever-has-a-higher-speed-stat-attacks-first.

Let me reinforce that I haven't seen very far into this game at all, which I expect with side-quests is truly massive, but I feel I know enough from playing it for 2-3 hours (which to me felt like half an hour) to have a valid opinion on why it isn't all some make it out to be.

 

[Axeli]

At the very least, it's better than FF X-2, or the Kingdom Hearts games, and in all likelihood, it's gonna be a lot better than FFXIII

Don't get me started with X-2... I'm not sure if that game fails worse at being a Final Fantasy or sequel to X. Or something not aimed for ten years old girls.
But what's wrong with KH? The third game wasn't anything too great but the first one and Chain of Memories were quite good, which is a lot said about a game crawling with Disney characters.

And XIII? We have seen barely more than one trailer of it... Little too soon to declare it a failure, even though I agree that getting overly hyped for an FF game has been recently only for masochists.

 

[RentCavalier]

Kingdom Hearts 2 is an abomination of epic proportions, an overly swollen, cancerous lump of a video game that combines every single distasteful, hateful thing about Japanese culture and shits out a load of Disney paraphenelia onto it.

Every aspect of the game is shit: the gameplay is simplistic and easy, with combat being a button-mashing extraveganza and...well, besides combat, there IS no gameplay: there's no platforming, no exploring. Your levels are basically just one combat arena after another, with different enemies and slightly different backgrounds to change the monotony. The storyline is amazingly weak--the "heroes" the story are bloodthirsty pseudo-facists who opt to kill anyone who may be different from them for no apparent reason, and instead of the fun, almost silly nostalgia trip we got from the first KH game, we instead are treated to melodramatic, soap-opera dialogue combined with idiotic camera controls and...and...

UGH. Kingdom Hearts 2 is just ATROCIOUS.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I've gotta be fair, you make some good points. Personally I was drawn in by the simplicity of the story but I too missed actual Character Interaction... and I REALLY hated Vaan, I liked Penelo, Ashe, Balthier, Fran and Basch, but not Vaan, him I wanted out of the game.

Also, I did like KH2, even though it was half good and half complete shite, the half that was good was really really good, and the half that was shite didn't do enough to mar the good to completely ruin the game. Also, KH2 has possibly the best opening five hours ever.

 

[RentCavalier]

I've gotta be fair, you make some good points. Personally I was drawn in by the simplicity of the story but I too missed actual Character Interaction... and I REALLY hated Vaan, I liked Penelo, Ashe, Balthier, Fran and Basch, but not Vaan, him I wanted out of the game.

Also, I did like KH2, even though it was half good and half complete shite, the half that was good was really really good, and the half that was shite didn't do enough to mar the good to completely ruin the game. Also, KH2 has possibly the best opening five hours ever.

Really? Best five hours? You know, maybe it was just me, but I never liked doing repetative, pointless tasks at the behest of ultra-feminine assholes before. I mean, sure--I like to kick a ball around and whatnot, but jesus christ, I bought this game because I wanted to have more adventures with Sora, and instead I get some bullshit Matrix-rip off nonsense combined with all the "fun" of mini-games.

Plus, they just started throwing in FF characters for the hell of it. I was not aware that Setzer was an egotistical jackass who would rather cheat than win anything fairly. In fact, now that I'm on the subject, Tetsuya Nomura can stay the FUCK AWAY from FFVI. It's my favorite Final Fantasy, and if he so much as adds ONE ZIPPER to Kefka's outfit, I will buy a ticket to Japan, walk into the Squaresoft office, locate his studio, pop his eye out with a crowbar, and SKULL FUCK HIM until his brains leak out of his GOD DAMN EARS.

 

[Ultrajoe]

A few opinions from the ultrajoe:

I loved KH 1 and 2 but found the Disney aspect a bit of a ball twist, the final moments of the games are what i live for... The world that never was, a room of innovative and somewhat-challenging bossfights, nice graphics, a truly mind-fucking final boss battle (i had to pause to stop my head spinning with the illusions that tricky bastard pulled... i hit you!... oops now im here as weel, and that ones a clone... AND I SHOOT YOU WITH WRIST-LIGHT-SABERS, HELL YES!!)

And i loved FF12, it was a change that rubbed me the wrong way sometimes but i don't let every mistake take the game down a peg, it was less clunky than its predeccessors, the story more expansive and i actually liked the new loot system, you know once you play for a while you can get items to help the outcome of such chests and creatures right?

I could write an essay but i will suffice to say that for someone that says the game sucks, you then go on to list a not unimpressive list of its features that you enjoyed.

I look forward to FFXIII with great anticipation, i have faith in all new games, not hype, faith and hope.

 

[RentCavalier]

Yeah, the last boss was REALLY spectacular--for a digital effects light show. It was ridiculous--the final duel is more show than substance. You barely control it--all you do is just more of the repetative, mindless button-mashing combat until you press a series of timed buttons to deflect the WHOMG LASER STORM.

If you want, though, I'll give you a list of what I liked about KH2:

1. Voice acting was well done.
2. Graphics were nice.
3. Gummi Ship sequences were cool.
4. Um...a majority of the boss battles were pretty fun. Well, I mean, except for the ones that were EXCEEDINGLY CHEAP (like that fucker with the guitar and the water monsters) or the ones that were really, really easy (like, everything else...)
5. Ok, that wasn't a positive point. I will make a point of saying that the Organization XIII fights, despite their obnoxious difficulty, were really quite cool.
6. The enemy designs were pretty nifty, especially the Nobodies.
7. The soundtrack was nice. Not great. But nice. Packed less punch than KH1's.

That's it. Absent from that, I'll stress, was the core gameplay, which was dull, the story, which was obnoxious, and the characters, who were grating and annoying. I know you mentioned you disliked the Disney elements, but the ones present in this game were just plain awful--they were little more than set pieces, and the ones present were either extremely cheaply done or just nonsensical. The level designs, in particular, as I've said, were very lazy, and offered little more than window dressings. Since I'm being positive, I'll give you the two that were worthwhile:

Lion King: This was a great level, actually. It was big, sprawling, varied and epic. The fight against Scar was fun times. Of course, this is ruined by teh fact that you basically have to backtrack EVERYWHERE, TWICE.

Tron: Ok, I loved this level. This was one of the few moments I genuinely enjoyed the game. There's actually stuff to do here, like some minor puzzle solving and just...I mean, it's TRON. God, that was awesome.

Special mention goes to the Steamboat Willie stage, which was very inventive, but shorter than virginal sex. Also, it felt totally tacked on there, and the Magic Kingdom/Castle shit before it was just plain dull. OH LOOK, MONSTERS. LET'S FIGHT THEM.

Ok, monsters are dead, next hall--OH WHAT? MORE MONSTERS!? Ok, now they're dead, let's open this door and--MORE MONSTERS.

Let's go into the basement. Oh cool, a book. ZOOM! Oh, we're in a magic black and white world! Maybe we can do something--OH GOD MORE MONSTERS! Let's fight in these specialty arenas and do obnoxious timed button presses while fighting really HARD MONSTERS! Fortunately, the boss is easier than Sunday morning. Woo.

The game is window dressing, all of it is fluff with nothing deeper than style.

 

[Axeli]

Also, I did like KH2, even though it was half good and half complete shite, the half that was good was really really good, and the half that was shite didn't do enough to mar the good to completely ruin the game. Also, KH2 has possibly the best opening five hours ever.

It's funny actually, at the same time the opening of KH2 is the most boring repeative cut-scene fest I have seen (and I can usually handle a lot of story) and the most touching sidestory I have seen in videogames. The Neo thing, but with actually emotion, pain and hint of delusional insanity about the once so solid world suddenly melting away.
Funny how you mentioned Matrix (RentCavalier), because it's actually much better than Matrix in those parts in supposedly ripped-off.

I really wished the rest of the game would have been as good, storywise, but hey, the last moments are at least as good too. I mean honestly, are there any more epic final boss fight(s) out there?

RentCavalier, KH2 was, by the way, the one I liked the least, just to make sure we are on the same line here... As it is the third KH, though that might have been a little too unclear way to say it.
So I'm not going to great efforts on defending it...But let's just say the plot is incoherent as hell, though it has its moments for sure. Some or nearly all off the major characters appear properly only in the prologue and the end, or otherwise too too rarely and too little, while we are given rather poorly re-told Disney stories for the most of the time.

OH LOOK, MONSTERS. LET'S FIGHT THEM.

Let's go into the basement. Oh cool, a book. ZOOM! Oh, we're in a magic black and white world! Maybe we can do something--OH GOD MORE MONSTERS! Let's fight in these specialty arenas and do obnoxious timed button presses while fighting really HARD MONSTERS!

That's hack'n'slash, I suppose.

 

[RentCavalier]

Shit, I wouldn't have minded KH2 at all, really, if they had just bothered to make the levels more interesting. I mean, come on: the Mulan level is BORING. Almost all of the levels are really, really boring. Even the Colisseum is bland and unfun.

 

[Quaidis]

Odd, I thought this was a review about FFXII, not KH2. I'm honestly waiting to see when RentCavalier will make a KH2 bash review so I can enjoy myself; I honestly hated the game as well.

As for the first post review, I'm a little confused on what you hate about the game more then what you like. You say you detest the game, however you give more 'okay' and 'moderate' goods about FF12 afterwards than actual hates. You say you hate the music, but that the music is okay. You hate the battles, but then state how the battles are okay. The only things you really don't like about the game that I read was the lack of depth in characters and the plot. Is there anything else you hate? And by hate I mean 'really do not like'. Not 'hate but think it's okay'.

For example, outside of the lack of depth in characters (Penelo's only reason to be in that game was to read the epilogue), the music and npcs reminded me much of a large StarWars rip. This is especially true around the sand people. It's like the person who composed the music, instead of trying to take after Nobuo in previous FF games, took after a certain hyped up movie trilogy that was being released around the same time in history.

I found no point in getting the summons as the summons were absolutely worthless when it came right down to it. I enjoyed previous FF games where summoning a monster meant an epic video clip and tons of damage. Instead you loose your characters and the monster only lives a short time in many instances. Magic also suffered a great load.

Bahamut was not a dragon. Enough said.

Like the summons, I really had no oomph to go back to dig up all the hidden levels in the game. The ending boss was so ridiculously easy that it wasn't worth it in the end. And you already read what I think about summons in FF12 anyway.

Everything else I hate (the lack of plot, depth in characters, buying Gambit thing, etc) was already brought up in the thread.


On another note, Axeli... You say your review is spoiler free, but why are you giving up the family relationships of Cid and Noah? Of what little plot FF12 had, those were two mild secrets with some value.

 

[Axeli]

Odd, I thought this was a review about FFXII, not KH2. I'm honestly waiting to see when RentCavalier will make a KH2 bash review so I can enjoy myself; I honestly hated the game as well.

As for the first post review, I'm a little confused on what you hate about the game more then what you like. You say you detest the game, however you give more 'okay' and 'moderate' goods about FF12 afterwards than actual hates. You say you hate the music, but that the music is okay. You hate the battles, but then state how the battles are okay. The only things you really don't like about the game that I read was the lack of depth in characters and the plot. Is there anything else you hate? And by hate I mean 'really do not like'. Not 'hate but think it's okay'.

I think I took back the music part right after:

But alas, the real issues with Final Fantasy XII come from utterly failing at those things that can be considered the cornerstones of the series: Story, characters, music. I must first say though, that music doesn't fail utterly, or even fail.
It's in fact very atmospheric, and that's what it's good at; Creating atmospheres for each area of the game. What it lack is the ability to bring up stronger emotions in the player in scenes where that would have been needed. When those come across, I sure miss Nobuo.

Not perhaps the most sensible way to say things, but... And I didn't say battles were horrible, I said I can't quite put my finger on whether I find it more good or bad, after which I mention the flaws it has.

But to be more precise about the music; it's not bad but never strikes the same way out of the background as I've come to expect from FF soundtracks, thus being a dissapointment, even if it does all music needs to do in a game or a movie... But that's all it does. No memorable songs or anything.

For example, outside of the lack of depth in characters (Penelo's only reason to be in that game was to read the epilogue), the music and npcs reminded me much of a large StarWars rip. This is especially true around the sand people. It's like the person who composed the music, instead of trying to take after Nobuo in previous FF games, took after a certain hyped up movie trilogy that was being released around the same time in history.

I found no point in getting the summons as the summons were absolutely worthless when it came right down to it. I enjoyed previous FF games where summoning a monster meant an epic video clip and tons of damage. Instead you loose your characters and the monster only lives a short time in many instances. Magic also suffered a great load.

Bahamut was not a dragon. Enough said.

Like the summons, I really had no oomph to go back to dig up all the hidden levels in the game. The ending boss was so ridiculously easy that it wasn't worth it in the end. And you already read what I think about summons in FF12 anyway.

Everything else I hate (the lack of plot, depth in characters, buying Gambit thing, etc) was already brought up in the thread.

On another note, Axeli... You say your review is spoiler free, but why are you giving up the family relationships of Cid and Noah? Of what little plot FF12 had, those were two mild secrets with some value.

Spoiler

Gabranth's real name, Noah, is not brought up before it's revelaed he is Basch's brother. But about the Cid being Balthier's father... That was accidental, as I did mean only to mention Cid as another intresting side character. I hope that I didn't spoil things for anyone, and I'm removing that now.

 

[Korolev]

While I didn't hate FFXII - I have to agree with the reviewer when it was said that the plot was weak and the characters even weaker. I remember the time when Basch actually interacts with Vaan and Penelo - I was SHOCKED, because it was the first time he did so and it was fairly late in the game.

FFXII was by far the weakest in the series for me. The battle system I didn't mind so much, the length felt reasonable - but the plot was awful. The main villian was not well developed, the characters do not improve or change in any discernible way, and the ending was not worth the slog through the game.

Was it worth buying? Maybe. But it's the weakest in the series by far.