Byere said:
I agree that 12 was bad partly for the terrible battle system which was just obtuse it would have been better giving them good A.I that actually learnt i.e like 13 or make it turn based/ATB instead but no instead you have to go in and change their A.I routines every time you encountera a different enemy if you wanted them to perform optimally. So in essence you had to babysit them it would have been far better imo just to input the orders manually, I also thought 12s story ,art direction and characters were terrible and that the quickening system and summons quickly became next to useless for me its the second worst FF game ever made at least the end game was good though 60+ hours in.
Then again I know people who loved it because of its combat and story so I guess it splits opinion a bit. As for 13 if you only played it for a few hours its a terrible game because battle goes like this press auto then sit back then walk down a corridor repeat, it only comes into its own post game same as 12 which is a huge flaw but at least 13 had better art direction than 12 and a less fiddly and ultimately great battle system but yes the summons are next to useless except for reviving your squad or crippling the huge turtle creatures.
As for free reign well most have a world map ill grant you that but the story is always linear obv and the game finds ways to limit what you can do such as the early ones putting stupid strong enemies in certain parts of the map so if you wondered past an invisible boundary you will be jumped by ridiculously powerful monsters and die or the scenery is laid out so you can only access a certain place or maybe two at a time, it did give a better illusion of freedom ill grant you that and it was great at the end when you could go almost anywhere but I feel people jump on the corridor nature of 13 then let other RPGs that do the same get a free ride I do agree though the corridor combat tired me out after a while but perhaps it only added to gran pulses appeal when it finally opened up for a bit. The worst thing they did for 13 was make the game one massive long tutorial not allowing you to mix things up until post game which just really brought the corridor nature of it into focus.
I did think that 6,7,10,10-2 and 13 had the best battle systems of the series they just had a flow and system that worked and felt smooth same with 8 actually as well I suppose even if it did get annoying sometimes having to draw stuff out of critters or refine cards. They have all been serviceable but 1,3,5 are pretty similar and 9 heavily riffs on this 5 was actually pretty smooth though but the other 3 felt very imprecise and stilted and 2 had a terrible levelling system. Its good they keep mixing it up though unlike say Dragon Quest but then again they can have one series that changes in bigger and smaller ways with each reiteration i.e FF and one thats more traditional i.e Dragon Quest both have their charm and annoyances.
