Why all the hate on Final fantasy XII?

[IamSofaKingRaw]

FFXII deserves every ounce of hate it gets. 1) The combat just doesn't work. It is chaotic and nonsensical. 2) The freeform skill system makes it easy to completely gimp your party by getting "creative" with your skill assignment. By that I mean if you deviate too far from the standard white mage, black mage, tank, etc. archetypes, you get useless characters that lose utility as the game gets harder. 3) There is barely any gil at all. It's been a while since I played but iirc, you don't earn gil after battles. I distinctly remember being strapped for cash the entire game. 4) The game requires excessive grinding even for an ff game. 5) I felt no connection to any of the characters... ANY of them. Cecil Harvey, Kain Highwind and Rosa whitemagechick are great characters. Between them lies friendship, rivalry, romantic tension, betrayal, redemption... you get the idea. There is nothing even remotely like that in final fantasy XII.

Five reasons is enough but I could go on...

Really? I found that the characters in this game are the easiest to relate to because of the fact that they are realistic. How can you relate to Cloud when he is some Uber SOLDIER (the only one of his caliber in the game world), or Barret a guy with a machine gun wielded to his arm? Shall I go on? The characters in FFXII are different because of their personalities. There are peasants in the world like Vaan, or Jugdes like Basch and Sky Pirates like Balthier and Fran. In their world they are regular people.

As for your issue with skill assignment I don't see where you are coming from. It was simple for me, build the characters up based on their strengths. Fran is good at magic? Well unlock magic abilities for her.

I think the main issue that people have is that they are so used to their turn based, love story, upbeat protagonist OR mysterious protagonist (Tidus/Cloud), and their random battlers that they immediately hate FFXII.

* As for gil you may be talking about FFXIII because I had around 200,000 near the middle of the game.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

The gambit system was broken and nearly useless. Half the time I found myself wondering why my party members weren't doing things the gambit system was supposed to be telling them to do.

Wrong game. You're thinking DA:O.

In FFXII the Gambit system was near-perfect. Did you program it correctly? I never had any problems. Make sure the highest priority is at the top (and set up with the proper conditions).

I must be an idiot then, because I had almost nothing but problems. Particularly in bosses with multiple status ailments, where you had to set up a specific gambit for each one, leaving little room for any other commands.

But, I guess to be fair, my patience ran out with it. I suppose it could've been done perfect if I was willing to devote hours to trial and error while I worked out all of the kinks in my gambits.

As an example: the gambit system, from my experience, was like trying to write complex code in microsoft notepad. Sure you CAN, but it takes quite a bit of tedious trial and error. Either keep to the old model of turn-based, or do like 13 did and just have the automated characters be...you know, automated.

P.S. I don't think I'm thinking of the bioware game I never played.

Why try to make a perfect AI then? You are basically saying you wanted to make a perfect AI party that would fight battles for you so that you could complain that you had a perfect AI that could fihght battles for you. Why didn't you try to play the game instead of have it play for you? The gambit systemwas imoplemented to HELP the playe not take the reigns. It wasa meant to have the AI know when to attack and take care of little things like getting poisoned etc..

 

[guardian001]

I liked FFXII. Wasn't an amazing game, but hey, it kept me entertained for the full length of it.

I can see why some people (especially fans of the the older games) wouldn't like it though. The storytelling was a bit weird, the combat was a complete departure from the old games (not necessarily bad, but different enough to throw some people off,) And good god was Vaan ever a horrible character.

Definitely not a game for everyone, but Square Enix could have done a lot worse.

Particularly in bosses with multiple status ailments, where you had to set up a specific gambit for each one, leaving little room for any other commands.

Ally: Any -> Esuna

The gambit system was even smart enough to figure out that even though the gambit is Ally: Any, it should only cast Esuna on players with a curable ailment (same goes for gambits on Raise and Arise, The game only lets it cast on KO'd allies.)

Although honestly, I never even needed that one. I had 2 characters with Heal, raise, and attack gambits, and one character with no gambits set (I controlled that one manually.)

 

[Harkonnen64]

Read the Yahtzee review, he can explain why.

 

[Frostwhisper21]

Well personally I felt that the story and characters were incredibly shallow and useless. Then again, Final Fantasy and JRPGs all suffer from similar stories. But yeah, the characters and what-not sucked. Settings too were rather generic, with dungeons being terrible.(The final one-dear god! Tower of endless corridors).

But the sheer amount of content, in addition to the rather enjoyable leveling system and loot, combined with the ability to truly differentiate your characters(though they are more malleable than in x, but I guess that's a good thing as you can use who you like), made gameplay much more fun. Gambits worked too, but I do wish that there were a bit more involvement on the player's part beyond efficient healing.

 

[SnwMan]

I personally think that ff12 was one of the best, i also dont know why it gets all the hate, the combat system was probably the best out of all the final fantasy games that i have played, which is all of them excluding 11. But it is still just an opinion.

 

[TheBaron87]

It wasn't Japanese enough.

Personally I loved it, because it was finally a little LESS Japanese. It's a problem plaguing Square ever since they attributed FF7's success to its anime look. No, I'm not saying western is "better," balance is. Halo, Gears of War, and the endless parade of generic brown FPSs are just the other side of the same coin.

FF 6 > 5 > 12 > 7 > 13 > 10 > 1 > 4 > 9 > 2 > 3 > 10-2 > 8

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

Read the Yahtzee review, he can explain why.

I don't particularly agree with reviewers becuase they usually only play a small portion of a game. Besides, Yahtzee hates the FF series to begin with.

 

[wadark]

Why try to make a perfect AI then? You are basically saying you wanted to make a perfect AI party that would fight battles for you so that you could complain that you had a perfect AI that could fihght battles for you. Why didn't you try to play the game instead of have it play for you? The gambit systemwas imoplemented to HELP the playe not take the reigns. It wasa meant to have the AI know when to attack and take care of little things like getting poisoned etc..

How do you know what I would and would not have complained about? The 13 battle system was basically exactly the same as 12's gambit system except the computer did it for you and I loved that system.

I thought the gambit system was designed so that the player could focus on the character they were controlling and leave the other party members to the jobs you assigned them...kinda like 13 did.

To be honest, my complaint about the gambit system was the lowest complaint on my initial list. The characters were still boring and had no development. The story was dull and never once captured my interest. The combat felt either ridiculously hectic, or numbingly slow.

But as far as gameplay is concerned, I can sum up my problem very succinctly: The game required you to fully customize each party member in entirety. From their class/job, to their stats, to their armor, to which abilities they have, to their specific functions in combat. It was too much for my tastes. I like a little direction. I liked FF10 where each character had a specific function to develop. I even liked 13 where you could choose which character was which, but you still had some direction. Instead, with 12, you were presented with basically a blank slate and told to do what you want with them.

 

[Amnestic]

Read the Yahtzee review, he can explain why.

Yahtzee hasn't done a Final Fantasy XII critique.