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CharlieFoxtrot posted:I have tried twice in my life to play FF12 and both times I got bored around the "I'm Captain Basch Von Ronsenburg of Dalmasca" quest and ended up falling off and playing something else I pushed through that last time and nearly finished it. I honestly love the combat system and I like the characters but it's just too darn long.
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Apr 23, 2020 09:34
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X4 speed in the remaster makes it go by quicker but it's still a boring piece of poo poo
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Apr 23, 2020 09:34
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Man I respect that you guys didn't like it but holy smokes do I love me some FF12. It just feels like such a complete world, and Ashe, Basch, Balthier, and Fran are so likable, and fuckin' Gabranth, my man. It's also one of the only Final Fantasy games that features a plot I find actually compelling. Ivalice games in general I think are like that for me, so like FFT, FF12, Vagrant Story?
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Apr 23, 2020 09:37
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Sakurazuka posted:X4 speed in the remaster makes it go by quicker but it's still a boring piece of poo poo Yeah this was playing Zodiac Age. It's such a shame because the world is interesting enough, the characters are pretty cool and the combat owns when you're allowed to fight something interesting but stomping bullshit enemies for loving hours at turbo speed just makes you go drat this game needed help.
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Apr 23, 2020 09:38
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The time I tried to play the XII remaster, it seemed like once you set up your gambits properly you didn't really do anything in combat, like it just kinda played out and you barely pressed any buttons.
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Apr 23, 2020 09:38
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Caesar Saladin posted:The time I tried to play the XII remaster, it seemed like once you set up your gambits properly you didn't really do anything in combat, like it just kinda played out and you barely pressed any buttons. Theres four bosses in the game you might need to take direct control once or twice for!
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Apr 23, 2020 09:40
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Caesar Saladin posted:The time I tried to play the XII remaster, it seemed like once you set up your gambits properly you didn't really do anything in combat, like it just kinda played out and you barely pressed any buttons. Make a samurai Basch with fury and consistent heals then crack open a can and check your email.
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Apr 23, 2020 09:40
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JBP posted:Oh ok. I said that's my understanding. I've just heard it so many times, but I'll take your work for it. It makes sense given the loving boring starting pair. I really don't have the energy to give the huge explanation, but basically, Vaan was originally named Aqua, and the characters Balthier and Basch both basically stemmed from his original role in the story (A world-weary rugged Sky Pirate/Mercenary who was working with who would be Ashe) Vaan's creation was rather early in development, but even then he didn't play the same role he wound up playing in the actual game. https://archive.rpgamer.com/news/Q4-2003/112003a.html quote:Final Fantasy games have often been filled with character and world development, and Final Fantasy XII will continue this trend. For example, the sword Ashe uses is given to her in the opening movie by a currently unknown character, and the item Vaan holds in the November 13 picture promotion is known as a "star fruit". Furthermore, the Arcadia Empire and the Rozaria Imperium from the rear continent Ordalia have waged war in the Valentia continent for many years. Eventually, Arcadia goes on to attack Ashe's Dalmaska Kingdom, located between the Valentia and Ordalia continents. In response, Ashe creates a corps of mercenaries in order to pursue the enemy leader and defeat the conquerers. In times of doubt and exhaustation by the opposition, she pulls through by relying on her pride as the heir to the throne. One of the mercenaries is the cheery young male Vaan, who is optimistic despite having lost his parents when the two empires clashed. Vaan and Ashe's meeting emotionally begins Final Fantasy XII, and their relationship proves key in the global conflict. As you can see, despite not being entirely wrong, this is not the plot of FFXII. But it also shows we were seeing Vaan as early as 2003, so early in fact, that Balthier did not have a name yet, and we hadn't even SEEN Basch. Vaan's Wiki pages has a good, quick summation of his early development quote:Vaan's early name was "Aqua" (アクア, as seen in Akihiko Yoshida's concept art) and intended to be an Iyashi kei character (癒し系, "therapeutic type", a kind of Japanese stock character). Vaan is known for going over several personality changes over the course of development, originally written as a rugged and world-worn character until the developers reconsidered the target demographic and Vaan was rewritten to be more effeminate. After Kouhei Takeda was cast as his voice, the developers rewrote Vaan to match the energetic personality his voice lent to the character. The executive producer of Final Fantasy XII, Akitoshi Kawazu, has said in an interview In short, No, there does not exist a world where "Vaan and Penelo were shoved into the game at the last second" that doesn't exist and never existed. Onto Penelo, the reason she feels like she's just a tag along with no character... is they basically cut all her stuff from the plot because the development of FFXII was hosed up tremendously, they wound up reusing a lot of the concepts planned for her character in Revenant Wings, the sequel on the DS which was an RTS for some reason. EDIT: It appears to be my fuckin' lot in life to defend unpopular games. Maybe my taste is just hosed.
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Apr 23, 2020 09:41
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I appreciate the energy and you're not wasting your time. I find it interesting either way. E: also I like the game it just wears out its welcome and I looked up the conclusion because there's too much bullshit. JBP fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Apr 23, 2020 |
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Apr 23, 2020 09:42
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Caesar Saladin posted:The time I tried to play the XII remaster, it seemed like once you set up your gambits properly you didn't really do anything in combat, like it just kinda played out and you barely pressed any buttons. I never really got the criticism that "gambits play the game for you" though, cause you're the one that has to set up the gambits in the first place. That's the game!!
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Apr 23, 2020 09:43
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I think XII is an ok game, but it most definitely has the worst and most boring final boss in the entire series, both as a battle and as a character
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Apr 23, 2020 09:44
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I can't say I hated any parts of FF12 but I put at least 20 hours into the game back in the day and have a hard time remembering anything about it. I'd just got done with FFX/X-2 and its colorful world with magical J-Pop groups and demon-whale dads so the more conventional, washed-out fantasy kingdom setting just wasn't doing it for me anymore.
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Apr 23, 2020 09:47
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I'm in the minority here but setting gambits so the game plays itself is one of the reasons it's my favorite FF, there is nothing more satisfying than poring over a dozen gambits per character and programming them to be a highly coordinated killing machine. That is the game to me. I like watching the party steam-roll everything with me acting like an overlord that sometimes has to intervene and manually tell this dude or that dude to do something else in exceptional circumstances. Plus, the series-best VA, music and setting, especially in Zodiac Age. The music is phenomenal.
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Apr 23, 2020 09:47
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homeless snail posted:Pretty much, things go faster if you intervene occasionally though. Gambits are really good for automating out the low level maintenance work of jrpgs, targeting mooks and healing and buffs/esuna, leaving you to make the actual impactful decisions. If your setup is good enough though yeah gambits will probably carry you through most of the game because its not a particularly difficult one. Gambits are a hell of a lot more interesting than turning on auto battle for random fights in DQ or something though That game took five minutes though
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Apr 23, 2020 09:47
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Onmi posted:EDIT: It appears to be my fuckin' lot in life to defend unpopular games. Maybe my taste is just hosed. Hey, it's me, the only other person on Earth who thought automating tedious commands like "IF Poison THEN Antidote" was fine, and that FF12 kicked rear end
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Apr 23, 2020 09:49
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Sakurazuka posted:That game took five minutes though
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Apr 23, 2020 09:49
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I've yet to get a bigger dopamine rush than suddenly realizing that charge on <10% MP is god mode
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Apr 23, 2020 09:50
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Am I just hallucinating or does Midgar look different in Zack's scene in the ending, when he glances toward the city
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Apr 23, 2020 10:03
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For a second through the haze I was thinking "Is that Neo Midgar?" But I think it just looked uncanny because the last time I saw it in broad daylight was in the very opening scene
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Apr 23, 2020 10:05
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Well, we're seeing it from outside, while we normally see it from the inside. Midgar has the central portion inside the "wall" all the reactors are built along. But they also seem to have been expanding beyond the wall, and seeing it from the outside perspective with the half-finished-looking plate sections beyond the wall looks weird compared to the perspective we're used to.
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Apr 23, 2020 10:06
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since I don't have a PS4 and I guess this has a 12 month exclusivity window, I watched a stream of FF7R and just got to the ending I loved it and all that, a bit hokey and longwinded in the last few chapters but hey, sure, it's all good, almost the entire rest of the non-sewer/drum game was a fantastic ride to see and the vastly expanded character writing was perfect. barret is far better than the original, cloud's still a dork, aerith is just super fun, tifa is the seemingly level-headed brawler, etc. I loved the way they worked the absurd enemies into the game pretty seamlessly, and even if the unnamed npc character models looked like they were from an entirely different game, I liked a lot of the sidequest writing. but did they really let wedge survive, then seemingly kill him in the plate collapse, then reveal he's alive, then have him do stuff, then have plot ghosts yeet him out a window to his death, and then let every single other character who would otherwise die survive(besides daddy shinra), even ZACK? I didn't miss him wandering around during the bit with Marle etc in the epilogue, right?
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Apr 23, 2020 10:06
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Captain Invictus posted:since I don't have a PS4 and I guess this has a 12 month exclusivity window, I watched a stream of FF7R and just got to the ending I mean we don't know, we hear glass shatter, but there's no confirmation. I'm sure they'll reveal he survived in the next game and he's been taken prisoner by Shinra and/or is working with them. Next game we're going to see Wedge in a business suit walking with the Turks and Rufus
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Apr 23, 2020 10:10
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alright, just checking that I didn't miss something. if he somehow is in the turks or some other contrivance I bet he'll be really thin and complain about how they're not feeding him enough.
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Apr 23, 2020 10:17
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guts and bolts posted:It just feels like such a complete world, and Ashe, Basch, Balthier, and Fran are so likable, and fuckin' Gabranth, my man. It's also one of the only Final Fantasy games that features a plot I find actually compelling. There's a really cool plot in FF12 about how shadowy god-figures are attempting to prop up a princess thought dead and return her to glory as their puppet; opposed by a tyrannical empire that nonetheless is trying to depose the gods with the help of a rogue one as their efforts test the limits of the cease-fire with a neighbouring empire. It just sucks that so little time in the game is spent actually dealing with this stuff! It sounds super cool! edit: Now that I come to think of it there's some real parallels to be drawn between the Occuria and the Whispers, though the Occuria have more personality.
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Apr 23, 2020 10:20
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Wedge's little sideplot with the Whispers was interesting. He's pretty much the only character who had a plot mandated death coming, and managed to slip out of it through nothing but his own merits. Consequently it seemed like the Whispers were definitely out to Final Destination his rear end. I assume that's done with if the Whispers are done, but otherwise I guess he'd be relegated to escaping increasingly improbable death scenes. "Boy this sure is some good Midgar Pizza, Ms. Rasberry! *cue ghosts knocking over a pan of oil onto a candle that somehow blew off the table*"
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Apr 23, 2020 10:35
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I do like the idea that Wedge kept going after the plate collapse because the psychic time guardians just plumb forgot about him. They're so busy following Cloud and the gang that when Wedge shows back up in Shinra Tower, the Whispers are like "Oh yeah, that guy. Wait, were we supposed to kill him?"
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Apr 23, 2020 10:40
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Onmi posted:I mean we don't know, we hear glass shatter, but there's no confirmation. I'm sure they'll reveal he survived in the next game and he's been taken prisoner by Shinra and/or is working with them. After you hear the glass shatter, he says something like "I hope I made a difference" very calmly and matter of fact. If he was falling to his death from the 65th floor, he'd be more like "I hope I MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH" fading away. QED, Wedge lives. Wild theory: Wedge kills Reeve and takes control of Cait Sith. Crowetron posted:I do like the idea that Wedge kept going after the plate collapse because the psychic time guardians just plumb forgot about him. They're so busy following Cloud and the gang that when Wedge shows back up in Shinra Tower, the Whispers are like "Oh yeah, that guy. Wait, were we supposed to kill him?" Clearly the cats kept the time guardians away 
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Apr 23, 2020 10:41
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wedge is secretly inside the giant moogle doll cait sith rides on so wedge technically becomes a playable character
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Apr 23, 2020 10:45
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homeless snail posted:Pretty much, things go faster if you intervene occasionally though. Gambits are really good for automating out the low level maintenance work of jrpgs, targeting mooks and healing and buffs/esuna, leaving you to make the actual impactful decisions. If your setup is good enough though yeah gambits will probably carry you through most of the game because its not a particularly difficult one. Gambits are a hell of a lot more interesting than turning on auto battle for random fights in DQ or something though I dunno, I play games to press some buttons. I've got a controller in my hand, man. I wanna use these thumbs. I don't mind selecting potions to heal a dude at low hp, having the game do it for me just kinda removes the opportunity to land some well timed button presses. The world and cool star wars plot seemed fun though.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:03
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Then don't set up your gambits
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Apr 23, 2020 11:04
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but gambits are like, the entire point and defining feature of the combat system, that's a disingenuous argument.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:06
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While I've been playing catchup for work at home poo poo, my brother has been in the background playing FF7R throughout the week. Tonight I just watched him beat the game. His reaction was funny. Some choice quotes: "We're in the first game and I'm in a place called THE SINGULARITY???" "No, but like... what - what the gently caress is... okay, hang on, is this supposed to be like a WEAPON or what the gently caress." "Well I guess you don't get Gideon Emery to voice a character who dies after two seconds." Overall he seems to be on the slightly more cynical end of my reaction - pretty worried that they will gently caress this up, borderline angry at the ending, hopeful they'll do a good job. It's basically in line with what I would have expected from the people who came away from the ending disappointed or miffed, but strangely he was basically alright with plot changes, he just found the Whispers specifically dumb, and said that they should have just started changing poo poo immediately to let us know what was up. Nobody is immune to that fire 3rd phase of J-E-N-O-V-A Quickening, though, got him too. I'm curious to see how much of this "FANS HATE FF7R'S ENDING" consensus is legit. I'm worried about wading into conflagrations like subreddits and poo poo, and I've never found many video gamer reviewer YouTubers interesting or authentic. I've heard ITT and elsewhere that a lot of the reviews from YouTubers are largely positive anyway? I dunno how to take the game's temperature re: reception. It wouldn't impact my feelings at all, but I think in the back of my mind I'm worried that if enough people are vocal about how bad it sucks the development team might compromise on what they're trying to do here and split the difference, walk back some of what FF7R did in sequels, etc. I mean it's Square-Enix and logically I don't think they're prone to doing that but still.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:12
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I remember cheesing FFXII through gambits and a mob that kept respawning and just breezing through the entire game after that I was such a dumbass
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Apr 23, 2020 11:14
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12 might be my single most disliked FF for how loving dull it is to actually play. At least 8 was funny to intuitively bumble into breaking as a kid with item and card refining and 13’s combat is incredibly fun when it finally opens up.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:14
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Caesar Saladin posted:but gambits are like, the entire point and defining feature of the combat system, that's a disingenuous argument. Its literally the same thing as auto battle mode in any other RPG, you can just customize it so its not completely useless
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Apr 23, 2020 11:16
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I'm also in the group who dropped FF12 because of the gameplay despite liking the setting and aesthetics. I remember the "CAPTAIN BASCH DALMASCA" part but I think I dropped it around then. But then I played it way back when it first came out, which was almost 15 years ago (Jesus gently caress) so I should probably give it another shot one of these days.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:23
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What are the actual defining elements then? I don't remember anything else interesting about it. Anyway, the way I see it with my vague memories is that FF12 let you automate away the mindless and dull parts of the battle system while FF13 took that one step further and just eliminated them completely. Leaving your control of the battle on a more holistic level rather than bogging you down with exactly which spell to cast when. Both were accused of playing themselves of course.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:24
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I don't buy it, the gambit system is the main conceit of the entire battle system, it has a special name and is upgraded as you go everything, it seems like it was even balanced around it.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:25
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homeless snail posted:I don't think that's even remotely true, its a tiny part of the game. They make a big deal out of it because its a unique feature that barely any other RPG has, but it absolutely doesn't define the combat system and the game is completely playable without using gambits. Which isn't true for just about any other of the actual defining elements of the game Seriously, I want to see someone attempting to micromanage the combat in FF12 without using gambits and see how far they get without going insane.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:30
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Clarste posted:What are the actual defining elements then? I don't remember anything else interesting about it. Gambits don't even rate as a mechanic on its own, its just telling someone else to push the buttons you don't feel like pushing. Not liking FF12 whatever, there's legitimate reasons not to, but putting all the blame on the gambit system you yourself setup is nuts because you can stop at whatever point you want. The game is completely playable without gambits, with very minor gambits to do party maintenance, or almost totally automating the game, and anywhere in between. If someone feels like they've optimized all the fun out of the game, that's really on them.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:34
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