Final Fantasy 12 was NOT terrible but it also wasn't that great. It was just ok or a little above average. I loved playing it but was also critical towards it at the same time. I played it for around 100 hours because the gameplay hooked me along with the sidequests/rewards also because those sidequests took forever to do. The storyline wasn't engaging at all (oh what the hell.... it was brutal) and the characters were not interesting enough to have any attachment towards them. I just wanted to do the storyline so I can progress to new areas and that shouldn't be a good thing.

The battle system was good but was seriously flawed. Once you get to a high enough level you can forget about offensive magic because it's a waste of time. 1. it's very slow to use. You would cast magic while at the same time you could have hacked at the enemy twice to do more damage. and number 2. You could only use 2 spells at a time while your 3rd spell that you cast using your other character is queued to wait for those 2 to finish. That even applies to enemies as well. If they are casting magic then you have to wait longer to cast any second or third spell at the same time.

The game did have interesting things such as enemies dropping loot and rare equipment like in MMO's, the loot then went to selling it for more rare items. No more random encounters. Hunting down rare monsters and marks was fun except for the 1 hour+ long fight with yiazmat. The game was easily exploitable though as you can reach level 50+ and get overpowered weapons early before you reach the first dungeon. Of course you need patience to do that. This is what kept me hooked on playing it and not the rest of the game.

With that being said I don't know how any of you can judge SE for trying new things instead of beating you over the head with the same old gameplay over and over. If they give you more of the same then other people will complain of its tediousness. I'm an old school FF gamer and I've played these games since FF1, I'm glad they keep changing the experience from one game to the next. One thing I learned from all these final fantasy discussions is that everyone WILL have different opinions on every FF game. Just take it for what it is.

There are 3 generations of FF games and I thought FF6, FF7 and FF10 (soundtrack was not that great as there was only a few themes that were memorable and the main theme was just used over and over with different variations) were the best of each generation and were also my favorites. FF4 and FF9 also hold a special place in my gaming heart.

I agree with most of you that an epic FF game has to include great gameplay/battle system, a great storyline, a memorable soundtrack and characters that you can get attached to. Those are my personal benchmarks and in my opinion the only 2 FF games that achieved all of those were FF6 and FF7.

P.S. I hope this wasn't too long to read.

Ace

United States16096 Posts

October 04 2008 21:06 GMT

#83

On October 05 2008 00:20 MCMcEmcee wrote:
ouch, saying Xenogears > FFVII is pretty harsh, what with Xenogears being complete trash.

now now, dont even go there

Xenogears beats all Final Fantasy games out of the water in terms of storyline and immersion factor. FF7 is better than it though, but not by far.

FaCE_1

Canada6184 Posts

October 04 2008 23:14 GMT

#84

I really liked FF12 and I can't wait for FF13 and FF13 Versus. Both gam ewill probably be awsome !

Since some ppl post there FF top list

Mine:

FF6 (advance)
FF7
FF4 (advance)
FF12
FF2 (the japan 2)

KOFgokuon

United States14911 Posts

October 04 2008 23:25 GMT

#85

On October 05 2008 05:47 Ozarugold wrote:
I love how everyone ignores X-2, it's like it's even consider a part of the series. Lol~

I liked 4 the best, it's simplicity made me fall in love with it~

X-2 never happened, just like rocky 5

fAnTaCy

United States893 Posts

October 04 2008 23:36 GMT

#86

I personally have never played FF12. I actually lost interest in the series after the disappointment in 8/9/tactics. After the first 20 minutes into VIII i was bored to hell. I just said screw it and turned the game off. FFIX i looked at and didn't seem interesting at all. Also i watched my friend play FFXI and it just seemed like an all around bad game. Now i got some interest back into the series on FFX. It was a good game..decent story line and good graphics. IMO the second best FF game was FF Mystic Quest (thats right..i went way back). That was just an all around great game. Good characters story line and graphics for the SNES. Now i personally haven't seen any previews for FFXIII. I'd like too just to see if it looks like it would be a good game to get. So imo yeah the series has gone downhill a little since FFVII.

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

October 05 2008 04:25 GMT

#87

If nothing else, FFXIII has a good chance of being different. The original FF series creator and much of the longstanding FF development team through FFX no longer work for Square Enix (they're Mistwalker, who made Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey...). The original director of FFXII before he resigned in the middle due to health concerns (guy responsible for Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics) no longer works for S-E either. In other words, what previous games in the series are doesn't necessarily indicate what this game will be.

So the director/writer of FFXIII is in fact the guy who did FFX-2. And the guy responsible for the battle system is the one who did the battle system for FFX (and also directed Front Mission games, among the worst TRPGs out there released by real companies). I don't think that exactly inspires confidence, but who knows.

fusionsdf

Canada15390 Posts

October 05 2008 04:27 GMT

#88

oh god

the writer or FFX-2???

thats horrible

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

October 05 2008 05:14 GMT

#89

On October 05 2008 13:27 fusionsdf wrote:
oh god

the writer or FFX-2???

thats horrible

Wait sorry, I was unclear. The director of FFX-2, Motomu Toriyama, is supposedly both director and writer for FFXIII (and FFXII: Revenant Wings). FFX-2 writers are afaik not involved and do other things.

A3iL3r0n

United States2196 Posts

October 05 2008 05:33 GMT

#90

FF3, American release ftw. Espers rock.

MrHoon

10183 Posts

October 05 2008 06:37 GMT

#91

I love how people say FF7 had great storyline when it was a blatant ripoff of Phantasy Star RPG

[X]Ken_D

United States4650 Posts

October 05 2008 11:32 GMT

#92

1. FF 4
2. FF 4
3. FF 4
4. FF 4
5. FF 4

Beaten the SNES FF4 and DS version. Still just as great as I remember them. It's fucking challenging too.

On October 05 2008 15:37 MrHoon wrote:
I love how people say FF7 had great storyline when it was a blatant ripoff of Phantasy Star RPG

It was the only real rival to the Final Fantasy series. Phantasy Star is still unlike anything RPG I had played. Now it plays as a WOW type game which they should made a spinoff. It's sad how Phantasy Star has fallen

Piy

Scotland3152 Posts

October 05 2008 11:47 GMT

#93

they're all great games, 12 was vastly inferior to other FF's, but still one of the better RPG's for PS2. 13 will probably be OK, not as good as 7, bit better than 12.

And VIII, IX and X all had great stories and game systems, dunno why so many VII and Tactics fan boys hate on them.

yubee

United States3826 Posts

October 05 2008 12:10 GMT

#94

On October 05 2008 02:35 tonight wrote:
I hated Tactics

i hated you, currently

TonyL2

England1953 Posts

October 05 2008 12:28 GMT

#95

Hah I like most of them but 1 wasn't so great, and 2 was just awful. 12's characters were so boring, there wasn't even a proper lead.

It was good when they always made big changes each game like materia, junction, the gem stuff in 9, sphere grid and so on.

But I miss the lack of overworld, so boring just teleporting via airship rather than flying around.

Krohm

Canada1857 Posts

October 05 2008 13:09 GMT

#96

On October 05 2008 21:28 TonyL2 wrote:
Hah I like most of them but 1 wasn't so great, and 2 was just awful. 12's characters were so boring, there wasn't even a proper lead.

It was good when they always made big changes each game like materia, junction, the gem stuff in 9, sphere grid and so on.

But I miss the lack of overworld, so boring just teleporting via airship rather than flying around.

You're right Tony, I really miss the overworld. I was greatly disappointed with FFX when I realized, no overworld in this game.

ssystem

United Kingdom337 Posts

October 05 2008 13:31 GMT

#97

Personally I think it's all been going downhill since 6. 7 was alright but nothing after that compares.

Epicfailguy

Norway893 Posts

October 05 2008 21:59 GMT

#98

FFXII sucked hardcore ass.

My rankings:
9
7
8
10

FF9 has the best re-play value, and thats why I like it the most now.
If I only had played these games once, I think I'd like FFVII the best, because of how huge the game is, and how wicked the story is.

tonight

United States11130 Posts

October 06 2008 00:41 GMT

#99

On October 05 2008 21:10 yubee wrote:

Show nested quote +

i hated you, currently

I even bought the game like 5years later thinking I would now like it because I'm "older", but no I still could only get through the game once and complained about it the whole time. It's just not my type of game.

BloodyC0bbler

Canada7876 Posts

October 06 2008 01:34 GMT

#100

Ok, after reading this thread and seeing how many people loved X, please, for the love of god, go play grandia 2, which ffX completely ripped off =\ That is why X is horrible, it ripped off a storyline, making minor minor tweaks to make it seem different, and was a crap game in comparison.

As for people hating tactics, that i understand as tactics based games are a very very aquired taste, but the storyline of it is what makes it so epic.