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Final Fantasy XII


Dyne
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Anyone who would say the story is "horrible" can't be trusted to review stories, period. Whether it is a story that fits their tastes or not is a more relevant debate. Personally, I think it's a nice change from the exhausted "teen crew saving the world from god-like madman" plot. I've enjoyed that plotline through many a FF game, but it's high time the formula was reworked.

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Anyone who would say the story is "horrible" can't be trusted to review stories, period. Whether it is a story that fits their tastes or not is a more relevant debate. Personally, I think it's a nice change from the exhausted "teen crew saving the world from god-like madman" plot. I've enjoyed that plotline through many a FF game, but it's high time the formula was reworked.

The main character really doesn't have much of a role in the story yet (I'm just past getting the first esper) and he just doesn't seem to fit in - every time the other characters are making speeches, he's just standing there, and doesn't really contribute much. This probably picks up later on but for now he doesn't even have a good reason to be tagging along.

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From what I understand, there's a loose chronology going on here - FFXII comes first, then several centuries later there's FFT, and then waaaaay after that is FFTA.

I can imagine FFT coming first, but not inbetween them. Personally, I consider FFT and FFTA/FF12 to be different universes altogether.

What connects FF12 to FFTA is, mainly, Monteblanc. He exists in both games, after all, and looks pretty much the same. Either moogles live a long time or he's just an ancestor to the FFTA one is debatable.

As for the connections between FFT, Vagrant Story, FFTA and FFXII, I think such connections are superficial at best. FFTA is obviously based on the real world but with the magical book that has a fictional world of Ivalice in it. That obviously can't possibly directly correlate to FFXII's self sustaining world.

My guess is that the world of FF12 was laid down in a book and, over time and space, began to pick up a sort of 'real dream' aspect to it. Like an artifact in D&D.

My brother got FF12 on Halloween, and I've been watching him play it on and off. Just from observation my mind has been changed by it, and I find it to be a fantastic game. The turning away from the previous ATB system was just NEEDED, and the Gambit system doesn't just sit there and play it for you like some may think.

...but am I the only one who thinks, with a bit of tweaking, it could have benefited from a two-player mode? I kinda like having my RPG's two-player, being one reason why a friend and I played the shit outta Legend of Mana, and I can fully imagine FF12 doing the same.

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Yeah, there's absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be a sort of a two player mode. Other RPGs has done it years ago to great effect.

And I'm not sure that the ATB battle system was the bad part. It was certainly the annoying random battles that was.

I don't see why they can't incorporate a somewhat traditional ATB system with real time encounters just the same. And as great as FFXII's system is, it could still use a lot of tweaking. They may as well have called it "RPG Battle Manager 2006".

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The main character really doesn't have much of a role in the story yet (I'm just past getting the first esper) and he just doesn't seem to fit in - every time the other characters are making speeches, he's just standing there, and doesn't really contribute much. This probably picks up later on but for now he doesn't even have a good reason to be tagging along.

I dunno, I've kinda liked how there doesn't seem to actually be a single "main" character so far. But I imagine his side of the story will develop more later on.

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I hope those weren't the muffled voice actors he was talking about :|

It's generally good. There are plenty of reviews so I won't go into that. But there are some minor things that frustrated me quite a bit, which I never see anyone mention:

--they should have made the faces a different color depending on whether or not you already talked to that NPC before. As it is now there's just too many people to talk to, and half the time you're going to be talking to the same person twice. Maybe I should have stopped at the first sentence since I think it would have been the best idea ever.

--there should have been a way to organize the order of the faces in the menu, and who appears on the top of the battle screen. Once again, another very great thing they left out.

--there is no way to tell ALL of the stats of equipment in shops. All it tells you is what the magic resistance and defense is.

--the on-screen map is way too zoomed in. There should have been a way to zoom out without having to hit select. The L1 and L2 (and L3) buttons aren't even used.

--I feel ashamed to even have to type this one: L and R don't do anything while in a menu. This means if you're trying to scroll through a large list you have to hold up or down for way longer than necessary.

--there should have been more monsters or a hard mode (this would have added only about 5 trillion times to the gameplay). Half the time you're fighting the same thing(s) over and over again. There's a general sense of dullary throughout the entire game actually. However, a decent argument for that is that it's pretty true to life in that sense. No unnatural bright color happy happy. Oh well. I can't complain about two polar opposites at once.

--scenes that don't have the bottom letterbox (for subtitles if you have those on) CAN'T be skipped. Like going down an elevator type thing, or switching those things in the sewers on and off. It's completely pointless to have to keep viewing those things.

ally: any -> esuna is the best thing ever

ally: any -> pheonix down/arise is the best thing ever

These two things basically null the point of having ally: blind -> eye drops, etc., and ally: KO, which is gotten later on in the game as opposed to right away.

foe: any -> dispel is very useful I'd imagine, during the beginning and middle of the game. I found out about it too late for me to care about debuffing enemies. I actually found out about all of these way too late.

That's really every last thing I could ever complain about. Besides that I didn't think the story was anything amazing. Finally some good voices, though. One less major thing to worry about.

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i'm about 16 hours in and I am having a great time. I agree with pretty much everything Audity said about things that could have made it better, but still overall it is fantastic.

*The music fits very well, but I think i'll be skipping the soundtrack on this one.

*Vaan is pretty much the Naive character that every story needs to flow naturally. He needs to be there to have all this crazy stuff explained to him, and by proxy, us. Otherwise all this fantastical stuff everyone else is used to wouldn't be explained, and the player wouldn't know what was going on as well.

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--there is no way to tell ALL of the stats of equipment in shops. All it tells you is what the magic resistance and defense is.

Heavy Armor sets: ups defense and attack power

Light armor sets: ups defense and evade

Magick armor sets (robes and hats): ups defense and magick power

It allows character customization since everyone's license grid is the same.

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--there is no way to tell ALL of the stats of equipment in shops. All it tells you is what the magic resistance and defense is.

Heavy Armor sets: ups defense and attack power

Light armor sets: ups defense and evade

Magick armor sets (robes and hats): ups defense and magick power

It allows character customization since everyone's license grid is the same.

Some items increase max HP or some other stats, and it doesn't tell you this in the shop.

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Good game, not without some flaws and little quirks I saw. I'm really liking it but I kinda wish the characters would be, I dunno more than average sometimes.

Anyway, in terms of chronological order of Ivalice would go something like this:

FFXII > FFT > Vagrant Story. FFTA would be a gaiden style game. It takes place in our world, they just find the book based on FFXII and they get sucked into it.

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--there is no way to tell ALL of the stats of equipment in shops. All it tells you is what the magic resistance and defense is.

Heavy Armor sets: ups defense and attack power

Light armor sets: ups defense and evade

Magick armor sets (robes and hats): ups defense and magick power

It allows character customization since everyone's license grid is the same.

Um, speaking of which, the way they keep those stats in the back end without making it very apparent is a bit flawed as well. Maybe a small tutorial could've helped.

They really could use a status screen for when characters level up and even with enemies that are scouted by Libra, you need to manually target them with attack to even see their stats.

Lots of small design issues. Not really unexpected when they're trying something new.

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--there is no way to tell ALL of the stats of equipment in shops. All it tells you is what the magic resistance and defense is.

Heavy Armor sets: ups defense and attack power

Light armor sets: ups defense and evade

Magick armor sets (robes and hats): ups defense and magick power

It allows character customization since everyone's license grid is the same.

Um, speaking of which, the way they keep those stats in the back end without making it very apparent is a bit flawed as well. Maybe a small tutorial could've helped.

They really could use a status screen for when characters level up and even with enemies that are scouted by Libra, you need to manually target them with attack to even see their stats.

Lots of small design issues. Not really unexpected when they're trying something new.

I also have quite a few minor issues with the game. I haven't really come across anything major though, an in game tutorial about using Mist Knacks would have been nice though. Overall, I'm really enjoying this game though.

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It's taken me a few days, but I'm starting to really see that I need to specialize my characters if I'm going to use the license system correctly. I think I'll go make some people behave like the old FF classes or something. Basch seems like a likely candidate for Paladin.

Yeah, I'm doing that, too. I've got Penelo and Balthier my quick, light armor fighters, I have Fran and Ashe as my magic users, and Vaan and Basch are my tanks.

Eventually everyone will know everything, but that's why equipment choice is so important. If you want someone to be a really good mage, they need to have the magick armor, and if you want someone to be a really good tank, they need heavy armor.

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