Comments on Musings From Achronos: Final Fantasy XII (no, not XIII)

I loved FFVIII. Well, apart from the recent GBA p...

2009-04-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

I loved FFVIII.

Well, apart from the recent GBA ports, it's the only one I have played.

2009-04-16T16:17:00.001-07:00

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Final Fantasy 12 was overrated for me, since I'...

2009-04-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Final Fantasy 12 was overrated for me, since I'm a seasoned JRPG gamer ...before I end up getting addicted to FPS on the Xbox. I played FF 3-12 + Tactics and Star Ocean 3 & 4.I think FF7 the best in the series, because it was the first 3-D JRPG done right. Final Fantasy 10 was second on my list of favorites.
I think where Final Fantasy 12 went wrong was with the battle system and character design. In the beginning, I thought Vaan was a girl. haha. I thought oh great another FFX-2.
The battling system wasn't even near as fun as Star Ocean Till The End of Time.

I'll certainly give you that Vaan was a horrible c...

2009-04-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

I'll certainly give you that Vaan was a horrible character. But really, it's been a while since I've actually cared about the hero of a Final Fantasy game. Hard to pity a whiny, cross-dressing (and half naked) teenage boy surround by hot chics.

I do like the trend of increasingly hot and scantily dressed sidekicks. Yeah, I'm that immature.

Anyway, I've always been drawn to the "tanking" aspect of Final Fantasy. I want my levels maxed, item limits reached, etc. I think they have done increasingly well with that. I think it was Final Fantasy X that finally introduced weapon customization and really encouraged you to collect tons of items to use to build your arsenal. To me, the payoff always was getting the beastly upgrade you've been grinding out fights for. So, to me, the gambit system made it easier for me to enjoy the game.

Plus being a coder, the gambit system was a pretty interesting thing to play with by itself. It's actually kind of a cool way of introducing kids to scripting.

You still had somewhat of the classic combat system available to you that you pretty much had to use on tougher fights, so that was still there, they just took a bit of the grind out of grinding.

I even liked the "license" system for leveling up.

When I get a new FF game, I'm looking for a game with some interesting side-games, some weird and interesting characters to "tank up", and some eye-popping visuals. I'd say FFXII delivered for me.

I like the way the games have been trending. More customization, less linear, a mix of real time and turned based combat, and nerdy leveling systems.