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Final Fantasy XII - mild spoilers in the text, medium spoilers in the cut
It feels wrong to be rude about a Final Fantasy game but this one deserves it. Having finished it last night I was left disappointed by the overall experience.
There were some good things; I thought that the Hunts were an excellent idea, the scenery was pretty and some of the fights were pretty interesting (Demon Wall - for example). However it was well below standard in many other ways. I found the characters dull, the character development practically non-existent and the main character in particular began and remained as just some guy. Balthier was all right, I guess, but he was pretty much the only one.
The plot was linear and lacking in suspense. It quite evidently wanted to be Star Wars (a random quote from the end was "He's our only hope") and the Strahl was clearly the Millennium Falcon in disguise. A couple of times it looked like the Judges were going to go all interesting... but they didn't. There was no mystery to it and it was difficult to care about the good guys or hate the bad ones. Plus it's much too long - I mean the core game is much too long (side stuff can be as long as you please). Oh, and the music was unremarkable (I think that only Lowtown stood out for me at all).
Main Character - Vann has to be the dullest hero the series has had since it hit the Playstation (plus VI had a good main character - regardless of whether you think it's Locke, Terra or Celes). Once the stuff with his brother is resolved (in the first tenth of the game), he's done. In fact you start to wonder why he's still hanging around with the others. I guess he's a good main character if you hated the angst associated with Cloud or Squall but Zidane managed just fine at the not-angsty-and-has-plot stuff. Plus he puts his foot in it too much - even in comparison with Tidas.
Other Party Characters - Balthier is a good character and consequently the saving grace of the party. Decent personality, decent back plot. He's not in Auron's league - although that would be asking for too much - but he's decently comparable to any of Aeris/Tifa/Cid/Vincent from VII. Fran's OK; you find out a bit more about her (reminded me of Nanaki actually) and Bashe is passable for a minor character - he's got the whole "why did he kill the king" thing but no more (he's a bit like Barret but without the stupid questions). Ashe is OK as well - and it's her story more than Vann's although, again, she doesn't seem to do much. Penelo on the other hand is just as pointless as Vann but without that tiny snippet for the first tenth of the game.
Other Major People - Both Larsa and Reddas are interesting, although it's a pain to have them in the party because they keep dying. Vossler, again, is fine as is Al-Cid. However there's no side character who is outstanding and it's more noticeable in this one because of the lack of interest in the main party. I particularly miss the Turks, there's no-one around with their attitude and moral ambiguity, not even close. Nor was there anyone like Avalanche, although I guess the Duke and his Resistance counted for something.
Villains - The main problem with the villains is that I didn't really care very much about them. The one that appears about half-way through and disappears just before the end is OK as the Not-Biggest-Boss, but otherwise it's all a bit dull. I did know who the Biggest-Boss was though, come the final battle, so that's a step up from Necron (and, again to some degree, from Ultimecia). Admittedly, FF hit a high with Sephiroth - by the time the end came I really wanted to take that guy down (regardless of whether he was Jenova) - but this was definitely a very poor showing.
Main Plot - Um, yes. It seemed that every time there was a bit of mystery, they solved it quickly. Things like why the king was killed. And who was Larsa. It was linear. It was Star Wars - not just because of the space battles but also because of the power-corruption and the father-son thing. Dear god, did they learn nothing from Episodes I-III? One saving grace is that the bad guys actually have a decent motivation which isn't Evil - you can kind of see where they come from.
Side Plots - There really weren't very many. And no love stories. As one reviewer observed; it isn't that the series has to have a love story in each version more that, given how little else was going on, this particular game could have done with one. There's a bit of background here and there, I guess, but the side stuff is side quests rather than further information.
Time spent - The game was much too long. We played about 100 hours and were really only trying to do the core game. Far too much of that was leveling up. Far too much of it was running around in small circles regaining magic points. Far too much of it was spent without any movement on the plot. I gather it's shorter if you FAQ it/get lucky early and pick up decent weapons or choose to level up in the right places. But it shouldn't be like that. The FAQ/Side Quest stuff should be for people wanting a longer game, not people wanting the core game.
Secrets, Side Quests and Other silly level stuff - There was an awful lot of this. And we seemed to miss bits all over the place such as the Barheim Passage Key (yes, I've looked it up now, we nearly had it but it's a question of luck - you don't get the key from where you would expect to). Which means that a replay would probably be quite interesting. I think it's also the sort of game that gets more interesting on a replay because you suss how things work (we didn't sell Loot for ages, for example).
End of Game - What a mess. It needed a save point (be warned that there is no save point once you hit the end game - and that means several hours without saving). It suffers from the "too many incarnations of the final boss" problem. And it becomes too One-Winged-Angel (which is good - but they've done it before). And has some really irritating battle effects which slow things down without making them interesting. But, Thank God, it didn't use disease. (Side note - I loathe the disease status effect and don't see why it couldn't be Esunaed).
Final Fantasy touches - This hit all the ticky boxes and, at the start, was fairly reminiscent of I-V (which are all about the crystals). However it felt as though they had a list of must-haves and were checking them off (eg. Espers, chocobos, moggles, Cid). It somehow lacked the spirit of what made Final Fantasy Final Fantasy.
All in all, it's not that bad a game. Had it been recommended to me with a different title (making it comparable with Wild Arms 3 or Star Ocean 3) then I would have been pleased with it and recommended it. Unfortunately, I expect far more from the FF label than that.
I expected FFXII to be my favourite game of 2007. It isn't. Shadow Hearts II was better, Dreamfall was better and we're only in May. But... if you don't have specific expectations of anything called Final Fantasy and want a roleplaying game you'll probably enjoy it.
There were some good things; I thought that the Hunts were an excellent idea, the scenery was pretty and some of the fights were pretty interesting (Demon Wall - for example). However it was well below standard in many other ways. I found the characters dull, the character development practically non-existent and the main character in particular began and remained as just some guy. Balthier was all right, I guess, but he was pretty much the only one.
The plot was linear and lacking in suspense. It quite evidently wanted to be Star Wars (a random quote from the end was "He's our only hope") and the Strahl was clearly the Millennium Falcon in disguise. A couple of times it looked like the Judges were going to go all interesting... but they didn't. There was no mystery to it and it was difficult to care about the good guys or hate the bad ones. Plus it's much too long - I mean the core game is much too long (side stuff can be as long as you please). Oh, and the music was unremarkable (I think that only Lowtown stood out for me at all).
Main Character - Vann has to be the dullest hero the series has had since it hit the Playstation (plus VI had a good main character - regardless of whether you think it's Locke, Terra or Celes). Once the stuff with his brother is resolved (in the first tenth of the game), he's done. In fact you start to wonder why he's still hanging around with the others. I guess he's a good main character if you hated the angst associated with Cloud or Squall but Zidane managed just fine at the not-angsty-and-has-plot stuff. Plus he puts his foot in it too much - even in comparison with Tidas.
Other Party Characters - Balthier is a good character and consequently the saving grace of the party. Decent personality, decent back plot. He's not in Auron's league - although that would be asking for too much - but he's decently comparable to any of Aeris/Tifa/Cid/Vincent from VII. Fran's OK; you find out a bit more about her (reminded me of Nanaki actually) and Bashe is passable for a minor character - he's got the whole "why did he kill the king" thing but no more (he's a bit like Barret but without the stupid questions). Ashe is OK as well - and it's her story more than Vann's although, again, she doesn't seem to do much. Penelo on the other hand is just as pointless as Vann but without that tiny snippet for the first tenth of the game.
Other Major People - Both Larsa and Reddas are interesting, although it's a pain to have them in the party because they keep dying. Vossler, again, is fine as is Al-Cid. However there's no side character who is outstanding and it's more noticeable in this one because of the lack of interest in the main party. I particularly miss the Turks, there's no-one around with their attitude and moral ambiguity, not even close. Nor was there anyone like Avalanche, although I guess the Duke and his Resistance counted for something.
Villains - The main problem with the villains is that I didn't really care very much about them. The one that appears about half-way through and disappears just before the end is OK as the Not-Biggest-Boss, but otherwise it's all a bit dull. I did know who the Biggest-Boss was though, come the final battle, so that's a step up from Necron (and, again to some degree, from Ultimecia). Admittedly, FF hit a high with Sephiroth - by the time the end came I really wanted to take that guy down (regardless of whether he was Jenova) - but this was definitely a very poor showing.
Main Plot - Um, yes. It seemed that every time there was a bit of mystery, they solved it quickly. Things like why the king was killed. And who was Larsa. It was linear. It was Star Wars - not just because of the space battles but also because of the power-corruption and the father-son thing. Dear god, did they learn nothing from Episodes I-III? One saving grace is that the bad guys actually have a decent motivation which isn't Evil - you can kind of see where they come from.
Side Plots - There really weren't very many. And no love stories. As one reviewer observed; it isn't that the series has to have a love story in each version more that, given how little else was going on, this particular game could have done with one. There's a bit of background here and there, I guess, but the side stuff is side quests rather than further information.
Time spent - The game was much too long. We played about 100 hours and were really only trying to do the core game. Far too much of that was leveling up. Far too much of it was running around in small circles regaining magic points. Far too much of it was spent without any movement on the plot. I gather it's shorter if you FAQ it/get lucky early and pick up decent weapons or choose to level up in the right places. But it shouldn't be like that. The FAQ/Side Quest stuff should be for people wanting a longer game, not people wanting the core game.
Secrets, Side Quests and Other silly level stuff - There was an awful lot of this. And we seemed to miss bits all over the place such as the Barheim Passage Key (yes, I've looked it up now, we nearly had it but it's a question of luck - you don't get the key from where you would expect to). Which means that a replay would probably be quite interesting. I think it's also the sort of game that gets more interesting on a replay because you suss how things work (we didn't sell Loot for ages, for example).
End of Game - What a mess. It needed a save point (be warned that there is no save point once you hit the end game - and that means several hours without saving). It suffers from the "too many incarnations of the final boss" problem. And it becomes too One-Winged-Angel (which is good - but they've done it before). And has some really irritating battle effects which slow things down without making them interesting. But, Thank God, it didn't use disease. (Side note - I loathe the disease status effect and don't see why it couldn't be Esunaed).
Final Fantasy touches - This hit all the ticky boxes and, at the start, was fairly reminiscent of I-V (which are all about the crystals). However it felt as though they had a list of must-haves and were checking them off (eg. Espers, chocobos, moggles, Cid). It somehow lacked the spirit of what made Final Fantasy Final Fantasy.
All in all, it's not that bad a game. Had it been recommended to me with a different title (making it comparable with Wild Arms 3 or Star Ocean 3) then I would have been pleased with it and recommended it. Unfortunately, I expect far more from the FF label than that.
I expected FFXII to be my favourite game of 2007. It isn't. Shadow Hearts II was better, Dreamfall was better and we're only in May. But... if you don't have specific expectations of anything called Final Fantasy and want a roleplaying game you'll probably enjoy it.
no subject
Bad though Perfect Defence was, it didn't even make my hit list (http://bateleur.livejournal.com/223910.html) of game design problems. Says a lot, really.
All in all, it's not that bad a game.
I must respectfully disagree. :-P
no subject
I'll probably get around to finishing it at some point, though I've got God of War II to play first. :)
no subject