Finished Final Fantasy XII
Completely stormed through the game and smashed everything in sight. FF12 lends itself far too easily to power-gaming, seeing as how I finished the main game in roughly 40 hours at level 65ish with essentially ultimate equipment and all areas explored (including Pharos Tower). The real kicker is that you actually save a lot of time by doing this, since from what I gather, it takes about 55-60 hours to do this "normally". I guess OHKOing enemies and killing bosses within 30 seconds instead of 5HKOing enemies and spending 10 minutes on bosses adds up, due to the sheer number of enemies you kill. Since I finished the game, a mini review is in order!
Two words sum up FF12 perfectly: wasted potential. I guess I'll go over the few good points first before addressing the slew of problems the game had.
One of the best features of FF12 is that the FF series has finally given up on the horribly anachronistic random encounter system and put enemies directly on the field. I like being able to have some degree of control whether to fight battles or not, and FF12 does this reasonably well. Additionally, the world design of the game is pretty damned good. The various areas are incredibly well detailed and are quite beautiful. Final Fantasy 12 manages details within a given space almost as well as the Castlevania games do, which is very impressive. This makes the game's world much more immersive and fun to look at. This especially helps relieve some of the tedium of actually slogging through those areas. Finally, the music is fantastic. Some people found the music to be forgettable, but I didn't find that to be the case at all. The various pieces of music set the mood and atmosphere perfectly for the various areas; a melancholy flute and harp melody contrasted with heavy strings in an abandoned underground railway, fast paced brass-heavy melodies mixed with a flute and oboe counter-melody for a wide-open grassland, and a rhythmic syncopated string and percussion melody for a desert cliff area are some examples. The ultimate piece of music is the the music for the final battle, which is just epic and awesome, using the perfect melodies and harmonies. I guess if you prefer Uematsu's simplistic ditty melodies (which admittedly are easier to remember) over Sakimoto's more complex multi-layered melodies, you might not like the soundtrack, but I greatly prefer the latter.
The worst problem with the game is the horribly designed, pile of shit, tedious, retarded, aborted fetus of a treasure chest system. Words cannot describe just how horrible this system is. Before you even get a chance to open a chest, the chest must actually spawn first. This usually ranges from 25-100%, and most chests spawn around 70% of the time. When you open a chest, you have usually a 50% chance to receive a crappy amount of Gil or an item. If you get an item, you usually have a 50% chance of receiving worthless crap or a decent item. Thus, only ~15% of the time will you ever receive anything that isn't shit from a chest, and many times, even the "good" item is some piece of equipment you could buy in a store anyways. The most aggravating example of this horrible system is getting the Demonsbane, the "reward" for defeating an optional boss. If you beat the boss, you get to run through an enemy infested area for a 70% chance of finding a chest that has a 22.5% chance of actually giving you the Demonsbane (as opposed to Gil or a worthless Holy Mote). Some fucking "reward."
Closely related to the spectacular idiocy of the chest system is the Gil/Loot system. You don't get Gil from defeating enemies. No, you get a chance that the enemy will drop an item whose sole purpose is to be sold for Gil. Moreover, in order to get items that actually sell for a worthwhile amount, you must "chain" the enemies by killing the same type of enemy repeatedly without shifting to other enemies. If that weren't bad enough, in order to get your chain to a high level quickly, you must refrain from picking up any drops until your chain is at max level, otherwise you'll stick at a low chain for a looooong time. This just adds to the “boring and tedious” factor since you can’t even have fun killing a wide variety of enemies. The real pain in the ass is that it’s too easy to accidently break the chain (due to AI controlled gambits hitting the wrong enemy before you have a chance to correct it) or pick up loot (due to a sudden shift in camera angle). Finally, most of the good items require the “very rare” drop of an enemy, which is a pathetic 1% chance (upgraded to 5% if you max your chain level). This makes farming the godly gear a tedious pain in the ass. Of course, if you don’t get the godly gear, you’ll be 5-6HKOing basic enemies, which makes going through the more enemy-dense areas just as time consuming, tedious, and boring (not to mention you don’t get the godly gear!).
The final nail in the “holy shit this game is boring and tedious” coffin is the sheer number of pass through areas. Think back to Wild Arms 4 and the trek between Guara Bobelo and Buckeye Station. FF12 is just like that, only without any character dialogue or tidbits on the world’s history as you’re making your trek. On top of that, if you like to fully explore areas, it can take upwards of 30-60 minutes to fully explore each area. Given that there are often 2-4 pass-through areas between each plot point, it can take a full 2-4 hours to reach the next plot destination. The silver lining in this ugly cloud is that for the most part, the scenery is awesome and helps dull the edge of the tedium as you slog through the areas. This is also where power-leveling saves you a great deal of time. Being able to OHKO enemies makes it all the quicker to move on to new and better things.
The plot and characters are actually middle of the ground. The character development largely sucks, for the most part. Vaan, Panelo, and Fran are just a massive waste of space and could be replaced by generics and you’d have the same effect. Ashe, Balthier, and Basch are decently developed and you care a lot more about them than you do the three wastes of oxygen. Reddas could have used a lot more development. You get the feeling he’s someone important, but he’s thrown at you suddenly, and only gives a quick blurb on his backstory. Similarly, most of the villains are pretty lame with piss development.
The only decent villains were Cid and Venat. Cid mostly because he was Hojo done correctly and had the opposite motivation of most villains: humans should manage their own affairs and have no need to be ruled by a god. Vayne, on the otherhand, was just fucking boring and retarded.
The plot isn’t bad, per se, it’s just not executed well at all. The “revelation” comes way, way, way too late (at the tail-end of the second-to-last dungeon) which leaves no room at all for the new plot to develop. A pity, because the true plot had a large amount of potential that just wasn’t developed well at all. It would have been far more interesting than the “omg war iz bad n t3h 3mpire iz ebil u guyz” plotline that you were forced to wade through for the first 95% of the game. You can definitely tell that the developers ran out of time or there was a change in management, because the schism is just too gapingly noticeable.
The mix between sci-fi and fantasy was also just too ridiculous. You have bloody airships that fire energy weapons, yet your ground troops are outfitted with archaic metal armor and use swords? Give me a fucking break. Some plot elements also borrowed way too heavily from Star Wars KotoR for my taste.
Overall, the game is probably a 3 or 4 out of 10. It’s just so incredibly boring. The plot isn’t good enough to warrant the long stretches through the pass-through areas; hell, even the music and world design aren’t good enough to keep you entertained while mindlessly slaughtering poor wolves.
