Final Fantasy XII?

[Byakuya]

Any of you got it? and what did you think of it?

I thought the storyline was a bit weak compared to say VII, VIII, IX and X.
everything else was awesome though, the game had huge pretty areas and a craploads of extra stuff to do. =3

[Velius]

Overall it was pretty fun. The main game, was the easiest in any Final Fantasy ever. All you had to do was rush quickenings and the whole main game was easy as pie. Combined with the Zodiac spear, it could be way too easy to go though, if you know how.

The extra stuff however (boss, quests, items, ect) was some of the most difficult in any Final Fantasy ever. Zodiark, Yazimat and Ultima round out the three biggest headaches in the game boss wise. Even if you max your level and have all the best stuff, those fight are still extremely difficult. Even if you know what you are doing!

To get all the items is horrible. The pure randomness of the chest was the most horrible idea ever. Plus, whatever random japanese guy decided it would be fun to put in rare game rare drops, needs to be shot. I still have nightmares of chaining Tower.

All in all, a fun game. But a lot of stuff needed to go back through development again. Including the story. FFX is way better in almost every category.

[Lilium]

WARNING LONG POST AHEAD!! ^_^ Spoiler tag from justice. It contains spoilers.

I quite enjoy the new battle system they employed in ff12. It was certainly different and that's not really a bad thing. Although it really annoys me that I can't seem to see the full body of flying enemies no matter how i rotate my camera angle. Anyways, here's my personal review on ff12, and mind you this is rather bias since it's based on my own preference after all and it really is much easier to criticize than to admire at times ^_^. :p



Pros
1. Enjoyable Battle System. I liked that you can change weapons, armour and accessories to fit the situation at whim. Nice. Gambits was also quite interesting to use.
2. Good graphics. Not really my style of art, it's too European? but anyways, that's not the point.
3. Pretty good voiceovers. Balthier has like the sexiest voice ever.
4. Character upgrades are the same for all characters, but this could be a con depending on how you look at it.
4. Green magicks/Time magicks/Magicks can be utilize before entering into a battle. Prep-time FTW!!

Cons
1. BAD BAD STORYLINE. Didn't feel connected to characters, therefore I don't care about them, which is bad storytelling. <---could be that I prefer fantasy stories. It's final fantasy isn't it?

I kept expecting this great plot twist but it never came. Vaan is not special at all as the 'main character' in fact I would have been happy if I didn't use him at all. I forced myself to use him simply because I thought he might play a very important role down the road and I don't want to leave him unleveled. Suffice to say, I'm deeply disappointed. there was like no character development, the only two interesting characters with backstory was Balthier and Fran, and they weren't really fleshed out. Basch and Vaan's stories were resolved so poorly imho. Penelo...what story? It's just so much potential there wasted compared to what the characters got in ff8 and ff9.

2. Espers sucks. I miss the old days where GF gave you cool abilities, and summons actually looked good and helped. <---yeah I know espers can be used for strategies but I see no point in them.

3. I miss limit breaks ;_; I honestly never use those mist charges except once or twice, even in boss battles. Meh. But then again, I did get rocking weapons early in the game so I pretty much owned the enemies faster without the need to exhaust my MP.

4. Sidequests are basically the same thing. Dungeon-crawling and hunting and fighting bigger badder enemies. It was fun in the beginning, but can get kinda tiresome. Where are the fun games...hehe I rocked in the ff8 card games.

5. Nothing too groundbreaking in the music department either.

6. Too many magicks and useless techniques. I barely used half of them and it gets confusing.

7. No auto gil. Stealing for necessity is not fun. It became my first battle priority and after stealing from the 3846823974398th enemy it gets annoying. Where's the Mug ability when you need it? My fav ability....

8. OMG the enemies are all the same!!! They just have different names in different places. Lol....

Small and totally insignificant matters
9. They changed the opposite affinity for lightning to ice instead of the normal water. I was halfway into the game before I realized that. LOL, I'm a noob.

10. Espers are totally renamed instead of sticking to good ol' Shiva, Bahamut, which was used to name the ships instead.

11. I miss flying a ship like how they did it in ff8 and ff9. Though, the Strahl was had a cool liftoff.

LOL....I just realized the majority of what I written down as cons could very well be what other gamers enjoy. So don't take my 'review' so seriously ^_^.

I actually didn't even bother gathering all the espers and I got kinda sick of hunting. And let's not even mention all the items you need to gather in order to get better weapons etc. It's just no fun anymore.

[Byakuya]

I agree the random chest thing was a pain >_> I also missed out on the Zodiac Spear since I opened some treasure chests early in the game that you weren't supposed to touch. (I still got Tournesoul though, splendid weapon.)

The music was also kinda 'meh'-ish imo, since it wasn't done by the one and only Nobuo Uematsu it didn't have that special Final Fantasy feel to it.

Oh and I actually liked the Licence system, I thought it was great, sort of reminded me of the Sphere Grid. The Gambit system was also superb.

[emoloz]

I have got it EASY ARE YOU KIDDING. Well it is but the levelling up is like the vain of me. You have to spend like 20 hours levelling up. Its really disgraceful thats. I like the storyline i think it was ok.. I mean it wasn't the best but it was alright. I am only on the way to archadies bit so far. So i will leave the spoiler XD Espers meh the point of them are? Migth as well own it with super powered weapons.

Hunts i have given up on thought i don't think i really should.

[Byakuya]

You know you can exploit the Gambit system and make the characters level up from 30 - 99 by themselves. I did that once, I simply left the playstation on during the night and when I woke up they were all maxed out. =3

[emoloz]

O_O how on Earth do you do that? I NEED TO KNOW.

[Byakuya]

You need to set up your gambits in a special way, it's not hard at all if you have the correct ones. =3

It may look like a lot but it really is quite easy to do.

This is an auto-leveling trick (meaning you leave the game on overnight and
your characters will fight and level up automatically).

Credit for the basic premise of this trick goes to Albedo Piazzola and Crimson
Skys. A topic concerning this particular trick can be found on the Final
Fantasy XII message boards at www.gamefaqs.com.

The trick can begin once you have completed the Stilshrine of Miriam. You
will need to be approximately level 30 or higher in order for this to work
effectively. Here's how it goes:

All you need to make sure you get before going to the Stilshrine is a pile of
Remedies, I'd say 20 - 30 to be on the safe side. You also need to learn the
Augment Remedy Lore 3 because these Remedies need to be able to remove the
Doom status. Now, head to the Stilshrine and proceed to the "Ward of the
Sword King."

In this area there is a small chance a rare foe called "Negalmuur" will spawn.
In order to make him spawn you must keep leaving and re-entering the Ward of
the Sword King, killing all the enemies that inhabit it each time (otherwise
it won't reset when you leave and there won't be a chance of Negalmuur
spawning.) This whole back and forth process can take anywhere from a few
minutes to an hour (or more if your luck is particularly bad) so get
comfortable.

When you eventually do encounter Negalmuur, you need to prepare your Gambits
properly. This trick works because Negalmuur constantly spawns skeleton
enemies forever that give experience when killed. These skeletons have less
than 3000 HP while Negalmuur has a lot more. If you have your gambits set up
as Foe: HP < 3000 -> Attack then you will always kill the spawns, but never
the enemy spawning them.

All your characters should be set up as following, with the following order
priority:

Self: MP < 10% -> Charge
Self -> Haste
Ally: Any -> Raise
Ally: HP < 60% -> Cura
Ally: Party Leader -> Remedy
Ally: Any -> Esuna
Self -> Decoy
Foe: HP < 3000 -> Attack.

The ONE exception is the party leader. his or her Gambit setup must be
identical to this, except with the Self -> Decoy Gambit removed. The leader
should be the only party member without Decoy.

I'll explain the reasoning for these Gambits, and you can alter them if you
wish (though this setup should be nearly perfect.) Most of the main ones are
self-evident (keep the party healed, alive, and in good health). The reason
for Decoy is as follows: Negalmuur occasionally casts the Doom spell (which
kills you after ten seconds). If the party leader is hit with Doom (and dies)
then a message pops up to switch leaders. This will pause the game and end
your streak of auto-leveling.

To avoid this, your non-leader characters cast Decoy on themselves and try to
pull the Doom spell onto them. If they die it's no big deal, the Gambits will
simply raise them. In the unlikely event that Doom DOES get cast on the main
character (it happens on occasion), that's what the Party Leader -> Remedy is
for (since Esuna will NOT remove the Doom status). You can basically auto-
level as long as you have Remedies remaining.

[Gintoki]

Honestly, i was disappointed with that game. After the genius FF 6-9, X came out, and i disliked it cauz it was too 3D and didn't have much of the FF atmosphere left.

But this game did the unimaginable. They took the ATB System away. It was really no fun to play this game, they tried with all efforts to copy a Star Wars Universe into a FF Game (Rabanastre = Mos Eisley, Balthier = Han Solo Himself and many more). At least i won't be disappointed by FFXIII, cauz i'm going without expectations into that game, this time.

[Velius]

The Negalmuur auto leveling is ok, but it's inefficient. Takes too long. It's all auto yea, but it will take forever to reach 99.

The best way to level in the game is to get at least 10 espers to unlock the hidden area in the henne mines. (the ONLY useful thing that comes out of getting espers, including the espers themself). Fight through the bats and to the first switch. When you press the switch, 12 bats drop. Set your gambits to set them all asleep asap, then kill them all with curaja, being how they are undead. Then zone the easy two screens, come back, press the button and start again.

With double exp, you can reach 99 easily in one sitting. Plus get lots of money from their drops.

[Byakuya]

I see, I've never tried that method before, might give it a go next week when I start a new FF12 game. =3

[Shinrin]

Pretty good, the plot and story really flows perfectly making for an epic adventure.


Havn't played it since febuary where i hit a wall in the game called~70 floor
Turned out i hadn't lvl'd up enough to be there and it was 2 far down for me to want to go train another place.

[Lilium]

I am only on the way to archadies bit so far. So i will leave the spoiler XD Espers meh the point of them are? Migth as well own it with super powered weapons.

Hunts i have given up on thought i don't think i really should.
if you're talking about my spoiler tag, actually there really isn't anything to worry about. You can just skip point 1 of my list of cons since I mentioned the story a bit. The whole thing is mostly just my list of pros and cons of the game. :p

You know what? I didn't even bother levelling my party to 99. I mostly pwned my way through with kickass weapons, hell i didn't even use those mist whatchamightcallit thingies. I took great effort and tons of patience to get some high level weapons (at that point of the game) and that pretty much worked, with some strategy involved for harder enemies. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, but anyways.

As for espers, hahahaha.....they're pretty useless, or I just didn't see the need to include them in my strategy...at all. I wasn't motivated to collect them and I didn't. I just really miss how summons were employed in the older FF games. I also got sick of the sidequests, which are all hunts btw. Just no fun after awhile. I know tons of people liked it, but meh it got tiresome for me.

[Byakuya]

I think Mist Knacks/Quickenings were far too overpowered in the game, thanks to them I never had any problems with bosses, they weren't a challenge at all. =\

(this was before I maxed out my characters.)

[Beee]

It was a good game. The gameplay was good, but there were many flaws that didn't make it quite as enjoyable as other FFs:

-the story.. just... sucked (IMO) O_O; It made the game a little boring and the characters meaningless. To many, story doesn't matter much but for me it does.
-summons are totally useless. I never use them, and i mean, never, ever ever ever (they're useless it's actually better off without them O_O)
-The sidequests are boring
-the story sucked
-random chess weirdness >__>; gawd I HATED that! from the zodiac spear to the very very very useless chests that pop up all the time but that are very very very useless... O_O
-the character all end up being the same in the end when you max the license grid (with some very minor variations...)
-Did I already mention that the story sucked?!?! xD

other than that (and perhaps more stuff that didn't pop in my mind yet) I really enjoyed the game XD