Should Final Fantasy XII get a re-release?

[Dalisclock]

Then again, the creators of XIII somehow thinks that people like Lightening, so I guess madness is a requirement to work on a FF game now.

I actually know a couple of people who like Lightning, as a character. And it is, quite frankly, bizarre. They always talk about how noble she is, and how cool, and how shes so driven and goes on such an emotional journey. And all I can do is sit there, slack jawed, wondering if I exist in the same universe as they do.

And the weird thing is that SE seems to know how badly Lightning is written and acted. In FF13: Lightning Returns, right after the introduction level, her and Hope have a 5 minutes discussion about how emotionally dead they both are. Seriously. It's a god damn plot point that the primary characters be completely without emotion or any defining characteristic besides 'hot' and 'cool looking.'

Um... there's a major plot reason why Hope and Lightning are emotionally dead in Lightning Returns

Spoiler

Bhunivelze stripped Lightning of her emotions and rational thought processes so that she never realizes she's being manipulated. Those emotions became Lumina. Hope is emotionless because it isn't Hope, it's Bhunivelze in disguise.

So what was her excuse in XIII? Because it really feels like some kind of retcon justification for why SE sucks at writing characters and dialogue.

 

[Bat Vader]

I'd buy it. I loved the homages to Star Wars that it had and Balthier and Fran were two of my favorite characters in the game. Plus I loved the world. I'd especially love it on PC.

 

[rosac]

the battle system needs work, I only got a few hours in before getting very very pissed off with it. making mmo stlye combat with multiple characters would always be difficult, but jesus.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Surprised to see a few people being down on X. X is potentially my favourite one; solid battle system, gorgeous design, mostly good characters (the protagonist notwithstanding, but even his arc isn't bad). Love it to bits.

I liked the battle system, was fine with most of the characters and the world was pretty.

Unfortunatly, the plot had terrible pacing(the emphasis on a game you've barely seen and not allowed to play for the first 7 hours totally didn't help) and felt like it didn't have nearly the impact it should have. The VA in some ways was pretty terrible(Tidus's speaking voice and Yuna's went back and forth a lot), which wasn't helped by the fact the dialogue was poorly written.

What really kept me from enjoying it(and believe me, I was really trying to like it, so much that I gave up on the game and finally picked it up after a month just to push through to the end) was that somewhere in there, there was an interesting world that's obsessed by death, dominated by religion and plagued by a lovecraftian space-whale that can never be killed for good. And yet somehow, very little of that is explored in any satisfying way. Sin is pushed out of the way for Seymour(who was annoying as hell, both as a character and as a series of boss encounters), the religion is barely talked about despite almost everyone being beholden to it and the world just kinda there. I keep hearing how much the world is obsessed with death but not really seeing it.

Such a shame, really. FFX should be one of my favorite game in the series and instead it felt like a huge disappointment.

I think to enjoy FFX you have to allow yourself to be swept away with the "vibe" more than anything. For me it's just a beautiful, magical game. It's a love story and a story of friendship/companionship, but the music & vibe of the whole game really sucked me in.

The politics, the religion etc, that was all a bit of a side-show for me. Loyalty, love, duty, finding joy where there is none etc. - that's what FFX excelled at, and I feel it's a game for people who's nature allows emotion to overide logic or mental/mathmatical POVs.

 

[Silvanus]

The VA in some ways was pretty terrible(Tidus's speaking voice and Yuna's went back and forth a lot), which wasn't helped by the fact the dialogue was poorly written.

Well, have to agree there (at least in places).

What really kept me from enjoying it(and believe me, I was really trying to like it, so much that I gave up on the game and finally picked it up after a month just to push through to the end) was that somewhere in there, there was an interesting world that's obsessed by death, dominated by religion and plagued by a lovecraftian space-whale that can never be killed for good. And yet somehow, very little of that is explored in any satisfying way. Sin is pushed out of the way for Seymour(who was annoying as hell, both as a character and as a series of boss encounters), the religion is barely talked about despite almost everyone being beholden to it and the world just kinda there. I keep hearing how much the world is obsessed with death but not really seeing it.

You don't think it's explored to a satisfying extent? Sin-- what it represents to the people, what it really means, how it has changed how people live-- is the core of the story, running right from beginning to end. Seymour irritated me when I first played it (though I've come to appreciate him a little more since then), but he remains a secondary antagonist throughout, really.

 

[Kotaro]

If every other FF has already gotten a re-release in the past few years, I definitely see Square giving in to the desire for easy money. Even IX is finally getting attention. (Finger's crossed IX does make it to Steam. I'd love to play one of the best FFs with smoothed out graphics, without having to play it on my phone.) They'll need something to pad things out between FFXV and the FFVII remake (and FFXVI about ten years down the road). It's only a matter of time.

XII might have been a polarizing game (and another example of Square changing things a little too much), but it was a good RPG in general. It even fixed the linearity FFX introduced to the franchise (one thing I don't like about X and despise with XIII). Some might be put off by the weird sudo-MMO system or the reliance on another bishonen pretty boy on the cover to sell extra copies, but it deserves another chance.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/377840
No release date yet, but they have announced IX for a Steam release.

 

[monkeymangler]

Then again, the creators of XIII somehow thinks that people like Lightening, so I guess madness is a requirement to work on a FF game now.

I actually know a couple of people who like Lightning, as a character. And it is, quite frankly, bizarre. They always talk about how noble she is, and how cool, and how shes so driven and goes on such an emotional journey. And all I can do is sit there, slack jawed, wondering if I exist in the same universe as they do.

And the weird thing is that SE seems to know how badly Lightning is written and acted. In FF13: Lightning Returns, right after the introduction level, her and Hope have a 5 minutes discussion about how emotionally dead they both are. Seriously. It's a god damn plot point that the primary characters be completely without emotion or any defining characteristic besides 'hot' and 'cool looking.'

Um... there's a major plot reason why Hope and Lightning are emotionally dead in Lightning Returns

Spoiler

Bhunivelze stripped Lightning of her emotions and rational thought processes so that she never realizes she's being manipulated. Those emotions became Lumina. Hope is emotionless because it isn't Hope, it's Bhunivelze in disguise.

So what was her excuse in XIII? Because it really feels like some kind of retcon justification for why SE sucks at writing characters and dialogue.

She didn't let her emotions show in XIII because she wanted to be tough stoic role model for Serah after the death of their parents. It's a reflection of a common Japanese societal problem where people suppress their feelings and emotions in order to succeed in school or business, and has been attacked by critics in the past two decades.

 

[cikame]

I swear 12 was erased from history, i've never seen it before, i've never heard anything about it, my friends have never talked about it, i look at character pictures and recognize non of them, i'm pretty sure i've watched FF retrospectives in the past but it's never come up... despite it holding a 92 metacritic score and winning multiple game of the year awards, how bizarre.
The only reason i can think of is that it doesn't seem to have an obvious style to it, it seems very grey and brown.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I will not see a bad word said about X. For all that Tidus was pretty annoying it had by far the best combat of any Final Fantasy game that has existed. By far.

Maybe so, but Tidus was far from the only terrible character in this game. Everyone who isn't Auron and maybe Lulu was either brain-dead (Yuna, Wakka) or boring (Kimahri).

The combat is easily the high point, but the characters were so, so freaking bad, and the story (which is otherwise an interesting and original concept) was so poorly handled, that no amount of good gameplay can make up for it.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

uh, people have forgotten it because it was a bad game. And not in the hilariously awful way of FF VIII, just that it was generally dull and boring. Its two interesting attributes are a lush, interesting world (whose exploration is lacking anyway) and its score (which unfortunately is also among Sakimoto's weakest compositions). Other than that it's just milquetoast at best with occasional dips into straight-up awful. There's an interesting game in there, but it's not the one that was made.

 

[Roxas1359]

Also, the hidden master-boss (an albino Smaug) takes several hours for even fully leveled players to slay thanks to a silly little damage-cap.

Yiazmat truly is the most annoying FF boss because of that little problem. Doesn't help that his regular attacks have a chance of causing instant Death status as well. That's why I love the International version so much, it fixed the damage limit cap to where you can naturally break the limit.

 

[Dalisclock]

She didn't let her emotions show in XIII because she wanted to be tough stoic role model for Serah after the death of their parents. It's a reflection of a common Japanese societal problem where people suppress their feelings and emotions in order to succeed in school or business, and has been attacked by critics in the past two decades.

Which pretty much ends up being: "I don't have emotions because before I didn't want to show them and now I don't have them because god was being a jerk", which, for all intents and purposes, looks like the same thing.

 

[kekkres]

Personaly XII was my favorate final fantasy, and while yes vaan was dumb and shouldent have been there, the world itself was amazing and just felt awesome to explore and learn about. i would love to romp through ivalice in HD

 

[Mister K]

People, people, please. We all have our own opinions about other FF games, both positive and negative, but lets not try to derail the thread.

OT: Yeah, sure, why not? I never finished it when I was a kid (got bored after running away from lizard bounty hunters) and my PS2 is not working anymore, but I am willing to give it another shot.

I mean, the combat sucked and kid characters are annoying, but Bash, Balthier and Fran were interesting and the story had potential, as far as I remember.

 

[Dalisclock]

I think to enjoy FFX you have to allow yourself to be swept away with the "vibe" more than anything. For me it's just a beautiful, magical game. It's a love story and a story of friendship/companionship, but the music & vibe of the whole game really sucked me in.

The politics, the religion etc, that was all a bit of a side-show for me. Loyalty, love, duty, finding joy where there is none etc. - that's what FFX excelled at, and I feel it's a game for people who's nature allows emotion to overide logic or mental/mathmatical POVs.

That's the wierd thing though. I adored FFIX, despite first playing it in 2015(I didn't have a PS until recrently) and totally got the vibe of it. I've actually liked most of the games in the series(and I've played all the previous ones other then VIII). II is the only one I probably didn't really enjoy, just because of how sadistic it is towards the player. Even games like III and V which didn't really have much characterization I got into because I loved the high fantasy feel of the world.

I really tried to get into the game and I felt like it just didn't let me. Instead, it felt like there was a fascinating world that either wasn't talked about much or hidden behind glass(much like the fayth were). When I was starting to get into the story and the characters, I'd be yanked out by the awkward cutscenes and poor dialouge/VA.

I finally started liking it a bit when Tidus learned the truth about Yuna and stopped acting like such an annoying clown all the time but that was only enough to get me to finish the game.

And I have similar feelings about XIII, though even moreso.

 

[TerranV]

I'm of two minds on it.
At first I'm like, "Yeah I'll give it another go."
Then I think, "You didn't like it all that much the first time and you won't like it anymore the second."

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I really tried to get into the game and I felt like it just didn't let me. Instead, it felt like there was a fascinating world that either wasn't talked about much or hidden behind glass(much like the fayth were). When I was starting to get into the story and the characters, I'd be yanked out by the awkward cutscenes and poor dialouge/VA.

I think that has been a major issue with Square's writing from FFX onwards. They do create interesting fantasy worlds, but often the writing in the main story just doesn't explain enough for the player to fully understand what is going on. They rely on the player either going deep into sidequests for a few snippets of new information, finding and reading in game notes on the plot and world, or finding an outside source, such as a wiki or the Ultimania guidebooks.

It took me a while to learn the motive of the final enemy of FFX, because the game only says "he's the one really running the show, he's at this spot, fight him." A wiki (with info from the Japan-only FFX Ultimania) had to explain the very reason why story of the game even took place.

FFXII was slightly better in this department, sometimes opposite even. It mostly threw so much info you almost needed to take notes on the politics of Ivalice. Although, there were still plenty of times when the main story left out details that would have been appreciated. Or, those details were quickly drowned out by less important dialog.

FFXIII? Pfff. Look up all of the important details on a wiki. (The wiki is probably more interactive anyway.)

Hopefully, FFXV breaks this tradition, but I don't have any faith in modern SE.

 

[Silvanus]

I think that has been a major issue with Square's writing from FFX onwards. They do create interesting fantasy worlds, but often the writing in the main story just doesn't explain enough for the player to fully understand what is going on. They rely on the player either going deep into sidequests for a few snippets of new information, finding and reading in game notes on the plot and world, or finding an outside source, such as a wiki or the Ultimania guidebooks.

That tendency existed before FFX. In FFVII, you wouldn't really know very much about Jenova-- wouldn't know that it could mimic others, and was mimicking Sephiroth for much of the game-- unless you caught little snippets of conversation. You could miss Vincent, and much of Sephiroth's (and Hojo's) backstory, very easily too. The story of VIII wasn't easy to miss, exactly, but took a fair amount of intuition to figure out.

It took me a while to learn the motive of the final enemy of FFX, because the game only says "he's the one really running the show, he's at this spot, fight him." A wiki (with info from the Japan-only FFX Ultimania) had to explain the very reason why story of the game even took place.

Yu Yevon? A fair point, but a point that could equally be applied to III & IX.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

That's the wierd thing though. I adored FFIX, despite first playing it in 2015(I didn't have a PS until recrently) and totally got the vibe of it. I've actually liked most of the games in the series(and I've played all the previous ones other then VIII). II is the only one I probably didn't really enjoy, just because of how sadistic it is towards the player. Even games like III and V which didn't really have much characterization I got into because I loved the high fantasy feel of the world.

I really tried to get into the game and I felt like it just didn't let me. Instead, it felt like there was a fascinating world that either wasn't talked about much or hidden behind glass(much like the fayth were). When I was starting to get into the story and the characters, I'd be yanked out by the awkward cutscenes and poor dialouge/VA.

I finally started liking it a bit when Tidus learned the truth about Yuna and stopped acting like such an annoying clown all the time but that was only enough to get me to finish the game.

And I have similar feelings about XIII, though even moreso.

Yeah, I guess it's just about whether it actually bites you or not. I never played XIII only XIII-2, and I am utterly gobsmacked at how detatched I feel from combat.

Does anyone know if it gets any better? Combat just feels so automatic and pointless.

 

[Dalisclock]

It took me a while to learn the motive of the final enemy of FFX, because the game only says "he's the one really running the show, he's at this spot, fight him." A wiki (with info from the Japan-only FFX Ultimania) had to explain the very reason why story of the game even took place.

Yu Yevon? A fair point, but a point that could equally be applied to III & IX.

On one level, I totally agree about IX, how the who Terra/Gaia conflict is kind of hinted at in the background, not to mention there's the ruins on the one continent, which are pretty much the only thing there(and the entire continent is uninhabited) which are somehow linked to Terra but you just have to assume it has something to do with the whole fusion attempt. And of course, Necron, for whom only theories exist why he exists(other then being an homage to the FF tradition of having a otherworldly real final boss thrown it late in the game). However, the world and characters felt vibrant and interesting regardless, and that's where it made the difference to me.

III? III was pretty high fantasy, complete with an ancient god-like creature living in a huge Crystal tower being controlled by/in alliance with the essence of darkness itself because he got a shoddy gift(being able to die). It has enough story to get you to go to the next place, establish some kind of threat and doesn't ask much more then that. Or were you talking about VI?