has anyone played ff12 an what do they think? I just want to get used to the battle styles, because I understand that ff13 will have the same kind of battles. I enjoyed ff10, x2. My fave was ff10. What do you guys think? Is it worth picking up?

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I think it's an amazing game, i loved ffx and loved ffxii just as much, but there are a lot of people that didn't, the new battle style was awesome, up to you, but I would recommend it, it's just a different game to ffx though

Round the hangin' tree
Swaying in the breeze
In the summer sun
As we two are one
Swaying

Battles? What are battles? I say that because it got to the point later on in the game where you'd just run the character around and they would fight on their own.

Max Power


Battles? What are battles? I say that because it got to the point later on in the game where you'd just run the character around and they would fight on their own.

The gambit system was optional as well as customisable...if you didn't like it, you could have always changed it, or turned it off, not that complicated really.

Round the hangin' tree
Swaying in the breeze
In the summer sun
As we two are one
Swaying

Final Fantasy 12 sucks. The main character is a...Well, I'm not going to use foul language here as ther might be children around but trust me, the main character of Final Fantasy really sucks. Play One through nine. They have them all on the Playstation one. They're a lot better than the newer Final Fantasy games in my opinion.

I'll say this.  Final Fantasy 12 is a great half a game.  The other half is just middle ground.  Great ideas that were just held on a plateau that never peaked.
 
Though I don't believe 13 will be using the same type of combat.... I could be wrong I tend not to follow up on FF news so to be surprised (minus 14 of course cuz that's a mmo I want now!)

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I'm a gamer, I have tons of lives.

Max Power


Battles? What are battles? I say that because it got to the point later on in the game where you'd just run the character around and they would fight on their own.

The Gambit System was a player-regulated difficulty setting. So the characters will only fight on their own if the player tells them to.

If you set one character to cast Curaja whenever anyone hits below 30% health and to cast Esunaga whenever anyone got inflicted with a status ailment, while getting another to use Bubble, Protectga, Shellga and Hastega... Well, you'll never have any problems against anyone, even Yiazmat. It's near infallable, since you're always buffed (25% less damage, 50% increased speed, double HP) and you've always got near full health without any status ailments. All you do after that is take the third character and control them directly, using them to deal the damage.

But doing that is boring as hell... It's much more enjoyable to heal on the fly and concentrate Gambits on using specific attacks at specific times and against specific enemies, exploiting weaknesses and stuff instead of making your team unkillable.

As for my own personal opinion, FFXII is worth playing simply because people overexaggerate when they go on about how bad it is. It has flaws and lots of them, but the Hunts are really fun and there's plenty to do and explore. It's a nice, lengthy, game and there's a large scope for customisation (even if you'll most likely complete License Boards by the time you reach the end of the game). I think they should've released the International Zodiac Job System version, though, 'cause it's plenty better.

PS360WII


Though I don't believe 13 will be using the same type of combat.... I could be wrong I tend not to follow up on FF news so to be surprised (minus 14 of course cuz that's a mmo I want now!)

FFXIII has turn-based combat that's sort of like FFX, but you're given more control over when and how often your characters can attack.

it's horrible... skip it

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Good point.  I have to say the hunts were the high point of the game.  I did like the many areas and most were large zones.  I guess a little bit of me got somewhat miffed over the fact that it was just an offline 11... that and the story was a bit light.
 
Still it keeps doing what Final Fantasy does and there's nothing wrong with that.  Gambit system was okay but glad they kept it to just one game.  Well so far

What do you mean I don't have a life?
I'm a gamer, I have tons of lives.

As you can see people opinions vary, whether they give a reason or not.

I personally, quite enjoyed the game. The combat system i felt was pretty good and reminded me of playing an MMO at times. (I was in an MMO phase at the time as well.)

It is a different take on the FF series compared to 1-9, if anything its closer to FF11.

I would say since it piqued your interest enough to make a thread, check it out at the very least.

FFXII is the product of about three teams that all floundered around on the project and wound up just having to patch it up and release it. 
 
There are some awesome things about it - for example, the scope of the cities (although there are really only two or so) or the graphics, which are awesome for the PS2.  However, don't get too involved in the story.  (no spoilers) There is a tangible point in the story where every plot element just drops off the face of the planet and all the storyline potential fizzes out.  I was enraged, because it took a while to get to this point, and I expected better.
 
Also, there are some broken elements to the game.  First of all, the License board is a good idea, but in the later parts of the game you have no reason to keep people as "mages-" it works better to just have a bunch of dudes with big swords.  There's no real given classes in the game, and there's no push to have them in there either.  If you don't mind running GameFAQs challenges, I guess this won't be too much of a problem.
 
Another broken part is the summoning.  The summon monsters look awesome, and there's a small group of them.  There's also fanservice to be had - some of these guys you'll recognize from other FF games.  However, there's no reason to summon.  You lose every party member except for yourself and the monster, the monster does whatever the heck he/she wants, and they don't pull off a cool-looking final move unless you do something bad to yourself - for instance, turning yourself into stone or putting your HP under a certain percentage.  There's no reason to summon, and most of the time you just wind up with "Game over."
 
Also, the loot.  Oh, the loot.  You never know what loot it takes to make an item, but the worst thing is that when you visit a bazaar, it takes all of the loot from you automatically and makes whatever the heck it wants to with it.  So if you gave the bazaar enough for a really cool sword, but you just gave it an item that would make a bow out of most of those materials, you get a bow.  Also, there's no way to keep track of what the bazaar has from you unless you write it all down.  Maybe an Excel spreadsheet would work.  There's also the annoying fact that you can kill hundreds of one guy in a row to chain and increase your luck and still not get what you're looking for.  For a non-online game, this sucks. 
 
Also, here's an open world or semi-open world.  Airships are a huge part of the story, with awesome past Esper names, and yet you hardly ever have an airship, and when you do, it's nothing but a map.  Actually you have better functionality with teleport stones, which teleport you to different save points.  Would it have killed them to let you actually fly the airship in the open world?  It was done x10 in GTA: San Andreas.  Team members from the game talked about how strategic airship battles were supposed to be in the game but were cut.  There really is a hole where that combat should be, especially given the detail done on the larger airships. 
 
Still, by far the worst thing about it is the story copout in the latter half of the game.  All these great characters, complex interactions, cool plot points - they all just disappear and become the most standard, stupid, game-y storyine ever.  If you can pick it up for a small amount of cash or borrow it, that's fine, but don't go all out in finding it. 
 
My fiancee and I would recommend Persona 4 for a PS2 RPG.  It's awesome.

"In the case of archery, the hitter and the hit are no longer two opposing objects, but are one reality."
-Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery

If you are going to play it. Play it with gambits off...trust me. Or you could just go to sleep and watch the battle play out with gambits on...

  I <3 TheMART

dchalfont

Max Power


Battles? What are battles? I say that because it got to the point later on in the game where you'd just run the character around and they would fight on their own.

The gambit system was optional as well as customisable...if you didn't like it, you could have always changed it, or turned it off, not that complicated really.

Well it was the best way to fight because this wasn't a turn based game so you didn't really have a choice because enemies kept attacking you...unless you wanted to go through all the menus.

  I <3 TheMART

- The Corrupt -

FFXIII has turn-based combat that's sort of like FFX, but you're given more control over when and how often your characters can attack.

 
The combat reminds me much more of X-2, which isn't a bad thing because X-2 had the most refined version of the ATB in my opinion.
 
@OP: I didn't personally like XII that much but it's easy to understand why people love it. The combat is pretty much the same as KOTOR's  but the worst part of the game to me is the main character but that's down to marketting, Basch was meant to be the main character but due to the failure of Matsuno's Vagrant Story they thought it would be better to have a younger protagonist.

The game's good, it's just that the story's weak. That's all... It doesn't have too many epic moments like your normal FF game. It was too realistic for its own good, plus,  the principal characters was lame and tacked on because Square like their protagonists to be young. You know, for the appeal. They think that old characters don't sell, they said it on an interview, if I have time later then I will look for it for the ultimate prove.

But anyway, if you only focus on gameplay, graphics, music and just ignore the weak story, the principal character, Vaan, and his friend, Penelo,(the others are great!) that don't even have a purpose to be there in the first place then you'll probably like the game. And who knows, everybody have different taste so, you could even like the story too.

Great gameplay and there's a bunch of stuff to do here. You'll easily spend over 100 hours doing quests and such.

Story and characters are pretty poor though. I say rent it. The battle system is pretty much a hate it or love it thing. I personally loved it. The last few dungeons were pretty annoying though since every enemy will cast an ailment on you.

it's worth playing. 

it was ok, but definitely not one of my favourite of the franchise.

the gambit system was neat but the story was pale

I enjoyed it, pretty much all my reasoning has been listed by other people.

I am playing it right now on the PS3 one nice thing is that you can play it in 16:9 widescreen , is not a bad game and i agree that the story is weak , but get it is not a bad game by any means

Well for the sake of Final Fantasy; I say no don't play it. It's nothing like the others.
If you like MMO's though, then I suggest trying it. It really can be a good game. Story sucks in it though. Other than that, it's pretty cool. Vaan happens to be the worst main character since Tidus, but all that aside, once you learn to use the Gambit system, you can just walk around and not even touch the controler when it comes to battles.
 
Another notably interesting part of the game is the liscence board. It's a good idea, but the Sphere Grid is still better.