Final Fantasy XII the latest installment of the series. Lets start with the strengths, mainly the combat system.
The new combat system is the greatest part of the game. It puts a whole new twist on the gameplay, being able to run to your enemy and with the gambits allowing your other characters to cast magic and act by themselves according to what u desire makes the combat have a more action feeling to it. Although since you can set them to automatically heal themselves at 80% hp, once you understand the gambits well it can have an almost too easy feel to it at times(but deaths still do happen). You can also get Chains for killing several of the same enemy in a row resulting in increased loot drops among others things, and many other small features.
Quickenings the new limit break is fast, powerful, and cool looking! Although not always the best choice in battle its just fun and enjoyable to watch. I usually do it at the end of a boss battle for a sort of overkill shot.
Esper summons are kinda cool, but never really used em much cause they die somewhat fast sometimes considering the amount of mp they use, but there are some circumstances when they do well.
The cg was of course cool as to be expected from Final Fantasy.
The license grid allowed you to make your characters any way you want to, complete freedom. Some feel that it is just a different version of the sphere grid from ff10 others like it for its versatility.
Now on to the remaining parts of the game that were not up to par with previous Final fantasy's. (Spoilers)
I'll start with the story, its slow for the vast majority of the game. Chasing around crystal shards that no ones sure how to use, or what they do, til they realize that they are too powerful for man to have so we have to destroy them... or maybe use them to destroy our enemies. You go through much effort to acquire a shard only to find that your next task is to acquire a weapon capable of destroying the shards. It becomes hard to find the reasoning behind the characters decisions. Going along waiting to find an answer to why you are doing what you are doing, As you move on to your next task with no real answers to the previous. Giving you little motivation to continue. Trying to remember which part of the resistance is controlled by whom and what they are doing/trying to accomplish is somewhat difficult considering they are all fictional places and people whose names you have only heard once before, but I'm sure Al-cid has more of a purpose in the story than flirting with ashe.
Character development is almost non existant. The only real character development is in the early beggining with vaan as he reveals his dream to be a sky pirate and tells how he dislikes the empire treatment. Also the interaction between him and panelo. But sadly none of it is elaberated on during the rest of the game. So it ends up being for nothing that you learn these things. Vaan does get excited to ride in Balthiers ship and panelo says "A good sky pirate needs a partner" or something like that in the ending movie, refering to herself. I think thats best explained as too little or too late. Fran is Balthiers partner so I can understand that she will go where Balthier goes, but as to why Balthier goes along is somewhat of a mystery. Supposedly at the beggining he wants the shard or so vaan believes, but thats not explained. Little else is known about the two of them til later you find that Fran ran away from home, and near the end, that Cid is Balthiers father. Which is not enough to please me. Panelo? Who knows, I guess she just likes Vaan. Basch somewhat strangely joins vaan, I said to myself "Why does he want to go with this kid?" He later takes on the role of bodyguard to Ashe which makes his following understandable after that.
The ending credits had more character development with its pictures than the actual game. Thats pretty sad. The characters need more than a "Hi my name is blank and I'm here to fight"
There is really no main character in the game after you meet Balthier. It just becomes one big xp party. No one looks to anyone as being the leader, although you all basically assist ashe on her journey following her around. And Balthier keeps calling himself the leading man, and since he gets all the cool lines in the game, I see him as my favorite character.
The music in the game doesn't contribute much, although I really enjoy two of the songs in the game, one being the music during the garuda battle. Which is repeated during many bosses. And another song, which name I do not know. The music in past FF's really affected the mood of the game for me, in this one I barely noticed there was music. Until the ending credits when several upbeat good songs played with feeling in them and not so mellow as the rest of the music.
Random chest loot really got to be annoying for me and those who wanted the rare weapons and loot from them. I think most people who had to deal with that would agree its a bad idea.
There was nothing after the credits! I always wait to see what cool scene will be after the credits ff7, ff8, ff9, and ff10. Notice a pattern? I think someone forgot something. Enormous let down.
After Reddas dies there is a really nice scene on the beach with 3 characters discussing how they feel about Reddas dying. That scene is great, it reminds me of the previous ff's. Characters saying how they feel and actually talking about something, so the objective becomes more real and I actually want to defeat the enemy at the end of the game. I miss the old scene where you go to the inn and go to sleep and you get a suprise cutscene where one of the characters cant sleep and walks outside in the night, followed by one of the other characters and they discuss how they feel. Then the character becomes real, and you see their view of things, and the game becomes fun and you cant wait to continue on. This game missed out on that.
The ending of the game though really stepped it up and got very exciting The top of the tower where the majority of the story takes place and the Bahumut were awesome. Story or not those scenes were just cool. And when Vayne ascends its just awesome. If only they just could have led up to that throughout the game instead of just dropping it in your lap like everything else.
Square-enix succeded with the new combat system, now just give us what we originally played final fantasy for... the story. FF has been around a long time not because of its awesome combat system, but because of its story, mixed with great music and characters that were properly developed. When aeris/aerith died some people cried, if Panelo died most people would probly say "what was her name?".
Im not tryin to hate on ff, im just a long time fan who wants to have a new game that says on the back of the case "Quite possibly the best game ever made" only to find out that it was right.
