Red's Progress Thread

[Red XIII]

Alright, here's the plan. I want to do a big write-up of my opinion on FFXII, but I don't want to write the thing all after the fact. I know my opinions will change as I go throughout the game, so I want to be able to keep tabs on myself.

So what I'm going to do is post my progress in this thread after each of my play sessions and say what I think. I'll do each one as a separate post and I'll try to go into as much detail as I can.

Then hopefully after I complete the game, I can put it all together and see what my overall view is, as well as how it changed as I progressed through the game.

This thread is going to go on for a while, other wise I would have adjoined it with the 'Moment of Truth' thread. But that one needs to die anyway, as I'm sure mullet would like to save face for a while.

And remember, this thing isn't just for my benefit, otherwise I'd just be typing the whole thing up on Word on my own time. I want you guys to share your opinions as well.

WARNING ABOUT SPOILERS! READ BELOW
Okay, Last thing. I'm going to assume that everyone who reads this thread has already played Final Fantasy XII. If you haven't played the game or you are only partially done and are afraid of spoilers... don't participate in this thread, because I'm going to talk about plot points that come up as I experience them in the game.

[Red XIII]

Day 1 - June 22, 2008 (yesterday)

Okay so I'm a little behind... wanna fight about it?

The Opening
Like every FF opening, it was great and beautiful. As a lot of you have said, it was slightly Star Wars-esque, but I certainly wouldn't hold that against it. I really like how they gave you a glimpse of how large the game's scope is/was intended to be.

Characters
Okay so there are a lot of places and people introduced and it's slightly overwhelming with all of the complicated names, but it wasn't too bad. I feel like if they're important enough they'll show up again. I don't have to remember all the names.

-Basch Of course a badass, as I knew he would be. His introduction sets him up nicely.

-Reks Kind of cool to start off with someone who's not part of the main cast. He's nothing spectacular but obviously he wasn't intended to be. Vaan's brother, neat. Killed by Basch, neat. A bit cliche, but at least the cast has already started to be connected.

-Vaan He's not as bad as I thought he was going to be. I thought his voice was going to be way higher and that he was going to have much worse of a personality. Maybe hearing him downplayed since the game's release has had me overestimating his gayness and I'll like him because I was surprised. I feel like I'm supposed to not like him, and supposed to resent that he's leading my party of badasses. He's growing on me.

-Penelo Okay, here is where I sense a train wreck. She's done okay so far, but she's had very little screen time. I can definitely tell that she's going to become very unimportant later, or possibly very soon.

-Balthier This guy is just irresistible for me. He's got the looks, he's got the accent, he's got the firepower, and he's got the jokes. Even if I end up hating all of the characters, I'll never hate this guy. He is my Wakka.

-Fran Definitely weak on the personality side, but I think it's supposed to be that way. She definitely sparks your interest being a Viera partnered up with a human and all--they definitely spark your interest with some of those details--but I'm sure I'll be disappointed later as I'll probably never find out anything else about her.

Plot
Lots of big baddies. Big, big baddies. Once you finally get control of Vaan, you really feel like all the crap going on is out of your hands. I like that. A lot of smaller plots start being introduced (Vaan's brother with the flowers, and Vaan and Penelo's relationship as well), which is starting to build a world--that's good.

I can definitely tell that the game is trying very hard to build a strong foundation.

Summary
I got to the point where I had done the first mark, then stopped for a while. Then I picked up later and went through the palace scenarios, met up with Fran and Balthier, and then got to Basch, which was a good scene I thought. Got through all the dungeon/arena mess, and stopped at the place where you have to charge up the power gate thing. It was late so I decided to pick up with that dungeon the next day.

[Red XIII]

Day 2 - June 23, 2008

Summary
Okay so I picked up at the energy dungeon and went through that. Now that I have gambits and everything unlocked fully, I'll go ahead and talk about the systematics of the game.

I'm not done yet for today though, so I'll go back and edit this later probably.

Battling
I don't miss random encounters. At this point, I don't think I want them back, although that may change. The thing I love so far is that I have so many choices. I can make battle fast, or I can make it slow. I can take an active role, or I can set the controller down and text my girlfriend. I can already tell that I'm going to love being able to do both. Sometimes I'm going to feel like battling, and sometimes I'm not. I get to choose. That's never been an option before, so therefore I love FFXII battling (at this point in time).

Gambits
Quite frankly, they're genius. They would have been nice in a game like Kingdom Hearts when my AI guys sucked. Battle feels very un-Final Fantasy, yes, but everything else is still there, so I'm still calling it Final Fantasy for now.

License Board
Okay yeah, later in the game it's going to be gay because everyone can do whatever they want, but wasn't that the awesomeness of FFV? Everyone, being able to do everything? Besides, you aren't really forced to do that. It's not like your characters will only be good if they have everything. You can choose to stay with the paths they started for you, which is what I'm going to do (with only slight tweaking). I'm looking at it this way: It beats limiting a character totally to one kind of equipment/spells (I-IV), it beats Junctioning (VIII), it beats the sphere grid (X). I'll always love the ability system (IX), but thank God I'm not buying new weapons every five minutes and throwing the old ones away. But also thank God that I'm not keeping the same weapons the whole game (VIII). To me that's a good balance.

Characters
I'm keeping my eyes open for crappy character building because all the people I trust most say that such a lack-thereof is nearly tangible, but so far I'm not seeing it. Sure, I don't know anything about their pasts or anything, but their personalities at the present are doing well in my opinion. I've got Basch, Vaan, Fran, and Balthier in my party right now, and their connections are all pretty realistic. Vaan hates Basch, Fran and Balthier are on their own ticket and they respect that Basch is too (they've got that pirates code), but they're not totally heartless towards Vaan and Basch either. Basch seems kind of out of his mind since he wants to go back into Rabanastre and he knows he's going to get caught... but his whole apology scene to Vaan in the sewers was cool I thought. He knows Vaan won't believe him and he respects that. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole twin brother thing, though.

EDIT:

Summary - Part 2
Okay, so I picked back up, made it back to Rabanastre and met up with everyone (Balthier, Fran, Basch) again. Those were some pretty good scenes. Everything is still managing to hold together pretty well. So we just left to go to the floating city in order to seek out and save Penelo. Another cliche setup, but the trap for Balthier is a nice touch. The conversations within the party seem pretty realistic. I mean they all have different agendas in the same place, so they figure to go together, and they don't have any reason to mistrust one another in battle, but other than that they don't ask too many questions. So anyways, at the city I met up with the kid Lamont and I can already tell he's going to be trouble. Stopped and saved before entering the next dungeon and decided to be done for the day.

[Red XIII]

Day 3 - June 26, 2008

Well, I'm in Ivalice alright... because I'm struggling to figure out what the hell's going on. Just like Tactics there's so many damn people. I'm really feeling the game so far, but the overwhelming amounts of names and places is starting to turn me off.

Plot
Okay so I went through the Lhusu Mines dungeon. Lamont gets to the Nethicite and explains what that is, then Balthy's bounty hunters show up and run us out. Penelo is with Lamont now, who reveals himself as Lord Larsa, little brother to Vayne. Suddenly everyone in the party knows about a resistance outfit in Bhujerba so we immediately find it and discover that the Marquis is helping to head it... apparently this is a big deal.

I mean jeez... couldn't they have been a little more surprised to find Basch alive? The only one who even seemed to react was Ashe, who has now revealed herself officially.

So everyone's captive aboard the Leviathan and brought before Judge Ghis, who takes the Goddess' Magicite from Vaan. Somehow it's related to the 'Dusk Shard' that Basch mentions is Ashe's birthright. Ghis sends everyone away, including Ashe.

Balthier and Fran jump the wimpy guards and a guard shows up, revealing himself as Vossler. Basch's old friend from the beginning, right? He agrees to help everyone get out, and away we go to toss some baddies aboard the Leviathan.

I'll come back and edit later. I feel like I'm typing this all up just so I can remember what's going on.

[Yukimura]

Red XIII Wrote:I mean jeez... couldn't they have been a little more surprised to find Basch alive? The only one who even seemed to react was Ashe, who has now revealed herself officially.

Are you starting to see why everyone thinks the game sucks so hard?

The entire story is just a blur for me. There's no emotion, no depth, no nothing. It feels like the developers created that whole plotline in about 15 minutes.

[BigMikeTheTerror]

red Wrote:I'm really feeling the game so far, but the overwhelming amounts of names and places is starting to turn me off.

yup. thats why i borderline cant pick the game back up. dont even know whats going on where i am.

[Red XIII]

I don't hate the game yet or anything, I'm just being [reasonably] picky. I could just as easily let myself have a total boner for the game and just go along with everything.

[Red XIII]

Day 4 - June 28, 2008

Okay well I spent almost my entire play session training in the same place I ended on yesterday--aboard the Dreadnought Leviathan.

So I went through the place with Vossler, and rescued the princess Ashe. Then on the way back, met up with Larsa who returns Penelo to the party and takes Vossler to an escape ship.

Plot
Okay so the princess is rescued, and Vossler mandates that the party must escape the Leviathan. When the party meets up with Larsa... it gets a bit confusing. Larsa says that Ghis knows of the escape and takes Vossler with him. After this he hands over Penelo and entrusts her with the Nethicite from the Lhusu mines. Larsa says that he thinks by helping Basch and Ashe, who are supposed to be dead, he will help Dalmasca. Why he wants to help little Dalmasca, I don't know.

He makes an interesting analogy about how the situation is a thread, and that curiosity is going to have them all keep pulling at the thread to see what unravels. So basically Larsa knows his duty to the House of Solidor, but is overcome by childish curiosity? ...I'm trying to keep up.

Finally, after the events with Larsa, the party is headed off by Judge Ghis at the airship dock before they can make an escape. (Well then where did Larsa and Vossler go?) Ghis claims that now that Ashe's royal blood has been proven by the Goddess' Magicite/Dusk Shard, that she is of no use. Hopefully that gets cleared up, because it doesn't really make any sense. Ghis mentions that dummy could be used... I guess they mean that the princess is a nuisance so they can make a clone of some kind and use the activated Shard to say that the clone is the real Ashe... who knows?

But that was it for today. I fought Ghis once and got owned pretty bad. I need to change around my party and my gambits, get some new stuff, train up, etc.

So I'll pick up tomorrow.

[Cait Sith]

i really think that this game is good except for like the Zodiak spear and crap because theres no way of getting it without looking it up to figure it out and yeah i like the whole twin brother thing because like you only see that in a couple of movies and no video games so i thaught it was a good little thing to add in

[Ephemeral]

I thought the game was good, but I could pick it up and put it down whenever.
When I played VII and VIII I stayed up playing them almost constantly.
I find that the better the game is the less you want to leave it alone.
The characters in XII were alright, they feel less interwoven towards the end, or that might just be me not remembering why they were together in the first place.
The graphics are excellent, wait till you get to the sand sea, that little bit still sticks in my head.
It's not really one thing that's wrong with the game, it's little bits wrong with each key section, that when you put together make it less enjoyable.
If those little problems, like too many characters names to remember, too much time needed levelling up etc, could just go away the game would be really good.
Don't let the little things put you off though, it's not a bad game and the graphics and battle system do try and make up for the crap you get inbetween.
Kepp us updated.:thumbsup: