Is this the best trio in video game history?
Is Final Fantasy XII the best game in the series?
If your answer to both of these questions isn't yes, then you need to leave until you turn 18.
>not Robotnik, Scratch, and Grounder
>>339676786
Cid: Decent villain who appears insane throughout the whole game when he's introduced only to be revealed thathe's talking to the entity next to him in your picand that he only wanted what was best for all races, to move forward as a species in order to obtain equal footing with the "gods"
Venat: "God" that betrayed the other "Gods" by giving humans an ancient power because it believes that the future doesn't rest in their hands and that these creatures have a will of their own and that they are not needed anymore
Vayne: A great villain whose motive and actions are completely justified, wanted to unify humanity and all races and become something more, didn't want to become a "God" but help Venat with his goals in ushering in a new golden age for all mortal kind
All the characters you played as were just puppets whose feelings were being pulled by strings... you were working for the bad guys all along
10/10 great game just finished it on my PS2 a few weeks ago so I still feel the rush
>>339677450
Spot on summary. Vayne LITERALLY did nothing wrong.
These are some of the most complex and enjoyable villains in not just final fantasy, but just about any RPG.
VENAT IS A HERETIC
What is the best way to play this game
>>339677947
Go back to Giruvegan, Gerun
>>339678282
I've played multiple ways. I kind of ruined my first playthrough by getting to level 80 via killing a monster called Dustia at the start of the game for hours like an autist, but my favorite playthrough was when I went through the game at a low-modest level so that the hunts and bosses were a challenge.
Also, make sure you play IZJS version if you can help it.
emulating a Englisch patched international Version
>>339678447
I see there's a translation but I'm not finding a lot of info on it. Any experience playing it in English?
>>339677857
But Vayne was a prick. He had his dad and Raminas assassinated, he lied, manipulated, and cheated his way to get everything he wanted.
Larsa was the real OG.
>>339678646
Yes, although I played it years and years ago so my memory of how I got it isn't exactly great.
I just know I searched for a prepatched ISO of it and that's about all.
>>339678282
Wait for the HD remaster on Steam, which will be released fucking NEVER.
>>339678282
Best way to play the game is to strongly focus on Magic builds for female characters and strength builds for male characters
i suggest using a party of all 3 females because by the end of the game magic is stronger than melee in this game, make sure the battle speed is set to the fastest so battles won't take to long and don't rely too much on gambits... also don't rush it this game was well made and past areas will open up in the future to reveal hidden bosses and better farming areas
The last great FF desu. Before it became infested with idol and JPOP shit.
>Dude what if we made literally half of the cast be inconsequential to the story
>Dude what if we made multiple cutscenes where the main character has no idea what's going on and just stands in the background while people who matter speak
>Dude what if we made a character who's literally just a random girl off the street with no important qualities outside of an extremely large ass
>Dude what if we made a character with an interesting and nuanced backstory and then only let the player use him in one dungeon, at the end of which he dies
>Dude what if we made a villain who has zero emotional connection to the heroes and doesn't even meet them until the second-to-final cutscene
>Dude what if we took an established setting with a million interesting species and then only included humans and bunny humans as playable characters
>Dude what if we gave the narrator a compical Apu accent
>Dude what if we made a complicated political plot and then ruined it by turning it into standard ancient god shenanigans halfway through
>Dude what if we made a plot where the heroes have almost no impact on what happens until 95% of the way through the story, and they spend their time tromping from one ancient temple to the next
>Dude what if we took everything 100% seriously and had zero levity outside of Balthier and Cid
>Dude what if we wrote all of the dialogue to sound like a Renaissance Fair
>Dude what if we we had no overworld and all travel was handled by a menu or floating teleport crystals
>Dude what if we made a battle system where you set everything up in advance so that you don't actually play the game
>Dude what if we made a level-up system where all of the characters become literally identical in function
>Dude what if we made summons useless except for opening doors
>Dude what if we put all of the interesting and unique content in sidequests
>Dude what if instead of having fun side games like the motorcycle chase and Triple Triad we had nothing
FF12 had the best atmosphere, aesthetic, and world-building of any FF. It also had the best writing - the English localization was golden.
But the fucking characters. They never interact. The protagonists barely have a relationship with each other, save a few. Even worse - they barely have a relationship with the villains. Balthier has Cid, Basch has Gabranth, and that's about it. Vayne doesn't even know who the party members are, except Ashe, and even then it isn't personal.
If I were to re-write FF12, I'd remove Vaan and Penelo and make Vayne, Gabranth, Cid, and Larsa be playable in some form of in-between chapter. Have the "villains" mirror the "heroes" and create a truly non-black/white story. Make the player choose who to root for.
There are only several good tracks on FFXIII's OST. This is one of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7EHWtZPsCw
Can you name the rest?
>>339679024
It came out after X2
>>339677857
Vayne did one thing completely wrong, and I think it completely justifies our actions against him.His hair is fucking awful, Jesus Christ, a hundred million gil and that's the best you can do?
Vayne is such a non-villain the writers literally had to have him pull bahamut out of his ass at the end after you beat Cid and then for NO APPARENT REASON have Vayne position it over Rabanastre just so the home city could be threatened and create a crisis for the final act to resolve.
Keep in mind that this asspull at the end of the game is the only reason you actually have to face him. Compare that to other villains and it's hilarious.
>>339679816
You know, I was going to agree with you that FFXII's OST isn't all that great save for a handful of tracks, since I've held that opinion for quite a while, but I've just listened to some other tracks while finding these ones (my personal favorites) and they fit the area that they're from so fucking well.
I think the reason you don't hear people making too much of a fuss over the FFXII OST is because it's not....I dunno, catchy? It's atmospheric and suits the area, but it's not the type of music you'd find yourself humming randomly or whatever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySrSIrO_Cs8&list=PL26BC0AE8E8D647DF&index=20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wzU706vNlA&index=42&list=PL26BC0AE8E8D647DF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-S3RKV910g&list=PL26BC0AE8E8D647DF&index=53
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PjEN-zFlDQ&index=86&list=PL26BC0AE8E8D647DF
After listening to the other stuff I've just heard, I could have added another 4-5 easily but I'll leave it at these. I've always enjoyed these 4, though the fourth one really takes forever to get really good.
>>339679348
>best writing
uh... I think you just mean lines and dialogue. The script writing is bad, like REALLY FUCKING BAD.
I'd go out there to say that XII's scripting is the second worst of the main series (nothing can top 13) and proves that no matter how many potentially interesting characters, locales, backstory and themes you try to insert, if you can't tell a basic story well the entire thing collapses in on itself.
XII tried to present itself thematically as morally grey but the behaviour allowed to you treated everything as black and white.
>>339681117
>uh... I think you just mean lines and dialogue.
Yeah, my bad. Which is all the more shame about the writing. Some of the voice acting in this game was god-tier.
https://youtu.be/P9769vztXW4?t=18s
Why did Venat fuck with Mjrn in the mines? What possible purpose did it serve?
Who cares if Viera were affected by nethicite... Venat has totally different plans involving Vayne and Archadia.
It'd honestly make more sense if one of the other Occuria were there.
>>339679107
>Dude what if we gave the narrator a compical Apu accent
This triggers me because people are constantly bitching about Ondore and he's literally one of the only things they got right. The entire political plot is laughably bullshit but whoever did the localization was actually brilliant enough to correctly reference the original meaning of 1st/2nd/3rd world, but nooo everyone is too stupid so they shit on him for "sounding funny"
>>339678850
Magic is for the most part shit in this game though due to casting times. The only magic that matters is buffs and anyone can do that.
Fran has some of the worst magic too.
>>339682091
>whoever did the localization was actually brilliant enough to correctly reference the original meaning of 1st/2nd/3rd world
What do you mean? It's been eons since I played the game, so I don't recall much beyond Ondore's accent.
>>339682091
>literally one of the only things they got right.
Actually something about Ondore is one of the major problems with the plot. The whole reason why Ashe can't reveal herself to the public is because it would.... discredit Ondore in the eyes of his revolutionaries.
But this makes no sense. Ondore is already publically slurping the empire's balls and working to secretly undermine them. THE REVOLUTION KNOWS THIS. Why can't he just admit to them he was pressured into telling a fucking lie? Are they gonna throw down all the weapons and preparations they've spent decades planning and just say 'ONDORE IS A MEANIE'
It's completely stupid and nonsensical, because it was crammed into the plot to serve a rather droll purpose : To give Ashe a reason why she couldn't just flat out gain the support of Rabanastre right from the get go because that'd make the player wonder why she doesn't just gather a hundred people into the party.
So yeah, one of the dumbest plot conveniences of all and Ondore is smack dab in the center of it.
>>339678282
You can play the normal version which has some dumb design decisions and everyone is a jack of all trades
Or you can play IZJS which has some incredibly dumb design decisionnot being able to change classes, or classes with a bunch of magic damage+ nodes but no spells that deal damageand horrible class balance, and is overall the easier game, but has more content and is certainly better in a lot of ways.
>>339682223
The term "third world" was originally coined during the Cold War. Contrary to the modern meaning of "backwater shithole" it simply meant any nation not either allied with the Soviets or NATO(the "second" and "first" worlds, respectively).
In the game, Archadians have British accents not only because of Britain's history of colonization but also because they were a member of the first world; Al-Cid Margrace, one of the only Rozarrians you meet in the game, likewise has a Russian/slavic accent representing the second world. Bhujerba is a neutral third party and a colony of Archades in all but name, thus Ondore having an Indian accent continues the pattern. I agree that his VA could've been better, but it frustrates me that literally nobody understands the reason why he has that accent and simply shits on it because, again, they think it "sounds funny."Dalmascans have American accents because 'murrica and muh freedomz
>>339679348
And the voice acting. The voice acting in many of the scenes is absolutely masterful, like the extended Pharos cutscene with Gabranth, Cid, Reddas and Asche. Along with Aigis' voice acting in Persona 3 they single handedly convinced me that voice acting in JRPGs can be a good thing.
>>339683065
>extended Pharos cutscene
Extended in what way? I need to know if I missed out on content.
>>339682852
Unrelated, but if you listen to Noah's accent at the beginning of the game when he kills Reks while disguised as Basch, his voice sounds all fucked up. Not because of a bad VA, but because it's Gabranth trying to impersonate Basch and doing a not-so-great job of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkacKz4Y_ek
>>339683354
I just mean the long cutscene that plays on top of the Pharos, interspersed with the fights against Gabranth and Cid.
>>339677450
Some things about XII are questionable, but holy fuck I enjoyed the later half of the game when you started to find out about that stuff.
>>339679348
>...make Vayne, Gabranth, Cid, and Larsa be playable in some form of in-between chapter. Have the "villains" mirror the "heroes" and create a truly non-black/white story. Make the player choose who to root for.
My dream version of XII involves a dual party system, with a "mirror" for each character, i.e. Vayne <> Ashe or Gabranth <> Basch.
The license board has role specialization like IZJS but all of the roles are ultimately connected like the sphere grid from X. Each character has two "main" or "starter" jobs to choose from, and once you choose one his/her mirror gets the opposite one.
Also other stuff but it's been a while and it's a lot of stuffXII is a beautiful disaster
Cid: And lo! How brightly burned their lanthorn! Casts it back the shadow of Occurian design! Testament that Man's history shall be His alone!
Balthier: You made your nethicite for this? You mimic the Occuria's Stone for what? To become a god yourself?
Cid: On whose shoulders better to stand than those of the would-be gods! Ah such high hopes I once had...but you ran, and they with you! Alas, your return is too late. Come, Ffamran! Revel in the glory of my triumph!
This entire scene was my favorite in the game.
Cid is quite literally my favorite character in the game.
>Why can't the soldiers in bhujerba find Larsa when he's right outside the airport not even trying to disguise himself in broad daylight?
>Why does Larsa want to infiltrate the magicite mines to see the magicite? Isn't that like infiltrating a chocolate factory to see that they make chocolate? This goes absolutely nowhere
>Why does Ashe spend the entire game between visiting the elder Garif in Jahara and meeting the occuria pondering whether or not to use the nethicite that she already knows she can't use because it was already explained to her?
>Why is everyone acting forving and understanding towards Vossler when he's defeated, but still leave him to die like assholes instead of carrying him to the shuttle 20 feet away?
>why is there a big deal made about reaching Archadia on foot to avoid security and then later you can fly there anyway?
?
>Why was Venat possessing Mjrn when its plan had nothing to do with the Viera and was already well in motion?
>Why is Gramis' death treated like a bad thing when he was the one who declared war on Dalmasca?
>Why does Vayne explain that Archadia is a democracy and then later a major plot thread becomes a succession story about Larsa, a little fucking kid, having to take the throne? Did they forget what sort of story they were writing?
>Why does Vayne position the bahamut over Rabanstre instead of like... 3 miles to the left? Talk about forced tension.
>Why is everyone happy that the sun cryst is destroyed when the occuria have a giant fuckoff crystal just sitting inside Giruvegan that they explicitly point out has enough power to wipe out the world?
>Why did squeenix cocktease us with all these cool airships and sky pirate stuff only for airships to factor into like, 2 dungeons and an inconvenient fast travel system that's completely trumped by the more handy teleport stones?
>Final Fantasy XII is the same world as Tactics, but in the distant past
>Tactics has lost much of the technology of XII, if not all, in an apocalyptic event
>XII also explicitly ends without anyone realizing that they didn't really dealt with the Occuria for good, but simply destroyed the bag of treats it used to influence human affairs.
How much do you bet that the Occuria are the ones who set the world on fire.
>>339683660
Honestly, a total of six playable characters (Ashe/Basch/Balthier on one side, Vayne/Gabranth/Cid on the other) would have worked out. Fran and Larsa could be supporting characters. I don't know.
XII had so much fucking potential, it pains me that fucking FF13 and Lightning got three shitty games with AAA budgets while XII had Revenant Wings.
>>339684023
>yay we destroyed the sun cryst! Now the Occuria cannot possibly use nethicite to influence humanity ever again!
>>339683871
Cid's voice actor made him what he is.
Why are you guys acting like FFXII had a plot and wasn't just hours upon hours of trudging across empty landscapes searching for the next plot coupon while your characters don't interact with each other?
>>339684023
>Final Fantasy XII is the same world as Tactics, but in the distant past
Was it? I always thought XII was just a more serious re-imagining of Tactics' setting. And what about all that "it's just an escapist fantasy dream" bullshit?
>>339684176
Oh Jesus Christ
>breaking the Sun Cryst caused an explosion big enough it could've be felt and seen across an entire ocean
>the Sun Cryst is also a pebble compared to the Great Crystal of Giruvegan
>"So you claim no need of our guidance? Then we shall take back this world that was built by our chosen's hand"
>overload the Great Crystal and wipe the entire continent, presumably also killing all Viera instantly and condemning other species to death
>>339684483
Final Fantasy Tactics from the PS1 shares a couple plot points and characters with XII. The game you're thinking of is Tactics Advance, on the GBA, that had World Murderer Marche as a main character.
>>339683660
My dream version of XII is one where the story is totally rewritten and begins with and mostly follows the story of Gabranth. Doing a FFIV style 'begins as an evil minion of the bad guys and later redeems himself' schtick.
He could start out as this dark and twisted imperial enforcer kicking ass and taking names and embroiled in this war with a foreign power and believing they're all bad and his team is good.
And then comes the twist stuff and he meets Ashe and learns more of the truth and the whole game he's been chasing his dickhead brother he hates only to find he's not that bad and Gabranth's story is one of redemption.
It'd just be way more cohesive and interesting then mindlessly running around grabbing useless mcguffins 99% of the game.
>>339684590
Oh, doy. I just assumed Tactics Advance because of all the identical races/espers/locations/etc. But I also figured Ivalice was just a popular name for the setting. Regardless, would be great to have more games set there. Easily the coolest FF setting IMO. This thread is really giving me the urge to emulate something.
>>339684623
Dude, Gabranth always knew exactly what the hell he was doing. The only reason he did it was because he was a broken man and believed the idea of sovereign nations was a fool's errand after Landis was taken. This is also mirrored in the fact that Basch basically ran away like a whiny crybaby while Gabranth moved back to Archades to take care of their mother; basically he took the bitter pill and chose to be the "responsible one" even if that meant doing horrible things. He had a fucking excellent arc in XII already when he found hope in Larsa and died protecting him.
Besides that FF has always been more about worldbuilding than characters. A big part of why XII sucks is because it had the balls to do a massive openworld back when that was barely a thing and yet had fuckall to do in it or make you feel immersed. You'd go a long way toward rehabilitating that game if you put in some minigames and stuff like airships, for example.
>>339685173
To be fair, the Clan Marks are some of the most enjoyable sidequests in the franchise and it's the kind of thing I wish they had thought of earlier.
How cool would a remake of, say, Final Fantasy VIII be where you took SeeD contracts and travel to various locations in the world to fight unique monsters?
But the very next game was XIII, where the system was a complete waste by virtue of the game's linearity and lack of a world to explore and come back to making the entire system pointless.
>>339685173
What was all that bullshit in Pharos before you fight him, then? I thought he was encouraging Ashe to use the mcguffin cryst to take revenge because he hated the empire too. Maybe it's been too long since I played this game.
>>339684590
>>339684796
Don't forget that an older Vaan appears in A2. But yet it's still inside of the same book from A1.
>>339685816
He was goading her into claiming the Cryst and proving herself the blood-starved vengeful queen of Dalmasca she was in his eyes, as opposed to a level-headed monarch as Larsa believed she was. Cid even tells as much when he shows up at the scene, Gabranth's actions made a mockery of Larsa's trust
>>339685816
>because he hated the empire too
Uh, yeah? Isn't that exactly in line with what I said? He always hated the empire, there was never any point at which he thought he was doing the right thing or even necessarily being a good soldier.
As for the reason behind his spiel at Pharos, my theory is that up until then all the Occuria/Sun-Cryst stuff was above his paygrade. To him, Archades was this unstoppable force powered by unholy contraptions dreamt up by Cid and the Draklor Laboratory. When he realized it was actually possible to undo all of Cid/Vayne's work, he jumped on that shit right away because he saw it as his one chance to strike out and actually do some damage.
There's also another dimension to it, though. After being jaded for so long, he kind of wanted to see Ashe turn out to be a vicious monster, like >>339686185 said. People who have held on to hurt for a long time are eager to naysay or even crush any glimmer of hope for fear of being hurt further. I would go so far as to say a part of him might've even wished that the Occuria(through Ashe) and Vayne go to war just to see everything burn.
Final Fantasy XII is a beautiful tragedy behind the scenes.
It's definitely the best main line entry, but I whole-heartedly regret giving Square Enix my money for it. This was pretty much the nail in the coffin confirming that they are the Japanese Activision.
>/v/ is unironically looking forward to the forthcoming and future projects plagued with Nomura's failure-scented musk
Fuck this company.
>>339687383
The upcoming Final Fantasy VII remake is the game that finally made me understand the people who eagerly wish for a game's failure. I giggle with glee at the thought of it being a failure.
As for XV, the two button combat system and Kingdom Hearts-like combat probably mark the end of the franchise for me.
Tabata is an absolute bastard though, his spiel about "Final Fantasy Disease" is completely ridiculous.
>>339687687
God, I can't wait to see everyone lose faith in the VII remake. Anyone who believed that shit was going to be the messiah of gaming deserves to be severely disappointed. Also,
>Final Fantasy Disease
What did he say?
>We wanted the battles to resemble Advent Children
>Kingsglaive releases before the game itself
At least they have their priorities straight. You can keep your movies, Squenix.
>>339687898
I might be getting some of the specifics wrong from poor memory/pathological hatred, but it basically boils down to "everyone who argues against how I'm handling development of this game is mentally diseased"
FF12 would have been good if it was actually about the Rozaria vs Arcadia war.
Instead we get the overshadowing of war the entire game but literally nothing happens and the Empire literally gets destroyed by vaan and co.
I heard the writer/directorleft halfway through the game and so the story is fucked. Is it true, guys? I'm really enjoying the game so far, but if the story goes full retard, it's gonna kill it for me.
>>339688316
I couldn't say about staff troubles, but the story definitely doesn't go full retard halfway through [some of the level design does, though]. It's second half is arguably stronger than the first.
>>339676786
The best game in the series is V. Then again, you're probably too young to even have played it.
>>339688316
Yasumi Matsuno (Ogre Battle, FF Tactics) was the director until suits at Square Enix literally demanded the game be change to suit a demographics poll, wherein Vaan and Penelo were inserted and the plot changed to suit them.
Sakaguchi, one of the original designers of Final Fantasy (I) outright refused to play the final version because it wasn't Matsuno's vision.
Remember that when you all are playing FFXV. You're giving your money, or at the very least your time to one of the worst companies in the industry.
>>339688316
You heard right, though if you find the game tolerable now it only gets better. The only truly awful part is having to literally ascend a 100 floor dungeon with practically zero breaks and multiple bossfights toward the end.
Where are you so far?
>>339688667
Wait, so were Balthier and Fran going to be the MCs? Holy shit this makes me fucking mad.
>The Pharos dungeon
>all those boss fights
>that climax
Best JRPG dungeon of all time, easily.
>>339688798
Just got the Zodiac Spear (I knew it was pretty much impossible to get without a guide and so I used a guide to get it, but have otherwise ignored guides except for a few hunts that were bothering the shit out of me.
>>339679348
I think the writer left half way through and Vaan was made last minute replacing Basch as the main character which explains the things I didn't like. Also it was originally an Ivalice title and not a numbered FF, another cripple I guess. I really should finish this game I think I got to the snowy mountains with Yen Sid and stopped there years ago.
>>339689034
wew lad you're in for a journey, just two more filler areas and then it's almost solid plot development till the end
>>339688934
I imagine some of the more conspicuous characters may have originally meant to be playable, most notably Al Cid Margrace. His (playable) inclusion in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 makes me even further skeptical of this.
>>339684483
Tactics takes place far to the west and 3 years before FF12... so not that long ago. But practically everyone dies in tactics anyway.
tfw
>>339676786
Reminder that Gabranth did nothing wrong.
>>339684483
>>339684590
>>339685845
Ivalice is the magic realm. In reference to Vagrant Story, entire lands are actually made out of Grimoires. They don't get sucked inside the book, they already live in the book. It is trying to save itself when magic is waning. It draws them into the past and it creates entire nations for them but what they did in Advance didn't destroy anything except what it made for them. The characters like Montblanc remember those wacky kids that tried to end the world. Time doesn't mean much in this kind of world. Remember when Luso tried to go back after FFTA2 but ended up in WotL? The book sends you where it wants you.
So we have golden age Ivalice in FFTA then XII happens and shortly afterwards FFTA2/RW. The kids from the "real world" live in the far future where Magic has all but disappeared and Ivalice can only manifest itself in grimoire form. FFT takes place between, after whatever cataclysmic event exterminated the magical races and reduced the mysts of magick. The occuria causing it is definitely right, after all the occuria have made a full comeback in FFT and the people are once again fully in the grip of gods and faith and thus the Scions posture as demons and become the Lucavi, doing anything to properly revive their rebellion against the gods and becoming corrupted by the foul hearts of the people they possess but ultimately resonating with the heroes after being defeated when Ramza starts to maybe realize that they were all victims of the gods. Remember, it was they who save Marach according to Rapha's will and it was they who save Ramza when the airship graveyard is destroyed.
Did they ever succeed? I don't think so. After all, the world we live in is still ruled by gods.
>>339689578
Goug.
Also, when Balthier shows up in WotL he believes that the Cache of Glabados has sent him through time.
>>339690271
It's all a stupid metaphor for how magic requires imagination. That's why the grimoire keeps trying to get kids to write in it.
>>339678748
A hero is not necessarily supposed to be likeable, he is supposed to do what is right at all costs. ABSOLUTE JUSTICE and all that.
>>339689958
Gabranth a cute. CUTE!Sadly I don't have any good pictures of him :(
