Stop calling Final Fantasy XII a bad game

[Vanya]

@Arch: I didn't mention it as a counter argument I mentioned it because it struck me as kind of Ironic, as I said.

@Doku: Exactly what Arch says and I mentioned. FF7 is the far flung future of FFX & FFX-2, officially.

[boomkick]

Sphere Grid in FF10, Spheres that gives players "power," so to speak. You could say they could have evolved into Materia in FF7.

Ok now back on topic, I hated the battle system the first time I played it. It was confusing and it didn't have much flashyness to it other then strikes and some magic. But as you play it grows on you and etc. The leveling grid didn't make much sense sadly. The story doesn't flesh out well enough, and yes it does have some good parts, but the semi-monotone voice setting that they put into this game to give it a medieval feel really kills a lot of emotional prowess.

[Wiegraf]

FF7 has awesome art

In battle, yes. Outside of battle, which is were you are 75% of the time, hell no. The characters look absolutely hideous, even for the time.

When it comes to RPG's I put far more stock in the battle system than any other aspect of the game. FFVII's battle system is very rough and unpolished and unbalanced. FFX is far more finished, with much better balance.

OK now I can agree with you about FFXII and its stupid hate base. But FFVII has good art.

Art =/= graphics.

Even if the graphics are bad, that doesnt mean that the art design is.

And no ones likes someone who only cares about graphics.

[Archael]

How is FF10's battle system more "balanced" than FF7's?


I can run my guys around the sphere grid a couple of times and turn them into gods, just like I can grind away at FF7 and make them all very powerful. Both games are easy to break... is that what you mean when you say "balance"?

[degrofm]

How is FF10's battle system more "balanced" than FF7's?


I can run my guys around the sphere grid a couple of times and turn them into St. Ajora, just like I can grind away at FF7 and make them all very powerful. Both games are easy to break... is that what you mean when you say "balance"?

This has nothing to do with the topic, but I really like the word filter. St. Ajora just has a much better ring to it.

[Vanya]

How is FF10's battle system more "balanced" than FF7's?


I can run my guys around the sphere grid a couple of times and turn them into St. Ajora, just like I can grind away at FF7 and make them all very powerful. Both games are easy to break... is that what you mean when you say "balance"?

I actually kinds agree with you there. The only thing that 10 has more balanced is that it doesn't have a crazy-ass, god-killing, summon loop.
12's only balance issue is that the offensive spells quickly become useless and that if the player decides not to use gambits the game becomes much more difficult.
But, then again, higher difficulty might be a good thing.

[Archael]

Knights of the Round is out-classed by Fury in FF7... doesn't even compare to that or to stuff like lucky 7777's

straight chain 9999 limits every turn :/

FF12 = 99,999 quick attacks

in that respect, both are imbalanced as hell

[Kaijyuu]

In FF6, with proper manipulation of the RNG you can kill any enemy instantly with setzer's slots. Instant kill, essentially infinite damage.

I believe there's something in place that restricts you from using it on Kefka and a couple other bosses... but then vanish/doom works against most everything, so...


Those games' ultimate attacks are wonderfully balanced in comparison :)

[Criss]

i have the original version but my computer is nowhere near strong enough to handle a ps2 emu....

[SentinalBlade]

Im a month or so late to the party, but i wanted ot throw my two cents in. after doing that 3 megabyte text file on why FF7 sucks(while point out good points about it being a sucky game, i did over exaggerate some of the features to troll some fanboys), i looked back on all my arguements, and realized there is a SHIT TON FF7 did wrong, but there is alot it did right.

I enrolled for a game programming degree at De'vry, i start next month. And analyzing things like this thoroughly, is a hobby of mine. Hopefully im gonna put this hobby to use~

I blame it on being an early game for the ps1, but largely I found FF7's environments to be murky unnavigable messes.

Horrible looking game. At least in the NES games I could see what things were.

the in-battle environments suck

outside of battle not so much

No one should be judging a game based on its engine anymore(i did not quote what you said about the engine, but its in the topic). But i do have some qualms with the engine, as well as the settings. Alot of the areas(the two ones im thinking of are the cables that you climb on your way to Shinra, and the caves behind nibbleheim) Have serious pathing and timing issues. The cables have that dreaded jump onto a swinging cable to the other pathway. I did it recently, and it took me 14 minutes. And the caves have a dark enough layout, it makes it hard to see walkways, passages, and ways to get to wooden planks to get a treasure chest(i think thats in the cave im talking about)

In writing, there are a number of storytelling devices that are considered serious no-nos.

Ending a story with.. "And I woke up to realize it was just a dream."

Another very bad cliche is to throw the hero into a memory wipe so that THEN he starts to bring his personality into fruition. He no longer has his whiny habits, he basically can start himself from scratch(like victims of a stroke lose their memory, but there are cases where turrets has vanished, or twitches and other habits cease completly)

Im sorry, FF7 has great story elements(although very hard to follow, since most of the time it doesnt give adeqaute information), but Cloud, along with some of the ones you mentioned, has no personality growth. Cait Sith, with his traitorism, Barret, with his town casting him out and whatnot, hell even yuffie with that damned tower in the back of wutai. They all have growth, that you notice. Granted, yuffie doesnt grow much, because she wasnt given as much to grow with as the others...but Cloud has no excuse. Throughout the entire game, up until the memory wipe, he fluxuates. First he is silent and badass and doesnt care about anyone, then wants to be a great leader, then doesnt care about anyone. then cares greatly for his friends. Then Aeris dies, and he gets all angry.... the pattern continues... even hours later, when he tries to push the party away in the airship, cause he doesnt want them to get hurt fighting sephiroth, even though about an hour of gameplay earlier, he said he needed them to defeat sephiroth.

You can argue that he has gone through alot, or maybe he had a mental breakdown... but the phrase "what doesnt kill you, makes you stronger" comes to mind... And being Bi-Polar is not an excuse for great character development.

I will agree, that most of Voldemorts points stand strong, as opposed to ff10, but the main character doesnt grow much....

Thats not to say tidus doesnt poor growth, i havent played it in a very long time, and will make no comment on that.

Also, im sorry for the typos, my right mouse button isnt working in firefox(it stops bringing up the menus when i right click in a text box), so i cant use spellcheck

[SilvasRuin]

Tidus has a fair amount of character growth, but a lot of it is very subtle.  At least the impression I get is that he is a very good liar.  Considering he wasn't at all surprised about his ultimate fate, I doubt he was as naive as he acted, and it's clear he purposely hid what was going to happen from the others.  He went from being a whiny brat to being a careful (albeit still selfish) manipulator.  At least he did get over his daddy issues, so some of the development is definitely of the positive sort.

Also I thought the writing with Tidus' parents was fantastic.  You first get Tidus' perspective which suggested Jecht was a heartless bastard and his mother died from grief.  The gradual revelation of the truth was stunning.  It seemed pretty bold to me as well as I'm still unaware of any other stories that have had the mother being the worthless of the two parents.  It's even eerie considering that to forgive his father, Tidus probably had to come to the damning realization that his mother was the one at fault.  It's no wonder he held that grudge for so long.  I would never want to admit such a thing about my mother either.