Final Fantasy XII

[SeijiSensei]

Oh, right, Vaan; I forget about him. I hardly ever have him as my on-screen avatar. Usually I pick one of the girls. I like putting Penelo out front because her (English) VA is quite "peppy" during battles, though I do like having Fran from time to time for the visual rewards. I don't use Ashe as my primary very often, though. I find her costume with the push-up bra a bit hard to take. Plus she just looks too much like a Yuna retread. Since Yuna's one of my favorite FF heroines, I tend to avoid Ashe. (Not to mention that her VA sounds like she's engaged in some strange deep-breathing practice all the time.)

[Demongod86]

Ashe is a bad BAD Yuna imitation. End of story.

So far, Yuna+Tifa = win. Yuna+Tifa yuri=GG uberwin. Too bad we'll never see that

I don't see FF12's story "depth". There is no depth by not telling us anything.

[WanderingKnight]

Necroposting to point out a very interesting article I found the other day:

So when the final boss is defeated and the last Mark hunted, I will at last have to bid farewell to an era. Several eras, in fact. FFXII isn't just the final Fantasy of the PlayStation 2 generation, nor is it merely the last creation of director-slash-genius Yasumi Matsuno, at least until such a time as he emerges from hiding and creates something new; FFXII is, more importantly, the final creation of the old Square, the Square that stood alone before it collapsed under the weight of its own ambitions and found itself sucked into Enix's devouring maw. The Square that initiated the creation of FFXII was a company that prized creativity and innovation. That Square was a far cry from today's incarnation, that flaccid appendage of Enix whose sole purpose is to rake in gobs of cash by slapping the Final Fantasy name on anything and everything.

Full article here.

I know, I know, it's trendy to hate FFXII, and those of us who like it aren't "true" FF fans, even when we've followed the series for years, but what the heck.

[kujoe]

Interesting article, and a quote well chosen.

Now, I like FFVII myself, while FFVIII and FFX a whole lot less, but even so I chuckled at the zippers and hairspray comment, even though this has more to do with Nomura's character designs than anything else. But the part from the article that I find most interesting is the speculation about Matsuno's departure from SE (what?!) in relation to the shaping of the plot of FFXII.

Maybe more concrete clues to his departure can be found by reading between the lines of the FFXII Scenario Ultimania book, which reportedly includes info on Matsuno's original conceptual treatments for the game. In his vision, FFXII would have had more in common with his PlayStation magnum opus Vagrant Story? -- a dark tale with a mature main character seeking to unmake the betrayal that destroyed his life: Basch.

The gulf between this alternate reality of FFXII and what we were actually given, the one starring plucky teenaged protagonist Vaan, suggests that Matsuno's departure had more to do with an auteur unwilling to compromise his creation than it did with panic attacks.

If that's actually true (i.e., Matsuno leaving due to creative conflicts) then holy shit. The original premise sounds a whole lot better, at the very least on paper. FF with Vagrant Story influences?! What the hell SE?! The things that could have been! Enough with the zippers and the hairspray!

[DragoonKain3]

Considering Matsuno did the Ogre Battle series, where everything isn't so 'quite right with the world', I wouldn't have been surprised if it was changed. Even FF Tactics is typically darker than your average Square fare, and if Vagrant Story was as well (I dunno, I despise Action RPGs with a passion so I haven't played it), then I wouldn't really be surprised if FF12 was supposed to be darker as well. Goodness knows, Matsuno has a habit of killing off important characters, and I can only imagine the drama would arise if say Ashe or Balthier actually kicked the bucket.

Of course, we don't have any hard proof to say that Matsuno left not because of health issues, so its only speculation really.


That's not to say I have anything against Kawazu (the person who took over Matsuno), as I bet the battle system owes the biggest part to him. He might not be the best storyteller, but hot damn, he knows how to make creative and fun battle systems. God knows that the SaGa series is just behind Persona for my favourite long running series of all time, and FF12 my favourite FF behind 4 and 5, and only behind those two because of nostalgia reasons.


EDIT: If there's one failing of FF12, it would be that in the end characters are basically more or less the same as each other. I heard that the JP only updated version fixes this, but alas, I can't read moonrunes.

[WanderingKnight]

Goodness knows, Matsuno has a habit of killing off important characters, and I can only imagine the drama would arise if say Ashe or Balthier actually kicked the bucket.

Umm... Aeris?

[rg4619]

But the part from the article that I find most interesting is the speculation about Matsuno's departure from SE (what?!) in relation to the shaping of the plot of FFXII.

I don't think it's reasonable conjecture. After all, the team had already locked down the plot's direction (which he compared to a mainstream blockbuster like Gladiator rather than his previous Square releases) long before Matsuno left, so they obviously came to a compromise early on.

The main sentiment coming from FFXII staffers (who happen to be Matsuno loyalists. One even transferred to FFT A2 to help ensure a quality product that lives up to other Ivalice titles) is that the team was crushed by the weight of modern game development. They hired huge numbers of people too early, and struggled to move up to speed until the situation got out of hand. I'd be very surprised if these issues had nothing to do with Matsuno's departure, especially when the game's true status was a mystery even to Square Enix management.

[MikeyGrey]

sorry to bring such an old thread back but could someone please tell me which weapon types are good for which character? im talking endgame stats. i had a pretty good setup way back when i last played it but i cannot refer to that anymore coz i dont have a ps2 atm. i feel like playing it again & ive loaded a custom savegame file w/ all stuff in inventory but all i can recall is that balthier is best with 2-hander coz of high str (and maybe vaan is fastest so katana?)

[Leo Keichi]

It's been a while since I played FFXII so I don't remember well either. But I'm pretty sure there's not much of a difference between the characters, so I just put the same weapon for everybody, some that was in one of the corners of the sphere grid (or whatever the name the weapons board had in XII).

But actually I also remember giving long-range weapons to two characters, so that I could switch the party members whenever there was a flying monster.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by MikeyGrey

sorry to bring such an old thread back but could someone please tell me which weapon types are good for which character? im talking endgame stats. i had a pretty good setup way back when i last played it but i cannot refer to that anymore coz i dont have a ps2 atm. i feel like playing it again & ive loaded a custom savegame file w/ all stuff in inventory but all i can recall is that balthier is best with 2-hander coz of high str (and maybe vaan is fastest so katana?)

The details are fuzzy now but, as Leo Keichi said, the base-stat differences between the characters are so minimal that there this is essentially not much difference between them.

That said, what weapons you give each character does depend to a certain extent on his or her intended party role. If I remember correctly, a katana's damage is modified by the character's magic stat. That makes it an intuitive melee-weapon choice for a character wearing mage armour that boosts spell-casting stats. I rarely used a katana, but whenever I did, I used it with Fran, who is typically set up as a red mage/fighter-mage in my game.

Daggers, bows and ninja swords deal damage that is modified by a character's speed stat, making them natural weapon choices for leather-armour equipped characters, who typically fulfil damage-dealing or rogue-like roles. My Vaan typically used either a dagger or a ninja sword.

"Standard" weapons like swords are best given to heavy-armour equipped characters with high strength and attack stats, as those are the numbers that affect the damage dished out by these weapons. My "tank" characters were typically either Basch or Ashe, both of whom usually used swords and shields.

For more in-depth information about weapon/armour types, you can look up FAQs. Plenty of them floating around in the Internet, especially at GamesFAQ.

[C.A.]

Katanas are made for Ashe, who has the highest magic stat, she makes the best out of Masamune.

Other than Masamune which has insane combo rate even though not the highest damage, every other character should just carry Ultima Weapon, Ragnarok, Excalibur, Tournesoul or something with around 100+ attack, they will all do 9999 damage anyway.

[MikeyGrey]

thx a lot guys; appreciate the help