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by Lizard_King 01/29/2007, 12:18am PST |
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FFXII is a mixed bag overall of fun for the JRPG fan/masochist. It remains a good game but has a few issues...
1. Minigames: Who thinks fishing is fun? Who thinks fishing + Kings Quest puzzle solving is fun? What the fuck is this garbage? I'm sure there are ways to make fishing entertaining, but the button combo frenzy isn't it. Perhaps it is time that Square hire people who make fun minigames, I'm sure Nintendo could spare them. Of the non gb FF's I have played (9,10,X2,12), the minigames have always been tolerable at best, if not flat out terrible.
2. Bazaar system + loot: Why is loot a good idea, as countless reviews imply? None of FF's successful mechanics are based on realism, and certainly in a game where enemies are expected to waft into mist upon death it is not much of a stretch to have them become money, or, I don't know, something useful. Instead, you're expected to accumulate large amounts of useless crap, much of which can only be attained in a specific steal, poach, or high level chain from a certain enemy. Then pawning all of that crap in return for more crap with no delineated goals or in-game tracker of what you've turned in so far or what = what. So it takes the regular workload of obtaining high level equipment in FF and makes it exponentially more frustrating and irrational. Coupled with the Fun New Random Chance chests for everything, you have a recipe for pissing off completists and more casual players alike. Thanks guys!
3. Hunt system: The combination of difficult to figure factors for monsters to appear with the central role completely random odds is fatal. Unless this is some odd scheme to finally marginalize the Gamefaqqers who have been ruining FF for years by allowing normal people to beat the games, it is a complete wash in the higher level hunts. There is a difference between making something challenging and making something a complete fucking waste of time. Any of the hunts in the waterway and any of the weather-dependent hunts certainly fall in that latter category.
There are plenty more problems, but these are the ones that persuaded me to quit fucking around and beat the game already and shelve it for good. The plot is worthless, as are the characters, but I assume that as a given with FF and not really a problem. I do think it's time they give up the idea of children as main characters unless they either fit it into the game logic somehow a la ender's game or have you grow up during the story, because it adds nothing but an unfortunate layer of surrealism to every conversation in the game. Then again, I suppose that would be incompatible with the mandatory pedophilia quota in every JRPG, so whatever.
The positive parts of the game mostly have to do with the automation of combat. It's genius, for the most part, to the point where you can literally set up certain fights to continue indefinitely grinding without you touching the controller at all. It certainly beats forcing the player to endless run around circles tapping x, although one has to hope that grinding could be phased out more elegantly. |
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