So glad this game is being appreciated more now that The Zodiac Age is out and new fans are discovering it. I only ever met one other person who actually liked it back then, it felt like everyone thought it was the worst FF game mostly because the battle system was so different than previous entries (and also cuz of Vaan lol)
Not my least favorite FF, but I dislike FF12 not because of the battle system or even Vaan (though he sucks), it's because the story just loses steam halfway through. A third of the way in, half your cast is irrelevant, and once you're tasked to going to Archades you're just going on long walks to nowhere in spaces that all look the same but with a different color palette. Had great ideas but implemented poorly.
I think 12 is where the combat systems went downhill tbh. Everything before felt like final fantasy, since 12 they diverdged and have been trying to please everyone, instead of the actual die hard fans of the series. They went to hard on the action aspect, every new game getting more and more action-ee, and less final fantasy...ee. Not saying ff12 was action combat, but it was the turning point at the very least.
for me the best thing about this FF is that the bosses can actually be inflicted with debuff. yes it can make a boss fight become easier but i like the fact that when a bosses can be debuff means a wide array of strategies can be employed instead of just brute forcing our way or over levelling
@@johnnyshins511 i remember 13. one of female character skills has increased % for instant kill per different debuff applied on enemies but its kinda sad that the best part of 13 came so late
@@izzuddinyusof1093 yeah, that was a hidden effect of debuffs is that the more there are on an enemy, the higher likelihood that subsequent ones would succeed. Vanille's Death spell is technically a debuff so...
I remember when Zodiac came out and all these articles came out saying "12 was ahead of its time" I mean they were right but having to defend this game for a decade was rough.
Big same. I remember getting scoffed at by other FF fans whenever I told then 12 was my favorite back in the day. It was kind of exhausting. I am glad the game has gotten better reception as time as gone on for sure though.
@@talemsplash Yeah, what was up with that? I get that the gameplay wasn't exactly the same, but it was obvious it was suppose to be an evolution of the ATB system. It reminded me of FF8 or 10-2 with the difference being you could walk around during combat.
@@talemsplash I agree, my friend didn't like it, but it was because he didn't know how to take advantage of the gambit system. after he learned it, become a rabid fan like me.
This game was probably my most clocked hours in an FF game (no MMOs yet) and that was directly tied to the difficulty. Some parts of the (vanilla PS2) game were so tough for my personal habits....that I had to super grind and learn about gear locations, etc. to the point where I just decided to do all the hunts/espers and side quests to make my dedication worth it. But then the super bosses were a whole other boat to sink, especially with ridiculous prep like farming Yagyu Darkblades from a 3% Bombshell drop in the mines lol
yea it was hunting down the trophy rare game for me, on ps2 i just remember oh yay thanks for these underleveled weapons game lol (fourtunatly it was changed in zodiac)
1000 times this. There's only one glaring flaw in this game and its the shoehorned in white-Aladdin who really has nothing to do with anything going on in the game on any real, meaningful level.
Can't agree more. Not making Basch the lead, I can agree with as he's rather aged and quite serious, Balthier was basically the perfect lead. His connection to the story, coupled with his charm and personality, made him the best character in my opinion.
@@Neverfate You're insulting Aladdin by comparing him to Vaan. Vaan has only his Ivalice-style cosplay, AND NOTHING ELSE! He's basically the underage party member of the group like Relm, Yuffie, Selphie etc, except he has nothing to redeem himself.
@@AbRas644 Balthier, is the leading man xD. But really, making vaan the main character makes sense, besides he lack of charisma, his story is the one wich link the stories of the other characters Ps: Balthier is my favorite
Vaan was never the main character, FF12 has an ensemble cast but the story is told through Vaan's perspective since he's pretty much as clueless to what's going on in the world as the players are in the beginning. Plus he played an important role in Ashe's character development.
Love this game to date. Loved since the first release back in 2006. Best battle system ever created which suited this game really well. Definitely the most underrated FF and without a reason most hated FF game. It makes me happy to see how many people nowadays are appreciating it still and there are still new people coming.
Can we talk about how underrated 12 is, yeah the combat is definitely a love or hate kinda deal, but I don’t know if it’s just me but feel it story and characters can easily stand on there own along side other games like 14, 8 and maybe even 7 and 10.
This is my favorite PS2 FF title! Once you understood how the License Board and Gambit System work, the gameplay becomes fun. I owned the game before the Zodiac Age came out, so I was already creating jobs for different characters, and I used graph paper to think up of each job and what to unlock. I avoided unlocking things that "shouldn't" for that class, and unlocked different things according to level. It added more strategy to the game and having the characters taking on jobs, rather than unlocking everything, made the battles WAY more easy! I wish they implemented this system for FF13, rather than the boring mess that it released with. I mean, hitting one button repeatedly while the characters did their own thing? At least with FF12, you could choose the Gambits to tell your characters how to act when they're not the active character!
My favorite FF game hands down! On my third playthrough right now, first time playing zodiac age. The game holds up very well, I've always loved the music, the world, the hunts, the looting, and the combat works great.
My favorite game in the series, gonna sit back and enjoy this Edit: had no idea it was the localization team that added the flowery language into the game…can’t believe Square approved it smh
I’ve always really loved XII, the world is HUGE and there is SOOOOOO much that you can do. And also, THE SOUNDTRACK IS ONE OF THE BEST IN GAMING HISTORY.
The gambit system was pure genuis. I mean, there's a trick in the Stillshrine of Miriam to get that one rare monster to come out which spawns other monsters, and you can literally just leave the controller there for a few hours and your characters will do all the work, thanks to the right gambits.
I have long wanted SE to make an MMO named "Ivalice Online" I've even came up with some ideas for it: - instead of just creating a standard character you create a Clan and then create the members in it via the different tactics/XII races, each race can only be certain jobs but when you want to change jobs you go back to your clan hall and swap members all while staying logged in. - bring in all 56 jobs from FFTA2 but have a lot of them basically be the same job but played differently depending on your race (kind of like WoW specs) where for example Beastmaster and Animaler are echoes of each other, warrior/beserker/revenger, templar/paladin, agent/flintlock/cannoneer etc
@@shadenox8164 Now that you've reminded me of this 3 year old comment, I find it funny that WoW's war-bands are basically the idea I listed here for Klans.
I remember playing this game when I was in middle school and just couldn't understand the politics of the game: I remember calling this game "beautifully boring" back then. but nowadays, I deeply miss the game's story and theme.
Ugh, same, especially since english isn't my mother tongue.. That's why I bought The Zodiac Age on PC, and goddamn I fell in love with the lore/story/politics of this game.
Final Fantasy XII in my opinion has such an amazing and rich lore. Even with the faults that is Vann's character, it still excels in its story. I feel that they need to make more Final Fantasy in this style and setting. I had not felt this kind of experience of Final Fantasy since FFIX. I love this game!
those armor designs on those knights and the Viera use to blow my mind.. amazing design and art.. is there an Easy Mode in FF12 remake?? i'd like to try it again
@@바보Queen Yeah they made the bosses easier due to the necessity of rebalancing the game because you have completely different stats by using the zodiac job system in comparison to the vanilla one. It really was way easier than the OG FFXII.
One of the reason I got really into to this game! It's so immersive because of that degree of attention to detail that every region have an accent. That's why I see XIII and XV still voice acting so behind. XII best final fantasy ever.
one of the hardest ff games for me. but thankfully you get trial mode so you can get ribbons and wyrmhero blades, and the strongest bow in the game. and not to mention the reverse command to make it easier in this game
Correction: 4th mainline FF. This was released after XI as well, and yes, XI IS a mainline FF, despite what the fans think. It bears a mainline number, and is a mainline game, regardless of it being an mmo.
@@ilikestuff9250 You'd be surprised at the ridiculous numbers of people who claimed II wasn't a mainline game back in its heyday, despite it being designated with a mainline number. The only reason that turned around and now it's more commonly deemed a mainline game is because of the massive success of 14's turn around. Hell, there are people who don't consider Dragon Quest 11 a mainline DQ game because it's an MMO. People are dumb as fucking rocks.
So Vann and Penelo were just marketing decisions and added last? Boy does that show in the game lmao. I would have loved to see the center of the story on a character that actually mattered, as originally intended
The thing is, to me, the game is an ensemble piece, not the narrative of a single character. Each of the six members of the party had a story and goals, and it was their joining together that changed things.
@@Valkyrou Their goal was simple; become sky pirates. But they also served quite well as the uniformed audience characters. All the other four would know exactly how the world worked, but it was through small explanations to these two that the player was introduced to things as well.
This game is so far ahead of its time. A multiplayer game designed to be a single player game. I like how the Gambit system imprint the team members with certain behaviour to behave less AI, more organic like human.
In my opinion one of the top 5 games in the franchise, and one of the best in the genre overall. It has its flaws, as does everything, but it's so unique, fleshed out and gorgeous that it makes up for its flaws and more. Very underrated ost as well. That music is beautiful and so few people talk about it.
“Vaan and Penelo were the final two members of the main cast of characters to be added, and had to adjust the story to fit with it”, yea it definitely feels like that
I have the special edition with the DVD for my PS2 and Everytime I try and play it, I'm stuck on the sirens and being chased by guards going through the maze like map to get to the judge. I need to get good
12, 10, and 8 were always my favorites and I spent most of my childhood defending them on a hill I was quite willing to die on. Haha. 12 is till one of the only FF games I was determined to complete to 100 percent as a kid, and almost did so. But Yiazmat still lurks in Ivalice un-slain. Maybe one day I'll dig out my ps2 and finish it off.
While the gambit system didn't sit with me personally, I do really like what it tried to do: make you the team manager. I'd like to see it return with a few tweaks, but maybe not in Final Fantasy. I also had no idea Vaan and Penelo were shoehorned, that makes SO much sense. For most of the game I just kept wondering why they were even there.....
I'm not gonna lie, but Sakaguchi admitting on a public forum that he didn't play the rest of the game because of one person leaving was a shitty thing to do. There are more than one person on a development team, sometimes going up to the hundreds, and to dismiss their hard work and undeniably long hours, dealing with crunch and sleeping at the office, it's such a demeaning statement to the entire team to say something like that. Sure, don't play the game because your friend left the team if you don't want to, but don't be so public and upfront about it. If I were a developer and my company's producer admitted to not caring about my and my team's work, I wouldn't wanna work for him, even if he was the father of FF. I would go somewhere my skills and my contributions to the company were appreciated. It's especially more egregious given the fact that the game turned out to be amazing. It's one of the best in the series, despite the old FF guard fanbase shitting on it for being so different. Not only did he publicly dismiss his employers' work but also lost the right to critic the game itself since he didn't bother to keep playing and see everything the game had to offer. I lost some serious respect for the guy.
One more huge change they made between versions is that they added an actual mana bar where previously characters would use up their quickening charges for any and all magic casting. This alone made the game infinitely more enjoyable. They also removed the incredibly dumb zodiac spear "sidequest" where you basically couldn't loot any chests or risk arbitrarily locking yourself out of getting the best weapon in the game. Overall the difference between the original release and the remastered/patched/zodiac version is ENORMOUS. Imo it went from a bad game to a great game.
This FF got me into the franchise. I'm an old fart but I lacked the patience for old school RPGS, so the more real time turn based approach held my interest. A great game to just explore in...it would have been perfect if they made Basch the lead and not screwed the pooch on the last quarter of the game.
I think my least favorite thing about ff12 is how they implemented summons, especially in zodiac age. Historically, when you used a summon you get a big flashy cinematic that did a very powerful effect. In ff12 however, most of the time the capability of what the summon can do is much less than what one of your party can do let alone the 2 that are removed, and in the original version the big flashy cinematic move was actually locked and hidden behind some incredibly arbitrary list of requirements that outside of looking it up i don't see how anyone could use them for instance, zodiark required your character to be inflicted with petrify, ultima required both it and the summoner to be in critical hp, and exodus required itself to be immobilized before they would use their ultimate abilities. Then with quickenings, i hated how quickly they fell off as being useful. I use them a lot in the early game to cheese out some fights like the wyvern lord or to finish off some hunts like both black and white puddings. Otherwise, their animations take way too long for the amount of damage they deal when you could have dealt that much at least, but most likely more, during the time the animations took up. The only good thing at that point is that it's 'safe' damage and that you really don't have anything better to spend mist charges on
I remember back when dad got me this game, i asked him for final fantasy x-2 but what i said was i wanted final fantasy twelve not ten two sooo dad went and got me final fantasy XII when i saw the game disc i felt sooo disappointed i think i even cried cause that wasn't the game i wanted, 2 hours of crying later i decided to start up my ps2 and give the game a try (still rather salty i got XII instead of X-2) i immediately hated the game i also hated a lot of its mechanics so i stopped playing it. Around 3 months later i had finished X and i was really pumped to keep playing FF in that moment i decided to re play XII and this time around i actually started to enjoy this game plus i sat around to study the battle system and new mechanics and man did i jumped some nights playing XII i got immersed, i ended up loving XII after that and to this day i freaking LOVE IT! 🤣❤ sorry for the long story 💀🌌
Not a fan of 12, bit it was definitely a game of potential. When I first came across the battle system, I immediately reference it to 11. I enjoyed the tutorial, but once they killed the kid and switched over to Vaan, It was.. meh. Would of prefer if Basch or Ashe we're the main focus of the game.
Youthful protagonist Dashing Rogue with Awesome sidekick Princess rebelling against authority An Empire causing trouble. Political turmoil Awesome airship battles Star Wars it is then
@@noyoucantnoicantnowecantsostop back in the day a large portion of FF fans considered 12 to be the worst game in the franchise. That's probably why they're referring to it as underrated
Here's one fact that gets overlooked. A question first though, what is the biggest issue with any game that has a party system where your companions are AI controlled? It's that they AI is usually dumb as a rock and at best is OK, right? The overlooked fact is FF12 solved this problem, solved it so well that it became a criticism, because with the gambit system you can program the AI to play better than you can and can just let the AI fight a lot of the battles on auto pilot. But really think about that, the gambit system works so well that you can program it to be better than you for %90 of time. Think about how good this would've worked in other games, no more cursing your dumb AI teammate for not healing at the obvious time, for not using an antidote when poisoned or not doing their super attacks for no good reason. This system should've been used in every game with AI controlled companions/party members.
People get annoyed that the game "plays itself" but you can just turn the gambits off. However, why is it a bad thing that your party actually helps you in battle instead of running off doing whatever the heck they want? You can set them up in a way that fits your playstyle, or uses different strategies depending on the boss fight. I'm often switching them around mid-battle. It's such a great tool, and would be useful in other games as you said.
The gambit is a good feature with this kind of battle system. It distracts from the fact that the battle system no longer sticks to the classic ff turn-based system.
One notable thing about XII is that, when you step back and see everyone's plans and plots, none of them are really the "enemy" of the game. Unlike the previous ones (Sin, Kuja, Ultimecia etc.) the enemies of the party of six all had their own agendas, most of which were self-serving and were only really villains in what they did. The real enemy was the Occuria, who were trying to manipulate the entirety of Ivalice and the one who went rogue, Venat, managed to manipulate events to destroy the items the other Occuria would use to control the people of Ivalice. (That's a bit of a mouthful)
Even they weren't villains. They only thought of themselves as gods because of all their power. But in the end the actions that took place showed that they were not as omnipotent as they thought.
Well, the Occuria were just inhuman forces that thought what they were doing was just and justifiable, but Vayne was undeniably doing everything he did for his own aspirations of power. Ultimately, FFXII is a story about being used. Everyone was being used by someone else, sometimes to each other. But being manipulated into doing something bad doesn’t necessarily exonerate you from doing the bad thing.
@@wohdinhel They perceived their sole purpose to be shepherds of civilization, and that means to either control the strongest power of that civilization by gifting him items to maintain that hold, or to wipe out the top of the civilization if it grew too strong, like with the angels from ff12 revenant wings They probably see the end outcome of an uncontrolled society and civilization as self destructive and result in the deaths of all life and the world.
The localization team did an incredible job. The homogeneous aspect of the Japanese version does make it much more dry in comparison with the diversity added into the localized English version. If only we had more people willing to go that deep with localizations these days. The FFXIV team actually does an amazing incredible job as well.
@Daniel Long Nope, it's just logical to have different accent in a JRPG with a big world (with different countries, race, culture, etc) like FFXII. It's boring to have always the same USA English accent. It's illogical that this person from this country have the same accent than the other person from not the same country. Dragon Quest XI localization team have done the same thing, and it's so good.
