so, .. is squall the biggest ball bag in the final fantasy series?

noodler · 31-05-2011 12:59pm

12's gameplay for me was its strong point including the hunts etc - excellent boss fights.

The story and characters were pants. The Judges were really cool characters which went very underdeveloped.

Some parts of the FF12 world were also incredibly tedious to explore.

Retr0gamer · 31-05-2011 1:04pm

I was completely different, found the whole battle system tedious as was the exploring, mostly to do with the battle system. The boss battles were where the battle system worked but that's it. Mostly it was just a massive boss throwing out loads of status effects but there was a few that did different things. Vaan and Penelo were te only weak point in characters for me. They were totally superfluous.

d'Oracle · 31-05-2011 2:21pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Thought FF12 had a good story until the end when it was abviously rushed and was a total anticlimax. FF12 has lots of problems but the story isn't one of them for me.

I disagree.
Whole-bleedin-heartedly.

The story was a vehicle for locations.
And the charachters were woeful. I actually stopped caring by the end.
I had no Idea what the point of the lead charachter was.
Or that Panelo girl.

And herself in charge, she was just useless. "I'll do this now" "right, now that has happened, I'll do that." The occasional whinge about something and we are off again. Like all of Vaynes cunning twists you could see coming a mile off. It would be harder to predict when the next DART is.

Every damn quest nearly seemed to end in one anyway.

I also disagree with noodler, the gameplay was absolutely awful. In fact, the game actively tried to STOP you playing the game. Gambits my johnson. The boss fights were decent, but you basically had to have teh game play itself for you to beat some of them.

And the charachter progression....jeebus, you could concievably make them all the same!

The only really decent thing was the location design.

d'Oracle · 31-05-2011 2:22pm

Actually while I'm at it, Most of the Arch-Villains are bigger sacks than Squall.

noodler · 31-05-2011 2:30pm

d'Oracle wrote: »

I also disagree with noodler, the gameplay was absolutely awful. In fact, the game actively tried to STOP you playing the game. Gambits my johnson. The boss fights were decent, but you basically had to have teh game play itself for you to beat some of them.
.

The boss fights were a great challenge - managed to nearly all and never used gambits for them.

Your point about the gameplay is noted - I wouldn't personally use Gambits for any enemies I thought were an actual threat though.

I could always just run past enemies if they were no longer a threat / offered any useful reward rather than enter a loading screen and be forced to give a 10HP mushroom the same attention I would a 500,000HP dinosaur. Being able to simply run past enemies I didn't want to stop and fight (or have the automatic gambits kill them as I ran past - whichever came first) was great for me.

Didn't like the Quickenings though.

d'Oracle · 31-05-2011 2:36pm

noodler wrote: »

The boss fights were a great challenge - managed to nearly all and never used gambits for them.

Fair do's.
Specially that Cu Chullainn.

ancapailldorcha · 14-07-2011 10:07pm

On the whole, I liked XII, never got the point of Vaan though. After you meet Balthier and Fran he might as well have been completely absent. I liked the ideas Square tried to implement with XII and it was such a shame to see the PS2 unable to keep up (Spell queueing for example).

Overall, Vaan was just as pointless as Luneth in III but at least there was no character development in III whatsoever.

Raze_them_all · 15-07-2011 12:56am

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

On the whole, I liked XII, never got the point of Vaan though. After you meet Balthier and Fran he might as well have been completely absent. I liked the ideas Square tried to implement with XII and it was such a shame to see the PS2 unable to keep up (Spell queueing for example).

Overall, Vaan was just as pointless as Luneth in III but at least there was no character development in III whatsoever.

Wasn't there talk that Vaan was just stuck in there and Balthier was supposedly going to be the main guy?

All Final Fantasy games have there twats and stupid points. I will say this though FF8 was my first FF and the visuals blew my fecking mind back then!

Also I never understood how people had trouble with ruby weapon in 7. He was a piece of piss.

Retr0gamer · 15-07-2011 12:15pm

There's rumours that the addition of Vaan and interference from the big wigs in Square to make FFXII more appealing to youths was the reason Matsuno left the project. Balthier was supposed to be the lead and he pretty much is going by how little Vaan contributes to the story.

carbonkid · 15-07-2011 1:32pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's rumours that the addition of Vaan and interference from the big wigs in Square to make FFXII more appealing to youths was the reason Matsuno left the project. Balthier was supposed to be the lead and he pretty much is going by how little Vaan contributes to the story.

That explains alot. I thought vaan was meant to be an empty void so you can become the character...FF experimenting with how some western rpgs work. What your saying makes more sense though.

Mario007 · 17-07-2011 1:32pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's rumours that the addition of Vaan and interference from the big wigs in Square to make FFXII more appealing to youths was the reason Matsuno left the project. Balthier was supposed to be the lead and he pretty much is going by how little Vaan contributes to the story.

I've read that Bash was meant to be the lead but they changed it in the end because they looked at Vagrant Story which also had a strong macho leader and didn't want to repeat that again.

TO be honest Vaan is great at the start of the game, your typical protagoinist and you feel for him. He disappears completely after you save Ashe. Up until then he's good. After that he gets that one scene with Ashe where he shows development and that's it. Having said that I've played the sequel to 12 and there he really shines. It shows that when a story is written with him in mind he can be quite a good character.

d'Oracle · 19-07-2011 10:58am

Mario007 wrote: »

TO be honest Vaan is great at the start of the game, your typical protagoinist and you feel for him. He disappears completely after you save Ashe. Up until then he's good. After that he gets that one scene with Ashe where he shows development and that's it. Having said that I've played the sequel to 12 and there he really shines. It shows that when a story is written with him in mind he can be quite a good character.

I wanted to reach into the telly and slap his bucky little girl-boy mouth everytime he said or did anything. He was Tidus without the back-story or the sex drive.

Mario007 · 19-07-2011 6:34pm

d'Oracle wrote: »

I wanted to reach into the telly and slap his bucky little girl-boy mouth everytime he said or did anything. He was Tidus without the back-story or the sex drive.

as i've said you want him to redeem himself i'd advice picking up the sequel for the DS. There he more resembles a mix between Zidane and Sora (from KH series) and actually becomes the centre protagonist.

Having said that I too hated him in 12 (the only ff protagonist which i hated to date)

d'Oracle · 20-07-2011 10:36am

Thanks but those bubblegum-pop sequels were not my bag.

And FF12 basically killed the series dead for me.

FortuneChip · 20-07-2011 11:07am

I liked Squall, but that's probably because he existed in my "Too Cool To Care" teen years.
I'm sure in retrospect he's an arse.
Vaan was useless. Balthier would have been a more ideal lead, and probably one of the more unique ones to date. He was charming, and a natural leader, but had some demons too.

I liked Tidus. He was certainly childish and all the qualities that go with it, but he had enthusiasm to spare and didn't just sulk his way through the game. Plus, he was dealing with quiet a bit; so that guy that's killing this world you've never been to before, that's your dad, say "hi"

MitchKoobski · 20-07-2011 11:16am

While I do kinda like Tidus, I find him to be a bigger eejit than Squall (I'm not using the term ballbag....). Vaan was just pointless. After the first hour or two, he does nothing! I didn't think it was possible to make every other main character more likeable than your lead character.

Squall, while a feckin depressing emo, did jump off a building, kill a soldier, steal a car, ram into the gate while nearly knocking everyone over, and gave a great speech trying to rally everyone. And he has a gunblade.

d'Oracle · 20-07-2011 11:29am

Vaan, I mean, say what you like about the tenents of being an standoff emo douche, but at least its personality.

Mario007 · 20-07-2011 8:17pm

d'Oracle wrote: »

Thanks but those bubblegum-pop sequels were not my bag.

And FF12 basically killed the series dead for me.

Actually only the sequel to 10 was a teeny J-pop sort of a game

Revenant Wings (which the sequal for 12) is a srpg for the ds. it starts off a bit slow, kinda like you expect in an ff game, doing some minor little thing when you realize that there's a bigger picture and you're off to save the world :P

i have to say i too was disappointed with 12 mainly because of how disconnected you feel with the affairs of the Ivalice. I liked 13, though, which many people didint, so...

Raze_them_all · 20-07-2011 8:20pm

Mario007 wrote: »

Actually only the sequel to 10 was a teeny J-pop sort of a game Revenant Wings (which the sequal for 12) is a srpg for the ds. it starts off a bit slow, kinda like you expect in an ff game, doing some minor little thing when you realize that there's a bigger picture and you're off to save the world :P

i have to say i too was disappointed with 12 mainly because of how disconnected you feel with the affairs of the Ivalice. I liked 13, though, which many people didint, so...

so you clearly know nothing about games!!

13 was retarded.

DHYNZY · 20-07-2011 8:24pm

MitchKoobski wrote: »

he has a gunblade.[\b]

this is why I have only fond memories of Squall!

MitchKoobski · 20-07-2011 8:38pm

Raze_them_all wrote: »

so you clearly know nothing about games!!

13 was retarded.

No he clearly has a different opinion than you and others about certain games.

I also enjoyed FF XIII. BARTHANDALAUS FTW!!

Retr0gamer · 20-07-2011 8:38pm

Revenant Wings felt like RTS for babies.

ancapailldorcha · 20-07-2011 9:16pm

Renevant wings? Was that actually any good. It looks so kiddie I just couldn't buy it when I saw it at Gamestop. I'm sticking with Vaan as my choice though I have yet to play VIII.

Mario007 · 20-07-2011 9:31pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Revenant Wings felt like RTS for babies.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Renevant wings? Was that actually any good. It looks so kiddie I just couldn't buy it when I saw it at Gamestop. I'm sticking with Vaan as my choice though I have yet to play VIII.

Revenant Wings was nice enough. As Retr0 says the gameplay was kinda easy and you could get through the game without a single game over but I felt the story was pretty nice. The character had actually some development (as opposed to 12 with the exclusion of Balthier) and it was pretty long as well with lots of optional stuff too. The in game graphics aren't anything that great, but the CGI make up for it.

Btw back on topic, I never really got why people disliked Squall so much but loved Cloud (especially after AC).

ancapailldorcha · 20-07-2011 9:49pm

Yep, Cloud is the sh!t. I'd have to say he and Lightning are my favourite of the protagonists.

Retr0gamer · 20-07-2011 9:56pm

Mario007 wrote: »

Btw back on topic, I never really got why people disliked Squall so much but loved Cloud (especially after AC).

Cloud was decent in FFVII. Advent Children never happened. He wasn't as much of a dick as Squall and never acted like a complete cock end. He's a lot different in the japanese version as well, closer to the Cloud in Crisis Core. Squall is just badly written and a dick.

RedXIV · 21-07-2011 9:06am

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Cloud was decent in FFVII. Advent Children never happened. He wasn't as much of a dick as Squall and never acted like a complete cock end. He's a lot different in the japanese version as well, closer to the Cloud in Crisis Core. Squall is just badly written and a dick.

So we're agreed? Zidane is the best protagonist from the PSX era?

Mario007 · 21-07-2011 11:40am

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Cloud was decent in FFVII. Advent Children never happened. He wasn't as much of a dick as Squall and never acted like a complete cock end. He's a lot different in the japanese version as well, closer to the Cloud in Crisis Core. Squall is just badly written and a dick.

True, he is quite different in FFVII then AC. Still though to me, Squall seems like Cloud done kinda over the top. I liked Squall's development, even though it was a bit forced with Rinoa being unconscious and all. All in all I didn't mind Squall too much actually, him being a dick was actually funny and interesting to watch.

With regards to AC, I don't if you've seen the Complete version of it. It has much better pacing and it's much more enjoyable.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Yep, Cloud is the sh!t. I'd have to say he and Lightning are my favourite of the protagonists.

I like Lightning as well, though she seems to remind me more of Squall then Cloud.

noodler · 21-07-2011 11:44am

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Cloud was decent in FFVII. Advent Children never happened. He wasn't as much of a dick as Squall and never acted like a complete cock end. He's a lot different in the japanese version as well, closer to the Cloud in Crisis Core. Squall is just badly written and a dick.

I liked Cloud (unsuprisingly).

He was a dick at he start but it wasn't some adolescent thing like with Squall - the line that will always sum up Cloud's dickiness for me at the start was this

Barrett: "The Planet is dieing Cloud!"

Cloud: "Not my problem.."

His back story was incredibly interesting (are maybe only smei-interesting but really well done). The whole Kalm flashabck on disc one and the eventual reveal in Disc 2 was excellent.

RedXIV wrote: »

So we're agreed? Zidane is the best protagonist from the PSX era?

He was a cheeky chappy (and I haven't played 9 for a couple of years - think I played to disc 2 about 3 years ago) but I don't remember him having too much substance - always felt like the story was was happening and he was simply along for the ride).

Then again, I'd really like to play it through again before comparing.

RedXIV · 21-07-2011 11:51am

noodler wrote: »

I liked Cloud (unsuprisingly).

He was a dick at he start but it wasn't some adolescent thing like with Squall - the line that will always sum up Cloud's dickiness for me at the start was this

Barrett: "The Planet is dieing Cloud!"

Cloud: "Not my problem.."

His back story was incredibly interesting (are maybe only smei-interesting but really well done). The whole Kalm flashabck on disc one and the eventual reveal in Disc 2 was excellent.

I'd be a fan of FFVII, I'm one of those that looks back with rose tinted glasses

And because of that I'll always look a little kinder on Cloud than perhaps

He was a cheeky chappy (and I haven't played 9 for a couple of years - think I played to disc 2 about 3 years ago) but I don't remember him having too much substance - always felt like the story was was happening and he was simply along for the ride).

Then again, I'd really like to play it through again before comparing.

It's worth playing to the end of FFIX to see a bit more of Zidane's story. You really only find out everything about him on the last disk. In saying that, I've no time in general for the emo side of things so Zidane's personality was a welcome break.

so, .. is squall the biggest ball bag in the final fantasy series?

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