Finally got around to beating FFXII tonight.

[Warabit]

I thought it was a great ending personally. I really liked the beginning too. Unfortunatly it didnt have that charm between. For me anyway. All the acting and character interaction seemed stale, for the main characters at least. Side characters were more interesting. Deffinetly needed some less stale voice acting. I really wish there was more character development/backgrounds. Im watching the concept art behind the credits right now and can only imagine how much better and deep it could have been.

I didnt do all the hunts or collect all the espers. I didnt see the point really. I got other things to do. Overall I would rate this game a 8.5/10.

[Danju]

I still can't bring myself to finish FFXII. It was a really big disappointment for me and I can't understand why so many people seem to think it's so great. But, er, I'm not meaning to hijack your thread and turn it into a good/bad flame war. Do you think it's really worth finishing it to watch the ending? I didn't care for any of the characters or the story, really, so it'd have to be a pretty damn good one.

[Holy Knight]

The ending was the high point of the game for me. The last boss is visually entertaining and his attacks are nice to look at. There isn't really any reason to finish the game other than to watch the ending.

I also didn't enjoy the game too much. It's a bit too slow for my taste.

[Warabit]

I still can't bring myself to finish FFXII. It was a really big disappointment for me and I can't understand why so many people seem to think it's so great. But, er, I'm not meaning to hijack your thread and turn it into a good/bad flame war. Do you think it's really worth finishing it to watch the ending? I didn't care for any of the characters or the story, really, so it'd have to be a pretty damn good one.

I really liked the battle system and all but I agree the story was lacking and you really dont care for the cardboard cutout robotic characters they seem throughout the game...
The ending was the high point of the game for me.

Like I said, the beginning and the ending(and the concept art) were the only parts of the game that had life, charm, and great character interaction(especially the end of the game. The end actually felt like you were listening to real voice actors and not the robotic monotone voice blips heard throughout the game.

[Lunay]

I thought it was a great ending personally. I really liked the beginning too. Unfortunatly it didnt have that charm between. For me anyway. All the acting and character interaction seemed stale, for the main characters at least. Side characters were more interesting. Deffinetly needed some less stale voice acting. I really wish there was more character development/backgrounds. Im watching the concept art behind the credits right now and can only imagine how much better and deep it could have been.

This is how I feel about FFXII, probably most others as well, as far as the story and character development goes. If they had focused on these aspects, FFXII would have been near perfect.

I didnt do all the hunts or collect all the espers. I didnt see the point really. I got other things to do. Overall I would rate this game a 8.5/10.

This is very unfortunate, since the strong point of FFXII is outside of the story. I'm not sure what their intention was for FFXII, but if I had to guess, I would have to say they were going for the MMORPG feel, which I think they have done flawlessly. If not for my love of MMORPG and FFXI, I truly think, I would have been dissapointed in FFXII.

Summary: FFXII is definitely out of the ordinary, as far as the story and character development goes, but thankfully, other aspects of the game make up for it. It did for me, at least. =P

[ryushe]

I still can't bring myself to finish FFXII. It was a really big disappointment for me and I can't understand why so many people seem to think it's so great.
It's like you read my mind with that post. After I got to this part with a ridiculously long tower, I just thought the whole thing wasn't worth the 60+ hours I put in.

I mean at first I loved it, Hated the battle, But loved it. Then somewhere along the lines after I grew to really like the battle system, The story and the characters just was "Meh". I remember on time a friend of mine asked me the character that I use on my team and I remember pausing and actually trying to remember some of the characters name...That's' not bad if it was the beginning of the game, but I was 30+ hours into it. >_<

Honestly, I doubt I'll ever finish it and that's sad, I had such high expectations for this FF and it failed me every step of the way and I'm sorry, the great battle system and optional quest can't make up for the "blah" story and characters. If you would have told me that I'd dislike a FF more than FFVIII, I would have laughed at you like you was crazy. Guess I was wrong.

(Wait's for Sendo with the Gats :P)

[Michael]

The game was definitely focused more on gameplay than anything else, which most will find to be a love or hate sort of thing. Not much middle ground.

The story was "okay," but nothing spectacular. The ending was worth watching, it had it's highlights, but I'm not sure I'd really consider it totally worth beating the game for.

People like XII because the storyline is only half of the game, if that. So much of it is open ended, and not explicitly linear. If you wanted to make Panelo your tank, you really could. Heck, I ended up with Ashe being my main tank. This is something you don't often see in Japanese RPGs. Western RPGs almost always are more about how the player defines the character, because we're much more accustomed to systems like D&D. FFXII is a rare look into a Japanese RPG with more of a "western" feel. It attracted more than just typical Final Fantasy fans.

Some of us enjoyed the battle system at it's core, and played it at it's core. My gambit lists were not crazy. At most, when I was seriously playing, I only had 2-3 active gambits. I only used them for initial openers so everyone would assist the right person, and for extreme emergencies. I did most of my battle play manually. The combat was the specific reason I enjoyed the game, and I wasn't going to trivialize it just because I could. Manual is generally better anyway, because deliberate movements are far better than predetermined ones. Just because someone gets status downed doesn't mean I want to fix it right away. Just because someone gets KO'd doesn't mean I want my other characters to run over and raise him that moment, etc.

I never even really used Quickenings or Espers during the game either. I think during the storyline I used Quickenings twice, the first time because I'd never done it yet, the second time because I wanted to see some of the animations.

I dunno, it just seems like, when it comes to the gameplay gripe of "oh, lawl I watch it play itself" or "x is overpowered," I don't really see them as being very valid ones. If you don't like the combat, that's fine. But not liking it because you're intentionally overusing things it just silly. It's like playing an FPS with god mode on and complaining about how easy it is.

[h0ckey2244]

ive had the game sense release and cant force myself to beat it... i enjoyed it but not the best ive played and it bothered me how during certain parts some characters disappeared and be silent...

[aoishonen7]

Right now I'm avoiding the urge to beat Final Fantasy 12 and I'm trying to complete every single hunt and side quest. By now if I decided to beat the game now I would have defeted Vayne 10 times over, on top of that having Penelo as a tank is just way to much fun. To be honest i'm pretty torn over the fact that the story played second banana to the gameplay. The voice acting is great compared to Final Fantasy 10 and I would have liked the main characters to have more of a story. But if 12 did that I think I wouldn't have enjoyed "playing" the game so much. And i'm actualy happy that it's not a sappy love story! Well I'm gonna go and try to defeat Behemoth King.

[crow-kun]

I beat it last night I loved it.

[seba_boi]

I've beaten it twice... Didn't like the ending... It's just one long music video...

I'm currently finishing the sidequests....

[Mooserocka]

Right now I'm avoiding the urge to beat Final Fantasy 12 and I'm trying to complete every single hunt and side quest. By now if I decided to beat the game now I would have defeted Vayne 10 times over, on top of that having Penelo as a tank is just way to much fun. To be honest i'm pretty torn over the fact that the story played second banana to the gameplay. The voice acting is great compared to Final Fantasy 10 and I would have liked the main characters to have more of a story. But if 12 did that I think I wouldn't have enjoyed "playing" the game so much. And i'm actualy happy that it's not a sappy love story! Well I'm gonna go and try to defeat Behemoth King.

definatly penelo is the best char in teh game hands down. I love her. 12 brought the series back to life i dunno waht these people are saying stale voice acting i thgouht it was pretty good and these are the best graphics on the ps2 so far. i loved 12. its not the best by far but its atleast not near the worst. The main char lookin like a girl was even ok his voice actor made it better. Everyone in that game was graet i just didnt like fran too much.

[Westlo]

Deffinetly needed some less stale voice acting..

Just got back from the Square Enix party.

It was really crowded! I'm not a hard core gamer or anything, so take my anecodtal information as you want.

The lines for everything were absolutely huge except for the language packet non-games for DS, so I couldn't be asked to wait that long to play.

-The Dragon Quest Swords for Wii looked pretty fun.

-They were showing the Int'l version of FF12. A bunch of (japanese) people were like O_o 'the english sounds so much better! :lol: (it's true)

-They closed off the line to go into the theater at like 2:30 because it was SO long. Didn't get a chance to go in.

lol?

[Warabit]

I'd hate to hear how bad the japanese dialog is then. thats pretty funny

[Mooserocka]

Yea I LOVED the ending. Well worth it. I love what happens with penello. What chars did you use to beat the last boss. I used main char, penello and balthier i used only them all game. I never switched tehm out other then when you had to and ide switch with boch. I had these 3 chars to level 81, and the rest were like 19 lol. great ending i loved it. Great game i dunno what that one person thinks this game was so bad. I thoguht it was good and if you play the sidequests i still wouldnt be done yet.

[Tom Servo]

How on earth do I get this bloody Behemoth King to come out, used google and found some folk discussing it - tried what they said (cleaning the two snow-bound areas of enemies for hours on end) but nada.

After that all that's left is Yiazmet-thingy and I would have completed all the hunts.

Finished the Hell Wyrm recently too, it's worse than a Gran Turismo endurance race.

[Lunay]

How on earth do I get this bloody Behemoth King to come out, used google and found some folk discussing it - tried what they said (cleaning the two snow-bound areas of enemies for hours on end) but nada.

After that all that's left is Yiazmet-thingy and I would have completed all the hunts.

Finished the Hell Wyrm recently too, it's worse than a Gran Turismo endurance race.

All I can say for Behemoth King is to clear the area 'fast'. Also, it has been a while since I have played FFXII, but there are some snake mobs which are hidden from plain view, you need to kill those, too. Since the area is hard to see due to snormstorm, my guess is that some mobs were still alive.

Speaking of endurance, Yiazmat is simply that. He is not that hard but his massive 10 million HP can take hours to bring down. I loved fighting Behemoth King and Yiazmat so much that I created an extra file so that I can fight them whenever I want. ^^; Such a fun game!

[Tom Servo]

Do you remember if you have to clear both snowy areas with those illusionary paths or just the one with the gigas gate?

I've been clearing both areas as fast as possible umpteen times, zipping over to the gate area where The King (uh huh-huh) is supposed to show up. I suppose he got caught in a jam, he could've at least called!

I'll just have to stick at it.

[Holy Knight]

Do you remember if you have to clear both snowy areas with those illusionary paths or just the one with the gigas gate?

I've been clearing both areas as fast as possible umpteen times, zipping over to the gate area where The King (uh huh-huh) is supposed to show up. I suppose he got caught in a jam, he could've at least called!

I'll just have to stick at it.

Yes, both areas have to be cleared.

The way I did it was, I went in a "Z" shape through the maps, and slightly deviating right and left from my main chosen path in order to make sure I didn't miss out any stray enemies. I had to do the first map, then the second one and re-do them both again to make sure no monsters had reappeared in order to make the Behemoth King appear. Took around 20 minutes to do if I recall correctly.

As for the King himself, bring a lot of Chronos Tears, as he casts "White Breath" with annoying regularity. Other than that, he hits in the 2k-4k range for damage, which is manageable with the bubble spell. But since you seem to have defeated harder enemies than him, you should be fine.

[Lunay]

If I remember correctly, Behemoth King appears near the center (or south) of the second area, not near the gate. I know he is a huge mob but he can be easy to miss, especially, in that area. Also, I'm not sure if there are any unseen snake mobs (Basilisk) which don't appear until you walk over their exact spot in that area, but that could be it.

As far as his White Breath move (status effect: Stop?), I equipped my characters with Ribbon, which made it too easy (almost anything is with this Godly equipment). Every time I equipped Ribbon, I felt like I was cheating, so, I tried not to rely on it all the time. ^^;

[Tom Servo]

Ah! That might be it then, the guide I looked over specified that The King showed up outside the gate - I had been running along the outer edge to finish off any of those snakes if they popped up, so I may have simply ran right past him.

I'm sure he won't be much of a problem, most of the characters are into the 70s/80s now. I'll see how many chrono tears I have to hand.

Thanks for the advice!

[Lunay]

No problem! Tell us how your battle with Behemoth King and Yiazmat goes. ^^v

[Tom Servo]

Got him! He was nowhere near the gigas gate, he spawned in the same place as the myst-dino. Didn't have any real problems, used Expose for a couple of minutes before digging into him - I only have one ribbon, one sage's ring, and one aegis shield so those were split between everyone depending on who was receiving what attacks the most. I nearly lost my party when towards the end he managed to Stop two of my characters, while the other one who wasn't effected had the Slow status effect already AT THE SAME TIME that two of 'em lost their bubble status, phew! - only just scrapped through that bit.

For Yiazmat it went like this -
1. Rake x4, Baltheir dies
2. Death Strike, Fran dies
3. White Breath, Vaan dies
4. Switch out Van and Baltheir for Basch and Ashe
5. Ashe dies immediately from Rake
6. Basch revives Fran, both immediately get blown to bits by White Breath and Death Strike
7. Switch the entire party out and run away with unarmed Penelo
8. Decide to equip Penelo with a crossbow and try to snipe Yiazmat for fun
9. Penelo steps on two mines and dies before she even gets within firing range
10. Game Over :P