Ben-DutkaWith all the evidence floating around concerning a Final Fantasy XII HD Remaster , I'm hearing a lot of the same remarks from franchise fans:
"This game really doesn't deserve an HD update."
The wording varies of course but it seems a lot of fans really don't care about FFXII getting the high-def overhaul. Now, on the flip side, it seemed like a lot of these same fans were overjoyed to learn that Final Fantasy X would be re-issued on the PS3 in a glossy new HD format. Obviously, the implication is that FFX is simply viewed as a better and more revered game when compared with FFXII.
But that comparison isn't in question here; rather, I'm wondering if the franchise followers will respond favorably to the FFXII HD update (if it is indeed coming). I mean, I'm sure plenty of people will buy it but I worry that not enough people will buy it, thereby causing Square Enix to call the project a "failure." I think FFXII is one of the most controversial installments in the entire franchise, clearly because it did a lot of things differently.
One could argue it was by far the most different of any FF since VII (compared to VI on SNES). FFXII featured an open world, or at least a far more open world than any we'd seen before in the series, and a hybrid real-time/turn-based mechanic that some die-hard fans really hated. Many also didn't like the story, saying it just wasn't anywhere near as involving. Similar complaints were heard about the characters. Me, I agree with the story and character part; FFXII has by far the least interesting story and cast of characters of any FF, in my estimation. I didn't even care what happened until the very end.
But while I thought I'd despise the new battle mechanic, I actually loved it. As I could still pause the action at any time and input commands, and my strategy mattered far more than my dexterity and reflexes, I still considered it more of an RPG than an action game. It was indeed all of that; a deep, rewarding RPG that I really got into. I even liked the License system, even though I know many others hated it. All in all, I think it's a perfect example of logical progression; after FFXII, "logical progression" flew out the window at Square Enix HQ, but whatever.
So for my part, I would welcome a Final Fantasy XII HD Remaster . Would you?
I think i prefer an FFVIII of FFIX remake rather than an FFXII remaster. Square Enix should just focus on the FFVII remake rather than making this remaster.
Doubt they will do it in house will probably send it off to some cheap third-party studio like other Publishers have been doing.
Doing a remake over a remaster would be infinitely more difficult.
Everything about FFXII is perfect except for the fact that Vaan is the protagonist, Balthier would have been a million times better.
A FFXII would be awesome since I lost my PS2's FFXII some time ago.
From the content, to side quests to music to…well everything except Vaan, the game was awesome. Story was shaky at times but still enjoyable. People who don't like FF12 were mad they couldn't figure out that you can turn gambits off and play as the party leader yourself.
Not to mention Vaan is just a lowly pickpocket, that's really nothing when you compare him to Cloud who's a soldier/merc, Squall is part of a special mercenary organization, Zidane's a member of a famous bandit group and Tidus is a goddamn superstar.
If SE were to remove Vaan right before launch the game would still be awesome.
@ Snake
Right. Depending on how you set up your configuration in the game's options you could have the battles play out in all manual or in a Dragon Age-esk type fashion.
Vaan was added in later to appease the Japanese market in that gamers liked androgynous characters.
The main character was going to be Basch if I remember correctly but he was to "manly".
I actually loved the story, the politcal intrigue in the over arching story was quite interesting, and all the characters except penelope and vaan had great character archs.
There originally wasn't going to be a 'main' character at all, it was going to be an ensemble deal focusing on Balthier, Fran and Basche, which would have been awesome.
Then they threw in generic, feminine blond white dude at the last second because it's Final Fantasy so of course they did.
FFXII is awesome. Some people are just silly. The only problem with it was the fact that Vaan and Penelo were, literally, focus-tested into the story, and it shows.
I'm glad someone else knows about this other than me. They were added way later into development.
Yeah, and once it's pointed out to you it becomes really obvious, because a lot of the cutscenes with Vaan and Penelo feature JUST Vaan and Penelo, and seem obviously shoehorned into sections of the game where they don't make sense, almost like "hey, remember us, we're the leads just in case you forgot because we haven't been part of the story for the past five hours"
I will buy it day one if (when ) it happens!
I'll must likely get it. I'm just frightened that I won't have any time to play it.
no, FFXII is one of the worst FF in the series
I actually liked XII quite a bit.
Yeah, no. FFXII is my second least liked FF game of all time even including spinoffs (only one I liked even less was LR:FFXIII). To me, what went wrong with the game was the characters… Balthier was great, but the rest were just meeh, and the motivations for joining the quest for Penelo and Fran were little more than "My MAN is going, so I'm going!".
I bought the FFXHD remaster for both the PS3 and the Vita, but this I won't touch.
So the characters in FF12 were worse than the soap opera J pop characters from FF13….yikes.
FF12s characters were grounded in reality, and didn't reek of Japanese anime cliche tropes. Even in ff12 if some of them had some of those tendencies they were much more believable characters than in most Final Fantasies.
Vaan and Penelo were crap because they were added in way way late in development to appease the japanese market, and they were garbage characters.
Fran went because she and Balthier are pirate partners and she is loyal to him, not because he is her man. They have a long history which is talked about their romantic relationship is very subtle and only hinted at.
Penelo yeah she is shoe horned in for sure.
FF12 isn't my favourite FF game, FF9 is, but I never understand the hate it gets, and the criticism to the story.
*tips hat to xenris*
XII was way better than XIII.
I loved the story, the political intrigue in the over arching story was quite interesting, and all the characters except Penelo and Vaan had great character archs.
I don't get peoples beefs with this story, it felt way more grounded, and everything going on fit nicely in the world. The over arching story was way better than ME2s, and the character stories were close to as good as ME2s so I don't get where the complaints were coming from.
I liked that there wasn't a real main character, and that all of the characters had pretty good character archs.
I like the overall story too, took forever to get every single piece squeezed out though with the hours of grind between. Most don't seem into politics though.
Yeah World, I think thats it. Most people want the gotta save the world story with characters that fall in typical anime tropes.
I loved the politics and the war story going on here. It reminded me of Star Wars in ways to be honest.
Yeah I did everything you could do in FF12, all the monster hunts, got all the weapons and yeah, its probably my longest played Final Fantasy game, other than the MMO FF11.
I think they all fell into their anime slots but that's just par for the course. That's why I like Japanese games in the first place, they are more like 18th century gothic or romance literature in their character setups.
I suppose some people loved it, I thought that's where the departures got un-FF like.
You don't want to play the same game over and over forever do you? Evolution of a formula is a good thing, if done right. FFXII did it right. FFXIII did it very, very wrong.
FF never was the same game over and over, it evolved every time but kept the formula parts that always made it exciting. When I talk about the departures I mean like a goofy online MMO style battle system, that doesn't fit in the formula. Not now, and it never would have back in the day.
Nah, it really was the same, mechanically, up until FFX, and CTB was a welcome evolution of the combat system. Gambits in FFXII, IMO, was even better.
XII was the last Final Fantasy that I enjoyed. The battle system was highly different from previous entries, but after an hour or so I loved it. Like Ben said, I also enjoyed the fact that at any given moment I could micro manage my party and issue commants. Plus, the FF universe lore was still there (rideable chocobos, moogles and familiar magicnames).
Yeah the story was slightly lacking in my opinion, but it was still interesting enough to have a few lingering memories. If the new FFVII remake has a battle system similar to that, I'll enjoy it (because I'm about 95% sure SE won't implement traditional turn-based…even as an option.)
I'd definitely would love a remaster of XII. The last Jrpg I played until completion was probably either DQ VIII, or FFXII itself.
I've tried every Final Fantasy since then and ended up trading them shortly after release…these new real time battle RPG's aren't as fun to me. It's nice for certain other titles (like Kingdom Hearts), but it really doesn't belong in FINAL FANTASY. They could have left this francise alone and pushed all this new age shit and drastic changes onto a brand new I.P., that way us old school gamers who helped turn SE into the former juggernaut that it was could be happy, and the newer "twitch" gamers could be happy with all this other garbage they have floatig around
/rant
I'm in the same boat as you. I 100% completed DQ8 and FF12!
I won't say that FF12s story was the best FF story ever but it wasn't as terrible as so many haters like to say it was. It just had more of a focus on politics, war and the characters instead of a reluctant hero who has to save the world.
XII was great, but I doubt I'd play it through again. I dumped a lot of hours into it the first time around, and I just don't see myself having the time to do that again.
I jumped on the X/X2 HD re-release (X is still probably my favourite FF game) but I haven't even finished that yet…
I really liked the direction FFXII took with the battle system. I've said it numerous times before, I know, but I think that's the direction the franchise should have taken.
Balthier was a great character. None of the others were that great. The number one thing that makes a story great is not the plot, although it certainly helps. The greatest part of a story is the characters and how they react, change, and develop resolve around the plot. I think that's why so many people believe the story to be worse. Even in other FF's with stereotypical plot points and j-pop, emo characters, it feels like they are stronger stories because the characters are more responsive to the world around them, the plot, and to one another.
Had FFXII done that well, it might have been my favorite of the franchise. It did not do that well, especially in regards to the character's responsiveness to one other, so it's just a decent game in my books. And ultimately, that lack of engagement consistently caused me to lose interest. And while I enjoyed my time with it, I've still never finished it.
I would get the remaster and resolve to finally beat it.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 9/24/2015 11:01:42 AM
Thats interesting because I felt all the characters interacted really well together in FF12 except for Vaan and Penelo, who were decent but shoe horned in.
Basch grows as a character, Ashe goes through a lot, and everyone in the rag tag group ends up being there for each other.
I agree with you though, the combat system was great and that should have been what FF13s was like, and what FF15s was like. Hopefully FF7 remake uses a similar combat system.
I also have no idea how close to the end I actually ended up getting. I could still have been a fair ways off, never giving them enough time.
And as you kinda pointed out, I might have just been jaded by Vaan and Penelo.
FFXIII could have been infinitely better just by incorporating a gambit-like setting and not giving a game over just because the lead character died.
Those two changes alone could have made a world of difference. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to have to use scan just so they wouldn't use completely ineffective debuffs every time over and over against the same enemies…
Last edited by Underdog15 on 9/24/2015 4:16:27 PM
At first I was like nah but I'd like to try it again. I didn't like the combat mechanics, gambit system was nice but overall I hated that style of combat.
I'm sure I'll buy it in the most expensive bundle they throw out just because I've done that with every FF. I bought FFXHD 4 times already.
I never finished XII but would like to. Ivalice is such a fantastic setting, and if by any chance this remaster will include the international version that had some kind of job system I will be much more hyped since that could feel almost like a brand new game in ivalice, something we may not get again.
From the content, to side quests to music to…well everything except Vaan, the game was awesome. Story was shaky at times but still enjoyable. People who don't like FF12 were mad they couldn't figure out that you can turn gambits off and play as the party leader yourself.
There originally wasn't going to be a 'main' character at all, it was going to be an ensemble deal focusing on Balthier, Fran and Basche, which would have been awesome.
Then they threw in generic, feminine blond white dude at the last second because it's Final Fantasy so of course they did.
I'm glad someone else knows about this other than me. They were added way later into development.
@ Snake
Right. Depending on how you set up your configuration in the game's options you could have the battles play out in all manual or in a Dragon Age-esk type fashion.
I really liked the direction FFXII took with the battle system. I've said it numerous times before, I know, but I think that's the direction the franchise should have taken.
Balthier was a great character. None of the others were that great. The number one thing that makes a story great is not the plot, although it certainly helps. The greatest part of a story is the characters and how they react, change, and develop resolve around the plot. I think that's why so many people believe the story to be worse. Even in other FF's with stereotypical plot points and j-pop, emo characters, it feels like they are stronger stories because the characters are more responsive to the world around them, the plot, and to one another.
Had FFXII done that well, it might have been my favorite of the franchise. It did not do that well, especially in regards to the character's responsiveness to one other, so it's just a decent game in my books. And ultimately, that lack of engagement consistently caused me to lose interest. And while I enjoyed my time with it, I've still never finished it.
I would get the remaster and resolve to finally beat it.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 9/24/2015 11:01:42 AM
Vaan was added in later to appease the Japanese market in that gamers liked androgynous characters.
The main character was going to be Basch if I remember correctly but he was to "manly".
I actually loved the story, the politcal intrigue in the over arching story was quite interesting, and all the characters except penelope and vaan had great character archs.
Not to mention Vaan is just a lowly pickpocket, that's really nothing when you compare him to Cloud who's a soldier/merc, Squall is part of a special mercenary organization, Zidane's a member of a famous bandit group and Tidus is a goddamn superstar.
If SE were to remove Vaan right before launch the game would still be awesome.
*tips hat to xenris*
I actually liked XII quite a bit.
no, FFXII is one of the worst FF in the series
Doubt they will do it in house will probably send it off to some cheap third-party studio like other Publishers have been doing.
Yeah, and once it's pointed out to you it becomes really obvious, because a lot of the cutscenes with Vaan and Penelo feature JUST Vaan and Penelo, and seem obviously shoehorned into sections of the game where they don't make sense, almost like "hey, remember us, we're the leads just in case you forgot because we haven't been part of the story for the past five hours"
I like the overall story too, took forever to get every single piece squeezed out though with the hours of grind between. Most don't seem into politics though.
I think i prefer an FFVIII of FFIX remake rather than an FFXII remaster. Square Enix should just focus on the FFVII remake rather than making this remaster.