[PS2] Final Fantasy XII

Am I the only one who thinks this game is insanely difficult? It started off pretty easy and all of a sudden I found that every boss was effortlessly taking down my party. I've had Game Over multiple times on nearly every boss. All my characters are level 28-29, I an at Bur Omisace, trying to fight that one Judge... I can't even take down his three flunkies before I just get torn apart.

The problem is that there's really no intermediate Cure-Curaga attack, just Cura, which affects all the members of the party, which isn't what I need when one character is hurt. So intead I have something like Ally:HP < 60% -> Cure; but all that causes is sometimes endless loops of curing. One character gets hurt, other characters cast cure, while they're casting cure another character gets hurt, another character casts cure, etc. So against tougher enemies I can't even hardly get any attacks in. But when I try to use Cura, what usually happens when fighting bosses is that the character gets KO'd right when the ATB bar is full. It's just infuriating.

I've had to level up before every boss fight. In this case I leveled up and took the time to buy the most powerful weapons available at the time. I'm still getting my ass handed to me. I don't know what to do anymore. I can only see the final boss of this game kicking my ass repeatedly.

There must be some huge strategical aspect of the game that I am missing.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by SILBER-4

Excellent, finally an FF that makes you use more than 2 brain cells (besides FFIV hard type, and perhaps a few fights in VI)!

More like requires you to level up before every boss fight.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by SOLDIER

1. The story is short; much of the game's length is attributed to the long dungeons and exploring. Strip those away and the actual story of the game is actually smaller than it appears to be.

I'm about 60 hours into the game (keep in mind I've been doing sidequests), and this is fairly true. This story is different from the other games, it doesn't seem to revolve around the characters but rather the world as a whole. It lacks individual (melo)drama. The gameplay overshadows the story, to the point where you might not mind.

Originally Posted by SOLDIER

2. Airships are pretty useless; so you get an airship early on, that's great. Unfortunately, you can't use it to travel everywhere. Most of the time, you'll get a line of dialogue that serves as an excuse from using your airship (examples he gave included "the enemy will spot us if we use the airship" or "that area is currently sealed off". he said there were even a couple of times where they don't even bother with an excuse).

Where I'm at, there isn't even an airship. The main form of travel is either on foot or teleportation. I don't see why it matters either way. In Final Fantasy X they had already abandoned the concept of flying around a world map in an airship and travel was but a mere menu. The same applies here, pretty much, it's just not by airship.

Originally Posted by SOLDIER

3. Lack of diverse areas; he said there was "a forest....and a desert....and that's about it." I told him that I swore I saw a winter area, but he says it was removed.

Er yes... Well, no. Kind of. I can recall a few cave like areas, some mines, some forests, deserts, and the inside of buildings and airships. There was a snowy area, but it's farily small compared to a lot of other areas. Not mindblowingly diverse but not all that repetitive either. The idea behind them is that they're more so "dungeons" -- places to explore and sort of get lost in while fighting monsters.

Originally Posted by SOLDIER

4. The scene with Penelo and the orcs, along with the Penelo FMV, are nowhere to be found.

I dunno what this is. But there aren't a lot of FMVs and most of them aren't that interesting besides the first few. They are generally short and mostly involve airships flying around, but I recall some battle scenes early in the game. But I haven't seen anything really mindblowing, like the cast surfing down ropes (Final Fantasy X) or a city being decimated by Sin.

It's funny that people are upset about this, because I swear I recall hearing a lot of people complain that the past few games have had too many FMVs.

Overall this game emphasizes its own "gameplay" than it does story. It's very fun (why do you think I have 60hours on it), but at the same time, when I stand back and try to look at the game objectively, I personally see quite a few major flaws. I would never give it a 10/10.

I really don't like the Gambit system. This battle system is a step up from annoying random battles, but at the same time I think a game that plays itself is not what video gaming is or should be about; on the contrary games should be finding new ways to involve the player more deeply, not remove them and leave them as button pushers. Even though I realize that the Gambit system is perhaps a dumb idea, I can't deny the fact that I have enjoyed battles quite a bit. I could easily understand someone, even a Final Fantasy fan, hating this game for a bunch of not-even-superficial reasons.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.