Usually, I make sorta long posts about the games I complete. You know, usually stating what I like about the game and what I thought could be improved further; that kind of thing. I’m not doing that for this game, though. I pretty much distaste it. I would say it’s one of the worse RPGs I’ve played in the last year (still better than Brave Story or Growlanswer V, though.)

The thing that I hated most about is the battle system. It’s a turn based battle system “cleverly” disguised as real time system. It reminds me of a broken KOTOR battle system. It’s really hard to see how broken it is, though. It’s easier to see during boss battles against bosses with high speed with a magic caster in your party. You might notice that sometimes, it takes a really long time for your caster to cast magic (after their action bar has loaded.) Unfortunately, regular attackers, including bosses, will still be hitting at the same rate they were before, which is bad if the caster is a healer trying to heal someone.

In addition to that, combat itself is hard to manage, thus why Square Enix added gambits to the game. Gambits allow you to program your team members to do just about anything. You can get them to do so much, that you rarely have to do anything. Actually, besides switching party members in and out and selecting your targets, you really don’t have to do anything. I mean that almost literally. That make battles very boring, imo.

I don’t think any of the main character’s stories were really that interesting either (except for Balthier, of course, since he’s awesome.) Actually, what the villains are doing is much more interesting. It’s really too bad you don’t find the goal of the actions until way late in the game. It’s really a shame, because that makes most of the game uninteresting…

Anyway, those were my biggest reasons for disliking the games as a whole. I must say, I rather like the music of the game. That’s not surprise though, since Hitoshi Sakimoto was responsible for the soundtrack. Also, Square Enix managed to make a cast of characters with not one which I truly hate (although, Vaan got really, really close.)

FFXII seems to be either a love it or hate it game with RPG fans. Unfortunately, I’m one of the people that hate it XD I’m sure most people will think it’s fine, though, so I wouldn’t let my opinions of it be the deciding factor of whether to buy the game. I sure hope most of this post made sense, since I’m typing it at 7 am with no sleep. Oh, it just happens to be my birthday too. Yay me…