Back to this? It'll be shorter, don't worry. Guess not
Beat FF12 (the Zodiac version, on Switch) about an hour ago.
Verdict? Good. Fantastic. Gameplay-wise, it might even be my favourite in the series (having missed only the NES games, the MMOs, and XV). I like the battle system, and I like the insane amount side stuff there is to do. I thought I was gonna be done the game last week, but then realised how much other stuff I could do and couldn't stop myself from playing it.
Story? Spoilers ahead: yeah, it's decent. Very political, which is fun. I appreciate the lack of a romance plotline (I spent the first few hours trying to predict whether Penelo or Ashe would be the main love interest, only to be pleasantly surprised at the lack of one), given that they were kind of present in pretty much all of them from 4 to 10 (though less obvious in some cases).
That said, the individual characters were slightly less interesting to me here than in other games. It's been said before, but Vaan is very clearly not the main character, but the game presents him as such and it weakens the plot imo. I heard that Basche was originally supposed to be the MC too, but that doesn't really work for me either, given the fact that the plot isn't really about him either. Ashe is clearly the MC and she doesn't show up until a bit in. Anyway, the point of this rant is that there are a good number of characters who are kind-of sort-of presented as much more important than they are but not given the right amount of emphasis by the plot of the game, which messes with my ability to be interested with individuals.
Similarly, all the political goings-on were interesting and all, but pretty much none of it had anything to do with the main characters. We were trying to stop an all-out war by destroying the McGuffins, sure, but all the actually interesting politics involved a villain who we only really got to see being evil to other villains, a bunch of Judges who we never met (with a couple exceptions, but generally when we met them we killed them), and Larsa, a friendly Lord-kid (with whom I also kind of ship Penelo, for what it's worth) who, sure, I'm sort of invested in, but not entirely within the capacity of politics. I do like the feeling of only being one cog (albeit an important one) in the workings of the world, but I'd like to be properly invested in the characters who are going on in the background.
Music was good, and very nice during, but also... generic? idk, a lot of it was good, but some of it was just fairly forgettable. Definitely not helped by the amount of tunes which are kind of remixes of others but not really - which, musically, I'd usually applaud, except that here it's in the weird middle-ground where you might as well have used the original tune, because the new one doesn't really have its own identity. And stylistically (which I admit is very subjective) I think I do prefer the Uematsu-FF sound to what we have here, which is... Star Wars-y? Still, the boss tune and the Esper battle tune are great, as well as many others. On the other hand, this theme, which is very impressive at first, but gets very tedious when you spend hours in a dungeon when it's playing. I rarely get frustrated with game music (I can listen to the SMB Castle theme in a ZC dungeon for a good while, for example ) but that tune started to be very annoying. And then hearing the melody elsewhere... impressed me musically, but annoyed me because I remembered the dungeon with the theme.
As with FF13 (which I guess I didn't do a write-up for, but whatever. In case you want one: I liked it, didn't mind the linearity, though I understand if people wanted a less linear FF; characters are good fun, story is good, though depends a bit on reading the lore stuff to understand everything, music is good; I'm about to complain about something in FF12 that applies here too), a few of the cutscenes are a bit long, which leave me with the feeling "when do I get to play?". The opening cutscene especially, as well as the one into the final dungeon. Star Wars comparisons are apt here too - despite being a 'Mediaeval' setting, in true Final Fantasy fashion, we've got futuristic airships here too, but also ones with laser guns? A couple Star Wars spaceship battles, especially at the end.
Gameplay-wise (a bit more specific now) the battle system is awesome. I love the gambits (where I can pretty much tell my characters what to do in what circumstances), though I slightly wish I could have had just a touch more control (you pick a target, what state they're in, and what to do with them, which works great, except that there's one attack which is only useful when the user is in danger, and I can't really use gambits to tell the characters when the best time is to use that and attack a foe). Still, that's maybe a bit complex. I love the hunts - random bosses/enemies you can fight as a sidequest. Every one of them is great fun, except the last one, which is a marathon grind. Speaking of marathon grinds, the penultimate dungeon is a massive tower which is so long that it also borders on unfun. It's a bit like Mt. Gagazet in FF10 in that respect. Still, both games got fun again.
Anyway, I loved it. I lost a little steam at the end, grinding for Yiazmat (the last hunt/superboss), but overall it was a good game and I'd definitely recommend it.
What next, then? idk, I've got Octopath Traveler and DQ11 on Switch, and a bunch of SNES and PS1 roms on my laptop. Will likely be taking a tiny bit of a break from games (or at least not playing as much) since my semester started last week (which is why I was planning to finish this last week), but I may be posting here again.
Edited by klop422, 17 January 2021 - 06:18 PM.