FFXII: What would you change?

Ditch Vaan, ditch Penelo, change the way Ashe looks. She gets up my naval because she just reminds me of Yuna from X way too much. I don't usually have an issue with that sort of thing but with Ashe everything screams copy/paste, right down to her attire and colour co-ordination. Might be nit picking on that though.

I'd dump all the MMO stuff too and make it a proper single player game with none of this silly gambit systems et al, put a proper battle system in there and lets have story shoveled in our face every five minutes instead of once every thirty years of desert crossing...

-sigh-, I really did try to like 12, but I can't. I do notice though I seem to have a severe dislike of any FF that takes place in Ivalice - I didn't make that connection until a while after 12 so it's not that my judgement is clouded on that basis... =(
 
The useless-ness of Espers and Quickenings.

At the end of the game, it just seemed like my characters were doing so much damage on regular attacks, that when bringing in Summons and Overdrives, the actions only took more time and did less damage than a 3-second punch from Vaan or Ashe would cause. The Espers were great to fight and capture, but not so much fun to use in battle.
 
I think the license system was great, but having it be more open would have been good. The guide does have a map of the licenses, so that took care of that for the most part. Also, I would have liked it if the Espers were more useful. They're fun to get, and some are actually hard, but the use of them was pointless for the most part.
 
Ok, I started playing this again the other night. I'm about 2 hours in or so, just visited the Giza Plains for the first time and now about to break into the Palace again and rob it with Vaan. I realize now after playing FFXIII and other games where you use one joystick to move and the other to look around, that I HATE INVERTED CONTROLS!

FFXII when I look right, it makes me look left. When I look down, it makes me look up. I can't shake it and I've never liked inverted controls. I have no idea how I made it through this game the first time with my sanity and this not being such a big issue in 2006.
 
*Allow to rename Characters and Summons

*Replace Balthier and Basch, especially balthier

*Have a different main villain/antagonist/final boss

*Allow dual wield
 
Give Vaan more role on the game's storyline. I mean why did Square Enix made him the main protagonist when he was just acting as an onlooker on the events that are happening around him. Though Vaan was the main protagonist, it was Ashe that was considered by the fans as the main character and for me that had been playing FF for years and is used of seeing the main protagonist as the one with the biggest role on the storyline of the game, this kind of sucks for FF12.
 
Okay, so I'm watching a Let's Play of this because I don't yet have a system to play this on. I had played this before for a brief period as a kid but I must not have understood it or something because I couldn't remember for the life of me where I'd got to. It turns out I had got to the part where you've got to rescue Ashe.

So far, and I'm not particularly far into the game (Ashe and co are about to go off to King Raithwall's tomb to get the Dawn Shard) I feel like I have a fair idea so far of what I'd change. They're pretty major things:

a] Firstly, I know nothing about why the war at the beginning started. This is a pretty major thing in my book, especially since it seems to be referenced every five minutes. I feel like I'm taking a history class but I've been away for a few lessons and I've fallen behind. I assume this is going to translate into a pretty shallow storyline overall. I may be wrong.

b] I know nothing about the characters' backgrounds and very little about most of their motivations. I find myself *looking* for things to get me to like them.

c] The battle system just seems to be "set a target and watch the AI beat the enemy for you".

What I'd change

A] I'd quite like a deeper, better explained storyline

The storyline is really important to me in this series. This game felt really different right from the very start. Within probably the first half an hour, we'd established that there's a war going on, that Reks gets killed, as does some princess's husband right after that'd got married. I summarised that with as little emotion as possible because that's about as much emotion I'd invested into the story up to that point. Everything was so fast! A large part of it up to then is explained via voice-over as though we're getting a history lesson about something that happened hundreds of years ago. Which is just a massive cop-out if you ask me. Also considering all the so-called explaining they did, they could have at least mentioned why the war's going on. Land grabbing? Trade? A violation of some treaty or other? An assassination? Come on, give me something! I assume this is explained somewhere further along in the story, but I am probably wrong.

B] More character development

I know the characters' names. I know what they do. I know virtually nothing else. It could just be that I'm not far enough into the game yet to have the privilege of knowing anything about the characters, but I'm a few hours in at this point. Fran seems to be the only one of her kind so far. I assume that's not right and she's been exiled from her homeland or something. Vaan and Penelo just seem to be kids along for the ride so far. Maybe Vaan wants to see things through for his brother's sake or something, I don't know, but Penelo? Other than following Vaan around, I see no point to her at all. Balthier just seems to be out to make money and I have no idea why someone as withdrawn as Fran feels she can trust Balthier as much as she seems to. The only character whose motivation I'm clear on so far is Ashe. She's out to restore Dalmasca. I haven't even mentioned Basch because I'm not sure I get him. But outside of the above I know almost nothing about them. More character development. And they should make us care about the characters at least a little bit before killing them off - especially if Vaan whines about his brother any more than he has already. Also, is Vaan supposed to remind me of Tidus in what he looks like? He's not as whiny as Tidus was at the beginning of X, but he sure looks like him. And Ashe looks like Yuna in the way she seems to dress, and her voice reminds me of Lightning. I assume this is just lazy character design.

C] Maybe change the battle system?

The battle system isn't what I'm used to. Anyone who actually likes the battle system's going to tell me to get over it, but all I'm saying is it's not the system I was used to as a kid. It constantly reminds me of a game called Summoner that I played as a kid. I'm getting used to it, but I have a feeling I'd prefer XII with one of the older battle systems.

There's my two pence worth. Not sure if any of it's actually hit the mark with the general opinion. Also sorry if any of the info on here is inaccurate. I will say though that so far I like the Licence Board system. I can see that eventually everyone's going to end up being capable of the same stuff though, which will eventually be a bit boring.

LanguageSponge
 
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The plot certainly had a lot of potential ,but it wasn't developed very well.

I couldn't get into the story until a few playthroughs (Ps4-Switch),if it weren't for the optional stuff this game would be away too short and boring (for me at least).
 
Ashe is now the main character and Vaan is just somebody who works for Balthier and Fran and is just a Guest character for a while. Same with Penelo. Larsa becomes part of the main, official party.

Dr. Cid is now the main villain.

That's it.
 
Out of the entire game, I feel that the only things I would change are the RNG of certain weapon/gear spawns, Vaan and Penelo's roles in the story (Penelo becoming Larsa's love interest and/or Vaan being a missing relative of Nabradia's royalty or something would be nice, come on SE), and expand upon the Occuria's effects/control of the world's progress. Other than that, I really don't have anything I can think of to change.
 
The plot, most of the party (excluding Balthier and Fran), the soundtrack, the villains, the drab artstyle, the forgettable locations, the gambit system.

The licence board can stay. I approve of that.

:sir:
 
I don't find Vaan annoying. I just wish he had a more prevalent story arch. the problem with Vaan wasn't that he was relevant or not, its that he had little to no motivation to stick around other than "ADVENTURE!". Even if the motivation was as simple as being under Balthier as a sky pirate, that would be something.

I find Penelo is worst, she sticks around because "If Vaan goes, I go". No personality or motivations of her own other than to be the annoying sister of Vaan.

I would change their design to be more unique and pleasing to the eye. Vaan and Penelo look like pre-teen faces with bodies of adults.

I didn't mind grinding for money because I usually did the bounty hunting first, and that got me by. I also felt overpowered at times and didn't need to grind too much. The remaster is even better.

I wouldn't change much honestly. I find the game very enjoyable.
 
It's one of my least favourite FF Titles so there are many features I can think of:

Make a bigger focus with Ashe being the main protagonist:
The lack of direction/perspective of a character driven story makes XII suffer. We're introduced to Vaan but as many have stated he has minimal impact on the main story. I think the game would have been improved has we followed the story from Ashe's view point a lot more.

Better Scenario Writing:
The biggest problem I had with XII was the lacking of any engaging story - Every time I would reach a new location I would prey for the story to pick up but there was no interesting situations that would happen in new locations it felt like you just plodded along through them - We needed more moments like the being prisoner on the Airship or the Bahamut section which was had interesting cutscenes and situations going on.

There is a part when you arrive at the Nam-Yensa Sandsea where you see a conflict between two races - this is precisely the type of intrigue the world needed more of! But even this feels VERY left field from the main narrative which needed more events like this.

Antagonist - Vayne & Cid:
I feel Vayne is one of the weakest/forgettable antagonists of the series. While of course there was a lot of action/manipulation within the games hierarchy there was no personal tension between Vayne and the party - Take a look at XIII for example, which also lacked a personal conflict with the protagonist in Bathanderlus but with the sequel we got a much needed Ciaus Ballad! They almost did this with Cid and Balthier, but sadly the confrontation was just noted on the sideline - Cid should have been a meddling antagonist we should have had multiple encounters with.

Interesting Side Activity:
When it comes to additional content XII went all out on it's monster quests which is fine but really it's just an extension of the games battle system. I love interesting mini-games which have a lot of depth and reward to the overall experience like X's Blitzball or IX's Chocbo Hot and Cold.

Class System:
One of the newer issues I had with the Zodiac Age is choosing your classes at the beginning of the game - there's no indication to what classes will be beneficial to the post game content - so that involves hours of research before you even start the game just to make sure you haven't chosen the wrong class. I've not had this issue in any other FF game.

License Board:
I hated this system, when I buy a weapon I want to equip it to a fiited character instantly upon purchase, not having to unlock the right to do so on a progression board! I think if they wanted to integrate a system to where the wielder needs to progress with a weapon they should have taken IX's approach in making the weapons feature abilities you can learn upon using the items - giving validation to use weapons which might not have the highest Attack stat.

I will add more I'm sure :)
 
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I think that anyone could say dozens of things they would change to any game. The experiences we have in life make we want things to happen the way we want everytime.

However, that is not possible. If we want really to change something we have to focus on what is possible.

Thus, I'd say that if I had to pick something to change in FF XII that would be:

1. Fix the Steal Gambit so that you don't try to steal twice the same enemy

If you set Ally: Any -> Antidote, for instance, you won't keep throwing antidotes all the time, you will only do so if an ally is poisoned.

The same should work for stealing. If there is a "feasibility factor" for healing gambits, there should be for EVERY gambit.


2. Fix the Regen + Sap status (and other)

If you equip a Ring of Renewal, for example, you are still vulnerable to Sap. That isn't exactly an issue.

The problem is that you can't heal your Sap by casting Regen, as you would if were not equipped with the Ring, because the magick will miss (as you are already have the Regen status). In that case you need to cast Esuna or use a Remedy to heal the Sap, or - oh lord - unequip the ring and cast regen (that is my favorite way, lol).

That is rather controversial, as if there were a disadvantage using the ring.

I think the character could become immune to Sap when equipped with the ring, or the magick could simply not miss anymore, working simply to remove the Sap (working the same way as a Poisona).


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There are many other big changes I could suggest, but only these two minor changes would bring much more sense to the game, lol.
 
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