Game Director on the Rumours of Basch being the main protagonist...

[Vivi-Gamer]

It's not every day you see a news artcile about an older FF game, so thought I would post this:

Final Fantasy XII was a marvel when it was originally released on the PS2 in 2006. However, it also had an infamously challenging development cycle for its key developers, including game director Yasumi Matsuno.

Though the true extent of how challenging development was on the game is not publically known, one prevailing rumor about Final Fantasy XII's early production that stuck with fans was that protagonist Vaan wasn't the initially planned hero of FFXII.

On Twitter, the game director took time to respond to a fan's comment about Bacsh fon Ronsenburg — a disgraced knight and eventual party member in FFXII — being the original protagonist of the game. This comment came from a thread about Clive, the hero of Final Fantasy XVI, who is set to become the oldest main character in an FF game.

In the plainest terms, Matsuno denied that Basch was the original hero of Final Fantasy XII in the early production, writing, "That rumor is a fake story. Thank you."

That rumor is a fake story.
Thank you.
— 松野泰己 (@YasumiMatsuno) April 18, 2023
Full Article at IGN

I'm still a little surprised, I mean just playing the game you can see how absent from the narrative Vaan & Penelo are - This doesn't help by the majority of the parties actions are sidelined to the mainstroy of the world progressing elsewhere for the majority of the game. It's clear more attention... well... backstory was given to characters like Ashe, Basch & Balthier. Also, with the issue which happend durign its development I'm sure big changes happened. Put it this way, I can't imagine Vaan was pitched at the cetnre of the project like other FF characters, it's not a character driven story at all.

 

[Dionysos]

Thanks for sharing this. For the longest time I believed this rumour and it hadn't been important enough to me (or too relevant to my investigations) for me to check its truth. I know lots of fan videos on YouTube have speculated on what FFXII might have looked like 'had Basch remained the lead', and so on.


After digging into this briefly, it seems like the rumour must have started due to a misunderstanding of some of the developer commentary about the creation of Vaan.

Apparently it was Vaan himself who was supposed to be older and more rugged-looking, only to be redesigned as a youthful character to better suit his VA's performance style. If that aspect is true, then you'd think that redesign would have arrived somewhat late, but I guess things were different back then.

From FF Wikia:

Vaan's early name was "Aqua" (アクア, as seen in Akihiko Yoshida's concept art) and intended to be an Iyashi kei character (癒し系, "therapeutic type", a kind of Japanese stock character). Vaan is known for going over several personality changes over the course of development, originally written as a rugged and world-worn character until the developers reconsidered the target demographic and Vaan was rewritten to be more effeminate. After Kouhei Takeda was cast as his voice, the developers rewrote Vaan to match the energetic personality his voice lent to the character. The executive producer of Final Fantasy XII, Akitoshi Kawazu, has said in an interview that character design is one of the areas the developers mull over extensively, and is one of the most difficult things to decide on.[3]

I don't dislike Vaan, but it is strange how Vaan appears to be a bit like a spare part in his own game a lot of the time, but in that respect I guess he might be considered in some ways more relatable to the player. Not his abs though...

FFXII really is an atypical game in more than one respect. Vaan being the protagonist but not the 'leading man' is a big one.

 

[Miko]

I played this game finally for the first time this year & wasn't aware of the rumors to be honest, or really anything else about this game. To me it feels like there is no main lead, but not in the same way FFVI did it. I don't know if Basch's tragedy of being the disgraced knight would be as impactful if the story had progressed from his POV as the main protagonist, but that's just my perspective from one play-through of this game.

I think Vaan as the main protagonist would have made more sense if the story had been more driven around him, Panelo, Balthier & Fran, but with the main story focusing around the political side of the events it made it seem like there was just all these stories kinda smooshed together instead of built together.. When they say that it had a lot of developmental issues I can only say that it really does show. The game was still good though, to me anyway, but I certainly didn't like Ashe much, if at all, which is sad because if anything I think it was more catered to her story than anyone else's.

Maybe the wrong place for this, but I never understood why Vaan could see the Rasler/Occurian ghost that Ashe could see - it just didn't make sense to me from a story point of view if only to add one last lose thread that they were trying to add more importance to Vaan as the lead.


Also, 100% would have enjoyed this game if it was more focused on just Vaan, Pillow & Fran and Balthier. Actually I'd probably enjoy it much more if it was just Fran & Balthier. Okay just Balthier.

 

[Bambi]

Huh, i was another one that never questioned the rumour, though that's definitely because vaan always felt like a bit of an afterthought, his grudge with basch over reks wasn't really explored too much and its all but forgotten about beyond a point and its like they tried to make vaan somewhat relevant with him seeing ashes husband (for the life of me i can't remember his name) in the tomb of raithwall(?) And again, thats something else that wasnt explored either, like why bother with the venat guys (forgot THEIR names too) letting him see that. He has such little relevance to the plot i never questioned the validity of the rumour as he definitely felt like an afterthought

 

[Raspberry]

Maybe the wrong place for this, but I never understood why Vaan could see the Rasler/Occurian ghost that Ashe could see - it just didn't make sense to me from a story point of view if only to add one last lose thread that they were trying to add more importance to Vaan as the lead.

Also, 100% would have enjoyed this game if it was more focused on just Vaan, Pillow & Fran and Balthier. Actually I'd probably enjoy it much more if it was just Fran & Balthier. Okay just Balthier.

The Occurian Ghosts were testing who they could influence the most. Vaan and Ashe had both people they lost due to the war. But Vaan wasn't so easily manipulated while Ashe was tempted.

I replay this game multiple times and i see people give Vaan a hard time, even though Penelo is the one that reinforces the idea that Vaan is incompetent and socially inept. For me, Penelo is the bigger afterthought than Vaan. She clearly never had experience with fighting before, she just there only to give Vaan a hard time and the only reason why she's a permanent party member is because she wants to stick with Vaan.

I don't think Vaan is an afterthought in the story. It just sucks that because he is the character that helps us ask thw questions we need to understand the story, people put him as the "Main" characters. but he's not, he's just one of the main characters.