Missed Potential [FFXII]

It had potential...but IHO I don't think it could have ever been a 10 or 7. Generic story with gawd awful characters...if you can call them that. I think there was more there and there should have been but this game fell flat on its face. Why was Vaan every considered for a main character? There was about 2.5 real characters out of all of them and not one whole decent character in any of them.

Oh..and maybe i just missed this...but was it ever explained why Vaan could see the ghosty things/Ashe's hubby and noone else could besides Ashe? Was that another plot hole or did I sleep through that part.

One thing I have to say is that I loved the sidequests and real time battles...I hope FF continues in that direction....just...does a 180 in story telling and character development.
 
There's no less missed potential than the other FF's really is there. I mean they're all flawed. XII has been brought to book particularly over its character development -- all the FF games have badly developed memebers of the party. The difference in XII is that it's the supposed 'main' character who lacks depth. The plot's weaker, but I always found that a decent combat system is the deal breaker.
 
Oh..and maybe i just missed this...but was it ever explained why Vaan could see the ghosty things/Ashe's hubby and noone else could besides Ashe? Was that another plot hole or did I sleep through that part.

I don't think it was explained in the story, but the reason was supposed to be Vaan was still seeking vengeance, then during the Jahara night scene he let revenge go, which was why he couldn't see Rasler's ghost at Miriam. As for the Sun-Cryst scene, I take it the Occuria just panicked.
 
Honestly, I enjoyed this game a great deal. The battle system, whilst it took some getting used to, was brilliant when you did get used to it, it was nice not to have Vaan as the focus of everything, I usually wind up despising the main characters, because they get all the character development and they are poor characters to begin with. Everyone got a little focus, and as a result they didn't turn out too badly. Vayne was, admittedly, a massive disappointment, but Gabranth filled in nicely for him as an interesting antagonist.

The world of Ivalice is undoubtedly my favourite of the FF worlds thus far. The level of detail, the concepts...definetely some of the best that have come out of the FF series. Although the Tactics series is also based in Ivalice and, being a HUGE Tactics fan, I took to XII's Ivalice quite quickly.

The problem with FFXII was the storyline. It started off spectacularly - although it did feel more like a movie than a game, and left a lot unexplained, but part of the fun is finding everything out - but then sort of fizzed out before the game was even half done. Then it tried to kick itself back up again towards the end, and, honestly, it failed. The whole thing with the Occuria...it didn't suit the game, in my opinion. It would have been much better if they had spent time developing Vayne, Doctor Cid, and the Judges.
 
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