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Nov. 21st, 2006 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynneJust beat FFXII!
I loved the game. I did! But I wish there was more character development. I mean, there was tons of world development and politics and really good stuff like that, and the story was very complex. That made me happy, since I love complex stories. But while the characters did have very definite, distinct personalities, they didn't seem to be as, hmmm, faceted as other FFs. It seemed like the characters grew simpler as the story grew more complex.
I'm not quite sure who the main character is. I mean, Vaan is the one we walk around with, the first real character we get, and the gang is once referred to as "Vaan's crew". But the story doesn't revolve around him the way that, say, X did around Tidus ("This is my story"), and there was no revelation about something that made him important to the fate of the world, like Zidane in IX. I suppose in that sense, Ashe is the main character, since she is indisputably the most important of the party, and th person on whom the Occuria focused. I think she also was one of the more complex characters--unlike Vaan, who has consistently been very straightforward; he misses his brother, he wants to free Dalmasca from the Empire, and he wants to be a sky pirate. Balthier is another of the more complex characters, and perhaps another candidate for main--he's the one who ended up saving Rabanastre from the Bahamut, his ties to the Empire are important (son of Cid, former Judge), and he has more than once referred to himself as the leading man. Not that that makes him the main character, but he seems more like one than Vaan.
In other games, it's clear why the main character is the main character. Cecil in IV had a dramatic change of heart and turned against his home in order to save the world, and he ended up being the brother of the villain and from an exotic place (the Moon). Terra in VI is a half-Esper who's been abused by the Empire, and the plight of the Espers is an important aspect of the plot. Cloud killed the real Sephiroth (in the Nibelheim Reactor), and was experimented on by Hojo to make him a Clone, and therefore powerful, and he's got important ties to the villain.
Vaan doesn't really have anything to distinguish him from any other angry victim of the Empire, save that, through sheer luck, he swiped the Dusk Shard and ended up meeting Ashe and everyone else and getting caught up in the real fight, rather than causing petty annoyances to the Empire in Rabanastre. And while I suppose it's not exactly a bad thing that the given main character isn't "special", one of the reasons I tend to like heroes best is because they are somehow "special". I love seeing how they deal with it. But instead of watching Vaan go through that, I watched Ashe, and while I like Ashe and have no problems with her being a heroine, I personally prefer the main character to be the hero (or the hero to be the main character), but given the game mechanics of Vaan being the one we walk around with, and given that he's been in the party from the start, it seems like he's the main character.
...Okay, that ended up longer than I'd meant it to be. :p Moving on!
I loved the actual game play. Although it took me awhile to get used to, I now think that the battle system is full of win, and Gambits are my Best Friends. Quickenings are cool, though, once you have good weapons, unnecessary; I didn't use a single quickening in the final battles, just physical attacks. The Mark Hunting sidequest is fun, and I like the sheer variety of all the places you can go. The summons being the equivalent of the Zodiac signs is a really cool idea, and I do rather like having to fight them in order to get them. I really like the license system, even if getting the money to get everything you need can get a bit difficult, especially early on. And I was challenged--unlike the last few Squeenix games I played, some of the bosses were hard enough that I really had to work to beat them, and several times I was even killed by ordinary monsters.
This game is really, really complicated, and I love that. I think I'm going to have to play it at least a second time to catch all the nuances.
I loved the game. I did! But I wish there was more character development. I mean, there was tons of world development and politics and really good stuff like that, and the story was very complex. That made me happy, since I love complex stories. But while the characters did have very definite, distinct personalities, they didn't seem to be as, hmmm, faceted as other FFs. It seemed like the characters grew simpler as the story grew more complex.
I'm not quite sure who the main character is. I mean, Vaan is the one we walk around with, the first real character we get, and the gang is once referred to as "Vaan's crew". But the story doesn't revolve around him the way that, say, X did around Tidus ("This is my story"), and there was no revelation about something that made him important to the fate of the world, like Zidane in IX. I suppose in that sense, Ashe is the main character, since she is indisputably the most important of the party, and th person on whom the Occuria focused. I think she also was one of the more complex characters--unlike Vaan, who has consistently been very straightforward; he misses his brother, he wants to free Dalmasca from the Empire, and he wants to be a sky pirate. Balthier is another of the more complex characters, and perhaps another candidate for main--he's the one who ended up saving Rabanastre from the Bahamut, his ties to the Empire are important (son of Cid, former Judge), and he has more than once referred to himself as the leading man. Not that that makes him the main character, but he seems more like one than Vaan.
In other games, it's clear why the main character is the main character. Cecil in IV had a dramatic change of heart and turned against his home in order to save the world, and he ended up being the brother of the villain and from an exotic place (the Moon). Terra in VI is a half-Esper who's been abused by the Empire, and the plight of the Espers is an important aspect of the plot. Cloud killed the real Sephiroth (in the Nibelheim Reactor), and was experimented on by Hojo to make him a Clone, and therefore powerful, and he's got important ties to the villain.
Vaan doesn't really have anything to distinguish him from any other angry victim of the Empire, save that, through sheer luck, he swiped the Dusk Shard and ended up meeting Ashe and everyone else and getting caught up in the real fight, rather than causing petty annoyances to the Empire in Rabanastre. And while I suppose it's not exactly a bad thing that the given main character isn't "special", one of the reasons I tend to like heroes best is because they are somehow "special". I love seeing how they deal with it. But instead of watching Vaan go through that, I watched Ashe, and while I like Ashe and have no problems with her being a heroine, I personally prefer the main character to be the hero (or the hero to be the main character), but given the game mechanics of Vaan being the one we walk around with, and given that he's been in the party from the start, it seems like he's the main character.
...Okay, that ended up longer than I'd meant it to be. :p Moving on!
I loved the actual game play. Although it took me awhile to get used to, I now think that the battle system is full of win, and Gambits are my Best Friends. Quickenings are cool, though, once you have good weapons, unnecessary; I didn't use a single quickening in the final battles, just physical attacks. The Mark Hunting sidequest is fun, and I like the sheer variety of all the places you can go. The summons being the equivalent of the Zodiac signs is a really cool idea, and I do rather like having to fight them in order to get them. I really like the license system, even if getting the money to get everything you need can get a bit difficult, especially early on. And I was challenged--unlike the last few Squeenix games I played, some of the bosses were hard enough that I really had to work to beat them, and several times I was even killed by ordinary monsters.
This game is really, really complicated, and I love that. I think I'm going to have to play it at least a second time to catch all the nuances.
