Have you ever had airships in your games...

You have no fucking taste, XII had arguably the best story out of any of the main games, since it had very well-designed (And consistent) characters with actual depth and complex morality. The world was incredibly well built and full of details, even on obscure shit that would only interest serial lorefags, and it actually felt like a living, breathing world.

They managed to weave a good political intrigue plot into the typical Final Fantasy fare of a young orphan and his buddies going on a quest to kill god, and actually did it mostly well, with dramatic twists and turns, suspence-filled confrontations, other plots that didn't involve the main characters progressing alongside the major quest, all of which journies across the entire world and into exotic locales that actually felt distinct and interesting, with a gorgeous artstyle that lent the game an incredibly baroque feel while simultaneously preserving everything that made it high fantasy. It had it's cake, and ate it too.

The Ivalice Alliance was an objectively good thing to happen, and they produced an incredible setting which a number of fantastic games took place in.

>tl;dr Fuck you and the horse you rode in on

>I feel like they come up a lot as a fantasy element
Because Final Fantasy did it. You'll notice that a lot of fantasy JRPGs take cues from Final Fantasy, given how well it generally does.

As for why, it's one of the easiest ways to get around a large world map, outside teleporting to towns. And there are a lot of games, even JRPGs, which don't use airships.

No. It was a nonsensical story,
the political intrigue was bland, and so was the characters. The world was detailed only in so far as spamming mmo hunts everywhere in locations which had little to nothing to do with any plot or character development. You sound like one of those idiots who read vox tapes and books in FPS games and then argue that the world is rich, when this is just lazy and doesn't add anything but useless poorly written fluff to the game.

The political intrigue was done well, the characters are more multidimensional than in any other FF game save for Tactics, and the lore tidbits that you get given, all the beastiary entries, all the region backgrounds and short stories, the fact that they have nothing to do with the plot or the major characters is EXACTLY why the world is well developed. It doesn't feel like a world that was built specifically for the story, but rather the other way around, and I've not found any other mainline FF game that accomplishes that.

The only actual complaints I have with it is that yes, the combat system was odd because it practically played itself and was easy to break over your knee, and the fact that Vaan and Penelo were, in fact, incredibly bland.

And if I sound like one of those idiots, you sound like the sort of idiot who blitzes through a game and then bitches when there isn't enough depth, despite having walked past 90% of it.

>political intrigue was done well,
I still don't see why you believe this, it was a fantasy game for kids, of course the political intrigue is dumbed down and shitty
>multidimensional
stretching characters to cover alot of bases doesn't make them better when you only have a finite amount of time for writing, and considering the size of the cast, it was obvious that they had no idea what they were doing. Just look at the fucking treehugging bunny and her jack black pirate friend, LOOK.
> the combat system was odd
well at least we can agree on this
> blitzes through a game bitches when there isn't enough depth
I too have logged many hours of my life doing useless sidequests, this still does not make a game good. It's this kind of new-age mentality which makes horrendous shit like Fallout 4 possible.

>I still don't see why you believe this,
Because the players in the intrigue had varied and interesting motives, it took place across a number of countries with well-defined political systems, regimes, and cultures, and while it all falls apart towards the end when Vayne decides to become god, that happens for a totally valid and consistent reason and everything up until that point had carried a sufficient weight of emotion to keep thing burning at a nice and comfortably level.

>stretching characters to cover alot of bases doesn't make them better
They literally didn't, though. Each of the major characters has a clear motive and personality that develops organically as they interact, and as the plot progresses. Sure, you can fault them for not having as much character development as they could, but at the end of the day I'd rather keep things subtle than have them come off as schizophrenic.

>treehugging bunny and her jack black pirate friend,
Fran was an exposition device foremost, but she also acted as a foil for Balthier, who actually was a good character. Very cliche, sure, but cliche doesn't mean BAD. He has a fairly clear character arc across the entire story, which I guess you missed entirely because you are just dismissing him out of hand based on how he initially appears.

>doing useless sidequests, this still does not make a game good
Again, I'm literally not talking about the bounty hunter minigame thing, though even a few of those had a decent story behind them. A great many were just generic 'Go here, kill giant monster A', I'll be the first to admit, but there were also a few which had fairly well written self-contained stories to them. What I was really talking about is all the information that there is to find about the world, the short stories and historical excerpts, the information regarding the life cycle of some random tortoise - It's not required, but it's there if you want to read it, and helps to flesh the world out.

This, the game itself is pretty bad but the story is solid. I like how it has villains with reasonable motivations, unlike the typical "I want to destroy the universe for no reason" bullshit.

>of course the political intrigue is dumbed down and shitty

Compared to fucking what? There are works of fiction with more detailed and plausible political plots, sure, but by the standards of interactive anything it's pretty damn good. You've got character arcs that drive any betrayals that occur, enough background information to explain why they work, and motivation for caring, and I'm just pleased with the notion that the Great Catastrophe the party's working to prevent isn't the end of the world but a big war that will decimate one particular country.

The gameplay was bland at its best, I'll agree, and Vaan and Penelo could've been cut without costing anything of value (this supported by the degree to which they stop fucking mattering as soon as Ashe joins). Fran was a plot device and wasn't very interesting on her own. These are all good criticisms - it's pretty bad when a game isn't fun to play! But the remaining characters (and the entire non-playable cast of named ones) were some of the best-developed in any game, and the plot was self-contained and rock-solid, even if knowledge of other games improved it (for instance, the realization that the Occuria were right, because by Tactics every nonhuman race was extinct and humanity had regressed technology).

I actually liked the gameplay. That being said, if you can manage to get ahold of the International version with the job system and speedup, the game is WAY better and going back to the original is almost impossible.

I read a dev review once that talked about how they wanted to make the game super complicated, so that way no one person would ever be able to figure out everything on their own and it would create major internet discussion on things like where special weapons were, where all the secret hunts were and how to summon them. Think along the lines of the Zodiac spear, the best weapon in the game that most people wouldn't see unless forewarned about it. People hated FF12 for this sort of thing, but its the same shit that people cream themselves over when they're in games like Dark Souls and Xenoblade/X. FF12 was way ahead of its time

This isn't to dismiss criticism of Vaan/Penello, because by all accounts they are awful characters, but Balthier was originally meant to be the main character, but Vaan was written in because the devs didnt think Japanese people would want to play as a middle-aged guy and they needed someone more like Tidus. It's honestly hilarious how out of touch SquareEnix are, even in their best of works

Interesting, I always heard it was Basch. But, yeah, it was Executive Meddling that got him written in.

It was Basch. I think user had a mental switcharoo.

wut

It was both, at different points in development. I think at first it was actually Basch, but you can imagine how execs react to making the middle-aged POW who is basicly the same character as one of the villians the main character.

The original director, who also did the first Tactics, left because the executives were breathing down his neck hard on such a big project. The new one then tried to combine what the higher ups demanded with the original vision, leading to the most un-final fantas Final Fantasy.

And even if Vaan is as useful as a paperbag, at least he delivers some character growth for Ashe in her seeing how he reacts to the gods also tempting him with vengeance. Penelo, on the other hand, is nothing.

>I feel like they come up a lot as a fantasy element despite not making a lot of sense
>fantasy
>sense
Sorry in your world of magic and dragons and alternate planes and shit that airships don't make sense.

Ok, fine, I'll admit the mid gane was good, but the early game was fucking boring as shit, and the late game had disappointing plot battles. How would u rate ff12 compared to the others then?

We play a Crimson Skies style game, so yes, airships and zeppelins are the norm for long distance travel, piracy, bases and the like. And of course as most of the world is still undiscovered, there are dinosaurs and flying pterodactyls...

Have you ever played the Trails in the Sky series?Going by your posts, my guess is that you would probably enjoy it.

>The only actual complaints I have with it is that yes, the combat system was odd because it practically played itself and was easy to break over your knee, and the fact that Vaan and Penelo were, in fact, incredibly bland.

The lame thing about those two is that, originally, Balthier was supposed to be the player character, but the executives stepped in and said, "We need a generic 19-year-old protagonist for our main audience to identify with," so the devs threw-in Vaan. It's why he and Penello are so flat, and why they have no effect on the plot at all.

I've always hated that line of thinking, too. No fucking kid, teenager or 8-year-old, wants to be the tag-along kid. No kid wants to be Robin, or Aqualad, or whatever. They want to be the cool leader guy, or the cool supporting best friend.

I did a sky pirate/cowboy game set in a dieselpunk post-apoc world.

I never thought anyone could fail at playing what was basically a Firefly game but man did my players fucking prove me wrong on that.

>I've always hated that line of thinking
That line of thinking favors self-insertion over aspiration. Meaning that it works based on the assumption that the player will not be able to immerse himself in the game unless the characters he's controlling is somewhat similar to him.

Now, I completely agree with you that this line of thinking is retarded. If I'm already a boring kid with no relevance in real life, the last thing I would want is to be a boring kid in my video game.

XII was my favourite, followed by IX, VI, and VII, in that order.

>Penelo, on the other hand, is nothing.
She is a cute.

>All these people talking shit about Vaan and Penelo

Personally the only thing they did wrong with them was not exploring their past and making them more relevant to the characters at hand.

First you have Vaan who many people write off as a whiny teenager and not an War Orphan who's brother was critically wounded fighting in a war and him having to deal with it and the subsequent poverty he was thrown into as a result only knowing that some asshole name Basch was responsible for making his brother and his home the way it currently is and why he has to steal to eat under the pretense of taking it back for Dalmasca.

Not only that, he finally gets to meet and confront the very same guy whom he believes is the cause of all of his suffering and doesn't know what to do other then wanting to take revenge which he quickly finds to be a hollow sentiment and would do nothing for him emotionally especially the deeper into the conspiracy he gets and realizes how bullshit everything is and forms a bond with a man who he not long ago wanted to gun and put his head on a pike and comes to resolve his emotional plights making him a stronger individual for it.

And while they don't dig to deeply into Penelo's past her interactions with Larsa could have made for great story telling with her telling it like it is versus Larsa's otherwise overly optimistic and simplistic worldview being a well meaning Noble who doesn't truely understand what it's like for common dregs like her and everyone else that isn't on the brunt end of political swings and movements by people who wouldn't be too terribly affected aside from the money and effort they had to put forth to get them rolling.

Basically, they weren't useless, they just could have done more with them.