Final Fantasy 12: Log 2

Okay, so it’s been a while since my initial report on Final Fantasy 12 and since then, I’ve received several comments, some of which note I spoke nothing about the plot of the game, well, lets fix that now, shall we?

The general plot of Final Fantasy 12 follows the events of two major empires, Archadia and Rozarria that are in a war. All the countries in between the two however are caught in the crossfire, including your own country of Dalmasca, which is taken over by Archadia by the game’s beginning. With the take over of Dalmasca, one of their most revered captains, Basch Fon Rosenburg, is found guilty of treason and sentence to death… though in actuality, he’s really just put in a prison for torture… or something, I don’t quite remember why. Meanwhile, princess Ashe of Dalmasca, is said to have killed herself over the loss of her country and her father, when in reality, she’s one of the key members in a resistance against Archadia. In fact, that’s where most of the story follows, Ashe’s trying to reacquire her kingdom from Archadia.

For the first… fifth or quarter of the game is you going around finding the princess and once you do find her, a great bit of the story involves ‘Hey, we need to find this proof, you’re a princess.’ And ‘Hey, we need to find this sword that could fight against the great power of the empire’ and ‘Hey, we need to find this other macguffin.’ It’s told fairly well and the voice acting is well down, but ultimately, it boils down to a series of Macguffin fetch quests… at least, up to the point I’m at, which leads me to a ironic following point.

I’m at practically the same spot I was before I quit last time… and as though history repeats itself, I’ve become bored with the game once again and it’s not like I’m leveled my guys wrong this time. In fact, I’ve done a lot better with sticking with certain builds and getting the most out of everyone’s gear and abilities, and to that regard, it is more enjoyable, but here’s the thing on that part: To get the most out of your gear and abilities, you seriously have to research them.

Let me give a example: You see a katana for sale. Hey, Fran has the license to use katanas, awesome. So you buy it and you begin to realize… the damage that Fran is doing isn’t quite as good as it can be. Then you realize, maybe she’s not getting the most of a certain stat! So what stat goes into Katanas? Strength? Well, yes, but only partially. What else then? Speed? No. Weapon Skill? No. What then? Believe it or not, the other major skill for determining damage is the character’s MAGICK trait. What? Where does that even come from? And the game doesn’t tell you this at all. You have to find out on your own. In other words, GUIDE DANG IT!!

But back to why I’m bored with the game: Well, simply put, while there was a lot of neat things towards the beginning, I’ve pretty much gotten to the point of… there’s nothing that wows me in this game. It’s like, “Oh, yea, the most powerful black magic known to all man kind? Yea, I have it here, just 20000 gil” All of your abilities you pretty much buy and it kind of takes away from the wow aspect. I mean, Final Fantasy 7 sort of did that too, but there were unique material that were only obtained through special exploration. Here, not so much. It’s just… boring me now. But I will force my way through this game… even if it bores me to death.