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    Final Fantasy XII

    Game » consists of 9 releases. Released Mar 16, 2006

    The last Final Fantasy game released on the PS2, Final Fantasy XII is distinguished by its condition-driven "gambit" battle system, its Monster Hunter-like open environments and side quests, and its setting in the existing fictional universe of Ivalice.

    Character Development

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    rerty

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    #1  Edited By rerty

    Anyone else feel like this game lacked character development?

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    PaperPlain

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    #2  Edited By PaperPlain

    Sure. I guess. They weren't as memorable as characters in the rest of the sereies.

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    deactivated-63aed1f3cc082

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     I think the scope of the game was much larger than the others in the sense that it was less focused on individuals and more on politics and the affairs of nations.  I don't think there was any real arcs for the characters, but I don't think there needed to be to move the story forward. 

    I guess I'm saying I agree that the lack of character arc removed the possibility for great depth, but it was the politics of nations that thrust the story forward.  Still a great game.

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    Psytek

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    #4  Edited By Psytek

    ^^Agreed, I think the story in 12 was more about the situation in the world, rather than the journeys of the individual characters. They did definitely make it clear how vahn was growing up and becoming more mature, but most of the other characters are there, I think, to give a sense of the different kind of people in the world, although I wish there was a bangaa character in your party, and more viera ;-p

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    TB42

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    #5  Edited By TB42

    I think there was something to be gained from how 12 handled the character development.  I found that the series started to turn into a everyone can do everything kind of game which isn't the true point of an RPG. Part of the game is trying to get the best combinations and matching the attributes correctly. 

    My other thought it this allows you to focus more on the game and less on spending hours figuring how you need to manage the massive level up stuff.

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    Psytek

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    #6  Edited By Psytek

    I do agree with that, It was kind of silly how every character was pretty much identical once you got all their licenses. I prefer the games where you have to make tactical decisions about which character to use for a particular battle or job.

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    zhinse

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    #7  Edited By zhinse

    I found the character development to be weak. The character who develops the most, Ashe, certainly was interesting, but it seems like the problems she was going through, her thirst for power, was not really pushed on the player enough. I don't know, it was a good concept but it wasn't pulled off good enough. The other characters were definately interesting to begin with but lacked the development most FF characters get. Vaan and Penelo didn't really seem like war orphans, and while that could've potentially be annoying for some, i think it would've been much more interesting than what they are right now. 

    While i enjoyed the much more mature storyline, i don't think it really interested me  or most others all that much.  there shouldn't have been much sacrifice for character development at all, even if the game was more about the world and its politics. I'm currently playing through FFtactics: The War of The Lions and the story in this game is doing everything FFXII did and even more by providing interesting characters and relationships in addition to the deep political stuff.

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    DiscoLights

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    #8  Edited By DiscoLights
    rerty said:
    "Anyone else feel like this game lacked character development?
    "
    there were too many options in the game...there was no structure...idk...i stopped playing after the first esper/summon whatever they're called
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    KingdomHearts93

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    #9  Edited By KingdomHearts93

    The character development is weak compared to previous games in the series and the story, from what I played of it, could of been better but was a good attempt at a more mature story

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    OmegaPirate

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    #11  Edited By OmegaPirate

    i thoroughly enjoyed ff12 - and think that if they took all the benefits as far as maturity, storytelling and scope that this title allowed - and pushed that into the next game, alongside the classic *central character* stylee - it would be some kind of monster!

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    Soap

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    #12  Edited By Soap

    Not only did it lack character development, it lacked characters... all you had were 6 empty templates of characters to fill in yourself. Games bad.

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    suneku

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    #13  Edited By suneku
    Soap said:
    "Not only did it lack character development, it lacked characters... all you had were 6 empty templates of characters to fill in yourself. Games bad."
    Exactly how I felt, their personalities were all so bland.
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    TheDudge

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    #14  Edited By TheDudge

    I thought that the characters themselves were quite good characters, its just that square did nothing with them.

    I was always looking in the game for more to come from the characters, but it never came which left me slightly dissapointed.

    The game was still good regardless of that though.

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    ZenaxPure

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    #15  Edited By ZenaxPure
    OmegaPirate said:
    "i thoroughly enjoyed ff12 - and think that if they took all the benefits as far as maturity, storytelling and scope that this title allowed - and pushed that into the next game, alongside the classic *central character* stylee - it would be some kind of monster!"
    *slight spoilers*

    I must say I agree fully. While I didn't find the characters completely boring (Balthier is my favorite character in any game ever :P), there was a much bigger focus on other things happening in the world with all the politics and Venat/Cid's focus on freeing mankind from fate... Any sort of change to characters occurred in the jagd near the end of the game, and it all happened so fast it was near pointless given how far we were into the game. I mean we see all new sides of Ashe, Balthier, Fran, and Vaan to a degree in that place.

    Unfortunately, I find that Vaan and Penelo both are a lot more developed in FFTA2 than they were in XII, have not had a chance to play XII RW yet so I can't really speak much about it.
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    zitosilva

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    #16  Edited By zitosilva

    I felt they were very weak. Aside from Balthier, and maybe Ashe, none of them has any personality. I mean, why the hell is Penelo even there? It doesn't make any sense...
    Now, maybe I could buy the whole "it focuses more on the wolrd than the characters" thing, if this part was well explored. But just like the rest, it isn't. Everything is too bland.

    Now, if by "development" you meant their classes, etc. I think it is weak as well. Making them all be able to be the same thing is boring, takes away any individuality they can have.

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    Wuffi

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    #17  Edited By Wuffi

    that game lacks final fantasy

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    Jethon

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    #18  Edited By Jethon

    I liked the story as a whole, but it felt like the characters were not giving me a good enough reason to move on.  Many of the characters seemed like there were just tagging along for the hell of it.  I think i even remember Balthier asking Vaan "Why are you even here?" or something to that effect, Vaan didn't give an answer and the item was dropped, never brought up again.

    As far as development went gameplay wise, i think a job system of some kind would have made the game a lot better... that's all im sayin'.

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    Lemegeton

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    #19  Edited By Lemegeton

    the development in the story was poor and although i never finished the game , i clocked over 60 hours and just got bored with the characters, none of them were interesting enough and i didnt really care what happened in the end. and as for development in the rpg sense, i hated it. I thought the license board sucked ass and there was no room for real customization. to build someone up as a pure mage for example was too much hassle. i hated that you had to activate a square just to see what the ones beside it were. i much preferred the sphere grid cos you could see what all the squares/spheres did and you could skip the ones you didnt want for that particular character

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    DeeJay

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    #20  Edited By DeeJay

    Yeah, cause they started every character off at the same point on the license board.

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