Current Events > FF XII ages beautifully (zodiac age version)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I played the ps2 original years ago but never finished it. Recently started zodiac and on steam, and i am enjoying it a lot more than back then. The story is great so far, and it was probably harder to appreciate as a kid.

Gameplay is also great but also confusing when i was a kid, so i didn't get into it back then. The game looks amazing on steam deck it surprised me it was releasedcon ps2. On desktop, it look a bit worse because the texture scales badly on high resolution, but i downloaded a texture pack and it mostly looks great

The original is ASS. Zodiac Age is top 5 FF for me.

i thought it was really great back when i first played it on PS2. i got the Zodiac Age on Steam and played through most of it a couple years ago, but left off near the end and never went back to it.

Zodiac Age fixed a lot of stuff

I give the Zodiac Age version its due for bumping XII out of my worst 3 FFs, but it's still sitting near the bottom of my rankings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOdusIM3Gok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flLD5H2TI3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHx4TgHgJP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFTEQqdhyk

Nova_Castings posted...

I give the Zodiac Age version its due for bumping XII out of my worst 3 FFs, but it's still sitting near the bottom of my rankings.

One day I should give Zodiac Age a bit of time to see if I can enjoy it a bit. Because right now 12 is the worst FF in my book.

I played the original FF XII until I discovered that SE let actions remove options, used an algorithm to populate area loot chests, and geared the final boss and run-up with a large no-warning difficulty spike.

After 74 hours, I torched my playthrough and started over to avoid doing those actions so I could have all options available, I used an algorithm calculator to get loot that should have dropped even without it, and I used the money that I got from looting to cheese the final boss and 700K+ Gil Toss them to death. I bought the CE game and LE guide, but XII ended as the most frustrating FF release I'd ever played.

[ I bought TZA and played it until I had flashes of my first time. Some key improvements are not in TZA. ]

LordFarquad1312 posted...

The original is ASS. Zodiac Age is top 5 FF for me.

what all does it change?

El_Dustino posted...

what all does it change?

Wondering the same thing. I never had a big problem with the gameplay. I just found the world, characters, and story to be boring as hell.

El_Dustino posted...

what all does it change?

https://www.rpgsite.net/feature/5751-final-fantasy-xii-the-zodiac-
age-differences-changes-and-additions-whats-new-in-this-ivalice-remaster

The biggest one is the License Board is divided up into Jobs that are assigned to characters. They can have two at a time.

The requirements for the Zodiac Spear are changed so the forbidden chests are no longer a thing. Higher speed settings were added, a trial mode was added. Some magic and enemies were changed up. Two versions of new game plus. It did quite a bit.

its true of pretty much every FF but the music is so good. I should probably play this game one day... as a kid I rented it and got a bit past some beach or something, forgot where exactly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WJz2c_Bz5g

such a banger theme

a real FF XII-2 would be nice.

Zodiac is better, but it's still mostly ass.

IMO.

No Vaans inverted abs, no buy.

best of the series

yea it's fantastic

mostly played it on the steam deck like OP, should get back into it on desktop w/ mods

Love it up until Archades. Thats been the wall for me on subsequent play-throughs.

Rai_Jin posted...

a real FF XII-2 would be nice.

A mmo would have solved a bunch of that.

It has alot of rich history over many games.

I'm saying that because theres alot of FF11 in 12. How ATB and positioning works for instance. It also went the other way with trusts which is auto party npcs in 11.

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

Zodiac is better, but it's still mostly ass.

IMO.

those shots of fran tho

FF12: Zodiac Age (the only version I ever played not counting the PS2 demo that came with DQ8) is probably the FF I hate the most. The only one I hate really (maybe I'd hate 8 too, but I only played 8 for an hour or so via the PS Plus collection a couple years ago). I'm not saying it's a bad game, it just had everything about it that I dislike. I hate political/war settings. I found the main characters to be either bland or unlikable. I did not care for the story at all. It was pretty boring to me. I think I got 40 or so hours in on Steam but didn't finish it. I hate not finishing games, but I don't think I could go back to it. I guess I also dislike 16 for similar reasons. Plus, 16 looked more like an action game than a JRPG.

I haven't been able to bring myself to play Zodiac Age because of how much I disliked the original. Fixing up the License Board is one thing, but I was so bored with the story, and with the only side content being hunts.

Hayame_Zero posted...

I haven't been able to bring myself to play Zodiac Age because of how much I disliked the original. Fixing up the License Board is one thing, but I was so bored with the story, and with the only side content being hunts.

I am in the same boat. I have heard good things about Zodiac Age, but the original release was a one and done for me. Trying to make the time to want to go play Zodiac Age over other games just has not happened for me.

I've said it before, but it's honestly wild how much I love Zodiac Age and NOT for its job system ironically, which I actually hate (it's not even a fun job system like ff 5) and yet the stuff the game adds is phenomenal:

- The double to quadruple speed that the ps4 game has.

- The ability to get the strongest most broken weapon in the game within the first 15 minutes of playing (albeit shame they didn't want to design an actual sprite or even polygon for it)

- Removing the nonsense 9999 damage cap for some huge damage potential

Among many many other benefits, like quick saving, coupled with the already great gambit system the game already had. Just, the entire game is a showcase of how to do quality of life improvements to a game.

Meanwhile the "job system" as it were is actually awful in that it actually limits your character's spell pool/abilities and just limits your license board in its entirety, unlike in original FF 12 where you could literally teach your party members the same thing so they have the exact same move pool and are interchangeable gameplay wise, having every single powerful attack, every single buff, every single debuff, etc etc.

It helps somewhat that when they made zodiac age, they let you choose 2 jobs per character instead of a meager 1, and you can always change jobs anytime you want. It was honestly wild finding out that this wasn't remotely possible in the European version of FF 12, I feel bad for PAL regions at the time they must have utterly loathed the game. But thankfully the zodiac age port 10 years later made up for it.

FF 12 the zodiac age is one of the few FFs that I straight up 100%ed, doing all the hunts, fighting the ultimate most powerful superboss in existence (50 million HP in the ps2 era was ridiculous, did they think people could sit through 6 hours of uninterrupted combat without life getting in the way?) and just tackling everything. It felt so good, being able to do all that.

saspa posted...

(50 million HP in the ps2 era was ridiculous, did they think people could sit through 6 hours of uninterrupted combat without life getting in the way?)

no you can just leave and come back. but be sure to disable his regen before leaving.

saspa posted...

Meanwhile the "job system" as it were is actually awful in that it actually limits your character's spell pool/abilities and just limits your license board in its entirety, unlike in original FF 12 where you could literally teach your party members the same thing so they have the exact same move pool and are interchangeable gameplay wise, having every single powerful attack, every single buff, every single debuff, etc etc.

I understand that, for some reason, this bothers you, but you talk as if it should bother everyone else even though basically everyone agrees that it improves on the original license board for this exact reaosn.

Also No judgment to the players in question, but it has always been strange to me how many people disliked FF 12/did not want to play it again/didn't even finish it. I absolutely loved the idea it had of political intrigue, and while executive meddling ruined what could have been with that concept, I was extremely onboard with the direction the game was going.

It was such a rare thing; apparently the only other rpg that did something similar (and apparently well) was a strategy rpg, rather limiting the number of people who'd want to play it, myself included.

I always liked FFXII and 100%ed it on my last playthough (getting a Danjuro to drop was, for better or worse, one of the crowning achievements of my gaming life), though I never "loved" it like eariler entries. Pros include a gorgeously realized and highly detailed world, lovely soundtrack, fairly addictive gameplay, Gambits, and Balthier; cons include a weak meandering story and...most characters other than Balthier. The Judges in particular were a letdown.

I've never sought out the Zodiac Age version of the game because it didn't fix what I personally found to be the game's chief flaws; namely Vaan being a thoroughly unlikeable forced protagonist who hogs screentime whenever possible, Basch's plot relevance falling off a cliff after the opening few hours, and "actually my evil twin did it" being the kind of juvenile storytelling I would have rolled my eyes at even in the pre-FF6 era.

But I have been on a FF kick lately, so if I ever give XII another spin it'll likely be TZA.

In spite of all of it's flaws it's still my favourite FF. You're absolutely right, TZA took the formula of XII and improved it for the better. Wish we got more games set in Ivalice.

saspa posted...

Also No judgment to the players in question, but it has always been strange to me how many people disliked FF 12/did not want to play it again/didn't even finish it. I absolutely loved the idea it had of political intrigue, and while executive meddling ruined what could have been with that concept, I was extremely onboard with the direction the game was going.

It was such a rare thing; apparently the only other rpg that did something similar (and apparently well) was a strategy rpg, rather limiting the number of people who'd want to play it, myself included.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why I've hated political/warring themes so much. Something about it just bores the hell out of me. I guess I feel like I don't want to hear about which nation is better and fight boring human armies. I want to save the world from demons or something. I also hate medieval settings (another reason I didn't get FF16).

I dropped it recently after about 30 hours. I never loved it and I wasnt looking forward to playing more. Bland soundtrack, story, and visuals.

I love 12 to death. I mostly like ZA but I don't Ike the job system. Just me personally. I liked th fact that anyone could use anything as long as they unlocked the proper boards.

I liked the combat system and Fran, and really nothing else.

I just got basch into my party member snd beat queen mimic.

The only thing about XII I didn't like was the story, particularly Vaan and Panelo. But everything else about it was really fun. Figuring out what combination of gambits to set to keep everything mostly smooth felt like strategy, while the board not just made me feel like I was crafting a class/job, but it was fun to go down it, too.

Really a bummer that the other elements of the game didn't click for me.

I only played the original PS2 release and it was absolute trash. I know Zodiac age does classes or something, but what else could it change that would make this terrible game good?

only played the original. always liked it. great game, loved programming the party's ai.

BlackScythe0 posted...

I only played the original PS2 release and it was absolute trash. I know Zodiac age does classes or something, but what else could it change that would make this terrible game good?

4x speed is a godsend

Dark_twisted posted...

4x speed is a godsend

People saying this makes a game better is confusing to me. It's just an admission that the game is boring.

And it is. Battling in FF12 is extremely boring. So is exploration with its trash RNG rewards.

I only ever played the ZA version, but I really liked the game. A lot more than X which I played previously and quit.

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

People saying this makes a game better is confusing to me. It's just an admission that the game is boring.

And it is. Battling in FF12 is extremely boring. So is exploration with its trash RNG rewards.

Modern remasters / rereleases of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and I'm pretty sure 9 (maybe more) all have combat speed-up features, and they're almost universally praised as welcome additions. I assume you don't view this as tacit admittance that these games are extremely boring as well.

No, but I don't think those features makes the games better because combat is fine in them. Even FF9 which has notoriously slow combat I don't think is made better by having a 4x feature and I'd never highlight it having it as some sort of major positive.

Consayblue22 posted...

I only ever played the ZA version, but I really liked the game. A lot more than X which I played previously and quit.

What I personally found wild is that SE didn't even bother putting those quality of life updates in the ps4 FF 10 port. It's like... what are they even doing over there.

And I actually was debating replaying FF 10/trying that weird sequel which people swear has an amazing battle system or something

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

No, but I don't think those features makes the games better because combat is fine in them. Even FF9 which has notoriously slow combat I don't think is made better by having a 4x feature and I'd never highlight it having it as some sort of major positive.

To each their own, I guess. Enjoying a FF game's combat and extensive use of fast-forward autocombat are not mutually exclusive, particularly while grinding (something I've come to learn quite well replaying 4 and 5 PR versions).