Sex! Drugs! Rock n' Roll!

Sorry, but the title has absolutely nothing to do with my post. I've been staring at the screen for a while now, I guess that's what happens when you don't write anything for over a week. It was a cheap tactic to get people to read my post, did it work?

Anyway, I've got a question for you? Are you one of those people who rents a movie and no matter how bad it is, you have to sit through it. I didn't think I was until this year, but I'll come back to that. I used to work at Blockbuster so I'd get my movies for free, if I didn't like it I didn't bother watching it. After I stopped working there, I usually just bought movies, and I only bought the ones I had already seen or knew I'd like. Okay, where am I going with this? Well, I'd hate to say it but Final Fantasy XII is a bad movie, and I can't stop watching it.


Interestingly enough the bad movie analogy really works, because the best part of this game is the graphics, it's kind of like you're watching a movie. With weird characters and strange names. Convoluted plots, and crap happening all over the place. I really wanted to like this game and it does pick up in parts, but overall...let's just say I could have flown around the world in the time I've spent playing this game. Or worked a full week, and overtime.

What kind of RPG doesn't have towns? Or shops, I mean you can buy crap from an online, I guess, store. There's not a lot of exploration, the game is too linear, you go from point A to point B. Fighting some of the same people over and over again. Oh and if you die as leader, your whole party bites the dust. You have these "paradigm shifts" which I guess, by definition, makes sense, sort of. In a way it makes the game easier by taking some of the micro-management out of it, but in another way it just makes it awkward. I can't make someone a healer without having to change everyone and I only have six predetermined shifts.

There are good things as well, you get completely healed after battle, so that's less time wasted getting green. (Although some people don't like that) The game is beautiful, the cut scenes are amazing and aren't much different from the game play. The actual characters are, I don't know...I'm not really into them. They have compelling stories and all, but something's missing.

I know one thing I definitely miss is the ability or option to change the character names. I mean you really can't do any worse than they did. Vanille? Sazh? Snow? Hope? Ugh. Besides you can't do better than Gil in the Final Fantasy games, because as you may know, Gil is their system of money, and who's more money than me? So yeah, I'm about sixty hours into this game and I'm going to have to stick it through. It isn't the worst game I've ever played, but after everything is said and done, the best way to sum up or review the game is this...

Some days it feels like I have to "punch in" and do my hours on Final Fantasy, not because I really want to, but because I just want it to be over.

-Money
-Gil