@john7281: lol. Sin isn't the main villain. Sin is a monster that barely has any agency at all till you invade its brain essentially. Sin is a force of nature more than a villain. Saying Sin is the villain of the story is like saying a tornado or hurricane is evil. No. Dumb ass Seymour Guado is the main villain of the game. He has the most screen time and gets in the way of the heroes the most and is the one actively against the heroes goals from the beginning. Seymour is a poor man's Sephiroth right down to having mommy and daddy issues. He is a joke of a villain with a terrible design who copy pasted Sephiroth's plans. Also. Going back to Sin for a minute... The last boss in the game is a sentient tick. Just. What? Also, the fact you can't remember Balthier and all the crap he went through is disappointing to say the least. Or the fact that the main villains in the game all have some agency to them. :/
When you have all these amazing games coming out one after another non-stop since Yakuza 0, well... The numbers are gonna be high. Persona 5 and Horizon: Zero Dawn plus Nier Automita and Nioh. And more to come... Such a good year in general for games on all ends. 2017.
@bentleyj10: That is because most of Sony is... well... not that great. It is pretty horrible, really. The Playstation brand is one of the few things making money year over year at this point.
@Pierce_Sparrow: Angsty teens act like happy-go-lucky oblivious buffoons that don't listen to advice from anyone in the game and keeps shouting out how he is from Zanarkand despite being warned time and time again not to be such an idiot? He isn't even that angsty. He only has daddy issues, and it is draining to deal with for long periods of time. All he does is cry about everything till the last quarter of the game. I hope he isn't relatable to someone... Also, despite the horrible reputation Cloud has from everything made after Final Fantasy VII, in the actual game, he isn't even that bad and he gets over it rather quickly to do what he needs to do, and that is after the total mind destruction he suffered from Sephiroth. Cloud may have started distant, but even before disc 1 ended, he was the one that kept the group moving and motivated. He acted like a leader. Tidus acted like an oblivious idiot in contrast.
Now, while XII isn't as good on the personal story moments as say VI, IX, VII, or IV, it does well enough in that category that I can buy into it as a whole. The stuff with Basch is the most well done. He had the best character moments through the whole game in his quest for redeeming his unjustly sullied name. Then we have Ashe and her quest for gaining back her kingdom and realizing through the journey why revenge is not the most important way to go, and even told the Occuria to F off with their BS on controlling everything from the shadows. Her character growth was fantastic and due to her journey with everyone else. The villains are also great. Vayne and how he operates is very refreshing for a villain in this series. Judge Gabranth and Cid are both dynamic secondary villains as well. I can talk up all day how many amazing personal moments there are in XII. :)
@ipsofact0: If you like a piss poor story, some of the most obnoxious characters in FF history, horrible voice acting, a lame Sephiroth rip-off main villain, a stupid ending with a weak payoff, boring trail dungeon puzzles, and a convoluted mess with many holes and nonsensical moments, well... that is your business.
@Pierce_Sparrow: X story was god awful atrocious. The fact people think it is good always bothers me. Tidus is one of the worst protagonists in the franchise and his story is so WTF stupid that I could never really care about him or his problems. Also all those terrible plot holes and details that make no real sense. There are some personal moments that are good, but they get overshadowed by the sheer moronic overarching plot.
As for the characters in XII, I don't know why you think the characters are that under developed. The only ones that you could say are are Vaan and Penelo, and they are only there to be the fish out of water character to make it easier on the audience to understand all the heavy political aspects going on in the game. Everyone else is very well established. Especially our main villains, which is really a first. Vayne has one of the more interesting motivations in the entire franchise IMO. Heck, outside Kefka and MAYBE Kuja, I think Vayne is easily the best villain in the whole franchise just because of how interesting he is. I could go on for all the other characters, really. The best two are the dynamic between Basch and Gabranth, though. Talk about battling personal demons with those two. Then there is Ashe and Balthier and everything they are doing and why they are doing them. I just love the game so much... so many good characters. XD
@alexandreusss: It is underrated by the FF community. It was unjustly bashed by the community for so long that it can easily be considered underrated. Just like how Final Fantasy IX was.
@Reuwsaat: Really? The only one that is complete overall trash is XIII to me. As bad as I think VIII and X can be with the god awful characters and stories, I can still find a lot of good things about them that makes me play them every now and then.
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