i actually have the logitech (well some of it). my friend who gave me the ps2 slim also gave me the logitech wireless controll but he said he couldnt find the little wireless reciever thing..its probably the best control i've ever felt but i wouldnt go and buy a $40 controll like that. lucifer3999

I do understand. But generally you are going to pay about that much for any good solid controller, including the Sony. Anything under that price area are usually the ones that break very quickly. I found paying the extra for one solid controller has saved me from buying what would have been about 3 cheaper controllers in the same time span thus saving me money in the long run. Of course, it could also be that I don't let my son use my logitech controller and that could be what has saved me:D

Well being a semi-old timer myself, I kind of agree with you. But have you noticed that you said that basically XII's story, board, challenge and gambit system sucked? If you played the FF series from it's roots (like i did), you would know that FF is all about story, hard battles, battle system and leveling up (customization). If you take out all those elements, what do you have left? Certainly not a FF game. I keep saying they should have named XII: "Chronicles of Ivalice" or something. I'm so nervous about next game... i hope they keep us in mind while developing it :( (i guess we'll find out soon enough, at TGS this year) alucardio

Maybe the way I explained it was confusing, if so, I am sorry because I agree with you. I have played the games, and finished all of them, from the beginning to XII (excluding XI.)

I find that prior to XII, the games focused on the characters and the way they "help save the world" so to speak. In XII it just seemed to me that it was a story about the world of Ivalice and the story of the party seemed secondary to it. This I feel is a major move away from the backbone of what made the games great. Not truely FF for me.

I agree about the hard battles and battle system being a focus and with XII they changed this extremely. The gambit system, as I said, has made it so that the player has to do nothing during a battle except sit there and watch and on the very odd occasion that something unexpected would occur, maybe step in and give a command once and awhile. With the old games (pre PS2) you had to be paying attention the entire time to put in your commands when your meter would fill. I guess I just find it rather ridiculous to be able to defeat the final boss of the game by walking into the room and then doing nothing but watch. This, to me, goes against what FF was always about.

Finally, as for the customization/development of characters, the characters were always developed in a "character class" style. With X and XII and the sphere grid/license board all characters become one generic character who knows everything. There is no distinction between them anymore in terms of who is a fighter, who is a mage, who is support, etc. All characters can be made and generally are built into the exact same thing. At least in X they kept the Aeons to Yuna and you had Kimari with his unique ability to copy fiend's abilities, and no other characters were able to do these things.

I have the same concerns regarding the next installment as well (not to mention I'm going to need to fork out the money for a PS3 first). I hope it will return to it's greatness but I am having serious doubts that it will.

Well since this is a PS2 forum, I would have to say GH3. If I remember correctly RB is not being released on PS2 just on the 360 and PS3.

wtf is up with the FFXII battle system? it's complete trash. it just doesn;t make sense to me, click attack and wait for your guy to attack when you move around towards the enemy? I don't know how it works, it confused the hell out of me, can someone explain it better to me? I'm on the first level but like when i go to attack, all my other guys attack like hell, but my guy stands there for like ever and then hits the guy once after standing there staring at him for like 8 days... i don't get it, help me please people.

Danski90

I don't know how far into the game you have gotten but once you get to a certain point in the game you will get access to the gambit system. This is what the other characters you have are already using. Once you have that you are basically able to set up a group of "macros" to instruct your character what to do when they come within range an enemy. until then you have to continually tell your character to attack manually.

you cannot play games for long period in slimline due to lack of fan....big disadvantage ;-)

booooooooky

I had to replace my fatty a couple months ago as the disk read errors were coming way to frequently. I bought a slimline (silver) and, being a binge RPGer, have had to running for three to four days straight without turning it off. Yes is got warm but never a problem from it yet.

Well, guess it is time for another old timer to put in two cents worth. I am 37 and have been playing FF since the beginning of the series.

IMO the best games of the series are VII through IX. But not by a huge margin. I feel both X and XII could have been right up there with those and even possibly at the top of the list except for a couple of things I dislike about both of the games.

I really dislike the battle systems of these two games. The turn base system of X just took away from the battles as you really didn't need to pay attention as the game was just going to stop and wait for you anyway. And XII with it's gambit system, well after awhile you don't even need to be doing anything at all during the fights if you get your gambits set up properly. Heck, the entire finale of the game against Vayne I sat back and watched, doing nothing as my party destroyed him entirely without my help. Really takes the excitement out of it, for me at least.

The other major dislikes I have for these two games are the sphere grid and licence board. Although not terrible ideas, I don't like what I see as now a complete loss of character classes. It really takes away from the strategic portion of the game for me when every character can learn every ability and be able to use every weapon and armour in the game. Why should your fighters be learning things like thundaga or holy? They would have been training to fight and not spending their time on higher level spells. I can understand giving them access to some of the lower level spells but that's about it. I hear they have made another XII in Japan which may have fixed this as they have changed the licence board so there are now seperate boards based on the zodiac that you have to choose from and once you choose that is the one the character must stay with thus bringing back the character classes. I hope this will be release on this side of the ocean as well. I think that would improve the game greatly.

As for the rest of these two games, I feel X definately had a great story to it that kept me interested in the game and wanting to see what was going to happen. XII on the other hand, could have used a lot of work in the story department. The story seemed to be too focused on the "world war" that is going on and not enough on the characters and their own internal struggles like the previous games did. As a for instance, the fact that Balthier is Cid's son. It comes across as a little side note in the story basically when they could have done so much more with it. Or even what could have been a great part of the party story would have been conflict between Vaan and Basch (after all Vaan did think that Basch killed his brother) but instead they argue once or twice as they rescue Basch from prison and then once they are out of there an "enlightened" Vaan forgives all.

Just realized how long this has gotten so will cut it off with this, IMO, VII through IX are best (with props given to the old school, sprite based games before them), X could have been one of the best with some changes to a few things, and XII, well, I look at XII as being very innovative for the FF series and more as a tester for what has the potential to become a new style for the FF series. Not a horrible idea but really needs some work.