The story in FFXII is fine. Heck, I dare say it was flawless...

The story in FFXII is fine. Heck, I dare say it was flawless. It doesn't leave any plot points unresolved nor character motivations mysteriously absent. The biggest gripe you can lob at it is the obvious pacing issues, namely the gap spanning from Bur Omisace to reaching Archadia. There are some delightful side quests thrown in to add some world-building: the builders in Salika Wood and the Mandragoras Hunt in the Palaca being stand outs. There was a horrible attempt at patching it by throwing Balthier's confession into the middle of Phon Coast, but once you're through that, the story crescendos very nicely into the third act.

Anyways, the bigger issue with FFXII is its use of RNG in determining chest spawns and drops while also hiding away some ultimate equipment in one-off encounters.

Overall, XII was a good step towards the FF "reawakening" we were all hoping for, and it was a more proper direction than XIII or XV were headed in.

>It doesn't leave any plot points unresolved nor character motivations mysteriously absent

The Occuria.

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I'll bite, user. What don't you get about the Occuria?

Inb4 dude what if we

Namely, Venat's motivation for wanting to rebel and "put the reigns of history back in man's hands". Plus they're supposed to be all powerful deities but they couldn't do jack shit when Ashe decided not to go along with their plans.

>FAP
If you don't play as Ashe and the other two, and constantly stare at their asses, you're playing this game wrong.

I think it was pretty obviously mentioned that the Occuria are in a self-imposed exile and that it's impossible for them to return to the human realm, hence why they attempt to enlist the aide of Ashe to do their bidding.

Venat rebelled against their order and rule. He felt they had no right interfering in the affairs of men when they were so far removed from it. What could they know about how men could live their lives. The only plot hole you could surmise is how he managed to escape the Occuria realm. It likely has to do with his latching on Cid, or maybe Cid had a way of bringing him out.

>It doesn't leave any plot points unresolved nor character motivations mysteriously absent.
It doesn't have any plot points nor do any of the characters have motivations.

this. the story was just random happenings that didn't make a lot of sense.

post more anime booty STAT

There's nothing less appealing than gross generalizations that negate any attempt at discussion.

They do make sense. The problem is the plot is at major odds with the rest of the game, moreso than other jrpgs.

>im a kid who spams buttons through cutscenes

Brainlets will never get FFXII, wasted effort.
Let's all appreciate Penelo's butt instead.

She's the flattest of them all though.

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This with the addition of giving them all guns

>these waste of replies

Not sure what you mean honestly. It's been a while since I played it so I can't go in detail but there is that one point to make about the antagonist and your party literally never interacting which kinda fucks up any sense it might have made.

The antagonist is Venat and the Archadian Empire. Venat makes appearances, but you're right. He never directly communicates with the party. The Empire, however, is constantly a menace and standing in the party's way. A lot of people prefer singular villains with vibrant personalities, so I can see why it's a turn off. XII is unique, and superior because it recognizes that, very rarely, is one person the nexus of all evil in the world, that the circumstances that lead to terrible things are far more complex than one man's actions.

What I mean is that the gameplay and world are designed to practically invite you to fuck off from the main story and do whatever you want, but the story almost demands that you ignore as much side-content as possible to proceed to next location/plot point. The pacing is all fucked. It creates a very fragmented experience, which is why a lot of people have issues following the plot.

>but there is that one point to make about the antagonist and your party literally never interacting which kinda fucks up any sense it might have made.

Not just that, but Ashe is pretty much isolated from most major/relevant events and characters in the game. I get what the game was trying to go for, like how Ramza in FFT stumbled upon a shadowy plot by the church to seize power, while the nobles fought amongst themselves. But most of XII boils down to being one giant fetch quest in order to give Ashe something to do, while everyone else handles the important stuff. Vossler pretty much tells Basch he has more important things to do than watch Ashe, and relegates the responsibility to Basch, and later, Reddas outright tells the party they're following a false lead, but they go anyway.

I'm probably just a dumbass but, like, playing through this game, I just felt like nothing happened. Like... now I'm going to do this thing, but I dont really know why. Now we're going to do this other thing, but I don't know why. Now the game's finished but what the fuck did I even achieve?

I'm not a very political savvy guy, and I can clearly see the game is quite political, so the points probably just went over my head, I guess. Regardless, it was a bit of a drag for most of the game. It's unfortunate, I wanted to like it. The gameplay was cool, but only to a specific degree. Bit tedious sometimes. All in all, I don't get the hype and praise for the game.

>I just felt like nothing happened

You're not entirely wrong. The whole game was a build up to a conflict that never actually comes to pass. Remember there was a rebellion building the entire game. You pretty much stop the plot in its tracks. Like if Cloud had a clear head and never gave Sephiroth the Dark Materia in VII.

I guess I can understand the idea. I feel like that's kinda lame in itself though. All of it just wasn't very gripping