FFXII OG director Yasumi Matsuno shoots down Basch was supposed to be the lead

Everyone but vaan was main cast
Princes ass
Fran the bunny
Basch is ripped af
And this Xman gambit dude baltier
 
Also like in harry POTTAH.
Harry like Vaan is the person that watches the movie / plays the game.

You go in blank and have no idea wtf is happening. When everyone arounds you knows perfectly well what is happening.
 
Vaan looked kinda stupid and he was sort of bland, but he worked well enough as the eyes and ears of the player. He's a war orphan, the empire killed his brother, and he had the balls to sneak into the palace and steal the Dawn shard from underneath Vayne's nose, so it makes sense that Balthier would mentor him.

I'll take Vaan over a loud mouthed, annoying douche who constantly draws attention to his stupidity and makes every scene about himself (Tidus)
 
Japanese Man clears out confusion confirming he's an idiot, more on this later.

A bucket of shit would have been a better protagonist than Vaan.
 
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There really is no main leading character. Its a group of people who have different stakes in the same outcome. I dont get why so many people cannot cope with that?
 
Touch fuzZy. get BizZay said:
So Matsuno quit the long and troubled development due to poor health and not creative differences with Squeenix
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FFXII is a massive game with many novel ideas and insane production values for PS2. I think it took 6-7 years to develop?

That team hadn't made anything like it before. I believe the engine needed a lot of work and to get that all up and running on PS2 must have been a big challenge. Remember FFX still used pre-rendered backgrounds and they moved from that to create one of the most detailed games of that era in a fully 3d world.

My guess is he overworked himself to the point of mental and physical exhausition, as we see often in the industry and in Japan. Probably had a breakdown due to all of the above.
 
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Honestly confused why some people say Basch was supposed to be the lead. A huge chunk of the middle part of the game, felt like he barely said anything. Ashe or Balthier are far better candidates in my book.
 
People have been armchair quarterbacking FFXII for years - all because Matsuno left well into development. By that point the core scenario was long since finished.
Im a fan of the entire game start to finish - the story never fell apart in my eyes - and goes inline the endgame craziness of both Vagrant Story and FFT.
I would also say that there is no real 'main' protagonist in FFXII. It was never in the same mold as the other FF games.
Im happy to see Matsuno sticking up for the game all these years later.
 
I think the idea was playing the game through the eyes of a fish out of water protagonist, and a lot of the main story is driven by cooler, more bad ass characters surrounding you, sort of like in a looking up to big brother kind of way.

MGS2 is structured similarly for the Big Shell.
 
George Lucas confirms that main protagonist of the original Star Wars wasn't Obi-Wan.

Seriously, this game is Star Wars (Episode IV if you're being technical, but none of the sequels or spin-offs). It works so well because you have a nobody / fish out of water character that the audience can relate to (Luke). You're seeing the actions of the people in your orbit through the lens of naivety.

Penelo = Droids
Balthier and Fran are Han and Chewy
Ashe is Leia
Gabranth is Vader
etc etc etc

There are tons of narrative and tonal parallels here. So many so that it's obviously not a coincidence, and I wouldn't believe it if you told me that anyone other than Luke (Vaan) was always meant to be the main character.
 
Vaan is like Terra as the lead of FF6 but only in form, in both games no one is really a lead in substance.
 
Go_Ly_Dow said:
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Im playing through it now but it feels like Ashe is more the main character lol, or at least the main parts of the story revolve around her.... I dont even use Balthier or Basch. I really like it though... its much more enjoyable playing zodiac version than trying to slog through the launch version which I barely played.... FF15 next after this one and then ill have played 7-15 minus 11
 
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That answer just makes it worse. It confirms that FF12 story is godawful. I've argued with fanboys over the years about this and this story validates that their crappy opinions were wrong.

Even an elementary school kid would understand when writing a story that the main character should have importance to the overall story.
 
I really enjoyed each individual character in FF12, especially the 'old guard' characters. The whole dynamic of starting off with the younger characters only to meet the older characters and discover a deeper history was one of my favorite parts about 12.

Basch and the 'old guard' felt like role models Vaan was trying to live up to, and that story component was at the heart of FF12's message, for me. Being the young character was crucial and I love how they did it.
 
adamsapple said:
Of course, it was and is Balthier.
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ron burgundy anchorman GIF
 
It's a lie, but only because it's actually Ashe that's the lead, not Vaan or Basch(or Balthier, though he is right about being the leading man)
 
I wonder if he is under some agreement not to disclose other info? FF12 is such a great game, even how it was released. I'd love to know more from him.
 
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Wouldn't it be a more creative concept if a video game announced a clear protagonist, and then you were only able to play as their side character?

I know this currently doesn't apply to FFXII, but it definitely interesting to me at least. Maybe another FF can do it.
 
Vaan the most annoying FF protagonist that as ever been , just a terrible character , anyway 12 is still as the best FF combat , a brilliant blend of old and new, Far superior to modern FF games
 
klosos said:
Vaan the most annoying FF protagonist that as ever been , just a terrible character , anyway 12 is still as the best FF combat , a brilliant blend of old and new, Far superior to modern FF games
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Hard disagree. Best thing about Vaan is he actually shuts the hell up and lets the other, better characters have the spotlight. Wish some other JRPGs would learn from this example.
 
Never has a problem with VANN as a character other than his odd outbursts (I cringe thinking about him meeting BASCH the first time, humping his cage as VANN does).

. . . he was absolutely one of my least favorite characters (narrative wise).
 
All I remember is that the story was super bland. Game got a perfect score on Famitsu, and a lot of reviews were really positive. I wish I could charge them for my lost time playing this game..
 
Vaan is the least of the game's problems.

Balthier is pretty much the only party member with any charisma, and the story is extremely bland, no matter how many XII fans try to tell you that "Balthier looking to the left nervously in one cutscene signifies how he yearns to be free from the shackles of his guilt of his past as a judge; beneath his cocky veneer, his quiet desperation is what drives him, quite literally, to be a sky pirate." Seriously, every XII stan writes crap like that in order to convince us, or themselves, that XII's story isn't the blandest thing in the universe.

I like XII overall (mostly due to its production values + art direction + QoL of remaster), but… yeah.
 
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