(7)Bloodborne vs (10)Final Fantasy XII 2015

Ulti's Analysis
When the contest got delayed for legal reasons, Allen was nice enough to spoil two matches for us just to get our anticipation going. One of the spoilers was New Vegas vs BioShock Infinite. The other was this match.

This match felt like it was a perfect candidate for the FLOWCHART™! Two games of relatively close strength, that few people care about outside of a contest setting. Yep, perfect time to consult the FLOWCHART™.

Nintendo > Squaresoft > Japanese RPG > Japanese > RPG > old > new > contest experience > top option > everything else.

"Squaresoft" is clearly higher on the totem pole than "Japanese", ergo Final Fantasy 12 was the favorite! We all knew as much the second the match was spoiled, too, even though the games that fall under the Hidetaka Miyazaki umbrella (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, et al) come with a huge amount of respect. Dark Souls seems to be the only one with any real contest strength for whatever reason, because while Final Fantasy 12 is a game of decent strength, the literal only reason it won this game is because "Final Fantasy" is on the title.

The poll may have been 55-45, but it was 55-45 for 24 hours straight and hardly had any drama to it. I'm sure Bloodborne is a fantastic game since everything under the Miyazaki label is great, but can I defend FF12 for a second? Yes, the plot is trash for 90% of the game. Yes, Vaan is trash. But it's meant to be a Metal Gear Solid 2 perspective where you look at the characters who are actually good through the eyes of a character that's meant to be annoying. Vaan and Penelo are a a nod to the days of royalty where following Ashe without question upon being asked is exactly what would have happened in the old days. Vaan and Penelo don't really need a ton of character development. That was all meant for the other characters.

The plot does manage to get good once you meet the Occuria, and thankfully the gameplay is good enough to get you to that point in an entertaining manner. Yes, the gameplay is good in spite of gambits. The whole point is that you can customize them, so if you hate them just do what I did and set it to auto-battle the closest enemy while you manually handle everything else. Done and done. The graphics are about the best you'll get on the PS2, and they are gorgeous. The atmosphere in this game is amazing.

And the Pharos Lighthouse. Holy crap, talk about a dungeon worthy of the old school. that thing takes zero prisoners, and it isn't some optional area. You're supposed to climb in the main plot, bitch. Let's not forget that the hunts are the best optional content in the entire Final Fantasy series (no joke, I actually do believe this).

Talking about FF12 makes me want to replay it, but I'm waiting for the inevitable HD rerelease of the international version. If FFX can get 28 rereleases, I'm positive Final Fantasy 12 can get one. I don't ask for much!