Final Fantasy XII Review

The Final Fantasy series is almost twenty years old. When Square developed the first title in the series, the game's name was meant to coincide with designer Hironobu Sakaguchi's retirement. Instead, the game's popularity set the stage for a series that has now reached twelve 'main' titles and more than half a dozen offshoots. Almost everything about the series has changed over the years, except for popularity and a generally high level of quality. Final Fantasy XII has changed almost everything from the series norm, except the quality. The result is a game that very well may be considered the best Japanese RPG in years. It's a smarter, more adult, and absolutely beautiful title; the perfect balm for anyone not taken with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion . Read on for my impressions of the newest and most ambitious chapter of the Fantasy that's never quite Final.

• Title: Final Fantasy XII
• Publisher/Developer: Square / Enix
• System: PS2

If there's a consistent criticism leveled against games in the Final Fantasy series, it's that most of more recent games center around a big-hair protagonist, usually angsting in a very teen-like fashion. The sweeping political story told in Final Fantasy XII combats every negative story stereotype the series has, and brings the tone of the game into a much more 'adult' space than previous titles. We primarily follow the exploits of street-kid Vaan and the motley crew that falls in with him, consisting mostly of fallen royalty and sky pirates. The story itself, though, deals with the rocky political and military issues facing a war-bent empire. The king is dying, his sons are being manipulated by a corrupt senate, and the toll of many years of combat is beginning to tell in the hearts and minds of the empire's citizenry. The best part here is that it makes sense. The story is complicated, to be sure, and you'll definitely find yourself wondering what's going on at some points. Your questions will be answered, though, and not by silly responses like 'the planet is angry', or nonsense like that. Events in the game have real, human emotions and logic driving them, and it's a pleasure to behold.

With a game as lengthy as Final Fantasy XII, a decent story would quickly become boring if you had to slog through the gameplay. In my estimation, though, the originality breathed into the tried-and-true combat system has transformed this series. Taking the best elements of the older turn-based battles and the auto-attacking tendencies of Final Fantasy XI, FFXII offers a welcome new approach to RPG combat. For starters, there are no 'random' attacks in FFXII. Monsters wander around dungeons in all their beautiful graphical glory, and whether to engage an enemy or flee is up to you. It's a welcome change, forgoing the frustration of random encounters dogging your steps on an overworld map.

The real innovation here, though, lies in the 'Gambit system'. Each character has a certain number of Gambit slots. Each Gambit slot can be loaded with a specific command, with an extremely simple programming-like syntax allowing for some surprisingly complicated maneuvers. When loaded up, these Gambits dictate the actions of the characters within the game world. A Gambit could say 'If an Ally's HP is less than 80%, cast cure on them.' As you progress through the game, more esoteric criteria become available. Some allow you to target enemies based on their weaknesses, while others look for allies with detrimental conditions. This combat system can be overridden at any time with the simple push of a button, allowing the precision of a turn-based approach and the speed of the Gambits. Taken as a whole, Gambits allow the player to leave more of the 'nitty gritty' to the rules you've laid out. You don't have to make sure every character is healed up after a battle; they'll take care of that themselves. This frees you up to stay appraised of the whole battlefield, and in general means more fun per moment for the player. If this sounds like things are 'too easy', it should be pointed out that Gambits should either be heavily tweaked or turned off before boss battles. These non-stereotypical fights almost require a return to the series' turn-based roots, so that each character can execute the most efficient set of instructions possible. Gambits allow a wonderful blend of control and gameplay, and definitely aid in making the title the powerhouse that it is.

Other gameplay elements should be familiar to Final Fantasy players, but have received some additional tweaking. Each character can have their abilities focused by gaining new abilities and permissions on 'the license board'. License board points are obtained by defeating monsters, similar to but separate from the traditional experience points. While gaining levels does make a character stronger, it's the application of license points that makes them more versatile. A character focused on casting spells, for example, fills in the spellcasting part of the board with their points. There are board areas for weapons of varying types, armor, spells, simple stat buffs, and unique abilities called 'Technicks'. These last are non-magical moves that can produce a variety of quirky effects. One throws money at enemies to cause damage, while another damages opponents randomly based on what time of the day it is. These abilities, spells, and equipment are trained on the license board, but are unusable until actually purchased. While gil (the game's currency) is obtainable 'straight' from monsters, the most common way of paying the bills is by selling loot. Loot drops from monsters, and exists for no other purpose than to be sold for money. Entertainingly, you can increase your chances of gaining loot by 'Chaining'. Slaying several monsters in a row, all of which are of the same creature type, will allow you to start a loot chain. The more creatures you kill in a row of the same type, the better and more copious amounts of loot you'll receive. I've gotten chains up over 150 creatures, and by engaging in this entertaining activity it becomes easy to get the money you'll so desperately need.

Graphically, Final Fantasy XII may be one of the finest titles ever to grace the PS2. There are, of course, some jaggies and obvious pixilations. Despite that, the unique art style utilized to show off the world of Ivalice is absolutely breathtaking to behold. Character designs are iconic and memorable, while very distinct architectural styles makes it easy to understand where you are and differentiate from where you've been. They don't pull out the stops with well-imagined location concepts either, moving you from rotting tomb to scorching desert to a city floating on an island in the sky. Weather effects change locations you've been to previously, adding additional layers of complexity to an already quite dense graphical palette. Musically, the game stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the works of Nobuo Uematsu, the traditional composer for the series. Despite not being done by the master, Sakimoto's work has the same haunting weight and presence we've come to expect.

Given that the PS2's successor launched commercially in the U.S. today, it's fitting that the last-gen Sony system would see titles such as this be published on the way out the door. Along with titles like Okami and Bully, FFXII is the last gasp of a true winner in the world of videogames. The PS2 won the last generation exactly because of games like this. At the end of the day, it's not marketing or hype that makes a game great; it's solid gameplay, an engaging story, and an attractive presentation. Final Fantasy XII proves that you don't have to be 'next-gen' to be a truly great game. I only hope that the lessons learned in these late-generation titles transfer into the games of the next generation. It's always frustrating relearning things again.

The game elements of Final Fantasy XII, laid out separately, sound solid but fairly routine. Gambits are new, to be sure, but it's all pretty standard stuff. The key here is that it doesn't play like the standard stuff. Moving through the actual game in Japanese RPGs has gotten to be a real chore over the years. Unlike the freedom valued by American games in the same genre, the boxed-in storylines and gameplay have gotten mostly fairly stale. Even exceptionally good examples of the genre suffer from a a case of the been-there done-thats. All this makes Final Fantasy XII that much more enjoyable in aggregate. By stepping outside of series norms, the game's creators have had the chance to reintroduce us to the very gameplay and storytelling concepts which made the Final Fantasy series a powerhouse in the first place. I highly recommend this title to any fan of Japanese-style roleplaying games. If you've been put off by the stodgy nature of the genre in the past, I would even go so far as to say this may be the title that allows you to finally enjoy these games. Final Fantasy XII is a triumph for the series, and I sincerely hope marks the direction future games will be heading.

More adult?

The main character's face is modeled after a 14(right age?) year old japanese GIRL. He wears skimpier clothes than ANY of the female characters in any of the other Final Fantasy games.

Re:More adult?

Michael Jackson is Japanese?

Well..

... I was about to ask for a link in the article, but that is from Zelda, right?

It's a damn good game so far

I'm still just 30 hours in, but I'm enjoying just about every minute of it. For a change there are actually things about it that are new and not giving me the impression I'm playing an updated version of a game I've already played.

Level grind still a pain

Although the Gambit system automates the combats, from what I've learnt from FFX is that most of the combat time is wasted on displaying special effects during one of those big attacks. Good luck on maxing out the Aeons to beat hidden bosses...

A Perfect Example Of Why Microsoft Is Failing

It is some six years into the PS2's lifespan having sold some 105+ million consoles and it's successor has already launched. Since Sony completely controls the hardware and is able to continuously shrink the PS2 components over the life of the console, they are still able to sell the console for a profit for cheap to huge numbers of new console gamers who never bought the PS2 at its higher price points. And console developers don't have to throw away all that code they worked on over the past six years due to the fact that there is still a rapidly expanding market for both the PS2 platform and the fact that every new PS3 sold is able to play FF XII on their new system. Creating a seamless unified market for both gamers and developers.

That is the way you support developers.
That is the way you support gamers.

And that is one of the major reasons Sony has sold 200+ million consoles over the past decade and gamers are camping out in the rain and rioting over Sony's new system.

Re:A Perfect Example Of Why Microsoft Is Failing

But Microsoft took a different approach than Sony that is just as valid, and perhaps more (at least in my opinion).

Microsoft made the 360 similar to the architecture of a regular PC. Meaning that games can be easilly ported to both platform.

For example, Square, the makers of the Final Fantasy franchise, have said that it took them around two months of coding to port Final Fantasy XI to the 360 (from it's PC version). They have also said that the same job would have taken them around 2 years to port it to the PS3s architecture since it is entirely new and "alien" to anything already existing. The entire core of the game would need to be re-written.

This means a bigger library of games for both the PC and the 360 platform. That compatibility has a tendancy to attract numerous different games based on numerous engines instead of making more similar games that uses engines adapted to a singular platform like those made by Sony.

Also, i think the fact that people are camping out for a PS3 is more due to the massive shortage of it than any "good" design made by Sony...

Re:A Perfect Example Of Why Microsoft Is Failing

Gamers are waiting in the rain for PS3s because Sony launched with too few consoles. And your argument about how Sony is making consoles more accessible seems particularly ironic considering that the PS3 is $200 more expensive than the 360.

The Cube was the most affordable systm of the last generation. And, for most of its life, the XBOX was the same price as the PS2 - and it included a hard drive and NIC.

The PS2 was one of the most expensive consoles ever when it launched. It was (and is) hard to develop for.

Is the PS3 an excellent product? Absolutely. But so is the 360. The XBOX had a unified online expeience and downloadable games 2 years ago. The level of functionality that the 360 had a year ago is in many ways superior to what the PS3 has now.

Sony hopes to impress us with the PS3. But the 360 is here, now, in quantity, and for $100 less than the cheap PS3. Is the PS3 a solid product and an excellent value? Yes. But Sony is selling to the wrong market. $500 is just too damned expensive. All Microsoft needs now is a $200 core system.

Non-90210 Final Fantasy.

I've been playing this one on-and-off for the past few weeks, and I've really been loving it. My main complaint about many of the recent Final Fantasy games has been what I think of as the 90210-teen style use of emotions at the core of the character interaction and story.

Thankfully, FFXII has done away with that. There's still deep emotions, angst even, but it's more than showing a dozen characters with emotional hangups and occasional epileptic fits, and calling these annoying mishmash of shortcomings mixed with superpowers a story. Perhaps it is just my taste for use of emotions in stories - but I do find the determined use of emotions driving, while avoiding cliches, in the FFXII storyline.

The only downside is the music - not that it is bad, but it is intentionally ambient while being well-orchestrated. That same ambience, though, means that you never really remember or anticipate the music except in the rare cases where the music is an allusion to previous games. The reasoning for this musical shift was to allow the sounds and many well-done voices in the game to be clear throughout, never drown out by music that is too strong. It's a bit of a shame for my tastes - I loved the strong music in some of the games. But it's certainly a lesser concern than the gameplay and the storyline, which are overwhelmingly good in comparison.

Ryan Fenton

PS3 Compatible?

Nice review! I'm only a few hours into the game myself, but so far I am impressed and I especially do not miss the random battles. The game is graphically gorgeous and in fine old FF tradition has plenty of bishonen (pretty boys). Sometimes I wonder if the male models get more work than the female ones.

Now with the PS3 launching in the US today, I wonder if FFXII is fully PS3 compatible. It should be as I understand the PS3 includes PS2 hardware on a chip for this. I also wonder though if the game gets any kind of graphical boost from playing on the PS3.

in aggregate?

"All this makes Final Fantasy XII that much more enjoyable in aggregate"

Exactly what are we aggregating here? I thought it was just a single game... Or did you pull out your thesaurus on the word 'sum'?

Doesn't start off well, but gets better

It doesn't start off all that exciting (one of your first tasks is to kill a tomato, of all things), but it seems to be getting better further into the game, probably because the first few tasks seem to be an in-game tutorial. My only major gripe at this point is that all of the "augmentation" slots are contiguous on the license board. Wouldn't it make more sense to scatter them according to the other things in the area? They should have stuck with FFX's sphere grid system, IMO.

Licenses?

Each character can have their abilities focused by gaining new abilities and permissions on 'the license board'. License board points are obtained by defeating monsters, similar to but separate from the traditional experience points. So now we have Licenses and Permissions instead of our own experience points? What is this? Final Fantasy Vista?

Good review

I haven't played it yet, I'm buying a PS2 just for this game. I hear it plays a lot like FFXI.

I still prefer Dragon Quest

Call me old fashion, but I still prefer the Dragon Quest (Dragon Knight) series better.

I played FF12 until level 30-32, and now I feel bored. I find the story is over complex and progresses slowly. Maybe I'm just not so interested in all the politics in the story, and more into old fashion fantasy story. The only thing I love in FF12 is the graphics.

As for the fighting system, as soon as you can master the gambits, fighting is so easy. I can grind while eating, reading books, or playing Nintendo DS. Only the boss fights are challenging (well, some of them were).

DQVIII? No, sorry, try again...

My first exposure to FFXII (which I'm currently about a quarter of the way through and am thoroughly enjoying) was on the demo disc with DQVII (which I bought after being impressed by THAT game's demo). FFXII is, I think, an excellent game; the weakest point for me is the music, which is definitely not up to the level I've come to expect from the series. The most surprising part is that I've come to enjoy the battle system, which I did not initially like because of my preference for old-school turn-based games. This is in no small part due to the gambit system.

Dragon Quest VIII, though, is definitely not a game to compare with XII. Its allure faded after about 5 hours. Yes, the animation is great; I hate DBZ and that artwork style, but still found the game enjoyable and well done until I realized that, no, the story is NOT going anywhere and no, there really is no challenge to it. It lacked anything beyond "well, that's too strong, level up a few times and you'll be able to beat it." No strategy. No thinking. Fail once; level twice, success assured. It was boring, and the story was utterly pathetic -- RPG's are not just about combat. If not for the story, the role you're playing doesn't mean anything, and there's no immersion.

These reviews seem to be stuck on the yes side of the bit... *runs off to play more FFXII, then watch Tron*

RPG Concepts

One of the things that I've always failed to understand about RPG's, and which may simply be the skillful application of suspension of disbelief, is the idea that these characters can possibly be taken seriously.

A 17 year old street-kid, who (as the game begins) is training himself on rats, quickly progresses to the wanton slaughter of the undead, not to mention elite Imperial guardsmen (in whichever order common sense would indicate with regards to their difficulty).

Many of the FF titles I've played have centered around remarkably young characters...who are capable of causing death and destruction. In some cases, they do so using rather improbable weapons (by which I do not mean sci-fi things like gunblades...I refer to things like blitzballs in FFX).

While I applaud the improvement of the plot in this FF over some of the previous iterations, I still find some of the things that are just taken for granted to be highly unlikely, such as the foregone conclusion that someone with extensive experience as a pirate (or as a soldier) would join with a young urchin, regardless of how many times their paths cross.

Further, I have never understood why the experience level of ones comrades does not accurately represent their life. If my character has lived on the street all his life, and someone who has been a professional soldier joins my party, he starts at the same level as I do (excepting that I can steal...since I'm a pickpocket).

I say all this not to be overly critical. I understand that some things must simply be accepted for the sake of the gameplay mechanics. However, with a little more attention to the detail in the story, I think that the game could go from something that is already very good to something superb.

Re:RPG Concepts

That's his point, though, they stress suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.

People are willing to suspend disbelief for fictional stories as long as they remain internally consistent. If you create a world which contains a "highly trained" army of soldiers, and some 17-year old street urchin can out-class them after fighting various creatures for a couple of weeks, you're severely stretching the suspension of disbelief.

When you have people wielding swords that are as tall as a person that are about as effective in combat as someone chucking some form of neutrally-buoyant sports ball, you're stretching the suspension of disbelief.

So, yes, a game can stress the willing suspension of disbelief past the breaking point. In video games, though, you generally have to add a willingness to ignore completely illogical things that are done to prevent the game from sucking. So people accept the medkit being able to magically heal a guy instantly because it would suck otherwise. People accept the idea that your characters can become immensely powerful just by beating up random monsters along the country side because being forced to grind at a training dojo for a month would suck.

The suspension of disbelief required for a fantasy story may not be enough to get over the completely illogical concepts a game has for gameplay reasons, but for the game to be fun, you have to accept some compromises for realism. I don't know how Solid Snake manages to carry 20 guns, three cardboard boxes he can hide in, and assorted equipment, on his person, but it's more fun that way.

STOP "READING ON"

Dude, can you stop ending every teaser paragraph with some lameass variation of "read on for my awesome review." We all understand what the fucking "read more" link means.

Re:STOP "READING ON"

I thought it just meant to read more in general. I read the teaser... then I saw "read more", so I picked up a random book and started reading. "Moby Dick" sucks, just to let you know!

PC?

silly responses like 'the planet is angry'
someone didn't like FFVII :P

Anyway..why can't we get the FF titles on the PC? I absolutely loved FFVII but I don't own any consoles, the PC is my gaming device of choice...why the hell can't they just port to the PC?

Gambit System

I found the gambit system to operate similar to games like Robot Odyssey [wikipedia.org]. Essentially you are programming the non-player characters in your party to do an activity instead of directing them yourselves. You grow more powerful with the gambit system by earning new conditionals for your "IF" statement, and they can perform new activities based on your abilities.

There's way too much stuff that's going on in intense fights to tell each character what to do for that round (the concept of a round doesn't exist).

It's also a fun programming exercise to figure out how to get someone to do something without leaving them stuck in a loop. For instance, do you want to steal from a enemy but only try it a few times? set the gambit to steal when the enemy is below 20% health and about to die.

The license system is very confusing at first and it takes quite a bit of time to manage equipment, licenses, and gil. Like FFVIII, you can make any player become anything with the appropriate licenses, but unlike FFVIII, you don't switch abilities from one player to another, you have to build the characters up smartly.

Great game so far, but I've got a ways to go!

A Quality, Solid Final Fantasy

Although it will freak out many of the "hard core" Final Fantasy fans, this is a solid game and gives me a good feeling on the general direction of the franchise.

The reason why the "old guard players" balk at FF12 is that unlike the games before it, this one doesn't want you to micromanage the battles which gives these "old guard players" the sense they aren't doing anything. The trick is that previous games the tatics where actually fairly limited where you ended up duplicating what Gambit ends up automating. You tell your melee attackers to attack. You tell your healers to heal occationally. You tell your spell casters to zap stuff. Difference between FF12 and the others is that the game automates this for you instead of "rinse repeat" of the previous games. In the end it just degenerated to a lot of repeat actions anyway which is what computers are actually good at doing.

Gambits in themselves are interesting because it tickles the programmer in me. Given the API and resitrictions, what is the best way to "program" your party? There are several of solutions to some of the issues your party will face because just like software there are often different ways to tackle the same problem. A certain beauty can come from the correct Gambit strategy where they just do the right thing when they run into a challenging fight where it would be frantic if not hard handling the fighting yourself using the old fashion "Turn Base" or "ATB". A good Gambit order is like whiping up a good algorithm to solve a complex, somewhat losely defined problem.

This isn't a perfect game mind you. Just like FF9 it strattles "generations" and becomes an example of "what could have been". This is a glorious game pushing the envelope for PS2 where the problem is it screams for HD treatment on a more powerful machine. The weakness in the Gambit System is that it doesn't handle "one shot" actions easily. When the situation does change, you are often force to take over in an emergency situation.

Overall I'm very pleased with this game and I'm glad it is one of the "swan songs" for the PS2. From the way FF12 looks I can't wait for the next one even though most of it will be an entirely different game anyway.

Gambits?

Kinda sounds like something from my long-gone youth. [wikipedia.org]

Believe it or not, this sort of thing (along with a really bad review [houstonpress.com] in my local newspaper) is actually making this oldtimer consider buying a console. I haven't done that since I picked up a $50 Dreamcast solely for the purpose of playing Tetris.

Wonderful game, wonderful story

I'm over 40 hours into this game. It's amazing. Visually breathtaking, with a combat system taht suddenly feels fun. Grinding mobs doesn't feel tedious at all with several great incentives to do so (mob chains that raise drop rates and experience and licence point gain). It's executed far better than I had expected from my earlier dealings the DQ8 demo.

After playing the demo included in DQ8, I was actually very worried about the new style. My fiance didn't like the camera at all and was disinterested in the game. Now he manopolizes it and I'm stuck waiting for the opportunity to get more involved.

While a lot of the combat is pretty simplistic, this isn't anything different from previous FF games. In fact, even random mob combat is a bit more involved than before. Sure a lot of it is automated, but now you can use it as opportunity to experiment and tweak gambits. Gone is the repeatative process of "combat load, repeated attacks, money/exp screen, world map load".

The story is like crack for RPG fans. It feels huge. The characters are deep and involved. The villains are equally deep and involved. As stated in the review, none of the plot points are given half-arsed metaphysical/spiritual explanations.

It's an epic on the scale of original Star Wars trilogy, and in fact invokes a lot of the same feel.

My Impressions

I've personally made it about 20 hours into the story (including quite a bit of that time spent mindlessly leveling up :), and I have to say that I am really enjoying this game. While there are some things about the game that I could criticize, overall I think that this is one of the finest Final Fantasy games that I've played (and I've played all but XI and the Japanese only releases for the NES).

In terms of story, things do start off a bit choppy and the gambit system takes a while to get used to, but as you settle into the game you really start to have fun. You start to realize that your job in combat is to give general direction to the party, rather than direct every action of every character; this leads to some rewarding battles in which you just watch your characters kick ass on their own. In some ways, I think that this is somewhat better than with previous FF's, in that you don't just stupidly hold down the 'action confirm' button after setting up the cursor to always go to the last selected action.

Up until this game, I would have said that my favorite Final Fantasy would have been FF8, but I'm not so sure of that anymore. Like FF8, this one strives to make all of the various RPG elements (leveling, weapons upgrades and various magical abilities) somewhat believable. The fact that combat takes place in the same environment as the rest of the game play really adds an immersive and seemless quality to the game... A very welcome change.

As for the things that I don't like; there are not many... First and foremost would probably be that the license grid system is somewhat difficult to manage. Unlike other FF's, in order to use anything that you've bought (weapons, armor, spells, etc.), you must also have unlocked the license for that piece of equipment or ability; this leads you to sometimes sit in a weapons shop jumping back and forth between each character's license grid (to see whether its worth buying the weapon now) and the shop's merchandise list. Another thing that I've found to be somewhat annoying about the license grid is that it's really a lot of leveling up to get to the point where you've started to unlock the abilities that you really need, and oft times you have to unlock a bunch of abilities that you really don't care to unlock to get to the ones that you want. A good example of this is that you have to unlock a bunch of healing bonuses to level up the strength and HP of a character that you're trying to turn into a physical fighter. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

All and all though, a very lovingly crafted game... I might not give it a perfect 10/10, but its pretty close.

Perhaps it's worthwhile to notice

...that FFXII, save for a few changes (such as Gambits) is basically an offline version of FFXI. There are many features that are in common (monster aggressivity, or as FFXI players know, "aggro", the auto-attack and in general the battle system, the hunts that resemble the Notorious Monsters...). This is no surprise as Matsuno was a big fan of FFXI.
It's a shame that even Square Enix is trying to hide this fact (check the interviews on the extra DVD, if you have the collector's edition)

"Last Gasp" ? Hardly.

God of war II comes out next February. There were PSX games being released well into, what, 2004 ? Expect the ps2 to be around for a while, unlike the xbox.

Oh, and zonk? You might want to learn what "pull out the stops" means.

FFXII = Star Wars

And Rabanastre is Mos Eisley. Bhujerba is Cloud City. I haven't got to other cities yet so I can't compare them. Rabanastre is surrounded by deserts, has a whole bunch of different races of things all living in close proximity. Balthier is Han Solo, and Fran is Chewbacca. He's a sky pirate, which is similar enough to Han's role as a smuggler. In one of the deserts, there are very Jawa-like creatures, the Uru-tans.

There are other references too, but I can't remember them at the moment.

Best Post-SNES Titles?

I lost track of Final Fantasy somewhere after VII or VIII, since the Playstation is the last console I bought. I have a deep love for Final Fantasy VII and would hate to disappointed by an inferior game. Has another VII-quality been made since? Or, what's the best one?

Best game in the series? yes, but still stuck.

My list used to be FF6, then FF4 and then other games for the final fantasy series, it's stayed like that through the last 5 iterations, however FFXII has changed that, now I don't know where it lies, it's certainly one of the best, (though FFIII is playing well too). However it's still got some pretty major flaws.

The biggest is synposis system, or basically "what the fuck was I doing"? Maybe it's that I'm older, or maybe it's that I've played Tales of series games but I expect a lot from my RPG, and the bare minimum I deserve is a system where I don't have to remember exactly what I was doing before I moved to another game. I don't have 60 hours to beat a game unless it's beyond exceptional, Tales of The Abyss wasn't (though it was close) FFXII is great, but I have other stuff to do.

It would be more text but it would be incredibly useful to implement this feature. In fact any game that takes more than 20 hours should be required to do a synopsis or at least an easy mission system so you can get caught up. I don't want to come to a game and say "ok time to kill... wait who am I against? Oh yeah Kefka's my buddy, I'll kill banon".

It's likely because I'm older and don't have time to play games from front to back, but it's more than that, it keeps the story solid and allows you to replay the story in your mind so you don't have to keep saying "I forgot what happened". The story in FFXII is one of the best but moves entirely too fast. Names are meantioned in 1-2 lines of text then dropped completely.

That's not to say this is only FFXII's fault, every game does it for the most part, but FFXII should be better than all the others. FF's series has more games than most companies have ever made, so why don't they wise up and allow the gamer who can't beat their games in one sitting to have an easier time to pick up the game again.

Real Review

I'm a long standing fan of the Final Fantasy series, which includes the Japanese releases. I'll admit to not playing FF9 as it seemed a little too childish, and my friends did not highly recommend it. I was more than a little disappointed they put the Final Fantasy name on the movie, as it didn't have any of the classic RPG elements which have come to represent the franchise. I was equally unhappy they called the MMORPG as the FF11 release. (Would it have been so hard to just call it FF Online or something?) I didn't play FFX2 as the brief moments of watching my friends playing Pretty Princess Dress Me Up was more than enough to turn me off from the title. I've come to disparage the aparent decline of the Final Fantasy name as little more than a name to pay for and slap haphazardly on new titles. I couldn't bring byself to submit to the Disney in Kingdom Hearts, regardless of how highly my friends spoke of the titles. Although I must admit Advent Children was still awesome and I was among the strange ranks of those who went to see the "Dear Friends" performance.

So, based on my snobbish opinion, would I enjoy FFXII?

I'm trying to figure out if I'll like it...

I've never enjoyed a Final Fantasy game before, and I far prefer Western-style RPGs. However, I'm intrigued by the promise of an engaging political storyline. And the programmable AI sounds interesting.

Are those features executed well enough that the game is worth checking out? Even for someone who normally hates linear Japanese RPGs?

Minor nitpick

License board points are obtained by defeating monsters, similar to but separate from the traditional experience points. While gaining levels does make a character stronger, it's the application of license points that makes them more versatile.

You _have_ played the earlier Final Fantasy games right? You compare the license points to the "traditional experience points" as if they're some of new fangled idea the likes of which have never been seen before. Ability Points under one name or another have been a staple of the game since at least FF5 for sure and I believe they made an appearance in FF3. (I remember that FF3 features jobs but I don't remember the exact system.) Offhand i can think of six previous FF games that have used the "gain special not-experience points to unlock abilities" system in one form or another and using various different names. Fundamentally they are all pretty similar however.

This wouldn't be a big deal except you seem to do be doing a fair bit of comparing FF12 to the previous games in the series. As such you really shouldn't be giving people any reason to doubt your credentials for making such comparisons.

As a Final Fantasy fan.........

I stopped playing the franchise very soon after X came out. I heard 11 going MMO, and decided I was quits from Final Fantasy for awhile. I was almost disgusted when I heard about X-2. I envisioned Square as another of of EA's drooling lap dogs and almost swore off not only the Final Fantasy series but the company in general.

That is until I heard about what they did with XII.

Picked it up, I thought maybe it could possibly have some redeeming qualities that could perhaps restore my faith in Square. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out the entire game was a redeeming quality. It hit on every level a Final Fantasy is supposed to hit on and even accomplished some things that none other had. The most important is the story. Final Fantasies are operas, let's not kid ourselves. FFIV, VI, VII and VIII are very popular examples of this, empires are rising and falling, romances flourish and are tragically ended. Armies clash, the alliance and enslavement of great and powerful beings to aid or detriment the protagonist are occurring, you are affecting change on a world-wide level. The way in which XII tells its story is classic, classy, and every bit as intrigueing as a Grecian Epic.

Even the music lets on to the scope you are supposed to be on, deep and heart-wrenching. Bass kicks in when you're in danger, treble when you're coming out of a situation the victor. The music is supposed to make you feel as if the whole world depends on your actions, as the world DOES depend on you. They made a wise move by letting the music fade to the background a little and let the sound effects, the ambient sounds of the world around you help do the job. It's alot like the Rise of the Valkyries is heard softly in the distance as you hear the gnashing and clangs of combat, the entire Division of Imperial swordsmen draws near as klaxons sound.

Another level that this particular installation hit home on was showing you just the level of scope you're dealing with. In previous installations, you didn't particularly get a feel for just how menacing your foes are. Behemoths seemed to be caricatures, your party merely felling another foe as you continued on your path. The genious of the battle system they are implementing (Which is from KOTOR, BTW) is that now you know JUST how menacing a behemoth is. He's huge, he makes your party look like stick figures. Demon Walls are now exactly as their name implies, and actually seem capable of crushing the party to death if you don't defeat it in time. Espers are giant, their weapons mighty and powerful, seemingly appropriate for the amount of damage they do. The legendary weapons you procure that somehow have to justify the vast differential in damage output now do so graphically. Of course the Zodiac Spear is going to hit hard, look at the damn thing! You're seeing both the weapon and how it is used now, in previous installations you merely saw your party line up side by side, with your opponent in the distance. Now you see actual combat, not some spikey haired blonde with an emo outfit disappearing in midair and materializing 5 feet over an enemy with his sword pointed downwards. A man with an affinity for the deadly arts charges, raises his weapon and brings it down with devastating affect.

In all, FFXII got back to FF's roots. Telling an epic story, and getting you involved. Something I hope will be SOP for Square-Enix for the foreseeable future.

Different viewpoint:

I found it strange that the review concluded by comparing the new battle system to traditional turn-based RPG gameplay (i.e. interesting vs. tedious). When I played through the game (months ago with the Japanese version), I found the real-time battle system was far more tedious than the traditional turn-based stuff. The main reason is the great increase in micromanagement. FFXII has relatively tough bosses (compared to the other playstation FFs), so there's a lot of micromanagement involved in healing and reviving characters. Gambits do help manage that aspect of the game, but I still found the micromanagement to be a boring chore. Plus, since characters will go about continuing their past actions (or Gambit actions) automatically, there are long periods of detachment from the battle (aside from the previously mentioned micromanagement). This made battles really boring for me, as I was either staring at battle menus or bored out of my mind while the characters attacked.

Plus, I found the lack of any real character development in FFXII to be extremely distressing. What's the point of an RPG that plays like a movie if the characters and plot are boring? The ending to the game was so badly executed that I was left wondering who they'd pull out for a final boss until the ending cutscene started rolling (my reaction was: "Huh? You're kidding..."). In my opinion, FFX was leaps and bounds better than FFXII (for the record, my favorite was FFVIII).

True to the roots

Every true FF fan has waited for this. Its the best since 6. 12 is a multiple of 6. Coincidence? I think not. I wondered how the game would fare without Sakaguchi. Strong as ever.

System is best in series. Story SUCKS.

This is a repost of my impressions from playing the Japanese version (yay for living in Japan -- oh wait, you mean we get the Wii 2 weeks late? Drats.)

I have more affection for some of my non-plot characters in Disgaea ("Noooo, don't hit Margaret with the fireball, she only has 250 hp and is weak against OH YOU BASTARD YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT") than I do for any of the characters in FFXII. Not a single one of which I can name at the moment, incidentally. Vann or something? Vash? Whatever, whinny effeminate boy who is dating forgettable Japanese girl (who wears both the pants and the shirt in that relationship) and fated to rescue princess in distress, who currently hates his guts but we all know that will change. Throw in bunny-rabbit-who-looks-like-Storm, tank-straight-out-of-WoW-raid, and Air Pirate to round out the cast. They're trying to save the dutchy of whocares from the empire of whatever, which they can only do by gathering... what was it, I forget. Probably crystals. Thats generally a safe bet for a FF game, isn't it? I remember they spent some time in a mine. Was I trying to find a crystal? Or was I just trying to find the next cutscene? I don't know.

I've heard folks say there is no main character, which is more or less true -- I was equally bored with all of them. The only time one shows a spark of that old Square spirit is when Air Pirate says, ironically, "I'll tell you who I am: I am the main character of this story!" And for a period of perhaps 15 seconds I was thinking "Alright, I have passed the boring prologue, now we are going to get to some ADVENTURE". Nope.

It was about 10 years ago when I played FFVI for the first time, and you can see how low Square has fallen in the plot and memorable character department. Compare Air Pirate Dude with Edgar. The very first time you meet Edgar, he shows more panache than the entire party has in the time I've played FFXII. I remember his lines from a decade ago ("First, I'm captivated by your beauty. Second, I'm dying to know if I'm your type. I suppose your... abilities are a distant third consideration.") FFXII, I swear, its been maybe two months and I would have to wrack my brains to dredge up anything related to the plot or characters. Marle? Marsh? Whoseherface, the princess. I remember her skill readout like it was yesterday (I was aiming for white mage with a sword). Can't remember a thing she ever said.

Anyhow, I put 15 hours into it in the last week after writing this review, out of the hope that the story would improve. Yeah, thats a no. On the plus side, playing with the license board is actually quite fun, and the game is the prettiest thing I've ever seen, even without the cutscenes.