Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy XII

5 star:		(134)
4 star:		(71)
3 star:		(58)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

After a long wait, Final Fantasy XII is finally here, after such a long wait. Everything about it shines. From it's deep storyline, to its fantastic and complex gameplay. All worries aside, Final Fantasy XII is a keeper.

The Archadian Empire has taken over the Kingdom of Dalmasca. The King has been assissnated and the princess is presumed dead. The people of Dalmasca are displeased with the Empire, especially a young boy named Vaan who believes it is up to him to take Dalmasca back. Luckily, he's not alone. There's an entire resistence group out there that are willing to help him out. The storyline of Final Fantasy XII is different from all the Final Fantasy games. For one, it relies far more heavily on its political drama and philosophical intrigue. What you get from Final Fantasy XII isn't a huge epic story in scope, but rather a drama that unfolds. It's a different way to tell the story for Final Fantasy, but here it actually works. It's still got some good twists and it is somewhat deep, but don't expect something along the lines of previous installments such as Final Fantasy X or VII. It doesn't have the most memorable ensemble cast either, but you do, for the most part, like the characters.

What many fans are most concerned about when it comes to this new installment is the battle system itself. It strays away from the series roots. It is no longer the ATB style battles we've been used to since Final Fantasy IV. Instead it's Active Dimension battle. All enemies in any given area of a dungeon are present at all times and will charge you upon seeing you.

You can free roam through any area, and so can your enemies. As your characters approach an enemy they pull out their weapons and you can begin to issue attacks. You can only play as one character at a time, but you can still issue orders to other characters if you want. Since all enemies are present on the map at one time, running away can be a hassle. Enemies will give chase, and some enemies will even join in the battle.

The combat has a couple of downsides. For one, getting money is downright painful and repetitive. Your enemies don't drop money, and when they do it's not a lot. Instead you'll be forced to sell the items they drop. This wouldn't be a problem if stuff wasn't so expensive, and if the items dropped by enemies didn't sell for so little. Also, dungeon maps are huge. It's easy to get lost and overshoot your objective sometimes, even with the ingame map provided.

This wouldn't be Final Fantasy without some complexity to the battle system, though. First, there is the game's complex AI system called "Gambits." Gambits allow you t customize what your characters do in battle. You can set your characters up to attack, or you can get more complex and have them heal anyone whose HP falls below a certain percentile. Once you get used to the Gambit system, however, it's really easy to take advantage of. To the point where Final Fantasy XII becomes a cakewalk. Even worse, if you set them up too well, you'll find that the only thing you ever have to do is move around the left analog stick. It is entirely possible to track through Final Fantasy XII never having to open up the menu.

Then there's the license point system. As you battle through the game you'll earn license points which can be spent on the license board. This helps to determine what spells, abilities and even weapon and armor characters can use. Yes, that's right, weapons and armor. You cannot use a certain weapon unless you have a "license" to do so. There's nothing too complex about this and it suffers from its own little issue, the fact that in the end every character is the same.

Let's be honest on one more thing... for some Final Fantasy XII just might not be a lot of fun to play. The aspect of no random battles is nice, but take advantage of the gambit system, and Final Fantasy XII becomes a game that, for the most part, feels one-dimensional. The complexity is nice, but gambits can make the player feel like he's doing little to participate. What it amounts to is basically you moving around the left analog stick while your characters automatically carry out their own actions in battle. There are times when Final Fantasy XII can feel monotonous as a result. That's not to say you won't have fun, it's only to say that battling won't keep you as engaged for long. Especially when every character can so easily learn everything. The dungeons being so big doesn't help this. They've made big so that you will battle. And while the battle system isn't really bad in anyway, it can definitely be annoying to find that Square-Enix made a dungeon huge for the sake of padding out the length.

Graphic-wise, Final Fantasy XII is fantastic. The towns are detailed, and so are your characters. The fact that each town has so many unique looking characters on screen at once is an impressive feat. The game also sounds lovely. Even better is the games artistic design. Towns are breathtaking. The game also sounds good. The voice acting isn't the best in the world, but it does manage to be good in many areas.

Perhaps Final Fantasy XII suffers most in the story department. It's a good story, but the game doesn't spend a lot of time focusing on it. It gets off to a great start, but at some point the game just becomes so devoid of it that it's easy to lose interest in what may have been one of the series more interesting stories. Around the mid point of the game, the story takes a backseat, with developments coming further between. It's refusal to focus too much on its characters doesn't help this. It picks up again in the end and makes for a good story overall, but there's so much to Final Fantasy XII that just doesn't focus on it. What makes the story good is how well written and how cinematic each of the cutscenes becomes. When you get one of these in depth moments into the story it's really engaging and really good. The problem is just that for so long this doesn't happen much. The world of Ivalice is definitely beating with a pulse, though. Running through towns and seeing the vast populations really brings things to life. It's just a shame Final Fantasy XII couldn't have a more lively story.

The Good

+Fantastic Graphics
+Good storyline
+The new battle system is complex
+Tons of side quests and secrets to keep you busy for hours
+Beautiful soundtrack
+Well done voices

The Bad

-Dungeons are huge and save points are few and far between
-The battle system is too easy to take advantage of
-The license board will eventually make every character the same
-While the story is good overall, there certainly isn't too much focus on it

So, here's my take on Final Fantasy's latest. Is it the greatest? Read on and find out!

BATTLE SYSTEM: Everything is in real-time, which any veteran FF gamer knows is not the way it used to be. Although it takes a while to get accustomed to this change I found the real-time battles a breath of fresh air--something this series is definitely going to need if we're ever to hope of seeing Final Fantasy 24 or so. It is so nice when the only transition screens you have are those that occur when going to menus, new locations or cut-scenes. Also, the ability to run for your life all the way across the map is really nice, especially in addition with the sounds of thousands of angry hooves and feet stamping after you!

TRANSPORTATION: I don't know about you, but I LOVE flying airships on a world map! Sadly, in Final Fantasy 12 this is not possible. Very ironic, because this is the powerful Playstation 2 and the game itself sports alot of airships. There are Chocobos, but that is the only type of transportation you actually steer on your own. You can take teleport crystals to warp you almost anywhere and later your airship can "fly" you places.

STORYLINE: I would disagree with anyone that says that this game has no storyline. But I would agree that there is so much leveling up/looting to be done between locations that when you reach your final destination you might forget your initial motive for going there. As a whole, FF12's storyline is not as prominent as other storylines, like FF6 and FF7. And of course part of what makes a good storyline are good . . .

CHARACTERS: Since anyone can learn any weapon or magic, the only thing that makes them unique are their looks. Fran looks like she escaped from the Playboy mansion, Vaan looks like a younger brother to Ashley Riot from Vagrant Story and Balthier is something of a mix between Setzer and Locke, which is cool. Reddas is an interesting Auron-like person, but he appears too little, too late in the game. Ah yes, and if only Elza in Balfonheim Port were a playable character.

ANTAGONISTS: Part of the reason I did not get drawn in by the storyline (what little there is of it) is because the antagonists were not very convincing. You won't find anyone as evil as Kefka or Sephiroth. For a good portion of the game I knew that the Empire was evil (obviously) but had no idea who exactly was the "Boss" and even more importantly, WHY? And it doesn't help either that the Empire's black-clad knights like Gabranth sound like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. Or at least a very pathetic Darth Vader.

MUSIC: I own several Final Fantasy game soundtracks and of course I think that Uematsu is brilliant in his work. But I also own the FF Tactics soundtrack and I was surprised how good it was. One of the two composers for the Tactics soundtrack did the music for this game. Unfortunately, by himself, he's not that good. Granted, there were no songs that felt out of place, but at the same time, there were no stellar tracks that captured the EMOTION OF THE MOMENT or had the genius of the work of Uematsu's earlier soundtracks. Considering that you will spend alot of time collecting loot/leveling up in different locations, expect to hear the same track over and over again. Also, the ending boss theme, sadly, is nothing spectacular. I'd even say it's forgettable.

SUMMONS, SPELLS AND SIDEQUESTS: For perhaps the first time ever I found myself hardly ever using summons and magic. The summons are nice to look at, but die too easily and deal too little damage and sadly offensive magic is the same way (although Flare comes in handy at the end). Even sadder, to get alot of these spells and summons you have to go on sidequests that are voluntary, but end up feeling mandatory--or you could do the alternative and loot the land for 3 hours and search a whole world for the one shop that sells the magic/weapon/armor you need.

GRAPHICS: To me, the least important, but they're definitely good. Although only the first and last few FMV scenes are worth watching twice and unlike FF10, you can't buy them.

SOMETHING FUNNY: When Vaan is running around saying "I'm Captain Basch fon Rosenburg" I thought it would be funny if he also randomly said, "I'm Rick James, b-tch!"

OVERALL: If you're a casual RPG gamer, this is clearly a solid RPG that is very well thought through in terms of game mechanics. And let's not forget, you can easily log in 80+ hours before beating the game, which is definitely getting your money's worth.
If you're a veteran Final Fantasy gamer, one who's played since it's NES days (or at least its SNES days), then you'll see what a weak story and soundtrack this game has, which to me is below par for a Final Fantasy title.

Final Fantasy is sometimes thought of as a kiddy game with chocobos and moogles. Final Fantasy XII proves that this series can present an awesome storyline and graphics that all ages will adore.

Don't worry if you haven't played all of the other Final Fantasy games. You don't need to. There are subtle carry-overs, but this game is meant to stand alone. You are a young orphan in a city recovering after a war. The cruel Empire has taken over your home town, and you enjoy causing trouble for the soldiers.

Soon, of course, you're swept up in an epic rebellion. The storyline here is just *amazing*. Not just the plot itself, but the voice acting, the dialogue, the graphics, they are top notch. This is really like being a part of an extremely well done drama movie. They delve into issues of honor, loyalty, love, betrayal, and more. I'm an adult gamer, and I was staying up many long nights because I wanted to see where the story was going. Some of the subtle interactions between characters in cut scenes are just amazing. The small nods, the looks in their eyes, you are hard pressed to remember that they are animated in a computer game.

Gameplay itself revolves around a party of characters going on quests, fighting in battles and moving through the large world. Each character gains experience and skills as they go. You buy them new weapons and armor, train them in spells, and aim them in their career growth however you wish. There is a dual system in play here. First, you need to physically own the weapon or item you wish to use - say an iron sword. But then you need to KNOW how to use it too! You can't just hand an iron sword to a 10 year old piano player and expect her to know how to use it. That skill is called a "license". You have an online license chart that lets you manage what each character knows. Licenses relate to each other. If your character learns the basics of sword work, now they can learn a more advanced version. It is very intuitive and adds a fun element to the game. It's not just one straight line that you choose and are stuck with. It's an all-directions layout where you can try new skills or expand out as you learn the system better.

I really like combat in this Final Fantasy as well. Instead of random battles where enemies appear out of nowhere to assault you, all enemies are "on the map" with you. If you're running along a path in the desert and see something really scary in the distance, you run away from it! You don't have to worry about enemies springing up out of nowhere to slam you into the ground.

The enemies in general are challenging but not impossible. There are spots where you really have to think about the enemy and what its weakness is to defeat it. You can't just brute force bash away at everything and hope to succeed.

Still, as great as the gameplay is, and as gorgeous as the visuals and music and voice acting are, I really have to come back to the plot and characters as standing out here. There's been a lot of talk in the gaming world about a game that finally goes from "little pixels on the screen" that you move from X to Y to the point of *caring* about these characters, about what they are going through, and feeling emotional about their highs and lows. I really think Final Fantasy XII has hit that level. Yes, there are one or two twerpy characters that can be annoying. Even Star Wars had Luke whining about the Takashi Station at the beginning, to set his "basis for growth". In general, though, every single character here seems real, seems complex, and you don't want to put the game down.

Highly, highly recommended.

...whoa the covers different in this country...talk about mind warping...it looks so much worse...anyway...

I've played every FF game from one to twelve and this is the only time I have decided not to finish a FF game.

What made the other FF games so great was the experience of watching your characters grow their relationships and strengths with great ways to learn new ablities such as the materia system in FF7 or the Sphere grid in FF10. Along with limit breaks (Trances, overdives etc...) and summonings. Along with the heap loads left to do that has nothing to do with the story such as defeating the Emerald weapon or collecting all the cards.

This FF has barely any of these traits. The leveling up is tedious because old monster models are used over and over again and the fighting system which is meant to be revolutionary is just irritating and boring. The license board system is annoying because it's impossible to see what makes characters different to others; I understand trying to master all skills but if there are no parameters at all then all characters will be very similar.

The characters bore me to death and has one of the worse main characters ever (Vaan just seems to be dropped in without a care). The main story is also nothing compared to the gold of the stories in the older plots; I can't relate to these characters at all.

Now I won't lie the FMVs are very impressive, but that's just not enough to make this great. Is this Enix's fault for joining Squaresoft? I mean FFX-2 wasn't exactly the best was it? I'll let you be the judge.

OVERVIEW

Since the point of these reviews is to help others make a decision about whether to purchase an item or not, I will get to the heart of the matter and say that I fence-sat on buying FF XII for about eight months, but within an hour of opening the package and playing it, I was completely hooked - I cannot stop playing this game! It's definitely not the best of the series (for me, that would be FF X), and it's definitely lacking in some areas, but my basic recommendation would be buy it, you'll like it. You probably won't love it, and you probably won't play through it more than twice (if that), but you'll find plenty to keep you busy (I'm already up to 130+ hours). If you're acquainted with the series, it's familiar enough to get right into, but different enough to challenge you for a good while and keep you interested.

PROS

Graphics
The first thing that will strike you about this game is how beautiful it is. This has got to be the prettiest game I've ever played, including anything on the PC. The cut scenes are jaw-droppingly gorgeous, the best I've ever seen in any game, even next-gen ones (including Halo 3, which - while more detailed and realistic - depicts more naturalistic (and therefore less interesting) settings). The in-game character models are still on a par with FF X, at least as far as poly count, but the environments are so much richer, more detailed, and non-repetitive that the gap between CGI movies and actual gameplay is getting even smaller. And there are additional in-game details, such as the graphic representation of whatever shield or weapon your characters have equipped, which take this game just a step beyond (of course, even FF I had different art for the particular weapon each character had equipped, but it only showed up on the battle screen - here, weapons and shields appear in full 3D in the world exploration/battle view).

Design
The second thing I noticed about this game is how user-friendly the gameplay is: I have never played a game that seemed so intent on actively helping you succeed. For example, with regard to found items, whereas in every FF game prior there was nothing other than the graphic of the barrel or treasure chest itself (and sometimes even that was hidden!) to let you know there was something to investigate, FF XII gives you additional sound and graphic clues to let you know a treasure container is nearby. Even doors have these additional clues to help you find your way around. Save points appear immediately before or one map loading section away from almost every boss fight, and many special save points (identified by their orange colour) let you teleport to any other orange crystal save point you've used before (as long as you have a Teleport Stone in your inventory), so you don't have to waste a lot of time and effort walking back and forth between places. Even the Map Screen helps you out by putting a big, orange "X" on the spot you need to go to next in the early part of the game, then later on providing more generalised clues as to where you need to go to advance the story (for example, one hint reads "We can get the Sword of Kings in the Stilshrine of Miriam."). This is especially useful for those times when you have to leave the game for an extended period and are trying to figure out just what you were doing and where you were going when you left off.

The game also manages to incorporate some pretty great surprises through map layout and creature placement. Even though the Square/Enix team have done away with the random-battle aspect of the series, the designers have still managed to throw in some stinger encounters made even more shocking by the fact that you now expect to see all possible enemies in advance. For example, certain Flans drop down without warning from the ceiling, while frog-like Lizards can leap up from the floor below the one you're walking on, appearing as if out of nowhere. And Ghosts can materialise out of thin air - literally! Don't expect scares like the one in System Shock II or those in Resident Evil, but they are startling!

CONS

Character Development
For their next iteration of Final Fantasy, Square Enix has chosen to create something similar to the node system used in FF X, but without its class limitations or sophistication. You will ultimately have available to you six different playable characters, with occasional non-controllable, non-equipable "Guests" who temporarily join the party at certain points (and this feature I DO applaud, since it means you never have to worry if the super-duper expensive, all-powerful spear you just equipped that character with is going to disappear forever if and when that character leaves the party, as was often the case as far back as FF II). Yet, unlike any other FF game, there are no class-specific limitations or bonuses - every character can be developed just like any other, with only slight variations in each character's statistics (for example, some characters level up with more spell points, others with more hit points or strength). A very large (and very cool) part of practically all the FF games before XII was figuring out how to balance a party (or, in the case of XI, which one class you would play as), determining the right mixture of attack magic versus healing magic versus sheer brute strength (and the edge-of-your-seat tension that came with those particularly tough areas or bosses your party was not particularly well-suited for!).

But now all of that is gone, and what has taken its place is the License Board. In a nutshell, each character has a grid - the SAME grid - made up of dozens of adjacent squares, each of which represents an ability - a certain set of spells, a stat augmentation (like "spells cost 10% less to cast" or "HP total increased by 50 pts."), or the ability to equip certain weapons, accessories, or armour (yes, sports fans, you must now "LEARN" how to equip a Broadsword before you can actually use it in battle!). However, you have no idea WHICH particular ability is represented by any square, just that it's of a certain type (Black Spell Level 3, Weapon, Armour, etc.) and how many License Points (awarded like Experience Points for all non-boss enemies you kill) it will "cost" you to learn the ability. Not only that, you must "buy" the abilities in the order they're laid out - you can't pick any square you like, you can only "buy" abilities that are next to abilities you have already bought. This means that occasionally you will have to spend a bunch of LPs (and the time it took to earn them) on abilities you don't want to be able to clear the way to the one you do want.

I suppose you could force yourself to only have each character learn abilities for a particular imagined class, like having one character only learn White Magic spells and magic-casting augmentations so that he or she "becomes" a White Mage, but because of the way the grid is laid out, you will sometimes have to learn abilities outside of the class you're "creating" in order to get to the ones you need. And anyway, why would you, when there are certain rewards in the game for learning every spell, every Technique (like spells, but can be "cast" without using Spell Points), and completing everyone's License Board? And, frankly, some enemies are just so tough you'll need everyone to have every advantage, and the best-developed characters are so bland anyhow that to limit their development in any way would be close to suicide. Again, I'm glad Square/Enix are trying to create something innovative with each iteration and add excitement and newness to the series, but this just wasn't it.

Button Mashing/Menu Raiding
The battle system allows you even more freedom than in FF X, allowing you to not only switch in and out characters (as long as the active member you're switching out isn't the target of an attack or spell, friendly or otherwise), but also to change your battle commands and equipment on the fly. However, while the added customisability is great, it also changes the very nature of battle. Because enemies can change tactics, or battles can acquire additional enemies with different attacks or spells from the one you initially chose to engage, the equipment you have on may prove inadequate, and you will find yourself constantly going back to the Equip Item screen to swap it out. For example, if you start fighting a Fire Elemental and equip everyone with Flame Shields, and an Ice Elemental joins the battle and starts casting Blizzard spells, you will find yourself constantly switching to the Equip menu to exchange Ice Shields for the Flame Shields (and vice versa), which really detracts from battle. This frustration is only compounded when you don't have enough of the desired piece of equipment to equip everyone, and your non-active party members are wearing the pieces you want to equip on the active members. For a while, this may be pulse-pounding, reflex-testing fun, but after hundreds or even thousands of battles, it just gets tedious.

Minigames
For the first time since their inception, the added-element "mini" games are incredibly one-dimensional and of limited duration. Where FF X had Blitzball and FF VIII and IX had the card game Tetrad, both of which had the depth and complexity to be released as games unto themselves (and were!), FF XII has...um...talking to townspeople. At one point in the story, you will have to convince a predetermined amount of people that Basch, their one-time hero in the resistance against the empire, has returned from the dead. To do this, you will have to flex your fingers, hone your reflexes, train your leet skillz to razor's edge sharpness, and...talk to people. Of course, there is the added element of making sure you talk to them while they are out of range of the wandering docents, who - if they hear your gossipmongering - will reset your success rate to zero. But that's it. Then, later on, to gain access to certain areas of the empire's capital city Archades, you will once again have to "bring it" with severe gamer pwnage and...yep, you guessed it, talk to people. Basically, this time it's a game of concentration, where you find two people with a shared need (for example, a young, aspiring actress needs advice, while a faded, retired starlet needs purpose in life). After paying a street thug to gain the "memorize/relate" ability, you talk to various people until you find one whose need you can "memorize," then you walk around until you find someone whose need corresponds to the memorized one, and you press the Talk button to relate the memorized speech to him or her. That's it.

When I played FF X, once I understood the mechanics of Blitzball, I played that almost to exclusion, ignoring the main quest for hours on end. In FF XII, there just isn't any side quest or mechanic or game that keeps you hooked and coming back for more. The closest thing to it are the Quickenings, which are sort of like playing a slot machine, but because they're so random and so limited (requiring full magic meters and being based on a constantly shrinking time meter), you really can't "play" them like you can Blitzball or Tetrad. Shadow Hearts had a similar battle mechanic, which required you to watch a sweeping second hand on a clock and press "X" at certain points in its sweep, and even allowed you to chain attacks as with Quickenings, but this was available for every battle, and didn't require a meter be filled. Even the Hunts, which are basically bounty hunter tasks, aren't really a game at all, they're just boss fights with really, really hard enemies and a lot of searching around for bounty postings and someone to hire you to make the kill - and the rewards are usually of less value than the items you had to use to accomplish it! All in all, the side mechanics/"games" in FF XII feel so small, shallow, and one-dimensional you really get the sense that the game was rushed, or that the game designers have simply run out of steam.


PROS WITH CONSEQUENCES/MIXED BAG

Interface - the Good
The maps are incredible - I don't care what else they change, I just hope Square/Enix use this map system in every Final Fantasy game they make from now on. You get not one, not two, but three versions of the map to access. There's an onscreen radar-style map that appears in the upper-right corner of the world view screen showing the "walls" of a limited section of the area you're standing in, with party members, friendlies and enemies appearing as blue, green, and red blips, respectively. There's the map you can access via the Select button, which shows you a "fog of war" version of the area you're in; and then there's the World Map, available via the Menu Screen, which shows you an overview of the entire continent, with a beautiful rendering representative of whatever area you're currently in, and access to maps of all the places and area maps you've bought, found, or explored.

The menu system is also much better laid out, with a greatly increased division of items based on function and the addition of a grid that allows you to see who has what equipped or "earned" (in the case of License Board skills). For example, the game provides an overall menu for all weapons, but also allows you to look at just the one-handed weapons, just the two-handed ones, and just the ranged ones separately. You can also choose to have the game auto-arrange items (according to the designers' preconceived notion of which will be most useful appearing at the top), or arrange them by quantity or strength (in the case of weapons and armour) or even one-by-one wherever you care to put them. You can also arrange the spells within any given category (White, Black, Time, etc.) so that the ones you tend to use most will appear at the top of the spell selection menu during battle/exploration.

Interface - the Bad
Unfortunately, it is an apparent truism of game design that you cannot have every aspect of a game's interface be optimally user-friendly, especially if you insist on changing the basic game design and functionality from previous versions, as was done in FF XII. Having played every other game in the franchise, I found it very difficult to get used to there being two different sets of menus (and two buttons to access them): an action one (which accesses usable spells and items in the world-view mode) and the inventories one (which fills the screen and pauses all action in the game, and which - unlike every other game in the series - does NOT allow you to use potions or cast spells). After 130 hours of play I still find myself pressing the wrong button for the menu I want. Another example of ill-considered functionality for the new interface is that you cannot change the order of the spell schools in the spell school menu (which would allow you to put the Time school at the top of the list so you could quickly access "Haste," without having to use the X and the directional buttons to access it); this might seem like a minor point, but when you go through all the menu raiding I described above, plus find yourself using a particular persistent-effect spell quite often (as they tend to wear out quickly, even with the "Increase Spell Power" and "Increase Length of Spell Effects" Licenses earned), it becomes a bigger irritant than you might expect.

The most annoying aspect of the interface I have found, however, is in the shopping menu, where you are unable to see what a particular accessory or piece of armour does beyond the plus or minus points effect it has on Defense and Magic Resist ratings, any persistent effects (like Reflect or Immune), and what elements (Fire, Ice, Water, etc.) it is resistant and/or weak to. While the interface does show the positive or negative numeric effect an item will have on these parameters, it only shows the values relative to what your characters are currently wearing; more importantly, any bonuses the item has to Hit Points, Spell Points, and Attributes (Strength, Speed, Evade, and the like) are not shown at all! If you want to know exactly what ALL the effects a particular accessory or piece of armour will have on your characters without wasting money on items you don't want, you will have to save your game, go to the shop, buy the item(s) in question, try them on, compare results, then reload the saved game and buy just the items you know you want. The shopping menu should have been a variation of the item equip menu, which shows every effect an equipped item has on a character, as it was in most of the recent FF games, but for some reason the designers chose to go the less user-friendly route.

Layout
Towns are lavishly detailed and filled with a variety of sights, shops, and residents with unique scripts which actually change over time depending on your actions...but to be able to achieve this with the PS2's limited memory, the towns are broken up into unnatural, arbitrary segments divided by a kind of glowing string of beads hanging in midair. You might be walking down an alley and suddenly in the middle of it cross one of these section dividers, resulting in a longish load-time wait until you can get to the end of the alley and continue on. I guess I prefer this to the incredibly small but still single-load villages that were in FF X, but - hopefully with FF's upcoming next-gen system iteration (i.e., PS3) - we can have our cake and eat it, too.

Battle System
As always, Square/Enix have come up with something new for the battle system, and while I was initially hesitant and less than sanguine, then confused, then okay with it, and finally intrigued by the change of pace, it's not something I ever hope to see again - one game's worth is definitely enough. Basically, the designers have attempted to give you a way to "script" your characters' actions so that battles can be waged without you pressing a button. This goal in itself should have set off some alarms at the Square/Enix design roundtable - how much fun is a game you let play itself? You want to increase player involvement, not lessen it! Then there's the matter of the commands (called "Gambits") themselves. In simplest terms, the game lets you construct a command that tells your characters what to do (and whom to do it to) based on the status of the active character himself, an ally, or a foe. These three elements - target, status, action - form the entire basis of the Gambit; create a succession of Gambits, and they wind up being a sort of AI script. Unfortunately, AI can never come anywhere near to the finesse of a real, thinking human brain, and this is painfully clear in FF XII. For example, you can create a Gambit that tells a character to attempt to steal from an enemy, but you cannot include in the Gambit the instruction to STOP trying to steal (and move on to the next Gambit in the list, or another enemy in the playing field) once that enemy has been successfully robbed - the character just keeps trying to steal, to no avail. This means you wind up micromanaging your party, doing even more menu raiding by either countermanding the stealing character's actions in the action menu, or by going into the Gambits menu and turning the steal Gambit off until there are new enemies to steal from (which still doesn't guarantee that character won't keep trying to steal from an enemy with no items - there is no Gambit status "enemy with items" to select as the target for a Gambit).

Another inadequacy of the Gambit system is that there is no way to incorporate an "unless" statement, especially based on your other party members' actions. For example, two very common status ailments inflicted upon characters are Blind, which lowers their attack success percentage, and Silence, which prevents them from casting spells. You can create a Gambit "telling" a character to cast Blindna or Esuna, while will remove the Blind status from the spell target, but if the character with the "cast Blindna" Gambit is suffering the Silence ailment, he or she will keep trying to cast Blindna in vain, wasting time and spell points, until you manually override the Gambits and either remove the Blind status by using an item or having a non-Silenced party member cast Blindna, or you remove the Silence status with an item or having another party member cast Vox or Esuna on the Silenced character, so he will finally be able to cast Blindna. On the other hand, you could create a Gambit for every party member to cast Blindna if any one of them is Blinded, but then all three will cast it, and you will waste precious magic points and time, especially in heated battles (and it is often all too likely that all three will be Silenced, anyway). To deal with this, the Gambits would require branching if/then ("unless") statements - in this case, "if party member = Blinded then cast Blindna unless (self) = Silenced or other non-Silenced party member is casting Blindna; if (self) = Silenced + party member = Blinded, then use Eye Drops; if other party member is casting Blindna, return to higher-priority command in Gambit list." And even these convoluted commands do not address the situation in which another party member is already casting Blindna, but that party member is also Silenced. (What this whole example should make clear is that to adequately deal with the situations in a game which uses Gambits without redundancy or wasted effort would border on using programmer language, which - while perhaps fun to those who might actually go on to become programmers - is extremely complicated and does not actually make for a rollicking good time. I expect my games to come already programmed, so that I can just PLAY them....)

Another major failing of the Gambit system is that there is no way to save lists that you've created. Effective Gambit strategies vary from boss to boss, and area to area; this means that you will constantly be tinkering with your Gambit lists in order to maintain optimum efficiency (read "stay alive") for whatever enemy you're fighting or area you're exploring. For example, for 99% of the game, you will use magic to heal your party and cast Quickenings. However, there is at least one notable exception, where you have to fight a boss without being able to use magic. That means you have to recreate your Gambit list so it doesn't include commands like "cast Curaga on ally with < 50% hit points" - for ALL SIX CHARACTERS (most boss fights are so tough that you will wind up switching in replacement characters for the ones who have been slaughtered, so you will need all six characters prepped and ready for battle). Then, once that battle is over, you can go back to your magic-based Gambits...but you have to recreate the entire list from scratch...again, for ALL SIX CHARACTERS. There really should have been a way to save at least three lists per character to rescue the player from some of the tedium which seems to pervade every aspect of this game.

And finally, the entire Gambit system, with all its inherent weaknesses and shortcomings, is itself poorly incorporated into the game. Once you finally are given the Gambit ability, you start off with only two Gambit slots (spaces for creating a command), only two target "pieces" (target, status, or action) for enemies ("nearest" and "targeted by leader"), and only one status piece for allies (HP <70%). You have to "buy" additional slots (up to 12 total, which - given the limitations of the system, is not enough) on the License Board, and you have to buy the command pieces with money at Gambit shops or find them randomly located in pots. This in itself is not so incredibly terrible, but because money is so tight in the game you have to spend a lot of time fighting (WITHOUT benefit of Gambits) in order to be able to earn enough experience points and money to create a halfway decent Gambit list. Also, maybe it was just me, but I didn't get the Gambit pieces I really needed until late in the game, usually after they weren't needed so much anymore. For example, the "ally status = Dead" piece of Gambit (which would have allowed me to "tell" a character to cast Raise or use a Phoenix Down to bring a dead character back to life) did not become available until after my party was so well off that members were hardly ever killed anymore. That's ridiculous! And while you can play the game with the Gambits turned off, the menu system for fighting means you wind up pressing a LOT of extra buttons, and sometimes countermanding the commands you just gave, which makes your characters incredibly inefficient in battle.

Money
While many have complained about the radically changed money system in FF XII, with hardly any creatures dropping actual Gil, instead leaving behind items which must be sold to obtain Gil, I did not find this aspect particularly vexing, and was rather intrigued by the new item creation system, much like the one in Etrian Odyssey for the DS (once you've sold the right amount and kind of dropped items in the right combination, new, unique items become available for purchase in a subset of the market called the Bazaar. Many of the game's unique items cannot be gotten any other way than by "creating" them in this manner.). Since you have to go to a market anyway in order to purchase something, it's not like you have to go out of your way to get the money for the dropped items. However, it is an added step, and - since there is an inventory screen upper limit of 99 for any item (which there should not have been, at least not for the "Loot" items - those that cannot be used, like Potions or Motes) - you will often find yourself maxed out on a particular item that gets dropped in the area you are exploring, thus causing you to lose out on a great deal of money unless you run to sell items every time your inventory for that item reaches 99. And while it is not a failing of this new exchange system, the pricing of many of the items is outlandish, forcing one to minimax/level-grind in order to be able to afford necessary items and equipment. This, in turn, disrupts the whole balance of the game: in order to be able to afford the items the game is offering, you have to collect enough items to sell to be able to afford those items, which means your characters are usually much beefier than they should be to make the gameplay fun. I think the designers really blew it on this one: the very strategem they were using to keep the difficulty ramped up (expensive item pricing) only winds up making the game tedious and easy.

Patches
While overall the game design and layout seem competent and well-considered, you will often come across areas or characters or interactive items that feels like they are bandages applied to the game after focus groups ripped it to shreds. Certain townsfolk you must talk to in order to complete a quest have their houses or locations earmarked with a special graphic on the map...but not all of them (I'm guessing just the ones the QA department had an impossible time trying to locate). At one point about one third of the way through the game, you reach a village where not one, not two, but three separate NPCs tell you not only where the different exits from the map lead, but where to find the moogle who will sell you the map to the region...who also gives you "verbal" directions! While this is great if the sticking point the designers were trying to address just happens to be one of the points you got stuck at, the measures taken seem obvious and contrived and unnecessary to the point of being silly and breaking the suspension of disbelief required to tell the tale if the sticking point is something you breezed through. Technically, this doesn't "break" the gameplay or design in any way, but it does make the overall game experience seem less smooth and well-considered. When you come to the above-mentioned village, for example, whose layout is nor more difficult than any other area you've explored so far, you can't help thinking, "Gee, I guess the Square/Enix CFO couldn't get through this point in the game!"

Sound
Overall, the sound is great, with much attention to detail (for example, the sound effects of the party traveling by foot change depending on whether they're walking or running, and again to reflect whether they're running on dirt or stone or in rain). Although there aren't any new musical themes as iconic as the ones that are borrowed from the first FF, there are a few that are memorable, particularly the plaintive ones from the fishing villages and the refugee camp (after first encountering the refugee camp late at night, I woke the next morning with the theme song stuck in my head and couldn't remember for the life of me where I'd heard it. These songs are not initially prepossessing, but they do wind up sticking with you.). For the most part, the voice acting is creditable and serviceable, although Frann, the Playboy Bunny slash forest dweller character who joins your party, has an accent that will make you say "what the hell was that?" Also, the actress voicing Ashe, the female lead, sounds too old for her graphic representation. But the one thing that bothered me the most was the nonstandard pronunciation of a number of words, in particular "fete" (should rhyme with "bet," not "bait") and "marquis" (usually pronounced "markee," as in "the Marquis de Sade," not "markwiss"). Of course, all the words that are uttered using the nonstandard pronunciation are featured prominently in the script (I think "fete" is said twenty-two times in the first hour of gameplay/cut scenes!). Why they couldn't have checked this, I don't know, but it sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise competent, clearly well-budgeted soundtrack.

Story
Whether you enjoy the story in FF XII or not is strongly subjective; I liked that it was incredibly mature, realistic, and required me to stay on top of the plot and action in order to understand all the cryptic little asides the characters made in the cut scenes. There were also several references to epic classics, like Dune and Star Wars, that were fun to try to catch and decipher. On the other hand, this just wasn't as emotionally involving a story line as, say, FF X or VII, and I could go for long periods of time without feeling like I had to complete the next stage of the main quest to find out what would happen next. If you want to be intrigued and mentally challenged by a story, this is a great game; if you want to feel connected to and invested in the characters' backstories and get emotionally involved, go play FF X (or even III, for that matter).

Final Verdict
The well may very well be running dry, but hey, it's Square/Enix' Final Fantasy well - still drinkable after all these years. You will find plenty to criticise, but there is enough here to have a great deal of fun with until the next magnum opus, FF XIII, comes out, which will hopefully address all the weak spots so evident in XII.

Anyone who followed news of Final Fantasy XII, the final installment of the legendary RPG series on the Playstation 2, should know what a troubled history it had. Several years of delays and several key members of the development team leaving before the project's completion definitely shows on the final product. With its balance issues and muddled, poorly done storyline, I can't help but feel that Square-Enix, sensing the final days of the Playstation 2 approaching, just shoved this one out the door and hoped for the best.
A departure for the series, Final Fantasy XII uses a quasi-real time battle system similar to what you'd find in an online RPG. Character AIs are controlled by the gambit system, battle routines that you program for each character before hitting the field. Of course, you can still input commands manually, but the gambit system really does make things flow more seemlessly. While the semi-real time combat does speed things up quite a bit by eliminating random battles, it sacrafices most controll and strategy usually required to play these types of games. The gambit system works a little too well, as all you really need is a few properly enabled healing and attack commands enabled and all the game requires of you is to steer the characters around the map. In fact I always turned the AI script off for my party leader just so I could press a button every once in a while. Even boss battles don't require much more strategy than melee attacking and healing every once in a while.
The game goes even further in destroying the need for strategy by introducing quickenings. These are super powerful, magic draining attacks that you can chain together for massive damage in you have quick enough fingers. Just wear a boss down to half of its life bar and unleash one of these babies to finish him off. If that doesn't work, switch in your reserve fighters to finish him off.
The game has also done away with automatically earning money for every enemy defeated. Instead you have to rely on loot, the items monsters drop at random. You must buy everything from armaments to magic to new gambits and its all very expensive. Imagine how hard it would be too buy that several thousand coin spear if only every fourth monster gave you something to pawn off. Compound that with even late in the game, about 3/4th of the loot dropped pays only a pittance when you sell it. I never had to intentionally build my levels because I was always severely overly powerful from just earning money to buy equipment.
Then there is the utterly frustrating treasure system. In Final Fantasy XII there is no set treasure item in each box. The strategy guide tells me that there is a box that might contain a super duper weapon. Unfortunately, you only have a one in three chance of getting that. You have a better chance of ending up with a potion or 13 coins. And that is if the chest even appears at all, because as I trekked through the fields, I found that more often the not the chests containing the better items were suspiciously absent.
Character skills are assigned through the licensing board. Not only must you purchase every piece of gear, magic spell, and fighting technique, but you must also buy a license to equip/use it with points earned from fighting monsters. You'd think this would lead to very open ended skill development, but it doesn't. Like the weapons, certain magic and techniques are only available after certain points in the game and there is nothing more frustrating than purchasing a license for a nifty looking ability and finding out you won't have access to it unless you go an insane sidequest to defeat some giant rock turtle with two million life points. As for the weapons section of the board, it can be ridiculously unorganized. Some weapons like bows, swords, and spears are neatly grouped together, but others like guns, and ninja swords seem to have been placed all around the board at random.
I'm sorry but it seems for just about every step forward they took, they took three leaps back.
Let's talk about the story, what really makes this a turkey. I'm not going to talk about anything specific after the first five or so hours. After the intense and well-directed opening cinematic, I thought this really would be the masterpiece the hype machine promised it would be. It had everything you'd think an epic should have: large scale battles, death, war, betrayal. The Kingdom of Dalamsca was soundly thrashed in a war against the Archadian Empire. The king surrenders to avoid total annexation by the Empire, but before he can sign the treaty, he is assassinated by Basch, his loyal knight. Several years later, Princess Ashe teams up with a ragtag band of rebels to win the kingdom's freedom back. No one in their right mind should call this well written when one of its few major plot twists is that the assassin was really, that most ridiculous of soap opera clichés, Basch's evil twin brother! That is when the story falls down and only struggles back to its feet after another twenty hours. And I absolutely dare anyone to tell me that the first third of this was not totally patterned after the first two Stars Wars movies, the ones from the good trilogy. At about the start of the last 1/3rd it falls down again and never gets back up, as all the carefully drawn political maneuverings are thrown out the window for an increasingly ridiculous and more stereotypical quest for magic rocks. The characters are almost 100% static and I don't think the developers ever really had a clear picture of who they were as, especially towards the end of the game, their personalities seem to change inexplicably from one scene to the next.
In the end, Final Fantasy XII didn't demand much out of me and I didn't give much effort in return. I just sort of sleepwalked through it. It was far from addictive, and I, who usually want to complete every sidequest, ended up only doing the bare minimum. When it was over, I was just left feeling cold. I've played worse games, but this is the worst entry into the series in a long, long time.

First, the good: It's set in a huge world with beuatiful landscapes and scenery. The FMV sequences are stunning, as expected. That's about all the good I can say about it though.

From somewhere around hour 20 until hour 90 in gameplay, development in the story was almost non existent. Nothing really happens! It's pretty much a series of boss fights and treks through random jungles. Every now and again there's an extrememly casual one lined piece of 'character development' thrown in that barely keeps the thing going.

It's quite badly designed also. For instance, not every shop sells the same spells... so by the end of the game, when the good spells finally become available, you still have to trek all around the world to find some of them. And even then some of them seem unattainable. Like 'bubble' for instance - couldn't find it anywhere. Apparently you have to be at a certain clan level to buy this. Great. How is that supposed to make my experience of the game even remotely enjoyable? And the 'Ardour' spell, where was that supposed to be? Why not just make all the spells available in all the shops? Wouldn't that make more sense? It's just a waste of my time to have to pointlessly go from shop to shop buying crap. Believe me, by the end I HAD LONG SINCE CEASED TO CARE! Maybe people who play these games more frequently enjoy this kind of pursuit. I'm mostly playing for the story.

Somebody else mentioned that the balance between risk and reward is disgraceful. I agree. It seems like you put in so much effort to get almost nothing. The treasure chests in the game are a joke - they contain a host of the most useless stuff you could imagine. Also, most bosses who are challenged by you in any way will just status effect the crap out of you until you die.

Also the positioning (or lack) of some of the save crystals is not good - again, just bad design. I found myself pointlessly replaying certain parts after dying in boss fights because I couldn't save.

Most importantly though, where was the character development in this game? The most random people kept popping up out of nowhere when the 'story' required their presence. Like that french looking guy with the sideburns. What was his function in the story? What were any of them doing for that matter? Could anybody understand a thing any of them were saying apart from the main six? I know it was something about magic rocks...

Only in the final five hours of gameplay did anything start to actually happen. But way too little too late. For instance, when Ashe says to Vaan, 'don't interrupt me', why was she so moody? There is no relationship in any way between these two people. Vaan and Panello are ... well what are they exactly? If they're just friends, that's great. If they're friends with benefits, that's great too. But we're never told! In fact, their friendship is never referenced in any way by any of the other characters. None of the characters are ever in any real jeopardy either and they don't interact with each other verbally at all. Like a bunch of strangers who met on a street and decided to walk in the same direction. Then they all decided to start fighting monsters and look for magic rocks.

And then at the end Vaan says to Ashe, before one of the final battles, 'you've got good friends'... is he talking about them? They barely speak a word to each other for the entire game... they're off looking for magic rocks and then suddenly, they're best mates?? Jumping the gun a little no? A bit of development wouldn't go amiss here...

Maybe Vaan's just desperate for friends or something...

I just finished the game an hour ago and can barely remember a thing that happened in it. It actually feels as if nothing happened at all, which is basically the truth I suppose. Quite unlike what I felt after final fantasy X, which was more like withdrawal.

If it was Square's intention to make a game about six people whose relationships to each other don't develop in any way, then they succeeded. It's pretty much a group of people who get together and go on a quest (something about magic rocks I think???), barely speak to each other for the whole journey (no exaggeration), and then go their separate ways again at the end. Thrilling. I can barely believe I just spent more than 90 hours of my life on this! LESSON LEARNED.

I really don't like being so critical about a game in a series that I have truly loved. I fully appreciate the efforts and the work that went into making this game, and I am grateful that there are people out there doing this. But I think you can do much better.

In short, it's no final fantasy X and there's no epic feel to it like there was in that game. But still, you may enjoy it. I just found the whole thing extremely pointless!

As is always the case (I must admit to being a bit of a FF fanboy), I said "wow" after playing this most recent installment of Final Fantasy. In almost all other cases wow was all I could muster after playing a spectacular game. Now, I'm stunned by how unimpressive Final Fantasy XII turned out. It has left me utterly disappointed and questioning my faith in the future of this series.
My disappointment stems from the "carry-overs". There are many themes that appear in most of the games in the series. These carry-over themes have included airships, powerful creatures the party can summon, specific character jobs, chocobos, certain weapons and typically a character named Cid. The two themes that have the greatest impact on how the game plays are the jobs (e.g. Warrior, Red Mage, Summoner, Dragoon, etc.) and the summoned monsters.
Jobs in this installment are non-existent. Each character is virtually as adept at being a mage as they are at being a fighter. This sounds deceptively inviting, leaving it up to the player to determine how you will develop your characters. Unfortunately, not far into the game, all your characters will have all the same skills since they're aren't that many. The only thing that differentiates character from character is the gear they have equipped. Take off their heavy armor, shield and sword, and strap on a staff, robe and pointy hat. You have just converted your best fighter into your best mage. This neuter approach to character development caused me to care less about "buying" skills.
Summoned monsters were, equally, poorly implemented. Summons have been handled quite differently over the years. In Final Fantasy XII, the summons have been relegated to near uselessness. They have hit points and attacks that are surprisingly low. Summoning during a boss battle was an exercise in futility. The summon was typically dead before it could cause any major damage. Alas, the worst of it all is the introduction of an almost entirely new cast of summons. The old stand-bys, Leviathan, Shiva, Ifrit, Bahamut, and Ramuh, have been replaced by a freakishly overstylized group.
It is with a heavy heart that I pass judgement on Final Fantasy XII. This game forced me to turn in my Final Fantasy Fanboy Badge. I can only hope that FFXIII will redeem the franchise..... I'm not hopeful.

Okay, I can't say that I've been a long time FF fan--I've only recently been going back and exploring previous entries into the genre, largely with the help of friends and buying the older ones for my DS. (I am from the old school, where my very first game system was an Atari, and could play Pac-Man for hours on end until my hand locked up and without pac-man dying, lol, but I soon lost interest after that era of gaming fizzled out.)

Yes, the CGI in XII is beautiful, as a graphic artist still in college training, I love great graphics. But I agree with those who said that the characters lack substance and the story drags--it's a flaw that happens in many a political <sp?> storyline, whether it be fantasy/sci-fi novels, or video games. I would go so far as to say that the characters are more 1 dimensional than 2 dimensional.

But what really killed this game for me is that huge amount of fighting. Most of the sidequests are fighting based--and while I'm okay with fighting, it has never been my most favorite part of a video game. And when the final hunt battle takes 6 hours (I've heard it can take that long, but I'm still in the midst of the final hunt that has already taken way too long) that's just too much. I like an RPG because it's a ROLE-playing game, not because it's a FIGHTING game. (Btw, unlike most, I didn't have an issue with the fighting system. Indeed, most of the time, I preferred to fight in real time.)

In this venue XII seems sadly lacking...there are a few non-fighting related sidequests, but I'm over 240 hours into the game, fighting the last hunt battle, and frankly, I'm bored. I bought the game the same day it came out--and I have a tendency to try and finish all the side games I can bear before ending a game, but I long ago lost interest in this game. I now go for weeks without ever once thinking of trying to play the thing--and for a FF game, that's just plain sad--not to mention worriesome.

Great graphics alone will never make for a great story. Square-Enix jumped the boat here. You build the story first, then create the graphics around the characters and story. Playing this game, I have this awful feeling the reverse was done for XII.

Somewhere in the midst of FF: The Spirits Within and FF VII: Advent Children SquareEnix seems to have lost their footing. They're going after glorious CGI--which I admit, the artist in me loves and enjoys poring over. But I find I much more enjoy the solid gameplay and characterizations in other RPGs, often with poorer CGI than the more recent FFs.

Seems, SquareEnix hasn't learned their lesson yet--you cannot sacrifice good storyline and solid characters in the desperate hopes that stunning CGI will carry the day, and the game. That just doesn't happen.

Example: What do fans of FFVII and FFVIII go on about? Certainly not the graphics--but the characters, and their tribulations. In the end, the stories carried the day. Every once in a while, you see a mention of graphics, but that's not what obsesses people. Good story and characters you can relate to, those do.

Being a fan of the Kingdom Hearts series as well, I can only hope that at least one of FFXIII improves upon FFXII--having the KH's creator on board.

If you buy this game, be prepared for equal parts enjoyment and disappointment--soon to be followed by sheer boredom.

I bought the game the night of the release. I took it straight home and played it that very night like many of us did. Within the first 2 hours of playing I was hooked. Yes, like all new games, getting used to a new world, battle system, monsters, leveling systems and how to aquire items is always a challenge. But I think the developers saw the possibility of people becoming frustrated and they put items throughout the game to assist in leveling up, finding the way around, buying items, getting from pt. a to pt. b, ect... It is a huge, vast and enormous game, endless choices! It is marvelous!

I love the concept of having to take back your pillaged items and selling them. To me that makes it seem more real to life. If I were to go out and kill a few birds, beasts, catch a few fish ect... I would not expect ever to find a shiny brass farthing on them. However I would expect to have to take what I could and sell it. That would be how I would make my living. The same concept exists here.

I find the game to be beautiful, brilliant and hypnotic. I enjoy listening to all the characters voices, I enjoy the story line and I feel pulled into the world.

I am now about 55 hours into the game and my opinion at 2.4 hours hasn't changed. If anything it has only deepened the conviction that I have that Squaresoft knew what it was doing and that they did a splendid job.