Final Fantasy XII (PS2) Review
Posted by Sean McCabe on 11.10.2006
It has been a long time coming, but that wait is seemingly worth it...
Title: Final Fantasy XII
Publisher: Square-Enix
Developer: Square-Enix
Type: Real time combat RPG
Players 1
The Final Fantasy series to me has always been hit and miss. I dismissed most of the first six games in favour of alternatives like the Soul Blazer series, the Mana series and the Lufia series. FFVII was probably the first game in the series to make me take notice, as it was revolutionary in many ways. However, since then, really with only the exception of Final Fantasy IX, the series has become increasingly stale, set in its ways. I really disliked FFX and X-2, and thought they were sorry testament to the fact that the Final Fantasy series just doesn't cut it. I know of course, how internationally successful the series is, and I have never seen it as deserving of that success. However, once in a while, a long running series can be surprising, and quite pleasantly so. Final Fantasy XII will be the first, and perhaps the only, time Square-Enix throw that stuffy old book of clichés Enix wrote and both companies leeched from for years and years, right out the window, so lets make the most of it, shall we?
Graphics: Well as ever, the game opens with a beautifully sumptuous FMV intro, which hints at darker and more dastardly things than most FF intros do. Airships doing battle, dark knights, monstrous summons, and a whole lot of desert. Indeed, you'd best get used to seeing desert, because the kindom of Dalmasca consists of little else. Environments are a little basic, but they are fully rendered in three dimensions and are really, really big. Considering the most of the recent games in the series used relatively small pre-rendered backgrounds for all areas other than the world map, this is quite a change. A change for the better, once you take certain things into account. Character models, of course, make up somewhat for the un-fancy environments, and are quite detailed... especially Fran... Yeah, this game deserves a good grade on graphics for her alone.
Gameplay: Ah, unless you've been living under a rock for the past three years, then you should know very much about the significant changes the twelfth incarnation of the Final Fantasy lineage has undergone. Out with the stale, dull turn based combat, a system which is older than me, and in with a all new real time combat system. The series never even thought to introduce some more interesting elements into the turn based system like other series have done over the years, and so this change from turn based to real time is long overdue. Still, it would all be for naught if the job wasn't done well, but fortunately, taking the system from FFXI and giving it an overhaul has actually worked better than anybody probably imagined. One of the things I particularly like is being able to control any character in the field. I also like being able to customize individual characters to whatever I see fit using the licensing board, the game's upgrading system.
Combat is handled something like this. Pressing X to bring up a menu, which has numerous attack options. You select your attack. The game automatically detects enemies in the vicinity, and from there, things get messy. People often complain that this game plays itself. However, that is not really the case, not in difficult battles at least. The player needs to manage things, do certain things manually to keep everybody alive and kicking, and most bosses in this game take a lot of kicking. Gambits are not for the purpose of letting the player be lazy, but for allowing them to manage things easier. Gambits are pretty much simple AI routines which you can give your characters. It's actually a very clever system and one I suspect other games will steal in short order.
This game is the most fun in the Final Fantasy series to actually play, however, with an RPG, there is more than simply gameplay to consider, and so I will talk about the story when it comes to talking about the games appeal below.
Sound: Nobuo Uematsu was original going to compose the game's musical score, however he bowed out in favour of Hitoshi Sakimoto. This appears to have done no serious harm, in fact FFXII has quite a unique sound, which stems from an attempt by the composer to reflect the feelings of the game's environments with the music. It's mostly successful, and the music score is often excellent, moreso than it is dull or uneventful anyway. The English voice acting is great, miles, miles above FFX's horrible voice acting. Balthier, played by Gideon Emery, in particular, is a great, very old school kind of character, the dashing, swashbuckling pirate. The writing to attempts to give the characters a language style which is very old fashioned, and politick heavy. Like a play from the 19th century, almost.
Lasting Appeal: An RPG's lasting appeals tends to not just fall on it's length but also it's story. Fortunately,. FFXII delivers great story in spades. It's a simple enough concept, a war between two vast Empires, and the harm their political movements cause to smaller kingdoms in between them. Playing as a boy thief from one of these small kingdoms, Vann, shortly after it is conquered by Arcadia, one of the two great empires, Vaan becomes embroiled in a resistance plot involving two sky pirates who happen to stumble into things accidentally, and two people who should by all rights be dead.
The game overall focuses less on character development and more on the politically heavy conflicts and events surrounding them, and I think that is a good thing. There was this tendency in other games in the series to be really sub-plot heavy, and it often grew tiresome. This doesn't happen in FFXII, instead, players need pay attention to the grander scheme of things.
Of course, the games length is likely not to be scoffed at, I have heard the game can last up to a 100 hours, which means even somebody trying to rush their way through the game will take at least half of that. I'm only at twenty hours, personally, but I don't think I'm even that far yet.
Fun Factor: As I said above, this is flat out the most fun game in the Final Fantasy series. This fun stems from the directness of the combat system, I believe. It's very addictive, and boss battles in this game seem far more intense, due to the appearance of a big life bar at the top of the screen the player must deplete. If this sounds quite arcadey to you, you aren't wrong. This is why FFXII is so fun, it's just a lot more accessible than a typical turn-based RPG.
The 411:I don't know why Square-Enix decided to go in the direction they did for this game, since normally they just tend to walk the same path all the time. However, I'm glad that just this once, the decided to make something quite different from the norms of the Final Fantasy series thus far, and I do hope that this game becomes the new standard for the games ahead of it. Because, all said and done, it is a fantastic game.
Graphics
8.5
Bland environments are offset by their impressive size, impressive character models and beautiful FMV sequences.
Gameplay
9.0
Unique and fun combat system, which is just so different from what has gone before. Gambits are awesome.
Sound
9.0
An emotional music score and some great voice acting represent the game well in the sound department.
Lasting Appeal
10.0
Liable to last for a long, long time.
Fun Factor
9.0
Liable to also be very, very fun as you play for that long, long time.
