It’s been about three weeks since Final Fantasy XII has been on the streets (seven, if you count the torrent sites), and I’ve had plenty of time to get to know this game. If you’re still on the fence about buying/renting this game, hopefully my review will help you a little bit with your decision. And don’t worry, this review will be spoiler-free.

If you played the demo that came with last years’ Dragon Quest VII, you probably noticed that the new battle system - real time, a FF first - was wonky, at best. It was such an odd step that I debated whether or not to even buy the game when (and at that point, if) it was released. Thankfully, the new system has been polished enough to make it a winner. If the Final Fantasy franchise never goes back to random battles, I’ll consider it a step in the right direction.

Instead of the traditional “walk around, sudden visual effect, all of a sudden a battle!”, every enemy is visible in your area. You can avoid fighting them by steering clear of them, or you can initiate battle simply by approaching them. All you have to do is bring up your action menu by pressing X, confirm your target, and let the battle proceed. You can also do this for the other members in your party as well, but most likely you’ll have them act with the new Gambit System.

The Gambit System is also a new addition to the series, and another good step in the right direction. In your party of three, you designate a party leader (with which you’ll move around the map and carry out most of your party’s commands) and two supporters. The Gambit System allows you to give your party members commands to act upon independent of controls. For example, you can command them to target the party leader’s target and automatically attack. You can set it up that they will cast healing magics if your hit points reach a certain percentage. You can command them to steal, cast black magic, use special abilities, items, and so on. You can even assign these Gambits to your party leader so you don’t have to bother with manually entering commands for every battle. Of course, manually entering a command overrides a gambit, so if a battle is going unexpectedly bad, you can still manage to turn it around. In short, if you’ve ever played Kingdom Hearts, you’ve played the Gambit System before, only this time it’s much more functional and worthwhile.

The second new addition to the game is the License Board.� After defeating enemies, you get License Points, which you’ll use to purchase squares one the Board.� Each square represents either items you can equip, techniques you can learn, or augments you can use to better your stats.� Once you purchase these squares, you don’t learn techniques or spells or acquire the armor or weapon, but rather the right to use what that square represents.� The actual spells, techniques, and equipment is bought in shops, so you’ll have to keep an eye on how many License Points you have to spend for what you’re able to acquire.� As far as past Final Fantasy systems go, this one is probably the simplest and easiest to use.
Graphically, FFXII ranks right up there with the “next generation” games. The CGI cutscenes are, of course, breathtaking, which is par for the course for a Square-Enix game. What has really surprised me so far are the scenes that use the in-game renders of characters. They’ve been done so well that I’ve mistaken several for CGI. The character models are very detailed, the environments are rich — face it, this game is gorgeous.

The music and sound in the game has been, so far, average. You can tell it’s missing longtime composer Nobuo Uematsu’s distinctive touch. Not to say it’s horrible, of course, but it’s hard to follow up the brilliance we’ve had in past games. At the very least, we get a great version of Final Fantasy IV’s theme in the file select menu. As for the voice acting, it’s above average. One thing I’ve noticed is that many characters are voice by European actors, and they do a superb job (just wait ’til you meet Al-Cid). The American cast, though, pales in comparison, just coming in at “adequate”.

Speaking of the cast, FFXII’s crew are wonderful characters, save one: the “main” character, Vaan. We’ll get to that in a moment — for now, we’ll look at each character individually.

Balthier - A sky pirate, and could take the title of “most awesome FF character ever”. Take the bravado and skills of Han Solo, add the coolness and intellect of James Bond, and Balthier’s what you get. And what’s even cooler, he has a normal haircut — no foot-long spikes here, folks!

Fran - The bunny girl, or Viera is described as “a master of any weapon she touches”. She’s a fellow sky pirate and Balthier’s partner (it’s not stated if it’s a business or pleasure). She’s tall, she’s beautiful, and she wears metallic lingerie to battle in. Also, she sounds like Bjork. In the game, she’s all business, and seems to be the one who knows what’s going on most of the time.

Ashe - The presumed-dead Princess of Dalmasca, now leader of the Resistance. So far, she’s proven herself tough and smart, and unwilling to put up with anybody’s BS. The only thing I can’t comprehend is her fashion sense, but that’s always been an odd area in the FF series.

Basch - A grizzled knight of the Order of the Bad Asses. In the beginning, everybody’s convinced that he murdered Ashe’s father, the king, but through events that shall not be spoiled, he joins your party. Despite being disgraced and hated, he still takes his job as a knight very seriously.

Penelo - Rikku without the ADHD. Generally likable, and seems to be the voice of calm within the group. She’s also Vaan’s best friend, which makes me think she didn’t try that hard at friend-picking.
Vaan - Quite possibly the biggest idiot ever. At a certain point in the game, you’ll realize that his presence isn’t necessary at all to the game, and you’ll wonder why he’s there.� At the very least, you can choose not to have him in your active party once you have over four people.
In terms of story, XII is quite different than the rest of the pack.� Instead of a crazy sorcerer/demon/court jester trying to take over the world, you’re thrust into a story of political intrigue.� It’s a refreshing pace to not be pounded over the head by story points — instead, the tale unfolds through scenes that give us subtle nuances and clues as to what’s going on.� I’ve heard many people say that the story is boring, but those are probably the people who still sit at the kiddie table at Thanksgiving.

One thing that I approve of greatly is the difficulty level.� There are parts in this game that will make you want to tear your hear out.� That’s right, there are some genuinely hard areas in this game, both required and optional.� It’s nice to have a Final Fantasy that’s actually challenging.� We haven’t had those since the SNES days.

Even though this review has been glowing so far, there are just a couple of minor issues I’ve had with this game.� Firstly, the game suffers from serious load time issues.� The first time I booted the game up, I thought that I had a defective disc because the screen was black for so long.� There’s also about a five to seven second delay when you venture between areas.� Secondly, and this one is a subjective gripe, but the summoned creatures at your command function as they did in FFX — that is, instead of using them to unleash a single devastating attack, they essentially become a party member for a limited amount of time.� And unlike FFX, you cannot control your Esper, so strategy goes right out the window.

My recommendation?� A definite buy.� In my opinion, this is one of the finest Final Fantasy — nay, one of the finest video games ever made.� A strong contender for game of the year for whatever magazine/television show/website that offers such year-ending accolades.� Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stop writing now so I can go back to playing FFXII!

If you liked that, try...

1. Final Fantasy XII Day in NYC
2. Final Fantasy: Reflections #1
3. Plenty for Twenty: Final Fantasy X-2
4. English Version of Final Fantasy XII leaked?
5. Final Fantasy: Reflections #2

4 Comments »

1. 
   Devin de Gruyl
   November 21, 2006 at 12:31 am

   The only thing I can’t comprehend is her fashion sense, but that’s always been an odd area in the FF series.

   Hardly contained to the FF series, of course. Especially of late, RPG females appear to have been a Worst Dressed List unto their own… as if, in an attempt to stand out, their designers put them into clothes that at times could make the Sixth Doctor’s outfit (in my own words, “Colin Baker and the Amazing Technicolor Nightmarecoat”) look good! FF12 merely continues the trend.

   (Mind you, I’m not saying that the guys in these games are dressed any better in most cases, but for some reason one tends to notice a horrific outfit more when a girl’s wearing it. Odd, but true.)

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2. 
   zaknafein
   November 24, 2006 at 12:21 am

   Rikku without the ADHD… I about fell outta my chair on that one. That was funny. And once again, our summoned Guardian Forces are controlled characters… yay. I’m with you on that one. When in a clinch and things go south, I like to be able to pull a BAMF who drops in for a solid, hard hit. “Oh YEAH?! Eat HELLSTORM you fool!” Great sense of payback with it. >

   And just outta curiosity, do the Guardians (or whatever they’re called now) have the traditional names of Ifrit, Bahamut, Ixion, Shiva, etc.? You’ll have to forgive me, but in a fit of nostalgia, I dropped back in to FFVII, and the question popped up.

   Solid review though. I was debating on the purchase with the License System… but I think you sold me.

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3. 
   Shawn M.
   November 24, 2006 at 3:09 am

   The summoned creatures (called Espers in this game, a throwback to FFVI) don’t follow the traditional series of names. The names are taken from the summons from Final Fantasy Tactics. The traditional names do appear as names of various airships in the story. Being a traditionalist myself, I was disappointed at first, but with this game being such a dramatic and much-needed change in the series, I think it works out kinda nice to have “new” summons to work with.

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4. 
   Jerry
   November 27, 2006 at 7:55 pm

   Makes sense that the names follow that of FF Tactics, since that’s the same world that the game is set in. I haven’t had the chance to drop much time on this game one yet, but I’m hoping to get further into it soon…and stop sucking so much when it comes to levels and licenses.

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