Final Fantasy XII

Final Fantasy 12 is the latest console Final Fantasy game. And as the latest Final Fantasy (on a console), it tries to takes the series in a new direction. And for the most part this is a good thing, however, there are many flaws in the game that prevent it from becoming a great game. The story while great in parts is dull at other parts. The game’s combat system appears to be new, but really isn’t that different from what was there before.

Final Fantasy 12 takes place in Ivalice the world from the Final Fantasy Tactics games. There are 6 main characters in the game, and despite the fact that Vaan is the first one you’re allowed to control, none of them ever feel like they are the main focus of the game. This causes a problem as far as story telling is concerned because without a main focus the story at times tends to stall and go no where. And to make matter worst, none of the characters ever feel fully develop or real. A good example of this is Balthier the sky pirate who neither acts nor does any actions of a pirate. When you first meet him he is breaking into the castle in an attempt to steal something valuable, however, this is more of a thief action. I state this because pirates from what I gather (from TV and history) are neither sneaky nor subtle. Also, his crew consists of one person, Fran, which is kind of odd seeing how if you wanted to pirate stuff from other air ships you would probably need quite a few people to do it. Overall, this Balthier character never feels like a sky pirate, but more of a rich thief who has too much free time on his hands. And the lack of fully developed characters would be forgivable if the story didn’t stall so much. Like most other Final Fantasy games, travel in this game is slow. There are ways to speed it up like getting a ride in an air ship, teleportation, and chocobos, but for the most part you will be spending your time walking around some dungeon to get an item to unlock another dungeon. This is done over and over again, giving the game a very formulaic feel to it. You go through a dungeon and get a key, but then you somehow lose/break that key, so you have to go to another dungeon to get another item to repair that key, but you find out that you can not get into that dungeon till you go to another one to get a key that will allow you to access the second dungeon.. All in all the story of the game is alright, but the character’s development and the pacing of the story slow the game down.

Two new aspects to this game are the game’s combat system and licensing board, which allows you to train your characters however you see fit. As stated before, combat in FF12 is significantly different from other Final Fantasy games for three reasons. First, enemies are visible on the game world, so there are no longer random battles that happen while moving around. Second, combat is semi-real time and takes place in the game world. So instead of walking across a field and having the screen flash and take you into combat where you can access the menu and decide what to do, you now see the enemy walking about and if you get close enough combat starts at which point you can decide what actions to take. This change is a welcome addition to the series as it makes things seem new and fresh. However, after a while this combat system becomes repetitive and a chore to go through. There is a way to streamline this process, the system is the gambit system which auto manages character actions by giving them set commands to follow, like if character hit points are lower than 50% then that character will be healed with a cure spell. Even with this system combat still becomes a chore after a while. It would have been better if instead of making the player fight hundreds of battles against random monsters so that they can level up; that all they would have to do is fight a few battles against harder monsters that gave more experience. Lastly you regenerate magic points over time as you walk around. Magic points act the same way they do in most Role Playing Games, by that I mean you use them to cast spells, or summon summons. You can extend your magic by teaching a character a hyper move (overdrive/limit break/whatever you want to refer to it as) and when you do this you can also summon bigger summons. Overall the combat game play mechanics work, and even though they become slightly annoying, it never becomes unbearable.

The other game aspect that is different from other games in the series is the licensing board. While it is comparable to the grid system from Final Fantasy 10, there are enough differences to make it feel new. In Final Fantasy 12 when you kill an enemy you not only get experience, but also LP (license points). You can use these LP to learn new abilities or how to use more powerful equipments. The latter seems a bit goofy since it makes you have to learn how to wear a hat. However, it is apparent this is done so that players are made into making their characters into a certain role. You won’t be able to give your white mage character heavy armor unless you specialize them in it. This customizability of characters is great; I hope it becomes a norm for the series.

Visually the game looks great for a PS2 game, but considering how long it was in development it should be expected. The characters in the game look impressive. There is a considerable amount of texture and modeling done for them. Something I found impressive was the facial animation on the main characters since it added to their personality. Other than that there really isn’t much more that needs to be said about the visual since there aren’t any real problems with them, so instead I am going to rant on about some minor issue, feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph. A minor problem I had with this visual of this game is a common one among Role Playing Games. That problem is the reuse of the same monster models over and over again with the only differences between them being skin color and/or a minor adjustment along the lines of an added horn. If a player is going to spend dozens of hours in a game exploring I would think it would be best if they saw lots of different creatures thereby giving them a sense that the world they are playing is massive. An additional problem with this game is one that is common to the final fantasy series, which is the fact that character’s appearance does not change depending on what they are wearing. The character’s appearance in this game really does matter since you can train your character to be anything from a mage to a fighter. It would have been nice if you also visually saw this on your characters and not just on the menu system. There is more that could be nit picked, but it really depends on what a person likes and dislikes; there are no real problems with the visual in this game since they are good, but they could have been so much more.

All in all Final Fantasy 12 is a great game that any Final Fantasy fans or RPG fans should try. While the changes to the series done in this game are good, more should have been done. It is easy to recommend this game to most people, but if you’re expecting a ground breaking game then you’re going to be disappointed. Graphically this game looks great, however, the story and game play have problems. These problems stop this game from becoming what it could have been. If you’re looking for a RPG that plays well and looks great then you should pick up Final Fantasy 12.