Final Fantasy XII

"Politics anyone??"

A boy who would be a sky pirate. A loyal knight branded a traitor. A Princess who lost everything.

Now forget love stories, forget “Let's save the world” and “beat the evil entity” scenarios, forget about all the usual role playing plots you have been playing for the last 10 years, this one is all brand new, this one is all political. So, if you do not like politics, hit the back button on your browser and risk not playing the best videogame ever created.

I have been waiting for this game for, how many years?? Two? Three?? I do not remember. All I remember is that the day it was released in Japan I got my hands on it, and the day it was released in the US, I also got my hands on it.

After eager seconds of delay while the PS2 starts and the Square-Enix logo appears, the intro starts. The intro is an amazing sequence of mixed cinematic and gameplay graphics, so practically you get to see the quality of this game from the first seconds.

You are then faced with the eternal choice, start a new game, or load a previously saved game, and you definitely know your choice. Now, you get to set some options before you start; subtitles, vibration, screen position, filter and the newly added to the NTSC version, the option to play the game in wide screen mode. Once everything is set you are ready to start the most amazing adventure in your whole gaming life.

The game opening sequence is just as amazing as the intro. The game starts in the Royal City of Rabanastre, capital of the small but advanced Kingdom of Dalmasca. A royal wedding is taking place; Princess Ashe is being married to Prince Rassler, and the whole city is in celebration. Just as the marriage ceremony ends and the feasting days are over, bad news hits Rabanstre. The neighboring Kingdom of Archadia is on the march to invade and occupy Dalmasca, and the situation is on the stake.

The Dalmascan king, Raminas, decides to send his army to the Archadian-Dalmascan border, at the fort of Nalbina to block the Archadian attack, but his army gets beaten badly. Dalmasca falls under the occupation of Archadia.

King Raminas is supposed to go to Nalbina to sign the defeat declaration, which would mean Archadia's complete and unconditioned victory, but a foul play happens and King Raminas is killed and the blame is placed on Captain Basch Von Ronsenborg who was later announced to be executed by the Empire.

All the above is explained through the opening sequence, which is followed by an excerpt from a book told in high speech by its author. The Kingdom of Dalmasca has been defeated, and is now an Archadian colony.

You start off by Vaan, a young 17 years old youth living in Rabanastre, spending his days between looting, hunting for bounties or practicing in his special underground place. Along with his friends Panelo and Kytes, Vaan dreams of becoming a sky pirate soaring the skies of Ivalice in his airship, roaming between cities in a limitless world.

Now we know enough about the game's settings and plot so on with the rest of the stuff.

Graphics
Simply amazing. One though the graphical features of Final Fantasy X could not be exceeded, but the guys at SquareEnix have a habit of amazing us every now and then. The graphics in this game is nothing short of marvelous. Actually words like amazing, great, marvelous, mesmerizing or stunning will not give this game's graphics justice. Everything is living in this game. The characters breathe, you see their chests heave up and down, their hair flies with the wind, their clothes move when they walk and move more when they run. The cities are full of life and motion. The Royal City of Rabanastre is a mesmerizing metropolitan built on the style of old age Baghdad and Istanbul, crowded with people of all ages, all races, all genders, all professions, studded with shops and bathes and fountains and everything there is to make a great city. Generally, we can say farewell to small cities and villages, all the cities in Final Fantasy XII are huge.

I can go on forever describing this game's graphical features. All in all, this game probably delivers the best graphics there is on the Playstation 2 gaming console. It beats all its predecessors and its counterparts and manages to deliver an amazing blend of highly detailed environments, amazingly looking characters and strong solid frame rate.

Game Play :
Now here is the part we have been waiting for; game play. From the early days, the developers said Final Fantasy XII will be something that has never been seen before. A game that uses game play and graphical elements never has been used before in a Final Fantasy game, and god they couldn't be truer.

You will notice the difference once you start playing. Goodbye turn based battles; you are no longer welcomed in Final Fantasy. This series has used turn based battles forever, and it was about time the old typical system changes for a new fresh and dandy real time battle system, and trust me, the change is for the better.

I have always been a fan of the turn based battles in Final Fantasy; actually I had hard times with other games that had real time battle systems. To be honest, I was disappointed and annoyed when I first knew that Final Fantasy XII will be using real time battle system, and I had no option but to sit tight and wait till we see how things were going to turn up to.

After playing this game, I can tell you, I don't know if I will ever be able to play any other turn based RPG again. Honestly, this game changed my view of battle systems.

Here is the deal. You control one character, and your party is composed of three characters. You roam around in real time, and once you encounter an enemy, your character gets out his weapon and gets ready for battle. Pressing the action button brings the battle menu, which as usual is a small menu on the left bottom of the screen. The menu is composed of a bit different commands than usual. We have the “Attack” command, the “Gambit ON/OFF” command, the “Magicks and Technickes” command and the usual “Items” command. You sure know about the first and last commands from previous entries in the Final Fantasy series, so I will get straight to talk about the other commands.

The Gambit system is a brand new system used in this game. It allows you to control your other party members through a highly developed AI system setting up commands for your party members. Easy now, let me explain. For example, you have one character's gambit slot set to cast “Cure” on “All Allies” once a party member's HP is “>70%”, this way, this character will automatically cast cure to heal party members once their HP drops below 70%. On the second slot, you, for example, set that character to use the “Attack” command on “Nearest Foe”, so, whenever this character is not healing his below 70% HP companions, he/she will attack the nearest enemy using normal physical attacks, and so on. The gambit system is very easy to manage and allows you to control several aspects of your character's attitude during battle. The gambit options, such as “>70% HP” and “Nearest Foe” are either bough at gambit shops or found scattered around Ivalice in treasure chest.

You can turn your character's gambit ON and OFF anytime during the battle, and even with the gambit system turned ON, you can still switch between your party members by the press of a button. The key to a strong party is a balance between gambit options and user-controlled commands.

The other non-familiar command is the “Magicks and Technickes” command. This simply is a new term for Magic and Techniques. There are five types of magic; Black, White, Green, Time and Arcane. The Black magick involves the usual attack spells such as Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Fira, Blizzara, Thundaga, etc... The White magick includes healing magicks such as Cure, Cura, Curaga, Curaja, Vox and Regan. The Green magick deals with the protective elements; spells such as Protect, Shell, Reflect and Reflectaga belong to this category. Time magicks, as it is apparent, deals with spells such as Haste, Slow, Stop and Delay. Last but not least, the Arcane Magick, which includes powerful spells like Ultima, Dark, Holy and Demi.

The Technickes are special abilities you are able to learn and execute during battles, such as steal and mug. Other technickes involve optimizing your potion abilities and increasing your spells strength.

There are two modes by which you can fight through your battles; ACTIVE mode and WAIT mode. In ACTIVE mode, bringing on the commands menu in done in real time, in other words, the battle does not stop and you can actually get hit while choosing your command. In WAIT mode, which is easier for beginners, the battle is paused once you bring up the commands menu allowing you to choose the command with no haste. You can change the mode anytime throughout the game and even during the battle by accessing the configurations options from the main menu. You can also set the battle speed from the same screen as well as various other options.

Now comes the most interesting part; the leveling up and experience system, in other words, the core of any Role Playing Game. Final Fantasy XII uses a system known as the license board. Do you remember Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid system?? This one is similar, but with more freedom of choice. Let me explain.

When fighting battles and beating enemies, you gain two types of points; normal EXP points which adds up to your experience and helping you in leveling up, and SP points which are used for obtaining new Magicks, weapons, techs and gambit slots, or to be more accurate, for obtaining the license to use new Magicks, weapons, techs and gambit slots. To make a long story short, you use the license board to have access to using the different weapons and abilities after buying them already from the many weapons and accessory shops in Ivalice.
The games controls are also innovative. For the first time in a Final Fantasy, you get to move your character while having the option to rotate the camera 360 degrees in all directions. This is a very useful addition to the series as it allows the player to have a full view of the surrounding environment and locations.

Another aiding factor during battles is Espers. Espers are magical monsters that you can summon during battle to aid you in the fighting. Unlike previous Final Fantasies, Espers are not obtained unless you beat them first in battle. When you beat an esper, it makes a contract with one character and only this character would be able to summon it. When summoned, Espers are added members to the party, i.e.: unlike Final Fantasy X, your party members will still be in the battle while the esper acts as an extra member. You cannot control the Esper, which is controlled by AI and remains in battle for a certain time indicated by crystal orbs on the screen, but you can aid and cast supportive spells on your esper. If the Esper does not get killed in battle, it ends its sequence by a powerful attack.

So, where are the limits/overdrives?? This time, they are called Mist Knacks (JPN) or Mist Quickenings (US). Mist Knacks are special abilities you can learn through the License board. Each character can learn a maximum of 3 mist knacks and once one knack is learnt by a character, it cannot be learnt by another. Mist Knacks are usually found in the corners of the license board. Used wisely, mist knacks can be very helpful throughout the game. But remember, mist knacks are used by the cooperation of two characters. Using a Mist Knack consumes a full MP bar, so they should be used wisely.

Save crystals are blue or brown crystals spread across Ivalice. In addition to allowing you to save your progress, save crystals will also fully restore your HP and MP meters. Brown save crystals have an additional function of teleporting your party from one place to another, provided that you have the teleport stones needed for the process.

Unlike other Final Fantasies, money is not dropped by enemies. Instead, money is obtained through several other ways. One way for obtaining cash, wish you will need for buying weapons, armor, accessories, magicks and gambits, is doing bounty hunts. Bounty hunts involve seeing an ad for killing a certain monster, going on its hunt and returning back to take your reward. Another way of obtaining gil is by selling the items your enemies drop. These are items with no use ever but to be sold for money.

Sound:
As usual, the voice acting is perfect. Noted translator Alexander O. Smith was involved with the English localization of the script. Smith had also previously worked on the localization for Vagrant Story. The voice overs are strong and full of life and meaning.

In a break of the common trend, Final Fantasy's musical score was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, not by Nobuo Uematsu. The game's audio score was released on 4 CDs having 100 tracks. As usual, the music for this game is something one would be happy to spend extra cash for obtaining separately.

Replay Value
You will always want to play again through a Final Fantasy game, it is always worth it. You will always find yourself taking notice of new stuff in the game in the second play over, trust me on that.

Longevity
It is a Final Fantasy guys. Meaning, you have at least 40 hours of storyline gameplay, and more than 100 other hours if you want to finish all the side quests and the optional bosses.

Buy or Rent
Buy or rent?? This section is not even worth mentioning. Of course buy it, it is a Final Fantasy for god's sake, it is the best Final Fantasy ever created. Go buy it NOW. I purchased the Japanese version once it was released, and I got the Collector's edition version the day it was out in the US. You do not own a Playstation 2 console if you do not own this game. You have never played an RPG if you do not play this game.

It is without doubt that Final Fantasy XII is the best and most amazing Final Fantasy ever, if not the best RPG in history. Final Fantasy XII is one of few games to achieve perfect score on Famitsu and it will definitely be one of the best 2006 games. Final Fantasy XII will change your view of role playing games forever.

Worthy of telling, you might notice that this game has a lot in common with Vagrant Story. Not surprising to know that the same guy behind Vagrant Story is behind Final Fantasy XII. So if you liked Vagrant Story, you will love this game.

What are you waiting for?? Go buy this game now, don't hesitate, it is a game for history.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/06, Updated 10/31/06