"A prime example of why online games should never come offline."

It's amazing how deceptive packaging, videos and professional reviews can be. Even more amazing is the fact that the Final Fantasy series can go from a great game like Final Fantasy X, not including the fanservice that came afterwards, then make a slight deviation into the realm of MMORPGs and then fall face first into the filthy puddle known as "Final Fantasy XII".

FFXII breaks all of the standard RPG conventions, well except for a couple of the bad ones. The production value is obviously through the roof, but the game still looks stunted, sounds tinny and has one of the most boring RPG stories I've ever had the misfortune of playing through. And that's saying a lot since I've been playing console RPGs for the better part of the last 15 years, and in that time I've played some MAJOR stinkers.

Let's start with the usual place:

Graphics: 6/10

I know, I know, you think I'm crazy for rating such a pretty looking game so low, but I have my reasons. As a game design student I know that every console, no matter how powerful, has limitations that must be exploited to make a game as large as a Final Fantasy. However, that doesn't explain a lot of the graphical problems with XII.

First off, take a look at Vaan. Does anyone else think he looks like his abs are strangely square shaped? Now, I'm no body building expert but I've never seen such boxy looking musculature in my life, it looks awful. Further, if you've played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance then you know that to make sure people would like XII, Square made FFTA based on the pre-production for XII. Unfortunately for Square the races in FFTA were anime-esque and cute, in XII they either look like their race has been popping steroids for the last four hundred years or look absolutely NOTHING like they should. Character design is extremely lazy for NPCs, as 90% of the Viera look EXACTLY the same, there are literally more types of unique male NPCs in Chrono Trigger than there are unique Viera... and there were only three adult male NPC types in CT.

Now, the environments in XII are an entirely different matter. They look great, but there's just so much wasted space. But on the plus side the area transitions actually look like the area they lead to, so that's a nice touch. But the crummy, crummy textures kind of ruin the over all look of the game. At one point you'll come across a forest in the game, you'll know if if you've played FFTA. But when comparing the same area in FFTA and XII you'll notice not only does the sprited version look far superior to the 3D version, you'll also notice they look absolutely nothing alike. A minor thing, I know, but it's still annoying. Oh, and a personal annoyance of mine is that in this particular wood... the moss literally looks like the texturing was done in MS paint.

Story: 4/10:

This is where XII really falls smack dab on its face, gets back up, then falls into a deep, black, pit. I've never been so disinterested in a video game story in my life, and I've been playing games since the days of the NES where stories consisted of "you save girl." The characters have absolutely on motivation and it's not a point that's really all that arguable. Vaan, the main character, has two motives in life: to become a sky pirate and to steal from the Empire because his brother died in a war with them. Now, that's usually all well and good, but 20 hours later the whole 'sky pirate' thing hasn't been mentioned for 19 hours and 58 minutes and the desire for revenge against the empire doesn't really matter anymore since it too barely gets mentioned. Vaan has literally no motivations to be on this quest to save the world, and as such anything he does or says is tinged with such melodrama that I can barely take him seriously. (For those of you who think I'm using the term melodrama wrong, I'm not. It means when something happens that there's no motivation for, not when someone overreacts.)

Furthermore, the only two characters with a reason to fight are so unbelievably boring that they might as well not even be there. I'm sorry, but the stereotypical broken knight and dethroned princess, in a micro-skirt I might add, are not only overused stereotypes, but also completely misused in XII. Vaan's best friend, Penelo, is essentially on for the ride 'cause she wants to be around Vaan, and Balthier and Fran are either your typical 'we want money 'cause we're pirates' characters, or in the case of the actual game, have a hidden agenda and an even shadier past. Every character is a stereotype, and a bad one.

The story is a different matter, however, while it is grand, huge and epic, it's also incredibly boring. I don't know about the rest of you but when I shelled out my money for this I wanted an RPG, as in a ROLE playing game. Where I take on the role of a well developed, interesting character. Unfortunately what you get are half baked, cookie-cutter characters and a story that has nothing to do with any of them. It's your typical 'BADGUY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD!!!' mixed with Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings, minus any character development. There are literally scenes where something seemingly important happens but none of it matters because of the eight people in the scene you've only actually seen two. The story focuses on the politics involved, and not so much on the characters. Which leads to quite a bit of melodrama and boredom.

Audio: 2/10

I know, I know, I'm being brutal. However, when you're a voice acting geek, such as myself, you tend to mark the audio waaaay down when it's this bad. Now, I'm a Canadian that lives in Vancouver, BC. Anyone familiar with the voice acting industry would know that the biggest hub for voice over in North America, is Vancouver, with LA coming a distant second. As such I've got a fair amount of exposure to the good stuff, the kind of voice over that doesn't sound like it's being read off a script, or half acted by some random famous movie star who has no damn business doing voice over.

With that in mind, the voice acting in XII makes me cry. Vaan has probably the worst voice for a main character I've ever heard, and the rest of the cast is no better. If it's not poorly delivered, then it's poorly directed, if it's not either of those then it's a bad casting choice. If it somehow avoids that then it's got a horrible accent that completely ruins the character. The compression on the voices is also very, very high, which causes EVERY character to pop their Ps, Tuh their Ts and Ssss their S sounds. As well as causing about 1/3rd of all dialog to sound like it was recorded through a tin can. How it could go from the immensely talented cast of FFX with the likes of Tara Strong, James Arnold Taylor and John Dimaggio, to this crap fest, I dunno.

Aside from that the music and sound effects are pretty much boring. They're either barely noticable or just plain not interesting.

Gameplay: 5/10

Don't get me started on the gameplay, 'cause it's the worst part of the game. Sure, I rated it the highest of my sections, but that's only because it's the only part of the game that has even the slightest bit of polish. And that's not because of how much time was spent on this game, it's because if uses FFXI's engine for most of the work. The game is BORING, there are no interesting mini-games I've encountered so far, the fighting is slow and boring and to even get money you have to either steal every thirty seconds or spend five hours killing enemies and only make 2,000 gil. If you need a picture of the gameplay before you buy then it's a little like this: take FFXI's engine, remove all online character interaction, stick in a bunch of NPCs you can't talk to, stick obscenely powerful enemies in with every 10 weak ones and you'll get XII. I call the gameplay the worst section of the game mainly because it's a known fact that for the online content and interaction, games often take a hit in some gameplay areas. XII is offline and as such the engine should have been beefed up. It wasn't, and as such is weak and somewhat boring.

Finally, the worst part of the gameplay are the enemies themselves. The average enemy is weak, unimposing and a snooze to fight. But within every few groups of enemies is an enemy like the 'lycanthrope' that you'll encounter within the first hour of the game: an enemy that can kill your entire party in one hit per person. Bosses are also, very, very broken. For the first two hours of the game you won't fight a real boss, then you do and it's easy. Then you fight about three more over the next twelve hours of game. At this point you'll face a boss roughly once an hour for the next ten hours, sometimes two an hour. At once point two in twenty minutes. So not only have you just spend twenty minutes fighting a difficult boss but you have to fight a similar, but stronger, boss about fifteen minutes later and you haven't made up the cash to replenish your stock of items or equipment because it's so damned expensive. Also, for the bosses to be difficult the designers gave them all unfair abilities, or mass numbers instead of clever design and strategy. There's a boss fight against a group of Bombs and a King Bomb: the King Bomb can oil your party which enhances all fire based damage by a large amount. At least triple the damage is done, and the King Bomb as fire based physical attacks. So he can literally kill your entire party in a single hit each, and do the same as soon as you revive them because the oil effect remains after death and revival, is immune to Esuna and requires a specific item to cure. Which will run out fast if you keep using it once every fifteen seconds. Most bosses are like this, making them not only difficult beyond the scope of their design but also annoying to fight.

In conclusion, FFXII looks great and if you're not an RPG overlord, such as myself, you'll probably enjoy it. But if you're expecting a game as fun and rewarding as past FF games it's not going to happen. XII is, in my opinion, the hands down worst game in the series, including Mystic Quest and Crystal Chronicles. Further, it's not only the worst Square made game I've ever played but it's high on the list of 'worst games I've ever played'.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/06