"Far too many changes!!!"

Final Fantasy 12 is the most recent instalment of the highly acclaimed and rightfully so Final Fantasy series made by Square-Enix. For me it is one of the greatest if not the greatest video game series ever made. I was first introduced to the series when recommended to buy Final Fantasy 8 back in 2000 from a friend who was an avid fan of the series.

From playing Final Fantasy 8 I was immediately hooked and from thereafter I pursued to buy all past and future games, Final Fantasy 7 being the hardest to find. Final Fantasy 8 today still remains to be my favourite of the series. I've played all of the main series games, with the exception of 3 (never came out of Japan) and 11 (which is online, with a monthly fee I believe).

What makes Final Fantasy games brilliant is that they have:

A well thought out and enormous story line that is memorable
Great character development and a wide cast
Great role-playing action and great environments
Guaranteed hours of gameplay with a wide array of side quests
Overall top quality game that the creators spend ages to iron everything out

With this in mind I had the game pre-ordered and was looking forward to its release, and couldn't wait to play a great role playing game to end the Final Fantasy reign on the Playstation 2.

After playing and completing the game I was disappointed, don't get me wrong it's a good game, but fails to meet the standards of its predecessors and here's why.

Story

The game is set in a world called Ivalice in a time of magicks and airships. Final Fantasy has used the classic medieval theme rather than a futuristic look (as seen in 7 and 8). The game uses the old Shakespearean English language to reflect the time, the only thing that is modern is the airships, which look hi-tech as apposed to everything else, which mixes things up a bit.

Essentially you play as Vann an orphan who lives in the Kingdom of Dalmasca, which is under imperial control of the Arcadian Empire. This empire is looking to spread its colony's further by taking over other parts of the world. You're probably thinking hmm a bit like Star Wars then. I won't go into the plot any further but that kind of sets the scene.

The plot overall was kind of disappointing really with not many marks for originality but I suppose they made the story their own and it was enough to entertain to the end of the game. However I do believe the story could have been better with more plot holes and twists as in the other games, as well as a more of an epic journey. I suppose you could say the plot was a bit predictable, meaning you knew from the off how it started and how it was going to end but just didn't know what was going to happen in the middle.

But what was really disappointing and in fact shockingly disappointing was the lack of great character and story development. The plot focuses mainly of the politics of the situation and the severity of the difficulties Ivalice is facing. You're not given much details of the history of the characters that you are with and the hardships that they've faced. It's like they're they are, on a mission, let's go … oh yeah what was your name again and who are you?

Gameplay

This was the second issue that put me off the game, call me old fashioned, but I prefer an RPG where you fight a battle in a separate screen in the area and put commands into the menu and watch the action

In Final Fantasy 12 they've tried something relatively new in having you fight enemies in the environment you walk on. This involved you targeting an enemy and walking up to it and attacking it. A similar method used in Square-Enix's other RPG series Star Ocean 3: Till The End Of Time, originally made by Enix until the Squaresoft joined forces with them to create Square-Enix.

This led to similar gameplay of running up to enemies and attacking them and because you fight enemies in your environments as apposed to a battle scene it makes the environments less interesting. Instead of detailed locations with every screen different you get plain areas, seen one area seen them all for that location!

Fair enough you can use magic and items still, which brings me on to the next point. Most Final Fantasy's have summons, where you can summon a powerful creature to help you. On Final Fantasy 12 they are called Espers (as in Final Fantasy 6) and to be perfectly honest I didn't really use them because when fighting enemies and bosses I didn't really see the need for them.

As you can only control one character at a time when in battle, you have to set ‘gambits', this tells the other characters on your team what to do while in battle. This can get annoying, especially at the start of the game as you can only limit them to certain actions and also you have the hassle of changing them for every battle by going into the menu.

Another area of battles I found was annoying was MP, your ability to use magic; there was simply not enough, especially at the start of the game, which limited to what you could use. Thankfully you could use save crystals to recharge your health and magic, a trait carried from Final Fantasy 10.

This leads me on to another resource that you don't have enough of, Gil, the currency in the game, to make money you have to sell items or loot that you receive from enemies. Instead of receiving gill at the end of the battle you have to pick up an item (if there is one) and sell it, personally I didn't have enough and had to spend ages of relentless training in the game just to make money.

Some people may find this new combat system a breath of fresh air and different from other Final Fantasy's as it is more interactive but frankly I prefer the old system of entering commands and strategising battles whilst watching the action.

As for levelling up, it's the same as it's always been taking out enemies gives you exp points to improve your characters stats. However learning abilities is different, the games uses a board called the ‘Licence Grid' and basically it bares a resemblance to the sphere grid in Final Fantasy 10 except it is more annoying, different but annoying. Basically for every weapon, armour, magic and technique you buy you need to buy a licence from the board from the points you get by taking out enemies. This can be frustrating when you want to equip equipment or abilities but don't know where they are on the board as areas remain hidden until you get closer. Therefore on your first play through you don't know precisely where anything is and this can lead to wasted licence points for equipment and abilities you didn't need.

Although some of the gameplay is different and alien from the other games, Square-Enix have tried something new, but it changes Final Fantasy to much in terms of battles and surroundings. It's like they've changed something that didn't needed to be changed in the first place because it was already great in the first place just to make the RPG appear more interactive and thus ruins the concept of battles and surroundings in Final Fantasy.

Graphics

As with any Final Fantasy no problems here, simply awesome, as usual Final Fantasy put the graphics to the limit on the console. Fair enough you would have better graphics on a next generation console, such as the Xbox 360. But for the Playstation 2, the best you can get.

Towns, outside areas, dungeons, characters and enemies are done to perfection and you can tell that they have taken a lot of time to design and create the areas to perfection. Also as with any Final Fantasy there are loads of different areas with their different themes and music.

What I didn't like was that the FHM's, the in-game movie scenes that Final Fantasy makes to a tee were smaller on screen. They had a border around the edges, perhaps to save space on the DVDs to use for other aspects of the game. This kind of reduced the quality of the FHM's, which are really great on Final Fantasy's.

Sound

The sound was to a good standard overall but there aren't really any music pieces that are memorable and they are easy forgotten. There are no classics like Eyes on Me from Final Fantasy 8, the rocketing guitar piece You are Not Alone in Final Fantasy 9, or a 1000 Words in Final Fantasy 10-2 to name a very short few. The music is good but don't expect to be blown away by the score.

Play Time/Replayability

Can't really argue here, as with any Final Fantasy game there are hours of play time and tons of side quests and extra story lines to view. It took me around 55 hours to complete the game, without taking the liberty of going into side quests.

Overall

To be honest Final Fantasy 12 is a good game and addictive in its own way but it's not great. It no where near meets the brilliance of the story telling and character development, nor the music pieces from the previous games.

Maybe I expected too much, by anticipating another great traditional addition to the series after waiting so long, then just to find a changed and alienated Final Fantasy experience that to be honest isn't the Final Fantasy that rocks!

Story: Original, easy to work out and poor character development = 6
Gameplay: New battle system and a frustrating character development experience that's no where near better than the other games = 7
Graphics: Cannot be faulted, puts the console to its limits = 10
Sound: Good music, nothing great or really memorable = 7
Play Time/Replayability: Can keep you busy for ages and loads of side quests = 9

Overall = 7

In one phrase...

A Final Fantasy with too many changes that will alienate some fans

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/07