Final Fantasy XII Review

Info
Developer - SquareEnix
Producer - SquareEnix
Platform(s) - PS2 exclusive
Release Dates - 16th March 2006 Japan
- 31st October 2006 North America
- 23rd February 2007 Europe (PAL)
- 9th August 2007 International

Final Fantasy XII is one of the many installments in the incredibly succesful Final Fantasy series and has made some very noticeable changes compared to earlier installments.

---==Story==---

Final Fantasy XII takes place in the land of Ivalice, which is split into several areas, the 2 most noteable and important ones being: Ordalia - A vast land filled with plains and deserts (mainly Jagd). The Rozarrian Empire rules this area. Valendia - A land dominated by the Imperial Archadia and House Solidor, where some of the most prosperous and vast fields dot the land. Emperor Gramis oversees the entire Country. When we first start the game, we are playing as a young cadet by the name of Reks, in a group of Dalmascan Knights. These Knights have little time to get to the King of Dalmasca before he signs a treaty of surrender, as he is to be assassinated soon after. This is the tutorial level and explains well how all the controls outside, and inside the battlefield work.

Our real adventure starts in the capital of Dalmasca, Rabanastre, in the Galtean Peninsula, directly between the nations of Rozarria and Archadia, who currently harbour ill-will towards one another and are in the middle of a war. We pick up 2 years after Reks was killed, in a time where Dalmasca and other places such as Nabradia are under Archadian control. We begin playing as Vaan, Reks' little brother, killing some rats in a sewer. As any Final Fantasy player can tell you, as you progress through the story, you'll be killing things a hell of a lot scarier/tougher/uglier/stupider/meaner. One of the prevalent main themes of this Final Fantasy is War. It takes a very grown-up approach as to how War can affect Countries and the people within them. It shows the difficulties people face in dire times and what people will do to stay alive, i.e Vaan and his childhood friend, Penelo, will have to run odd-jobs day to day for people so they can get money to pay for food, but Vaan occasionly falls into the bad habit of stealing things, usually from Archadian soldiers.

The story is definitely one of the main pulling points of this game, as although things such as magic and Airships are common sights, the feel and look of the game gives it a very big sense of realism, as it easily establishes a bond with what real life can be like for some of the less fortunate individuals in this world.

---==Gameplay==---

Gameplay in Final Fantasy XII varies somewhat from traditional turn-based fighting in other FF games. Random battles have been eliminated, battles take place in real time and the death of your 3 in-battle characters is much more easily avoidable. Below are a brief summary of all the types of actions in the game. Any action will fall under one of these categories.
Attack - does exactly what it says on the tin
Items - covers anything that is used from the in-game inventory
Black Magic - covers all classic offensive spells such as "fire" and "thundara"
White Magic - covers several spells which heal or protect.
Green Magic - used mostly to cast beneficial or detrimental status effects i.e " protect" and "oil"
Time Magic - spells like "haste" and "stop" can be found here and also new spells such as "float"
Arcane Magic - you can find your scary magic here, such as "dark", "gravity" and the terrifying "bubble"
Technicks - yes, I have spelt that right. These are abilities which cost no mana and have a very large variety of effects, ranging from "steal" to "1000 needles" to "telekenisis"
Mist - Contains the option to either summon an Esper to fight alongside you or to use character specific limit attacks.

The classic limit attacks come in the form of "Quickenings", of which each character can acquire 3. the first quickening requires 1 mist charge, the 2nd 2 and the 3rd, 3. Mist charges are essentially a section of your mana. After acquiring 2 quickenings, your max mana doubles, and after 3, your original mana value is tripled. For example, if one of my Character's mana was 48, after getting 2 quickenings it would be 96 and after 3 it would be 144. Espers are only similar to Aeons in the fact that you summon them. Unlike other final fantasies, they join you on the battlefield, but have pre-determined actions so you can't directly control them, and they can only stay on the battlefield for a certain amount of time. Having said that, their actions do have independant variables, so you can sometimes help them on their way i.e. some espers will only unleash their ultimate attack if their health is below a certain value, such as 30%, so if time's running out, you can choose to attack your esper and lower it's health, effectively forcing them to use their ultimate attack.

The final major addition is the Gambit System. This is, essentially, a way to easily program your characters to perform actions based on certain situations. A common gambit screen looks like this. As long as you don't put in variables that would cancel each other out or put in something pointless like "HP=100% use Phoenix Down" this system should keep you pretty safe, but does give that "the game is playing its-self" kind of feel. The major help it provides is making sure you don't get arthritis from manually selecting every action.

---==Graphics==---

For a PS2 game, this does kind of stretch the boundaries. Some of the cutscenes look almost next-gen and the normal gameplay is no sloucher either (feel free to disagree, we all have our views). Admittedly sometimes the characters don't look that impressive, but they aren't really the main point of view when you're exploring Ivalice. The game takes you through Cities, Caves, Forests, Plains, Deserts, Towers, Airships, Villages and more, all of which look fantastic for a PS2 game. Some of the attack animations are quite noticeable aswell, especially the Quickenings and Esper attacks. Time and effort has clearly went into designing this game's unique look, and there are very few instances in the game that don't give off the "OI! look at me!" feeling.

---==Sound==---

The game's soundtrack focuses quite heavily on Orchestra type music and gives that bold, epic feeling to the battles. However, when necessary, they can have cute little numbers to lift the mood or convey a sense of innocence, most often with scenes revolving around the younger characters, such as Penelo or Vaan. The music always fits the mood, with dark, sombre tones played in the background as you witness scenes from places such as the Archadian Empire, or light, breezey notes played as you leap about on a Chocobo.

---==Verdict==---

Basically, I see this as an all-rounder. If you like FF games, you should pick this up (but I'd be surprised if you haven't already) if you like RPG's, you should pick this up. If you want to start playing RPG's, then this is definitely a good place to start. It has a good gameplay system, an interesting storyline, a nice soundtrack and great graphics, and has certainly done a good job in maintaining the standard players expect from a final fantasy game.