Warning: The following review contains spoilers. Reader's discretion is advised.
Developed and published
by Square Enix, Final Fantasy XII came
to stores in Japan and North America in 2006 for the PlayStation 2,
and along with it several new innovations that we'll get into in
just a bit. The game stars Vaan, an orphan and resident of
Rabanastre, who dreams of one day becoming a sky pirate. He finds
himself in the middle of a conflict between the Archadian Empire and
the Resistance. If at any time the game feels like Star Wars to you,
it's not just you.
Yes.
Good, I thought I was the only one.
The
game is kind enough to start us off with a tutorial. Once you get
pass all the usual no- brainier stuff you discover that the battling
takes place in real-time. You still have all your usual attack
commands and can take all the time you want with “wait” enabled.
What I like about this is you don't have to reenter an attack
command. All you have to do is select an enemy to attack and your
guy will keep attacking even if you cut away to use an item. You can
also select the leader of your party, the leader will act as the
character you play as, so you can play as any member of the party
once you reach a certain point.
The
Gambit System allows you to customize your party in accordance to
your play-style. You can set the computer to prioritize healing
allies, attack nearby enemies, etc. Another thing to keep in mind is
that the Gambit System is optional. You can switch it off at any time
and put in all your commands manually, so there are a lot of options
presented to you. You could even sit back and let the computer do
most of the work, if it pleased you.
Then
we have Licenses, which the Empire use to pull out your name and
select you for Jury Duty. Okay, no. But they are important in
unlocking new abilities for your characters. Licenses can be
accessed through the game menu in the form of a checkered board and
upon gaining License Points, you can purchase a license for swords,
magic, and bows. Before you can use any of them however you have to
buy the weapons/magic from the appropriate shop in a town somewhere.
You need to think carefully which abilities you want to give your
party and how you'll use them, or the game will make you regret it
later.
Ashe
don't take no orders from no thieves!
At
certain points in the game a fourth character will join your party as
a “guest.” These are non- playable characters that join your
party for a limited time that you can't customize. The first two
guests you come across will become permanent party members at a
later date, the rest will not, and it sucks. Especially if it's a
character you want to play as. For example, I would have loved to be
able to play as Lord Larsa, but no. Guest only. What a waste. If they
could program four party members then it would have been nice to be
able to have up to four members on the field at all time, instead
of just three with the guest being the exception.
While
we're on the subject of party members, let's talk about our
characters. Ashe and Balthier has the most stage presence. Ashe,
being the princess of Dalmasca, and a fighter for the Resistance,
wanting revenge against the Empire for the death of her husband and
taking over her home; and Balthier, for being a charismatic sky
pirate who honestly has all the best lines in the whole game. Fran
is a reliable partner to Balthier who gets her chance to shine when
you visit her people. Penelo fulfills the role of the fun-loving,
best friend to the main character quite nicely. Basch is your
traditional, straightforward paragon knight with honor, and then
there's Vaan.
Vaan
actually isn't a bad character. He's established pretty well in the
beginning and his motives for wanting to become a sky pirate and his
hatred for the Empire are made pretty clear. Where the game drops
the ball with him is when halfway through it becomes less about him
and more about Ashe, to the point that you could make Ashe your
party leader and the narrative's flow wouldn't be disrupted all that
much. Vaan feels more like he should have been a supporting
character instead of a main protagonist. Ashe or Balthier would have
severed as better leads than him. Vaan says it better himself, “I'm
just along for the ride.”
Out
of all the guest characters that come along, the one that stuck out
the most was Larsa. The younger brother to Lord Vayne and the first
that shows you that not everyone with the Empire is a dick. I also
like his accent. All the accents in this game are just wonderful.
Larsa only wants peace and sets out on his own to see to it. He even
stands up to his brother in the end and becomes someone you want to
see lead Archades. His chemistry with Penelo is also pretty great
from the moment he takes her by the hand and runs off.
Then
we have the villains. Vayne introduces himself as I imagine a lot of
bad people in power would, by posing as a good guy and knowing just
what to say to get the masses eating out of his hand. He's cold,
cunning, smart, well-spoken, and sophisticated. The game does a great
job of making you hate him and taking him out at the end of the game
is largely satisfying. Doctor Cid fills the role of crazy, evil
scientist really well and was the first time the Cid character was
ever a villain in a Final Fantasy game. The Judges are cool looking,
but not many of them stick out except for Gabranth, and Gabranth sticks out for all the wrong reasons. More on that later.
I
honestly thought it was a guy in a costume at first.
All
throughout the game there are certain monsters you can hunt. You just
need to speak with the guy who put out the hit on them (sort of
speak) and then seek them out and kill them. Only then can you claim
the reward money and all that good stuff. I didn't care enough to
seek out all the different hunts you could go on. Most of the game
was already going from battle to battle in the overworld until it
became exhausting, so why would I want to add on to that? The only
hunts I did were the ones mandatory to advance the plot.
Summons
in the game are called “Espers” and in order to get one you have
to find them and defeat them. A nice little throwback to Final
Fantasy VIII with the GFs. Unlike that game however is the fact you
can only assign a summon to one party member. After that they
disappear on the board and can't be used again. The same goes for
Quickening, the skill you need to be able to summon them that can be
found on the edges of the License Board, and after that you need a
full gauge of MP shinning yellow or you're not going to be able to
summon it.
There
are five Espers you'll encounter during the course of the main story,
but thirteen overall you can find in various sidequests. Only one
needs to be summoned in order to advance the plot. I didn't find the
Espers that great. None of them really stood out to me in the way
Shiva, Ifrit, Quezacotl, and a lot of summons of the past did. The
same goes for the other boss monsters you encounter in the game. Now
I can't even remember what most of them looked like.
The
game takes place in the world of Ivalice and is a fairly large place
to explore. So much so that I got lost on several different
occasions. I found myself wandering through the feywood forest and
back at the Henne Mines just trying to find the Stilshrine of Miriam.
The location map just doesn't compliment the world map that well. I
think I'm going the right way just to discover that I'm not.
The
world created is well-enough to hold for a single playthrough, and
while I do like Rabanastre, there's not much to grab at you here
either. It's like Square wanted to address the criticism Final
Fantasy X got for linearity, but failed to add any real substance to
their creation. Ivalice feels like it's just a big world to get lost
in rather than having anything to compel you to explore the world
further. Dungeons in the game are fine, but man do they grow tedious
by the time you get to Giruvegan with all the running
back and forth they make you do from there to Pharos.
Picture
remind you of anything? Now, Final Fantasy is no stranger to taking
things from Star Wars, what with Final Fantasy II being compared to
the movies and using the names Biggs and Wedge in Final Fantasy VI,
VII, and VIII. But there's a difference between being inspired and
ripping something off. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy XII leans more
on the latter. A lot of scenes that involve the airships look and
act exactly like the ships in the Star Wars movies. So much in fact
you may as well have the Star Wars soundtrack playing in the
background.
The Empire
feels too much like the Empire from Star Wars. The Judges take after
the Sith with being given new names for their employment and some of
them leaving and taking their life back. Judge Gabranth in
particular has many parallels to Darth Vader. Started off good, goes
bad joined the Empire, became an armored badass, tried to get the
main character to get “angry” near the end, is defeated and then
has a last moment of redemption before dying. Even Balthier's
character takes a lot from Han Solo straight down to the bounty on
his head. And even through all of that...
Final
Fantasy XII is still a better Star Wars movie than the prequels.
Conclusion:
Final
Fantasy XII has good characters, great villains, a fun battle system
that allowed for a lot of customization, but can unfortunately get
weigh down by how much it takes after Star Wars and running around
the world can get boring at times.
Try
it.
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