Final Fantasy XII - The Crystal is Back...again
The Final Fantasy series has enjoyed it's immense longevity for much the same reason that most other heavily-sequelized franchises tend to fade away into obscurity. No two Final Fantasy games are ever really alike. They're not even usually set in the same universe/reality as each other, but they do share some common elements - Chocobos, Moogles, people named Cid (FFXII actually has two!) etc...
That being said, XII does not disappoint with its fresh perspective on console-based RPG gameplay, and thorough rejuvination of the Final Fantasy brand.
Personally I prefer traditional console RPG's and it really gets my blood boiling when some reviewer starts criticizing a game for being traditional (see pretty much any review for the phenominal Dragon Quest VIII). And I would have liked to see a return to some of the older conventions in the FF universe - random encounters, four character (all at once) parties, stories surrounding crystals. Although FFXII doesn't really have these things, it satisfies the desire for them just the same.
FFXII seems to truly be a culmination of everything that Squeenix has learned over the past 20 years. In terms of story, gameplay, replay value and just plain old-fashioned fun, it really can't be beaten.
Story:
XII strikes that perfect balance between story telling and gameplay that seems to have eluded other titles in the genre (most notably the Xenosaga series). The story is delivered in small but well paced pieces by an ensemble of some of the best voice actors reading some of the best (Lord of the Rings caliber) dialogue I have ever heard grace a video game. You instantly fall in love with the cast of characters. There are no whiny angst-ridden heroes with unresolved issues that would make even Freud cringe, just realistic people having realistic reactions to their situation. The character animation, especially in the area of facial expressions, represents about the best that is likely possible on the PS2's addling hardware. The first time you see Princess Ashe's eyes as she tries to think out a problem, you'll know what I mean. Top notch, all the way. And on top of awesome dialogue and delivery, the story ends up being about crystals just like the olden days of FF, though the writers are somewhat more subtle about it than in previous volumes.
Music:
The sound is a mixed bag for me because I prefer the old school slightly-techno tunes provided by most of the previous FF games, but the goal here seemed to be more grandiose, and more often than not reminiscent of the orchestral ambience in the Star Wars movies. In fact several scores bear a striking resemblence to the Luke and Vader theme music from those films. This traditional symphonic offering nicely prevents the game from becoming cliche or dated, but still I would have preferred something a little more modern and catchy. As it is, the music is very forgettable, but still appropriate.
Graphics:
Oh my God, the jaggies! The PS2 hardware seems to be the main limitation here. The textures and models are all very obviously rendered with a lot of TLC, but the PS2 just can't seem to push them without some irritatingly persistent side-effects. I'm guessing that it is possible that the game was designed around the idea that most players would be playing it on PS3 hardware. It has not been confirmed to my knowledge, but if the PS3 has a similar feature set to the PS2, there may be some graphical enhancements available when playing last-generation software. Vagrant Story comes to mind - it was a PS1 game released around the time that the PS2 was launched and took extensive advantage of the "Smooth Textures" setting on the PS2 to clean up some of its visual flaws. Hopefully this is the case.
Visual defects and hardware limitations aside, the development team has really done a phenominal job here. Not only are they pushing more and better textures than I've ever seen on the PS2, but the draw distance is incredible. You can literally see for miles without even the slightest hint of slowdown or pop-in/draw-in. The team evidently learned a lot from the FFXI project.
Gameplay
I hardly know where to start with category because there is so much to it. If you pop open a strategy guide before playing it, you'll probably feel a little overwhelmed at the complexity, but the game does a remarkable job at gradually introducing you to its unique gameplay - not really even giving you the chance to get intimidated by it.
-Battles-
Battle sequences take place in pseudo-real time - sort of a cross between FFXI and Knights of the Old Republic. There are no random encounters (unless you count respawns) and there are no jumps to a "battle scene". You simply walk around the playing field and fight the enemies you see. Thin colored lines will arc between a player or monster and its target. Red lines are something preparing to attack your party, blue lines are your party targeting something to attack, and green lines are helpful actions between enemies or party members. Once you use the attack command, the party member will function on auto-pilot (also similar to FFXI and KotOR) and keep attacking unless you interrupt him/her with a command to do something else. The maximum party size is 3, however there are a lot of situations where you will be joined by a "guest". The guest will join your party and even appear in most of the party menus, but you will be unable to give orders to or make changes to the guest's setup, they're completely autonomous. (Sort of like Lucia at the beginning of Lunar 2). Generally you'll get a guest when you're about to be thrown into a particularly challenging area. Another dimension added by the fact that there are no breaks in the action, is the fact that you have full menu functionality at any time. You can change equipment, party members, and even spend license points (explained below) in the middle of a battle. This is really handy for when you need to re-spec based on a particular enemy's tactics.
-License Grid-
The License Grid system is a sort of hybrid between the Esper/Materia systems in VI and VII and the (horribly unpopular) Sphere Grid system from X. Each weapon, spell, or ability you use is present on a square on a grid for each character. In order to use a weapon, spell, or ability, the character must purchase a license, and thereby unlock that square on the grid. Licenses can only be purchased for squares adjacent to squares you have already unlocked for that character. You will not even be able to see what the square provides until you have unlocked an adjacent square. License squares are purchased with License Points, which are acquired in tandem with Experience Points, similar to AP points in FFVIII. On top of owning a license for a weapon, spell, or technique, you must also own the weapon, spell, or technique itself in order to use it. It is, therefore possible to have a really cool weapon or spell, but not be able to use it, or vice-versa, to have the ability to use it, but not have it. It may seem terribly limiting at first but the reality is that the cost of the essential licenses are low enough that you will rarely, if ever, find yourself unable to use a new weapon or spell. The spells and techniques are shared among all party members so they only have to be purchased once for anyone with a license to use and everyone in the party gets LP - even the members not currently in use. So unless you're spending your LP on things you don't need you should never really be wanting. There are also accessories you can equip later on that will double your LP. Thoroughly unlike FFX (thankfully) the License Grid is completely independent from the Experience system, which is (also thankfully) quite traditional - get EXP, gain levels, wash, rinse, repeat.
-Gambits-
The Gambit system is perhaps the first time I've seen an intuitive AI system in an RPG. Many games have tried this to varying degrees of success, but FFXII manages to pull it off perfectly. When you first start the game, you can't even use Gambits. You will not be introduced to Gambits until after you have already been through several battles and gotten a feel for the game. And unlike other AI schemes (most notably from Lunar) Gambits are far from random. They serve to alleviate some of the repetitive tasks, while never fully wresting control from you.
Gambits consist of a target and an action. An action can be anything that the character is capable of doing - attacking, casting a spell, using an item or technique, etc... The target is the crux of the gambit system. Targets can be party members, one's self or enemies. The targets help you to identify specific enemies, such as flying enemies, enemies with certain status effects, enemies which are nearest to your character, etc. So a typical gambit would be "Ally:HP < 50% - Curaga" The character with that gambit set will automatically start casting Curaga as soon as a party member's HP is lower than 50%.
Each party member can have multiple Gambits set and they are executed from top to bottom in order of preference. For example, if your first Gambit is set to heal any one lower than 50% HP and your second is set to attack the nearest enemy, and your party has full health. Since no targets meet the criteria in the first Gambit, the character will drop down to the next one and start attacking the nearest enemy. If, during the course of the fight, someone's HP drops below 50%, then the character will immediately start healing.
Gambits have to be purchased on the License Grid in order to be used, and the targets themselves have to be purchased or found. They are generally extremely cheap, however, so it is not as limiting as it might seem.
With enough Gambits equipped and finely tuned, the repetitive parts of the game practically play themselves.
-Espers-
Yes, FFXII has Espers, and no, they are nothing at all like the Espers in FFVI, except perhaps in the story sense. Espers are simply summons. None of the summons are from previous FF games (at least I don't recognize any of them) and oddly, the traditional names for summons seem to have all been given to battleships in the Imperial Archadian Fleet. When you defeat a summonable enemy, you will gain its Esper - this much is similar to VI, however nothing else is the same. When you gain an Esper, it appears as a special square on the License Grid, and only one character can obtain the license to use it, period. To use the Esper, the character has to have at least one full MP bar (there are multiple MP bars - explained later on). Once you have summoned the monster, the other party members will disappear from the field leaving only the summoned monster and the summoner to fight the battle. The summoned monsters are all on auto-pilot so you don't really have control over their actions.
-Quickening-
Quickenings are similar to FFXI's Job Ability and Weapon Skill moves. Quickenings are special moves, specific to each party member. Quickenings are opened on the License Grid and are located around the outer edges. When a character obtains more than one quickening, his/her MP bar will be duplicated, effectively doubling and tripling the character's MP. Using a quickening will consume one full MP bar. Quickenings have three different levels, each successive level will consume an additional MP bar. This means that a level 3 quickening will require and consume all three MP bars for that character. In battle when one character uses a quickening, you will have the option of chaining it together with quickenings from other characters to multiply damage. It is even possible to repeat it several times over by pressing the right button combination at a precise moment, thereby racking up incredible damage.
-Hunts-
This brings me to one of my favorite new features of XII. Traditionally FF games required at some point (or many points) that you run around some area repeating the same battles over and over in order to level up and become strong enough to fight through the next area. This could get extremely repetitive and boring, as most of the time, you are literally running around in circles for no reason at all other than to increase your experience levels. FFXII offers the massive side-quest of Clan membership. At a point early in the game, you are introduced to a bulletin board where you can see other characters in the game making requests to hunt notorious monsters for a variety of entertaining reasons. You can accept one of these requests, visit the petitioner to get details and set out to hunt the monsters. This is a completely optional aspect of the game, but it affords you a natural opportunity to level up that has some purpose other than a level grind. You are also rewarded with a decent amount of money and some really useful/expensive/rare items for your troubles. I've only managed to cut through about 25% of the hunts available and that alone has panlessly sucked out more than 15 hours of my leisure time.
-Loot and the Bazzar-
In traditional FF games, it was commonplace to collect piles of items dropped by creatures you were fighting, only to have no use for it or understanding of what it was. FFIX attempted to alleviate this somewhat by incorporating a synthesis system, whereby you could use these collected items to upgrade weapons and armor. XII, however takes a different approach. Firstly they very efficiently label these items as "loot". Their purpose, with a few minor exceptions, is simply to be sold to vendors. As you sell certain items, or a certain amount of items to vendors, the loot is transformed into items sold on the Bazzar. The transformation is completely opaque to the player, you never quite know what you are going to get. Similarly, the items on the Bazzar don't always give you an exact explanation of what you're buying - probably best to save the game before spending your money there, just in case you waste it on something that sounded better than it actually was.
Conclusions:
Maybe it's just the longer than usual stretch between "traditional" FF games that has made me grow so fond of FFXII, but it bears all of the hallmarks of being one of the best FF games ever. That will largely be up to the opinions of the masses, but there are no major flaws other than underpowered hardware and a somewhat forgettable soundtrack. Pure FF magic.
That being said, XII does not disappoint with its fresh perspective on console-based RPG gameplay, and thorough rejuvination of the Final Fantasy brand.
Personally I prefer traditional console RPG's and it really gets my blood boiling when some reviewer starts criticizing a game for being traditional (see pretty much any review for the phenominal Dragon Quest VIII). And I would have liked to see a return to some of the older conventions in the FF universe - random encounters, four character (all at once) parties, stories surrounding crystals. Although FFXII doesn't really have these things, it satisfies the desire for them just the same.
FFXII seems to truly be a culmination of everything that Squeenix has learned over the past 20 years. In terms of story, gameplay, replay value and just plain old-fashioned fun, it really can't be beaten.
Story:
XII strikes that perfect balance between story telling and gameplay that seems to have eluded other titles in the genre (most notably the Xenosaga series). The story is delivered in small but well paced pieces by an ensemble of some of the best voice actors reading some of the best (Lord of the Rings caliber) dialogue I have ever heard grace a video game. You instantly fall in love with the cast of characters. There are no whiny angst-ridden heroes with unresolved issues that would make even Freud cringe, just realistic people having realistic reactions to their situation. The character animation, especially in the area of facial expressions, represents about the best that is likely possible on the PS2's addling hardware. The first time you see Princess Ashe's eyes as she tries to think out a problem, you'll know what I mean. Top notch, all the way. And on top of awesome dialogue and delivery, the story ends up being about crystals just like the olden days of FF, though the writers are somewhat more subtle about it than in previous volumes.
Music:
The sound is a mixed bag for me because I prefer the old school slightly-techno tunes provided by most of the previous FF games, but the goal here seemed to be more grandiose, and more often than not reminiscent of the orchestral ambience in the Star Wars movies. In fact several scores bear a striking resemblence to the Luke and Vader theme music from those films. This traditional symphonic offering nicely prevents the game from becoming cliche or dated, but still I would have preferred something a little more modern and catchy. As it is, the music is very forgettable, but still appropriate.
Graphics:
Oh my God, the jaggies! The PS2 hardware seems to be the main limitation here. The textures and models are all very obviously rendered with a lot of TLC, but the PS2 just can't seem to push them without some irritatingly persistent side-effects. I'm guessing that it is possible that the game was designed around the idea that most players would be playing it on PS3 hardware. It has not been confirmed to my knowledge, but if the PS3 has a similar feature set to the PS2, there may be some graphical enhancements available when playing last-generation software. Vagrant Story comes to mind - it was a PS1 game released around the time that the PS2 was launched and took extensive advantage of the "Smooth Textures" setting on the PS2 to clean up some of its visual flaws. Hopefully this is the case.
Visual defects and hardware limitations aside, the development team has really done a phenominal job here. Not only are they pushing more and better textures than I've ever seen on the PS2, but the draw distance is incredible. You can literally see for miles without even the slightest hint of slowdown or pop-in/draw-in. The team evidently learned a lot from the FFXI project.
Gameplay
I hardly know where to start with category because there is so much to it. If you pop open a strategy guide before playing it, you'll probably feel a little overwhelmed at the complexity, but the game does a remarkable job at gradually introducing you to its unique gameplay - not really even giving you the chance to get intimidated by it.
-Battles-
Battle sequences take place in pseudo-real time - sort of a cross between FFXI and Knights of the Old Republic. There are no random encounters (unless you count respawns) and there are no jumps to a "battle scene". You simply walk around the playing field and fight the enemies you see. Thin colored lines will arc between a player or monster and its target. Red lines are something preparing to attack your party, blue lines are your party targeting something to attack, and green lines are helpful actions between enemies or party members. Once you use the attack command, the party member will function on auto-pilot (also similar to FFXI and KotOR) and keep attacking unless you interrupt him/her with a command to do something else. The maximum party size is 3, however there are a lot of situations where you will be joined by a "guest". The guest will join your party and even appear in most of the party menus, but you will be unable to give orders to or make changes to the guest's setup, they're completely autonomous. (Sort of like Lucia at the beginning of Lunar 2). Generally you'll get a guest when you're about to be thrown into a particularly challenging area. Another dimension added by the fact that there are no breaks in the action, is the fact that you have full menu functionality at any time. You can change equipment, party members, and even spend license points (explained below) in the middle of a battle. This is really handy for when you need to re-spec based on a particular enemy's tactics.
-License Grid-
The License Grid system is a sort of hybrid between the Esper/Materia systems in VI and VII and the (horribly unpopular) Sphere Grid system from X. Each weapon, spell, or ability you use is present on a square on a grid for each character. In order to use a weapon, spell, or ability, the character must purchase a license, and thereby unlock that square on the grid. Licenses can only be purchased for squares adjacent to squares you have already unlocked for that character. You will not even be able to see what the square provides until you have unlocked an adjacent square. License squares are purchased with License Points, which are acquired in tandem with Experience Points, similar to AP points in FFVIII. On top of owning a license for a weapon, spell, or technique, you must also own the weapon, spell, or technique itself in order to use it. It is, therefore possible to have a really cool weapon or spell, but not be able to use it, or vice-versa, to have the ability to use it, but not have it. It may seem terribly limiting at first but the reality is that the cost of the essential licenses are low enough that you will rarely, if ever, find yourself unable to use a new weapon or spell. The spells and techniques are shared among all party members so they only have to be purchased once for anyone with a license to use and everyone in the party gets LP - even the members not currently in use. So unless you're spending your LP on things you don't need you should never really be wanting. There are also accessories you can equip later on that will double your LP. Thoroughly unlike FFX (thankfully) the License Grid is completely independent from the Experience system, which is (also thankfully) quite traditional - get EXP, gain levels, wash, rinse, repeat.
-Gambits-
The Gambit system is perhaps the first time I've seen an intuitive AI system in an RPG. Many games have tried this to varying degrees of success, but FFXII manages to pull it off perfectly. When you first start the game, you can't even use Gambits. You will not be introduced to Gambits until after you have already been through several battles and gotten a feel for the game. And unlike other AI schemes (most notably from Lunar) Gambits are far from random. They serve to alleviate some of the repetitive tasks, while never fully wresting control from you.
Gambits consist of a target and an action. An action can be anything that the character is capable of doing - attacking, casting a spell, using an item or technique, etc... The target is the crux of the gambit system. Targets can be party members, one's self or enemies. The targets help you to identify specific enemies, such as flying enemies, enemies with certain status effects, enemies which are nearest to your character, etc. So a typical gambit would be "Ally:HP < 50% - Curaga" The character with that gambit set will automatically start casting Curaga as soon as a party member's HP is lower than 50%.
Each party member can have multiple Gambits set and they are executed from top to bottom in order of preference. For example, if your first Gambit is set to heal any one lower than 50% HP and your second is set to attack the nearest enemy, and your party has full health. Since no targets meet the criteria in the first Gambit, the character will drop down to the next one and start attacking the nearest enemy. If, during the course of the fight, someone's HP drops below 50%, then the character will immediately start healing.
Gambits have to be purchased on the License Grid in order to be used, and the targets themselves have to be purchased or found. They are generally extremely cheap, however, so it is not as limiting as it might seem.
With enough Gambits equipped and finely tuned, the repetitive parts of the game practically play themselves.
-Espers-
Yes, FFXII has Espers, and no, they are nothing at all like the Espers in FFVI, except perhaps in the story sense. Espers are simply summons. None of the summons are from previous FF games (at least I don't recognize any of them) and oddly, the traditional names for summons seem to have all been given to battleships in the Imperial Archadian Fleet. When you defeat a summonable enemy, you will gain its Esper - this much is similar to VI, however nothing else is the same. When you gain an Esper, it appears as a special square on the License Grid, and only one character can obtain the license to use it, period. To use the Esper, the character has to have at least one full MP bar (there are multiple MP bars - explained later on). Once you have summoned the monster, the other party members will disappear from the field leaving only the summoned monster and the summoner to fight the battle. The summoned monsters are all on auto-pilot so you don't really have control over their actions.
-Quickening-
Quickenings are similar to FFXI's Job Ability and Weapon Skill moves. Quickenings are special moves, specific to each party member. Quickenings are opened on the License Grid and are located around the outer edges. When a character obtains more than one quickening, his/her MP bar will be duplicated, effectively doubling and tripling the character's MP. Using a quickening will consume one full MP bar. Quickenings have three different levels, each successive level will consume an additional MP bar. This means that a level 3 quickening will require and consume all three MP bars for that character. In battle when one character uses a quickening, you will have the option of chaining it together with quickenings from other characters to multiply damage. It is even possible to repeat it several times over by pressing the right button combination at a precise moment, thereby racking up incredible damage.
-Hunts-
This brings me to one of my favorite new features of XII. Traditionally FF games required at some point (or many points) that you run around some area repeating the same battles over and over in order to level up and become strong enough to fight through the next area. This could get extremely repetitive and boring, as most of the time, you are literally running around in circles for no reason at all other than to increase your experience levels. FFXII offers the massive side-quest of Clan membership. At a point early in the game, you are introduced to a bulletin board where you can see other characters in the game making requests to hunt notorious monsters for a variety of entertaining reasons. You can accept one of these requests, visit the petitioner to get details and set out to hunt the monsters. This is a completely optional aspect of the game, but it affords you a natural opportunity to level up that has some purpose other than a level grind. You are also rewarded with a decent amount of money and some really useful/expensive/rare items for your troubles. I've only managed to cut through about 25% of the hunts available and that alone has panlessly sucked out more than 15 hours of my leisure time.
-Loot and the Bazzar-
In traditional FF games, it was commonplace to collect piles of items dropped by creatures you were fighting, only to have no use for it or understanding of what it was. FFIX attempted to alleviate this somewhat by incorporating a synthesis system, whereby you could use these collected items to upgrade weapons and armor. XII, however takes a different approach. Firstly they very efficiently label these items as "loot". Their purpose, with a few minor exceptions, is simply to be sold to vendors. As you sell certain items, or a certain amount of items to vendors, the loot is transformed into items sold on the Bazzar. The transformation is completely opaque to the player, you never quite know what you are going to get. Similarly, the items on the Bazzar don't always give you an exact explanation of what you're buying - probably best to save the game before spending your money there, just in case you waste it on something that sounded better than it actually was.
Conclusions:
Maybe it's just the longer than usual stretch between "traditional" FF games that has made me grow so fond of FFXII, but it bears all of the hallmarks of being one of the best FF games ever. That will largely be up to the opinions of the masses, but there are no major flaws other than underpowered hardware and a somewhat forgettable soundtrack. Pure FF magic.
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