"Taking The Good with The Bad"

I'm going to take this game at face-value, and call it what it is according to how I interpret it. I'm going to grade this game based on these factors:

Gameplay - Obviously an important, if not the most important, aspect to consider of any video game during a review. This is where we get most of our enjoyment or lack thereof from any video game.

Graphics - To me, graphics and realism is important because, well, I like flashy, glamorous stuff.

Story - Since this is an "RPG", it has to have a story. Like a movie, I'm going to pick at the good points and the bad points of the story, and give it a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" rating, per se.

Now on with the review.

Gameplay:

It doesn't matter how cynical or biased you are, if there was one reason anyone should play Final Fantasy XII, it's for the incredibly seemless and revolutionary gameplay. I have to admit: I'm a big fan of the "Random Encounters" tradition that was kept so adamantly by the game designers in every installment of the series up until after Final Fantasy X. As a result of this, I was very weary of the new "Active Dimension Battle" (or ADB) system that replaces it, which makes character interaction between exploring and battling seemless. I was immediately relieved of my qualms during my first experiences with the "Gambit" system, which allows you to "program" (per se) your characters to take specific actions on specific targets under a set of certain conditions. The Gambit system is basically composed of: the Target, The Condition, and the Action. To make this clear, I'll use an example.

If you're familiar with Final Fantasy X, you'll remember having an "Auto-Ability" entitled "Auto-Phoenix" which you customize onto an armor by expending a certain amount of a specific item, which allows your character to automatically revive a fallen ally using a Phoenix Down from your inventory. In Final Fantasy XII, you no longer need to "customize" this ability onto an armor using Items, it's available right from the moment you have access to Gambits. If you chose the target "Ally" in the Gambit screen, you will notice that there is a list of conditions from which to chose from under that target heading. For this example, I will use the generic "Ally: any", where Ally is the target (any ally within range) and "any" (any condition where the action will become applicable) is the Condition. If you set the "Action", which is in the column on the far right, to "Phoenix Down" while the Ally (target): any (condition) Gambit is set, that character with that active Gambit will automatically use a Phoenix Down whenever needing to do so. You won't have to worry about the character needlessly using Phoenix Downs on a random ally for no reason, either. And to make matters better, you can set the action to "Raise" or "Araise" to revive a character automatically, which means there is basically very little to no need of manual reviving needed throughout almost the entire story! There are dozens of different set of Gambits to choose from (depending on what point in the storyline you are at), leaving a ton of tactical possibilities that you can manipulate at your leisure, or whatever situation you may want to adapt to to increase battle efficiency. With Gambits in use, battling is extremely fast-paced and fun, which is a drastic improvement for the series.

Rating: I dare say it gets a perfect score. 10/10

Graphics:

I don't have much to say about this other than it's incredibly improved the character realism in expressions and movements. It lacks the repetitive motions that were visible in Final Fantasy X by the characters during speech (such as Tidus's annoying "waving hands around to try and emphasize a point of exposition" motion) and, as far as I could tell, the lip-syncing was well-done. Powered by the mighty graphical engines within the software and hardware designs offered by the Playstation 2 console, the FMV's are absolutely breathtaking and realistic. And don't even get me started on the Quickening and Esper animations; they're just sheer awesomeness.

Rating: Another Perfect? I'm afraid so. 10/10

Story:

Without spoiling too much, I'll give a very brief synopsis of the story. The Final Fantasy XII world is set in the familiar place: Ivalice. Most of the setting is two years after a devastating war that left one Kingdom to succumb to the rule by another, and that being the Kingdom of Dalmasca to the Empire of Archadia. During this time, Vaan, the "main character" (In my opinion, this is entirely debatable, but I will save that for later), and his good friend Penelo live life grudgingly in the Dalmascan City of Rabanastre as Orphans as a result of the previous said War. It is at this time that both Basch, formerly a Captain of the Dalmascan Army serving under the late Lord Rasler, and Princess Ashe were assumed to be dead. Basch by execution under the charges of treason and murder, and Princess Ashe by the committing of suicide over the grief of her Husband's, Lord Rasler, death during an ill-fated battle two years prior.

But did they really die?

We find out later that they're indeed alive, and together with two dashing sky pirates, Fran and Balthier, and two Orphans from the Inner City of Rabanastre, they set out on a journey that covers various themes such as War, Trust between friends, Political Corruption, and the ultimate God versus Man theme which is prevalent after a certain part in the storyline. It's clearly a suspensful story, with many plot twists and surprises that leave you on the edge of your seat throughout, with very well done voice acting to boot. It seems as if there might be ANOTHER perfect score, but alas the most important part of the story is what takes a tremendous hit: The Ending.

I was appalled. Whatever character development you are looking for from Vaan, the main character, you will miss out terribly on. Not only this, but it seems as if he contributes next to nothing to the ending of the story, if not the entire story in general, which is not how I define what a "Main Character" is. It's instead told as a narrative of Penelo, reciting a letter that was written and sent by her to Lord Larsa and another important character whose identity I will not reveal for the sake of revealing a critical plot detail. It also entails a person who has been granted a dream come true, yet there is a purposely created gigantic gap between him/her, and the people that helped this person achieve it. I'm not asking for this person to make this group of people into a Parliament or something, but s/he doesn't even invite them to the palace for dinner every once in awhile?! It's like they just completely obliterated whatever I had gotten from the "trust between friends" theme, and utterly skewed a connection between me and the characters I had grown attached to during the story. Every character becomes separated from each other, and everybody acts like they don't care. If Square was going to do this, they should've put more thought and emotion into the characters than they did. It's not that it happened that bothers me, it's the way it happened. The way any story presents its ending in terms of character resolution is extremely important to me, as the characters are the most important part of the story. And for this horrific job on the part of Square, I give the rating of the story an abysmal 2/10.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/04/06