Final Fantasy XII Impressions
November 9, 2006, early AM
So Final Fantasy XII. Considering I'm past 25 hours gametime this is far from first impressions. In four words: I have said "Wow."
The biggest thing that sticks out is the battle system. FF has gone through changes to its battle system over the years, but this is a total reimagining. I believe FF XI is something like this, but since I and 80% of the world's other FF players haven't touched XI it's hard to say. More than Final Fantasy I-X, the battles here feel like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. There are no random battles, and no separate battle screen. The world is the world, enemies are in it, and at any time you can move about or bring up the battle menu, which does look familiar. If you're using a sword, you'll need to be closer to attack than if you're using a gun. Also if you're using a sword, hitting that bird flying 5 feet over your head isn't going to be easy. Gambits make things even smoother, especially once your party is more than one character. Gambits essentially allow you to set up a simple ruleset for your characters. Like, "Attack the nearest creature you see." or "Attack who the group leader is attacking." or "If someone has less than half of their HP, cast Cure on them." In this way, the simplest of battles can be won merely by walking near an enemy, though for bosses you'll certainly be giving a lot more manual commands. Once you get used to it, it's really a lot of fun.
Each game has become known for its unique method of gaining skills or upgrades. Materia, AP, job classes, sphere grid... so what has XII? A License Board, which is not nearly as boring as it sounds. It's really veyr straightforward; you start off with a very few skills on a board, and can purchase more that are next to it. If you purchase one, you gain access to those next to it. So one character may go more deeply into the Magick corner of the board, while another will go more for the HP increases of the lower left. License points are gained along with EXP in monster fights. The funkier half of the license board is that really you've got two separate areas, though a shared pool of LP. One area focuses on skills or character enhancements, while the other has to do with equipment. If you purchase the Level 1 Guns license, that character will be able to use the first few guns. To go further they'll need to purchase Level 2 Guns, though maybe they'd prefer to go with the Level 1 Poles instead. My character seem to differ a lot more on this board than the other; some focused on guns, others on bows, others on daggers and light equipment, others on swords and heavy equipment. In the other board, though, everyone seems to be going for a bit of magic along with their stat bonuses.
Yasumi Matsuno (formerly of Quest, and now formerly of Square-Enix) is the main man behind this game, and it certainly feels like it. Prior to FF XII, his big three Square/S-E games were Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. This game recognizably draws from each. As in those games, XII takes place in a world of Ivalice (though as far as I can tell, not any Ivalice seen before). The battle system has certain similarities to Vagrant Story, though with Gambits, without being able to target specific body parts, without having to combine weapons or keep track of a weapon's changing stats toward various enemy types, it's a lot friendlier to the player. Elements of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance like a clan system, races like the Bangaa and Viera are about, and world elements like Judges exist in a different form. Rather than FFTA's light story, though, a story of kingdoms at war, various people trying to manipulate things to their advantage, and the player's party stuck in the middle of it all will appeal to those who loved the original Final Fantasy Tactics. Musician Hitoshi Sakimoto (who worked on all three of those games + Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre) and character design from Akihiko Yoshida (who did character design for the first FFT and VS, as well as Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre) seal the Matsuno game feel.
FF XII is not very hard, but it is not very easy either. Money does not come very easily; most of your gil will come from selling loot items you get from fallen enemies. You can figure out the right enemies to kill or steal from, but this is one game where it's not very realistic to reach a new town with new items, and be able to almost immediately give everyone new equipment. So you compromise, buy the few pieces of equipment that seem most important, and move on. Today before really moving on in the story I spent a few hours more fully exploring an area I hadn't checked out all the nooks and crannies of (and still haven't), and even found a particularly good enemy to make money from, but still was far from a top-tier set of outfits when I decided to move on to the next area. However, still the only times I've died have been when I get in a battle with something that's just way beyond my league, like this dinosaur that seems to block a path in the Westersand, or an optional Mark that my people just aren't ready for.
Graphically, the game is decent. It's got the style, it's just obviously a PS2 game and sometimes its attempts to suck in its gut to look better fail. Like most games, models in FF XII have higher and lower detail modes; no need to render the entire complex character when they're in the distance, right? Except that in FF XII the change happens so near that you'll notice the change as you walk by characters. Similarly the game has some obvious draw-in. The land will all be there, but you won't see the enemies in the far distance. Even things like some environmental grass are noticeably draw in close. I once thought Chad a bit silly for suggesting a quickie PS3 port of FF XII for early adopters, but even something like an Xbox (original) or Wii port would be able to do so much to clean up the overall look of this game. Cool point: the game does have a widescreen mode. Uncool point: it's a bit half-assed. When switching from the 4:3 mode to the 16:9 mode, you can tell that the actual rendered world's aspect ratio has changed. The text and graphical icons... not so much. So you just get used to reading slightly fat text.
The voice acting is really tops. There are games with bad voice acting; your Baten Kaitos or your Dynasty Warriors 3. There are games with passable voice acting, but that clearly use voices recognizeable from cable cartoons or localized anime, like Xenosaga and Final Fantasy X. But Final Fantasy XII is quite a joy, and the characters are all the more likeable (or dislikeable) for it. I never would have imagined Balthier to sound the way he does, and he's so much the better for it.
But what about what the characters are saying? Well, earlier I compared FF XII's story to FF Tactics. But it also actually heavily reminds me of Star Wars. Of course Star Wars is a mishmash of common enough elements, but where it succeeded was pulling them all together in a fun roller coaster ride. In FF XII I've got my assorted band of somebodies, nobodies, and scoundrels, put together by chance or fate, trying to get what they want of life. Will they save the day? Probably, but what matters is the journey.