Final Fantasy XII: Greatest RPG Ever?

Few video game series have been as successful and great as the Final Fantasy. Square-Enix could have spewed out crap, put Final Fantasy XII on it, and it still would have still sold thousands of copies like it did in both Japan and the United States. But they didn't. Instead they decided to give us one of the best role-playing games of this generation of gaming.

Before this game was released, many fans of the series, including myself were skeptical about the battle system that is used in this game. Even when we were able to play the demo on Dragon Quest VIII, we weren't particularly impressed with this change. This game not being a MMORPG, like it's predecessor, Final Fantasy XI who used this battle system first. Well if you are still on the fence, and nobody has told you, the battle system is amazing. Definitely change for the better. The battle system is so great that you won't want to go back to random battling. Now that the game is real time, it gives more enjoyment to the game, and makes battle less of a chore. Becuase of it's battle system, it does have that MMORPG feel. Don't worry though, it isn't as bad as Final Fantasy XI was. This game isn't particularly hard, but if you don't attempt to do a lot of leveling at some points in the game, and upgrading your armor and weapons when you need to, you may have a hard time fighting some of the 'normal' fiends walking around some zones.

In this game, the limit breaks are called quickenings. Everytime you 'buy' a quickening license from the license board, your MP becomes a 'bar, for a total of 3 bars after you've unlocked all quickenings. This also multiplies your MP. The catch is, depending on the level of the quickening, that's how many bars it will use. Level 1 quickening is the first one you unlocked, level 2 is the second, and so on. You can chain quickenings together with other characters active in the party, which is where you do the real damage. Early in the game, quickeings can be very "cheap" if I may say. When you get the hang of chaining them together (which doesn't take long), you can kill entire bosses at sometimes. Fortunately they become less powerful as the game progresses, but it's almost to the point of being useless because they do so little power and take away so much MP.

Summoning is back, not such a big part in the story, but they're back. Taking the name of "Espers" a la Final Fantasy VI. After defeating one you can assign them to a character, which takes license points. Once you assign an Esper to a character, it is assigned to that character permanently. Summoning an Esper makes them a non-controllable member in your party (usually for a minute or two), and also takes away the other 2 members that didn't summon it. Before they leave (if you or them don't die first) they do some move, that usually takes away a lot of damage from enemies in range. Espers like Quickenings, can be pretty useless, especially as the game progresses.

The way you get gil in this game has been completely changed. Don't expect to get a lot of gil from monsters, if any. Now they drop "loot" which is items that are basically meant for selling at shops around Ivalice, the continent in Final Fantasy. Gil can also be obtained by becoming sort of a "bounty hunter" for certain people. Usually hunting fiends that have pestered a person in some type of way. The more difficult the hunt, usually more money you will obtain. These Hunt boards where you find out about hunts, are located in most cities around Ivalice.

The gambit system in the game, where you set up what you want your characters to do if the situation arises brings an even more strategic feel to the game. Sometimes you can just watch as your party chops away and kills a fiend without having to ever touch a button. Still though, you can always just turn gambits off if they aren't to your liking or during boss battles, which I would recommend.

The License system,. All I can say is "okay" on this one. It could have been much better. With the license board, you 'buy' the ability to use magick (yes, it's spelled with a k), items, techniks(yes, with a K), weapons, armor, and you can use it to improve statistical characteristics of your character such as health points, and defense, using license points. First buying magick, technicks, and other equipment from a shop with gil, and then unlocking it's square on the license board. What's bad about the license board is that before the end of the game your license board will probably be filled for every character, so there is really no difference from one character and another. Don' t think "jobs" like previous games. The License board pretty much destorys that idea. Every character will pretty much be the same.

This game may very well be the best game graphically ever for the Playstation 2. It's boasts extremely detailed towns, cities, and the thousands of npc's running around. From their facial expressions to their clothes, everything in this game has detail. The beautiful CG cut scenes gives one of the best cinematic experiences that a video game has ever produced. This game seriously pushed the limits of the Playstation 2.

When it comes to sound, Final Fantasy XII is excellent as well. The voice acting is superb (my favorite of any game in the series), and even though it has great musical score, it isn't as great as some other games in the series.
In the game you use a character named Vaan, a wanna-be sky pirate around towns. This may lead you to believe he is the main character of this story. But that's definitely not the case. There is no main character. In fact, there are 6. And you know all 6 of these characters early on in the story, so you get to know them all, more so then most RPG's.

It's different, but it works great for this game. This Final Fantasy isn't centered around a love story. So don't expect much "mushy mushy" between characters. Though I will say there were some questionable comments that a character made about another character though out the game. The story is darker and more centered around political themes, which is another difference between other games. It's great, but sometimes you will feel as if you are playing Star Wars with a Final Fantasy twist with how the story goes sometimes and the characters, among other things. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it takes a little originality away from the plot. Though it definitely doesn't take away from how beautifully Square-Enix wrote it. They gave it such a great cinematic feel with every cut scene, and every time the characters interacted with each other.

This is an amazing game, but like all games it has it's shortcomings. Even though their emphasis on not really having a main character was great. It took away from any huge character development, which may take away the appeal for some people. Espers, not only have little effect on the story, but they and Quickenings can become pretty useless. The license board system is a flawed, and could have been made better or just never implemented at all. The story, while great, isn't great compared to some other games in the series, and some may say that it has "too much" of a star wars feel.

Final Fantasy XII, even with it's flaws is a top 3 Final Fantasy game.It definitely lived up to the hype, and was worth the wait. It doesn't boast the story like some others in the series, but the battle system is by far the best. It could easily give you 60+ hours of gameplay, and with all of the sidequests, like the hunts, and hidden Espers, you could expect up to be occupied for 100 hours in this game. This game is not only a game that appeals to fans of rpg's, but it could easily win over lots of new fans. The PS2, unlike the XBOX and Gamecube definitely went out with a bang with Final Fantasy XII.