Finality Reviews: Final Fantasy XII

No I am not going to ruin the story for you but it is somewhat like this.
There is a bunch of people, most of whom have no real relationship with each other
except they have the same mission (Or sometimes not even that,) that are involved
in this huge political power struggle between the Archadian and the Rozzarian
Empires.

The story is actually quite good. This surprises me because it was made by
Square… but the story is good anyway. No sappy love story getting in my way… just
plain action, hardcore action. I love this approach to storyline and I think they should
stick to it in the future.

This storyline amazed me and in comparison to the bad Final Fantasy games I
have been seeing a lot lately this one gets and deserves a 10/10.

Graphics

I have always said that graphics do not make the game but in this day and age
I am forced to cover it. Mostly because this is the only place most games are able to
hold their own.

Graphically this game is amazing. So much happening on the screen at one time
and I have never once seen it lag (beat that 360!) Nothing really I can complain here.
Everything just looks like it fits and the attention to detail really shows. I suppose to be
nit picky the main character looks like a little girl.

But you can even switch your on screen
character to any active party member so you can avoid that.
I hate to give games good grades in this area cause it usually affects the others
but… 10/10 for this one.

Battle System

This games battle system would take far too long to explain in full so I will try
to shorten it down a bit.

All your characters appear on the screen and you control one. The others are AI
controlled with gambits which I will cover in a second. Pretty much you and your AI buddies
go out and beat up on the enemies like in any MMORPG. Pretty straight forward, but I love
this system for the following reasons.

Enemies are already drawn on the screen so there are no random battles. If you just
want to blow through an area and ignore everything then do so. No random battles to stop
you and you can avoid or outrun most enemies. I do not suggest this style of play unless you
enjoy it when bosses hand your butt to you, but it is possible.

This allowed for several really cool enemies such as in the very first area you go to
there is a T-Rex looking enemy. It won’t attack you and will just go around minding it’s own
business feasting on wolves. Players who have played the old Final Fantasies think, “Hey,
that is kind of big, but Square would never put an enemy you can’t kill at level one in the
first area of the game.” And then the guys at Square finally made you stop putting outside
knowledge into the game world. You learn that as this thing kills your entire party in seconds.
Also there are rabbits that heal you and a whole slew of other cool enemies.

You control your AI buddies with gambits. You buy these from shops and then combine
a cause and an action such as (Ally HP> (Cast Cure) or something to that effect and
sure enough if an allies HP drops below 50% the character you have this set on will drop
everything and heal that character.

This battle system is good but I do have some complaints. On the nit picky side, I find
that the lines that fly from your characters are very annoying. There must have been a better
way to handle that. Also the fact that some battles are just outrageously hard to keep track
of anyone but yourself in can get a little annoying if not fatal. But overall a good battle system.
9/10

License System

Now this I hate… You have to spend money to buy weapons, armor, spells, technicks,
everything, but even after buying it you cannot use it until you have acquired enough LP to
obtain the license for that item. This is flawed for me in two ways.

Why should I have to acquire a license AND pay for it. That makes this already pretty
grindy game into a grind fest sometimes. Plus if I am in the middle of a dungeon and I am right
before a boss that instant KO’s me and I pick up a Amulet of Instant KO Immunity I cannot use
that amulet until I have acquired the license. And if I don’t have the LP it’s either fight endlessly
for a while or live without.

Furthermore, every single character in the game can have every single skill by the end of
the game. There is absolutely no reason not to choose a party of Vaan, Penelo, and Fran over
Basch, Balthier, and Ashe other than personal preference.

I am sorry but this flawed system gets a 3/10. I knew Square couldn’t help but ruin a
great game. It isn’t that bad I guess, but it is ridiculous.

Gameplay

Finally to the very core of the game. Where the fun factor is. If you strictly follow the
story and don’t try to get any of the really cool items (like I did) the gameplay is great. You
move smoothly from one thing onto the next. Menus are nice but simple, button config is fine,
and no real complaints about controlling my character. Also this game features some of the
coolest optional bosses ever.

However, if you are a hardcore gamer or you go back to finish everything up. Be ready
to waste your life. Getting some of the best items in the game involves grinding the same enemies
for days hoping for a ridiculously rare drop. And some of the harder optional bosses can take hours
to defeat. Why is this? Because they took the same ideas from FFXI and turned them into a single
player RPG. I used to play XI so please excuse the rant at the end of this review.

Overall not to bad, but if I wanted to play an MMORPG I would get on XI… 7/10.

Conclusion

I finished this game and I was absolutely happy I did. Along with FFVI this is probably my
favorite of the Final Fantasy series. Definitely buy this. A rental will not even give you time to get
into it. If you are a few bucks short, sell your FFVIII to a friend. You don’t need that pile of crap
anyway.

If you want me to tell you why VIII sucked then flame me in my comments and I will write
a bad review. Go ahead. Flame away. I will end this with my final review and a rant about people
who complain about this game being like an MMORPG from my experiences as an XI player.
7.8/10

If they would just fix the License system and use this system, with updates of course, to a new
game it could easily get a 10/10 in my book.

Enter Rant

You guys complained about FFXI being an online only game for YEARS and when they
finally release a game in many ways similar you complain about the grinding. Well guess what.
That is exactly what you would have gotten with FFXI off line. Except worse. You would get very
little storyline, redundant quests, and every monster would kill you cause you don’t have a party.
You got what you asked for. Don’t say game makers don’t listen. So don’t complain about what
you asked for.