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I was reading the "Five Fixes for Final Fantasy" article, and I noticed a lot of people mentioning Final Fantasy XII in the comments, as sort of the "ideal" Final Fantasy. This struck me as pretty interesting, since Final Fantasy XII is arguably one of the most controversial and debated in the series. Enter: my definitive Final Fantasy XII article.

 

Rarely have I been asked about my general opinion of Final Fantasy XII. In fact, I remember the exact day in my 6th grade math class when this guy named Jeff told me to stay as far away from it as possible. So naturally, I got it anyway.

I'll start with this.

Watch Gamespot's extremely positive review of Final Fantasy XII. Don't pay attention to the fact that the game got a 9.5 out of 10, just listen to what the guy is saying. (Sorry, I know Greg Kasavin's monotone voice makes listening to these old reviews boring, but bear with me here.)

Now if you go to Gamespot's website and actually read the in-depth review, you'll understand more why they heaped mountains of praise upon this game.

Now watch this generally less positive review of Final Fantasy XII by Gametrailers. Once again, don't pay attention to the 8 out of 10 score. We're not looking at how the numbers line up, we're examining points of contention.

Pretty different right?

That's really the reason Final Fantasy XII is so controversial. It really comes down to what you like, and what you don't like. Contrary to fan opinion, this game was actually insanely popular with critics. 

But where does that leave me? Well, I have more likes than dislikes with this game. The primary like obviously being Balthier. Seriously, I have to agree more with the Gametrailers reviewer on this point. I actually only really cared about Balthier, and slightly Fran (although why is beyond me). That's not to say the other characters weren't interesting, they were, with the exception of Vaan and Penelo. Granted, Basch and Ashe had great storylines, but that's just it. They had great STORYLINES, not great personalities.

But that brings me to my next point. The story and characters in this game are superbly written, which is pretty rare for a Final Fantasy game. I might even go as far as to say that this is the most quoteable game I've ever played. Basically, every character in this game had a fair chance of being vaguely liked as long as they had a well written line thrown in somewhere. Balthier hogged all the really good ones, which explains why he's so well liked.

"With each passing day the world finds new and exciting ways to kill a man." 

"I play the leading man, who else?"

"The Ifrit's playing with fire and I'd rather not get burned."

"Relax, it's just a corpse. Jump at every little thing down here and you'll wear yourself out." 

"I said YOU'RE the one that stinks hamshanks. Hear me now?"

And those are just the ones I could remember off the top of my head. 

 

Now mind you, the other characters had some good ones too, just not many. And none that I can remember off the top of my head years after playing it. Well, except this one.

Basch: "If I could protect but one person from war's horror, I would bear any shame. I would bear it proudly."

That's pretty powerful stuff.

The Gametrailers reviewer was pretty spot on in saying that this game is focused more on nations and events rather than people. No sappy love stories and angsty boys with flippy hair are to be found here. But what you WILL find, is a tale full of political intrigue, betrayal, and deception. Basically, everything you knew to be true with Final Fantasy Storytelling 101, has been completely thrown out the window. Which to be honest, could go either way with fans. Some people really eat that kinda shit up, and the absence of these devices really made people detest this game. Some folks just weren't ready for the sheer amount of change this game brought to the table. The biggest of all of course being the battle system.

Keep in mind I am not at all a reviewer, just a girl who likes to throw out her opinions that no one really cares about, so I'm not going to rehash everything those reviews already told you. 

Let's count the differences shall we?

1) Random Encounters? Fucked.

2) Traditional Battle Music? Fucked.

3) Victory Fanfare? Kinda fucked.

4) Turn Based Battle? Fucked.

5) Micro Managing Every Character? Fucked.

6) Enemies Dropping Gil? Super fucked.

7) Almost Everything You Loved About Final Fantasy? Fantasically fucked.

Now, all of this sounds pretty daunting until you finally get your fanboy panties out of a bunch and actually try it. After all that bitching and moaning, you sit down and play the game, finally coming to the realization that it's really REALLY fucking good. Mind you, it's not PERFECT, but it's probably infinitely better than you thought it was going to be. 

But here's the thing I never understood about the Final Fantasy XII debate: dislike of the Gambit System.

Some people will argue that programming all of your characters for ANY given situation, takes control away from the player and basically has the game playing itself. And to those people I say "Fuck. You."

If you haven't played it, I promise you, there will NEVER come a time where this game is playing itself. I don't even mean that in a literal way. Even the gambits can't handle EVERYTHING. For example, say you're fighting.....oh I don't know, let's just use the most frustrating boss fight of the game as an example: The Elder Wyrm.

Meet the Elder Wyrm. Looks friendly, doesn't it?

This bitch inflicts multiple crippling and potentially fatal status ailments on your entire party simultaneously. And in this game, status effects are the most potent they have ever been. Even the most finely tuned gambits can't keep up with the constant healing that getting through this battle requires. Sometimes you're gonna have to take multiple things into your own hands. 

"But Brittany, can't I just set up individual gambits to heal all of those individual status ailments?"

Well, you COULD. But that would be the most ridiculously stupid course of action for this fight. You don't get an unlimited number of gambit slots. You get 12. As previously stated, the Elder Wyrm is capable of inflicting AT LEAST seven status ailments on all of your characters. Are you REALLY gonna waste SEVEN gambit slots on healing ailments? If you answered yes, you probably have no hope of ever completing this game.

And forget status ailments, you still need to set up a viable attack plan, AND means of healing your characters health points. So, setting up all of your gambits to heal status ailments is the stupidest thing you could do, and pretty much guarantees a game over.

You can turn off gambits, but I have yet to meet anyone who has somehow micro managed their way through this entire game. And I can't say my respect for them would be greater if I did. If anything, I would think they were backshit insane.

I'll tell you one issue I had with this game: The License Board. Despite what everyone says, it's actually nothing like the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X, and don't let anyone shit you into believing it is, because that's how I ended up buying this game.

The Gametrailers guy says that the game pushes you to make everyone the same. I have to agree and disagree with this. It's entirely possible to craft everyone into their own class, you don't HAVE to make everyone the same. However, in certain instances I have found that it will serve you FAR better to have a team of 6 balanced characters rather than a bunch of specialists. Why? Because Final Fantasy XII is an equal opportunity punisher. 

The Elder Wyrm doesn't really give a fuck who your heavy hitter is, or who your mage is. It wreaks havoc on everyone. In fact, almost every boss in the game has an Area of Effect attack that has the potential to wipe out one or more of your team members in one go. If you have a bunch of specialists, the chances of your mage getting knocked out and leaving you without any source of good healing magic is pretty great. But if everyone on your team is capable of casting magic, reviving that team mate is not a big deal and you can get back to hacking and slashing fairly quickly.

So my personal strategy is to go for a pretty well rounded team, with no one being any better or worse than anyone else. That might sound like a bad thing, but once again, it's all about preference, and not getting game overs is my preference.

Last but not least, there's one thing I just have to address: fun factor.

The Gametrailers reviewer clearly states that Final Fantasy XII just isn't that fun to play. Now, I wouldn't go as far as that, but I will account for the fact that things can get tedious from time to time. However, there's lots of in game distractions to break up the tedium, such as monster hunts, rare bounty hunting, and sidequests. These all go a long way in making you invest a lot of time in the game. I've logged more hours into this game than any other Final Fantasy to date. Sadly, I can honestly say that most of those hours were spent grinding through fields upon fields of monsters in hopes of getting my levels high enough to proceed comfortably past a difficult boss or hunt. 

And that's getting into something I hadn't even brought up: difficulty. I'm not even ashamed to admit that this game thoroughly kicked my ass the first time I played it. I wasn't expecting the stuff this game threw at me. Not even three hours in, I got a game over because I fucked with a giant dinosaur out in the desert. I had a strange sense of deja vu at that point.....

This game suffers greatly from what I like to call "Midgar Zolom Syndrome." That's basically the game's way of teaching you humility. You can't kill everything right out the gate in Final Fantasy XII. Some monsters are truly better left alone. Just bow your head, and keep shuffling along. 

Strangely, this was kind of a good thing. It added a little surprise for one. That's not even the only game over I got less than 10 hours into the game. I got mauled by a pack of wolves, run over by cockatrices, and sliced to death by the werevolves in Starfall Field. I was strangely okay with it though. This game does a good job of keeping your ego in check. No matter how superhumanly powerful your team gets, there will always be a monster around the next corner that is capable of ripping their faces off if you get too overconfident.

Basically, Final Fantasy XII just worked for me. And it's crazy because I actually hated it for a while. I was probably just a little disillusioned from all those game overs. But seriously, this was a great game. In my humble opinion if we could take all the seriousness of the plot and all the intricacies of the more action oriented battle system and add more character development, Square Enix could have a great game on their hands.