Review #488: Final Fantasy XII

 The beginning of the end.

Way too many blonde characters.

 Could you believe me if I told you that at some point in time it felt good to be a Final Fantasy fan? I remember back in the early 2000's when Square just went and announced Final Fantasy IX, X(Featuring a brown-haired Tidus!) and XI. And it was hype. Final Fantasy really meant something. And then XIII happened and it ruined the franchise forever, even XV couldn't fix everything that was broken. But what... what if I told you that everything started falling apart with XII? It was, at the time, the Final Fantasy that spent the most time in development hell, and while it doesn't really show it does still present flaws that would eventually be XIII's downfall.

 The story centers around the Sky Pirate Balthier and the princess Amalia(Ashe), even though the real protagonist is the land of Ivalice. The game's cast is probably the weakest it's ever been, which is surprising considering that there are only 6 characters: Vaan, the guy that you start playing as and is front-and-center on the game's cover but has minimal impact on the plot, Penelo, his friend who is just as relevant and receives as much development(Zero), Balthier and Fran, sky pirates who are the game's most interesting characters, Basch, the soldier who was imprisoned with treachery and Ashe, the princess that wants to stop the, erm, 'Empire' from taking over the land of Dalmasca. People have said that the story is more 'subtle' in this one, and more about politics and... and they are pretty much Rick and Morty fans telling you that FFXII's plot is for smart people. Which it's not. Want a game that gets political intrigue between warring kingdoms right? Play Suikoden. And mind you, I'm not saying the plot is bad, it simply is uninteresting and the main ensemble cast are but tools to move the plot forward and don't get as much development as they could.

There'll be a lot of grinding on your path to victory.

 A little MMORPG game called Final Fantasy XI happened between Final Fantasy X and XII, and as luck would have it, XI performed very well for Square. This translated into making XII borrow elements from MMORPGs. I hate MMORPGs. Which kinda sucks because the entire game plays like a MMORPG with story elements. You'll notice the MMORPG elements immediately, as towns are large and environments are massive.... and it also takes a long while to go from point A to point B. You can unlock a few fast-travel options between orange save crystals or town's aerodromes but there's still a lot of walking involved. And you're encouraged to travel on foot since the game is a grindfest, like pretty much any other MMORPG.

 For instance, take the game's main sidequest repertoire: Hunts. First you have to find a bar and read the notice board. Now, instead of hunting the monster, you have to track down the NPC and then you have to track down the monster, easier said than done, since a few monsters have unexplained spawn conditions. Like clearing the entire area of enemies and waiting for five minutes. FIVE MINUTES. Or sometimes you have to enter-and-exit an area and hope that the enemy spawns. Or enter-and-exit an area until it rains or there's a sandstorm so that the monster might spawn. And after beating it you have to return to the NPC to claim your reward.

Character design is mediocre, but monsters are pretty alright.

 And boy, are in you in for a treat if you want to get the ultimate equipment. These weapons can only be bought after selling certain amount of certain loot. Oh, did I mention that enemies don't carry money enemy more? You have to hope that they drop valuable loot, instead of pebbles, and then sell it for money. Anyways, you have to sell certain amount of very hard to find loot. This loot might require you to exploit one-time elite enemies, making them spawn(They have something like 40% spawn rate), stealing from them(6% chance of success every time you use the steal command!) and then run away, make them de-spawn and then return and make them respawn, doing this until you have enough material. Other times you might have to hope for 6% drops out of 40% spawn chance enemies. You'll be grinding. A lot.

 Which is kinda OK, since in order to do anything in the game you need License points. Want new techniques or spells? Buying them is not enough, you have to buy their license. Want to equip anything? Gotta get the correct license. Even the Gambit system, of which I'll talk later, has you acquire slot-by-slot on the license board. It's gonna take a while to max your characters. And while eventually every character will be able to do everything, their stats do push them in certain directions. Vaan's good at everything, while Fran is bad at everything. No, seriously, Fran has the worst stats in the game. And, as if it was a cruel joke, Balthier comes equipped with a gun and Fran with a bow, but they have slower animations than any other character with those weapons. Absolutely brilliant.

Making it like a MMORPG probably was the wrong direction to take the series in

 And now let me talk about other quirks, like chests. Chests have different spawn rates, and even after they spawn, they have a chance of having Gil or an item, and even then, there's only a couple of different weapons they could contain. It's a very weird design choice. Heck, the game's best weapon, the Zodiac Spear, will probably be forsaken by most players, since it requires a few very specific, very easy to find chests to be kept closed. And did I mention that there're invisible traps on the ground that could kill your characters or inflict status effects? There're accessories that make you immune to them, but why waste your only accessory slot? You could also cast Libra on any character and be able to see them, but that's annoying. In the end I kept Ashe equipped with her bangle item, that put her in a permanent state of Libra. Dumb. And even though you will dodge traps, even though you can see them on the floor... the AI companions love stepping on them and taking down the team with them.

 And, this being a MMORPG-styled game, how does it deal with the player going where he or she isn't supposed to? By making everything based on your equipment. It doesn't matter how overleveled you are(If you go after hunts you'll be overleveled pretty fast), it doesn't matter how good your strategy is: You will receive a ton of damage and deal negligible amounts of. That's because your equipment sucks, so if you can't handle an optional boss just advance the plot further and unlock the next tier of equipment and watch that bastard burn.

If there's something to be praised, it's the graphics, Square has always been meticulous on that front.

 Alright, let's finally delve into the combat system. Random encounters are a thing of the past, now enemies will be roaming the environments and most of them will engage you if they see you. Combat is in real time, albeit autoattacks are automatic. You can press X at any moment to halt the battle and issue commands to any of your three party members. It feels too automatic for my taste, and the game implements the ATB(You have to wait for a gauge to fill before your actions go through) which makes it look kinda silly when your characters stand around doing nothing while they wait for the ATB to fill and finally use their autoattack. Characters on reserve don't receive experience points, although they do gain License points, and you can switch characters almost at any time. As a matter of fact, if your entire party falls, you can switch to the other three and keep going.

 On their own, CPU allies will do nothing unless instructed, which is why you can customize Gambits. Gambits are the game's way of not having to program a smart AI, you can issue 9 different instructions and lay them in a priority order. You select an object(Ally: Any, Ally Health < 40%, Ally mana < 30%, Ally: Poison, Enemy: Protect, Enemy: Highest HP, etc) and an action(Attack, Heal, Magic Spell, Item). Back in the day many people praised it since 'Eventually you can just put the joystick down and watch everything happen'. And it's because of them that Final Fantasy XIII was such a disaster that played itself. Thanks for nothing. And the best part about this system? Gambit slots must be unlocked with license points, unless you want to be restricted to a useless pair of slots, and the different Objects and Actions must be found or bought. Which means that it's not until late in the game that you can finally make in-depth strategies. Ridiculous.

Fret not, Bombs aren't as lethal as they've been in previous games

 Limit breaks are here too, called 'Quickenings' and each one consumes a third out of your entire mana(Actually, every time you learn a quickening on the license board(Of course) you get a new segment of mana, up to three) and can be chained together with other quickenings. Chaining quickenings takes a long time, because you can't skip them, they are visually unimpressive and how many you can chain together is pretty much dependent on luck. They are pretty much only useful to finish off a boss since you'll be left without mana afterwards. Speaking of bosses, high-level bonus bosses and final bosses will start using Perfect Defense when near death which makes them invulnerable for about a minute. IT'S SO MUCH FUN HAVING TO WAIT FOR IT TO RUN OUT.

 I don't think Final Fantasy XII is a good game, but, BUT even though I've nothing but complaints, even though I don't think the game does anything well... I still had fun with it. It has that grandiose Final Fantasy-ish feel to it that makes it feel special, that makes it feel unlike other JRPGs. So while I can't say that I liked it, while I can't say that it's a good game... It's still somewhat fun to play, whenever you aren't grinding or wasting your time that is.
 6.0 out of 10