Final Fantasy XII

Game: Final Fantasy XII
Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PlayStation 2
Genre: RPG

Story: 8.5/10: Alright, first the pros. I thought the story was quite brilliant. I loved the change from the typical sort of FF story to something more of a political intrigue sort of thing. The characters in the game were multi-layered and the enemies were often in a gray area, where you couldn't necessarily hate them. You could see from their point of view, and though you are trying to stop them, you can understand why they are doing what they are doing. There were also no true lead roles. The spotlight was shared among the characters. The plot line was sensible, with few plot holes that I could see. It was well placed and not too unrealistic, excepting of course the elements of fantasy.

As for the cons, the game, while good, was very non-climatic. While the story did build in intensity to a degree, it never reached what I would call a real climax. The end of the game came as a surprise to me. I sat there wondering, "Is this really the end?" There were elements of the plot I expected to be explored further that simply weren't. While I enjoyed the game, the end left me feeling very unsatisfied and wanting more. There was little closure to the plot.

Gameplay: 9/10: This was the games strongest point for me. I loved the more realistic battling. Where you encountered enemies in real time, and yet still played using a menu like we have come to expect in an RPG. It was an excellent blending of real time fighting and RPG strategy. The side quests were deep and entertaining for the most part. The Clan Centurio hunts in particular stand out. It allowed you to take time out from the story to level up your characters while still doing something productive and rewarding. And even then, there were plenty of challenging hunts to track at the end of the game to keep you busy.

Gambits were an excellent touch, allowing you to customize your party to be as self reliant as you wanted or as under you direct control as you wanted. The license board was the weakest part of character leveling, being way too easy to max out. Characters could be everything without being too weak. You could focus your characters in a single area, but there was very little motivation to do so, as it was so easy to be everything.

The loot system and the bazaar was another highpoint of the game for me. Receiving items such as pelts and skins from monsters to sell for gil was more realistic, and in my opinion more fun. Chaining monsters and obtaining monographs for better loot added an element of skill to earning money. Also, obtaining items from the bazaar from selling loot was rewarding as well as challenging when it came to selling the right combination of items to receive the better bazaar goods.

The downside to these things: there is very little info in game to tell it to you. Many of us have been annoyed by the process of obtaining the Zodiac Spear. A single, simple act like opening a chest causes you to lose the game's most powerful weapon, and no where is there a hint to warn you not to. This is not the only case of this. Many of the conditions required to spawn rare game are impossible to discover on your own. Most are likely only stumbled upon by accident. Even some of the later hunts are difficult to spawn. Navigating the Great Crystal is nearly impossible and no map is provided. The reason for this: so people will buy guides. Lame.

Sound: 6/10: This is the games weakest point in my opinion. Now, admittedly I'm hard on this, as I have a degree in recording arts. But I know what to look for and it bothers me not to see it. The music in the game bland. It isn't bad. The notes are pleasant enough and none of it is painful or annoying to listen to. But it just doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't function as music should function in a game. Music is supposed to supply the emotion and it simply doesn't do that. It never moves me to feel one way or another. It never changes in intensity so as to help carry the intensity of the story. The whole time, I was listening to this and thinking about how much I miss Nobuo Uematsu's scores.

As for sound effects, they weren't bad, but they were occasionally missing. I recall groaning in one particular cutscene when a pivotal action takes place (a character, wearing full armor stabbed with a knife) and no sound accompanies it. There is no metal on metal. No tearing of flesh. Nothing. The only way you know it's happened is the expression on the characters face. I was shouting at my TV screen. It was horrible. And while this is not the only example, it is the one that stands out most to me.

Where does this game shine in audio? The voice acting was excellent. It was refreshing after the often horrible voice acting of FFX to see this game have believable lines being delivered by good actors. I never cringed at a horrible delivered line or groaned at a severely overacted line. The voices and delivery of the lines suited the characters and felt real.

Graphics: 7/10: A lot of people were impressed by these graphics. I wasn't. I thought character art was actually pretty poor in comparison to FFX. Vaan's abs in particular made me groan every time he walked on screen. The character looked as though they were supposed to seem real, but they weren't quite there.

However, the environments were very well done. Weather effects were pretty, and the landscape was varied and interesting. Also, the game ran smoothly, with the action only lagging when there were a lot of enemies on screen. Most of the games I play are real time action games, and compared to many of them, this was excellently done, considering that you are in control of as many as four characters instead of one.

Replayability: 8/10: I found a decent amount of replay value to this game. The story the second time is much easier to follow in the beginning and you are able to take in and understand much more of it. In the case of some characters, such as Cid, you are able to gain a better understanding of them as the actions they take and the things that they say are clear to you from the start. Also, as you begin to see the things you missed due to mistakes you had no idea you were making, you can correct yourself the second time and be able to get more quest and items than before.

Overall Score: 38.5/50: Overall, not the best game in the world. Definitely not the best game in the series. However, it is still very enjoyable. It has an interesting story and great gameplay. I'd recommend getting it and giving it a try. It has it's flaws, but overall, it's still one of the better games to come out recently.