I have been unfair to FFXII. As a high school kid I found the plot and characters to be boring as sin, I hated the gambit system (and any other system that leads to a game playing itself), and I found stuff like the Zodiac Spear to be super off-putting. The horrible audio quality on every spoken line didn't help either.

My opinion has changed in later years, partially due to the Zodiac Age. Certain changes like the new license board and being able to speed up the game address issues that I had with the original release, but there's also plenty that the remaster didn't touch that I've changed my mind on or become more reasonable about. I still don't like gameplay systems like Gambits, but I have to admit that the gambit system is a damned fine way to do it. The plot is more interesting than I gave it credit for, and I didn't pay enough attention to the "good" characters. There's also just a ton of polish and content and love put into this game, and I can't help but respect it.

Um dos maiores jogos da história pra mim.
Como dito no review de sua remasterização para PS4.
É um clássico dos jogos.

Infelizmente esta versão de PS2 foi dropada no meio do caminho.
Não por não gostar, mas por eu não conseguir passar de um boss específico.
A 2 semanas eu consegui zerar a versão da nova geração, e mais velho, entendendo inglês e a mecânica do jogo, criei uma equipe de personagens que me proporcionaram a derrotar o inimigo que travei a anos atrás, em questão de 2 minutos.

Enfim, jogaço, mas essa versão foi dropada KKK.

This game's combat system goes too far. If the majority of battles require no player input because the AI will follow a script that is predetermined by the player, why even have the battles play out? Battles should then just cut to a win screen and move on. The remake which adds the speed up is very much needed, but that says a lot. The plot is good but Vann is a weird choice for protag. Music is great as always, and the orchestrated score is a nice bonus. Voice acting is superb, probably the best in the series. Like 11 this game was very unique and pushed the genre in a lot of new directions but the automated combat holds it back for me. Worth playing the remake with speed ups or watching the game though.

Was excited to play this game during my explorations of the mmo final fantasies to see how it stacks up. I find it rather dull. The opening was amazing, and it steadily declines in interest after that. I enjoy the design of the world and lore, and I like the feeling of exploring outside with those large crystals gleaming over the horizon.

However, I think the dungeons are an awful slog. I played up to escaping the underground mineshafts after being imprisoned. They are excessively long, mostly linear, and almost all the fights play out the same way. I set up some gambits, sit back, watch, and occasionally cast a spell. I specifically chose to try the ps2 version to try and see the merits of the original license board and flexibility of the system, perhaps thinking it might have been part of the original vision of the game. I also heard that the zodiac age had a nerfed difficulty, and I prefer my rpgs to have difficult combat. The original license board is a mildly interesting system, but it doesn't help the autocombat battles at all. I had heard people say everyone plays the same at the end, but I was feeling it already in the beginning. It's interesting how random actions and interactions in combat affect character stat increases, and certain weapons and equipment change things like evasion, magic resist, etc which combined are meant to be a kind of invisible class diversity, but playing the game just felt like I had 4 characters who do slightly different things, some of them hit slow, some of them evade more, some of them have lower health. But unlike FFII you don't really feel the differences when combat runs automatically, because it's mostly a process of waiting for the enemy to die and making sure nobody is in too much danger. ​It just felt repetitive and a little meaningless.

I think if the dungeons were either shorter, or has more options per minute of gameplay they would be a lot more entertaining. Older final fantasy games had either short linear dungeons with occasional divergences and dead ends, or in the NES days, tense and dangerous dungeons where running from battle and prioritizing a few treasure rooms and then leaving before death and coming back again later were common affairs. Even dragon quest viii, which came out around the same time, had dungeons way smaller in comparison to ffxii, but still felt like they had better exploration, more interesting designs, more choices to make, and were more dangerous.

Even when I fought the bosses and barely survived the encounters, it still felt dull using items on fallen characters and pausing to edit gambits when they ran out of mp. So maybe a higher difficulty isn't what this kinda game needs after all. I plan to try the zodiac age to see if it manages to make these systems and dungeons more fun with a class system to build toward something rather than just buy licenses for weapons I find and things I don't have yet. I think the zodiac age starts you off with more gambits too, which might give me more choices to make earlier. It's ironic but I found the combat of both mmos more engaging than this version of xii's single player mmo style combat.

Regarding the other aspects of the game, I liked the characters all a mild amount, but it doesn't feel like it stacks to the amount of intrigue other games in the series manage to build early, and they don't give enough to tide over the lackluster systems and slog dungeons.

contrary to the way Matsuno games are often framed by their fans, my love for Final Fantasy XII is easy to explain and pretty surface level: it's one of the prettiest, best sounding, smoothest, most compellingly playable RPGs ever made. the world of Ivalice as presented in this game is one of the most plainly compelling in all of video games, with art design that is frequently breathtakingly beautiful explored through a gameplay loop as frictionless as balthier's crocs be stylin'. in many ways, it is the platonic ideal of an RPG experience, especially with sakimoto's score, which leans into traditional fantasy bombast in a way that Uematsu rarely did, and works incredibly well. this is what adventure sounds like. even to this day, i struggle to think of games that are better presented than this. looks and feels and sounds for all the world like the most expensive game of all time, which it basically was, and there's honestly a lot to enjoy just from the sheer brilliance of the production alone.

the gambit system is a stroke of genius, one of my favourite RPG battle systems, unfairly maligned at launch for "playing itself" by the kind of people who probably think time spent menuing in an RPG is not actually playing it. the various Zodiac revisions have made it a bit of a faceroll but constructing a new deck to face one of the more challenging optional hunts remains one of gaming's real sidequesting delights.

the elephant in the room is that the story just isn't great, though sometimes I think it gets a bit of an unfair rap from people who just wanted it to have the exact same ending as FFX. for what it's worth, I do quite enjoy the themes this game explores and the nethicite as a metaphor for state violence is effective and thought-provoking, and I enjoy Ashe's struggle to comprehend that one cannot use the tools of empire without becoming empire, and I think her solution at the end is powerful (and, frankly, frequently willfully misinterpreted as just accepting the status quo). yes it would be sick if Ashe just blew up the imperial fleet but at that point I'm just wanting the game to be about a different thing than what it actually is about. i'm willing to meet it halfway on this one. however, there's no denying that in terms of pacing and structure the game is a disaster, especially in the second half, what with it devolving into multi-hour hikes between cutscenes that do little to develop a fairly simple plot. even as the presentation of the story remains world-class, the nightmare development of this game bleeds through constantly, and it ends just when it feels like it's really kicking off. it feels like Square had an ambition to develop this setting and cast with more spinoffs and sequels a la VII and X but aside from that weird DS RTS nothing really came of it. a real shame.

however, having said all that, there's never a moment when I'm not enjoying FF12. the squad here is good as hell and I just really like the vibe and tone of all these ivalice games. the fandom's claim that this is "the political one" are laughable on multiple levels, but I do see how it gained that reputation. when you're someone who sees "political media" as a certain type of thing rather than something inherent to art, then of course you'll see a game visibly and outwardly concerned with nation-states and political fantasy as an aesthetic as "the political one", even over the far more politically radical FFX. the other side of this coin is that enjoying this kind of aesthetic is extremely valid. i simply love to see a historian write in his memoirs of the grave fate that has befallen the kingdoms now that the treaty has been broken. y'all love this in heavensward and Tactics (a game with far more regressive politics imo), so why turn your nose up at it here?

it is a true and fair criticism of Final Fantasy XII that its themes are undeveloped, but when you're experiencing it through some of the best dialogue and voice acting in possibly any JRPG ever (i think about Judge Bergan almost every day) it's hard to complain. it's like Lord of the Rings: I do not get anything particularly remarkable out of that trilogy in a thematic sense, and at worst find it's "return to nature" conservativism deeply irritating. but I still love it because it is just, from top to bottom, a hugely competent, deeply accomplished work that is never not a great time. and that's Final Fantasy XII: maybe lacking in the things that I find most remarkable about the series, but effortlessly able to sink me into a contented state of relaxed bliss.

Released following a long absence (by their standards), Final Fantasy XII introduced a heavy political spectrum to their storytelling résumé. Yasumi Matsuno of Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics fame contributes to both setting (shared with FFT) and story, but his narrative efforts are rarely felt this time. Much of the storyline seems aimless or unconvincing or simple, and being caught in-between monolithic gameplay sections (due to the oversized areas - mainly dungeons) didn't help its case. It also suffers from a weak cast of characters - of which only Balthier and Fran hold interest, as well as a dull aesthetic. Systems such as the license board, espers, quickenings, hunting, etc. Are competent, but nothing we haven't seen before (and used in better ways elsewhere).

The methodical combat system is what rescues this from mediocrity. This combination of active movement and ATB flow may remind one of mindless MMORPG combat, but the surrounding CRPG-like Gambit system complements it in a wholly original way. Gambits basically enable players to utilize programming logic to configure party member battle tactics, virtually constructing a calculated, well-oiled machine of a party that can easily fend for itself by the end, to the extent that player input becomes minimal. The process to achieve this impeccable end goal is slow, but progresses in neat ways as more conditions and possible setups become available.