Final Fantasy XII is a game I slept on for far too long and am so glad I finally got around to knocking it out. It really shook up the formula once again and almost every thing was a hit with only a few misses.

The main strength of this game is the world of Ivalice. The world is beautifully crafted with different races, beautiful cities, rich history, power hungry empires, many wars, and political intrigue. Like every other Final Fantasy game for me, the story had me excited and engaged from beginning to end. While still fantasy and over the top, this one felt more grounded than most of the series due to much of the plot being about war and politics. I loved the cast of characters in this game with Ashe and Balthier being the obvious stand outs. I also loved Larsa. Larsa is far and away my favorite Final Fantasy character of all time that wasn’t either a main villian or main party character.

I’ve said this in pretty much ever Final Fantasy review and this game is no different, the music is sublime and the art was outstanding for the time of release.

I wanted to rate this game as a five star and wouldn’t question anyone who does but there were two obvious flaws for me. First is this game is painfully easy. Once you get enough levels and gambits the game can quite literally play itself even being able to defeat almost every boss by itself. I only had a game over once and it’s because I fought the T Rex in the first level thinking I could kill it being as it was in the first level. Other than that I breezed through everything. My only other problem and admittedly this isn’t a huge deal to me but the job classes felt to similar and I was hoping for more of a variety than there actually was.

Another absolute home run in the series that I would recommend to any RPG fan.

I wish someone told me Final Fantasy XII was actually a Xenoblade in disguise, because I would have played this shit years ago. Adding to that are some of the clear inspirations taken from Star Wars (despite some apparent insistence to the contrary) and you have an RPG experience that's hitting all the right buttons for me. I genuinely thought people were memeing about the Star Wars thing but some of the scenes and characterizations are so on the nose you can't help but laugh. Yes, I know a sizeable part of that likely comes instead from The Hidden Fortress (itself one of the biggest inspirations for George Lucas's epic) but when your story culminates with you attacking a Death Star, you lose a bit of plausible deniability.

In terms of the actual game, while Final Fantasy XII obviously existed before Xenoblade, my previous experience with that series more than prepared me to enjoy the more automated style of combat employed here. I can understand how this might have put people off back in 2006 but I can't help but think of Marty McFly going "Guess you guys aren't ready for that yet, but your kids are going to love it." It's aged remarkably well, with a fast, free-flowing combat system and a ton of flexibility and customization available to build your party to your liking. And while the gambit system has largely been superseded in later years by developers simply becoming more proficient at designing better AI companions, I can appreciate how wild it is that a game from this era gave you so much specific control over how your party operates. Seriously, this came out the same year as Persona 3, a game with notoriously awful automated party members. Ahead of its time.

If I could point to any major criticisms of this game, it would be:

1) The license system goes a bit overboard in terms of things you need to unlock; would have preferred they scaled back some of the armor and accessory slots because you don't need 30 of those.

2) Later story beats felt a bit too spaced out or lacking the impact I think they were intended to have, as the game gets a little too bogged down with chasing one MacGuffin after another.

3) I hate to echo complaints people have been making for almost two decades now but Vaan was a pretty weak main protagonist and it didn't surprise me at all to learn he wasn't originally intended to be one. I loved the party overall and thought they had great chemistry together but it is held back when certain characters feel more like they're along for the ride than possessing agency in the story's events.

Beyond that, I truly enjoyed my time with Final Fantasy XII. There likely would have been more quibbles with a few gameplay design choices but this remaster does a fantastic job at mitigating many of those, making for an overall smooth experience. Great game and I wish more people would have sung its praises because it probably deserves a bigger seat at the Final Fantasy table than it's been given over the years.

What’s better than a game where you walk around and press one button? A game where you walk around and press no buttons!

I played this game back in 2006 when it first released and I really enjoyed it, then a power outage happened while I was saving and it was my only save file. I never had only one save file ever again and that’s a pretty big impact on me. I bring this up because this game is a massive time investment and I was very much not willing to get back into the mix, 60 hours down the drain. Zodiac age completely and absolutely fixes this. The game comes with a 2x/4x speed up mode that completely trivializes all the leveling and walkin around you have to do. Very much like the speed up mode on emulators, it makes the game accessible in a way it previously was not. I was able to beat this game in around 30 hours because of this feature.

Now I will actually talk about the game itself, like I said at the start. You essentially just setup menus and actions before you start combat and let the game play itself. It feels like a miracle that this game is fun. But the environment, story, characters, leveling system, license board, gambits, hunts all combine together to make this very enjoyable experience.


It was very cathartic to come back to this game and beat it. That’s all I got to say. Good times

Depois de me martelarem muito que esse jogo era extremamente focado em política e que isso destacava (e deixava ele melhor) ele dos outros, qual a minha surpresa ao ver que Final Fantasy XII é exatamente Final Fantasy como sempre gostei e diria até em uma de suas melhores formas.

Acho que o descontentamento e a consequente constatação de mentiras sobre o quão cedo ou tarde o Vaan foi considerado a ser o protagonista do jogo vem justamente do fato de ser difícil de digerir que nem sempre somos o protagonista de toda história. Certamente somos o protagonista da NOSSA, mas nem sempre do que acontece a nossa volta.

Para o Vaan, salvar seu país e assegurar seu futuro é uma jornada de conhecimento ao lado de pessoas mais fortes, mais experientes e maduras que ele. Não tem o mesmo peso que tem para Ashe, e tá tudo bem. Balthier tenta nos lembrar toda vez que nós sempre somos protagonistas, mesmo que os outros não vejam assim.

Não me importaria se esse jogo focasse muito mais na parte politica que ele apresenta, mas eu gosto de como ele é familiar e confortável pra quem já está inserido no paradigma da série.

No mais, achei que esse ia ser o único Final Fantasy que não ia chorar no final e desabei igual então eu acho que sou uma tonta completa.

Finished fy first Final Fantasy, XII. Don’t regret playing it, but kinda regret not playing IX, XIII, VIII, X, VI, or even VII first.

What I liked:
+ Characters (none of them are that interesting by themselves but they fit in the story very well)
+ Story
+ Story writing (also the English VA is superior (with the exception of Vaan))
+ Cinematography and cinematics
+ Most locations (nothing mind-blowing tho)
+ Gambit system (cool idea)
+ Speedmode (saved me dozens of hours)
+ Moogles

What I disliked:
- NPCs 😴
- Side quests 😴
- Gambit system (flawed, irritating realization)
- ”Crafting” system
- Espers and quickenings (obscure, boring, and useless)
- Dungeons
- Lack of QoL (maps, quests, and inventory are atrocious)
- Speedmode (is very fiddly because the original wasn’t designed to be played this way y’know)
- MAPS

Everything else is whatever.

P.S. Vaan is cool and not “useless” or “boring”.

After nearly twenty years of playing this game, I finished the post-game of Final Fantasy XII! Both the vanilla superbosses and the Trial Mode The Zodiac Age added in. I left a review on the PS2 game’s page but figured I’ll add my thoughts on The Zodiac Age version.

The big sell here is the job system and it’s pretty cool! I like the dual-classing upgraded they added in this edition of FF12, but character being so focused creates a lot of small inconveniences. Only the Time Mage has Float, a very important spell if you are going through a place with traps. I had to keep my Fran out through most dungeons because I didn’t have a lot of Float Motes and mines were abound. You can unlock some extra abilities on everyone’s License Grids with Quickenings and Espers but there should have been more options available for late game conveniences. I was missing the absolute freedom of everyone sharing vanilla FF12’s maximalist License Grid.

While The Zodiac Age took away a lot of original’s need-guide BS like the whole thing with the Zodiac Spear, a lot of spells are stuck in normal-looking treasures that you can easily miss then go through the whole game never having that spell. It’s two steps-forward, one step back with this game.

The 2x and 4x speed settings were a great edition. Got a lot of use of them beating Hell Wyrm and Yiazmat. On the other hand, TZA could have improved the gambit system more. While the multiple gambit sets are a nice addition, I wished for more gambit types and additional complexity.

Overall, the speedup option and cool job system make this the definitive version of a game that I, despite my criticism, think it is pretty good and still love a lot. Maybe I don’t think it’s as good as I used to, but still something that is worth playing. A lot of my problems are things that became more obvious in the sidequest/post-game parts of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age so someone playing a casual playthrough probably wouldn’t butt heads with those annoyances.

Frustratingly good. For every great idea this game has, it has another terrible one to bring it back down. A troubled development process and shipping unfinished seem to be the story all the games in this series share, but you can truly feel the passion the developers had for this game and Ivalice in general.

As a disclaimer, I played this game with the "Final Fantasy XII TZA: Classic Mode" mod, which restores practically everything from the original PS2 release while keeping all of the quality of life from The Zodiac Age, which I highly recommend playing personally.

Before commenting anything about the game itself, Square Enix did an excellent job remastering this game; it's one of the best-looking PS2-era games already, and it looks even better in The Zodiac Age. The fast forward functions are a godsend, as are the improved loading times. These combined can save about 20 hours that you spend walking or loading on the PS2 version. Combined with the existence of the Classic Mode mod, this is the definitive way to play the game on PC, regardless of whether you prefer the original balancing or job system.

This game has some of the best English localization of any game I've played and is combined with fantastic voice acting. Unfortunately, the audio is quite low quality, and it isn't improved in the remaster, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the great dialogue. Gone are the typical tropey anime writing you tend to see in a lot of other JRPGs to be replaced by classical Victorian-era vernacular, and it's spectacular.

However, even with the great writing, the plot points were stretched too thin in the middle of the game to make the game feel grander than it is. To pinpoint an exact part of the game where the story falls apart, it would be after the final Mt. Bur-Omisace visit halfway through the game, where you're asked to walk across the map with very little plot or cutscenes outside of some minor character exposition. The game never comes back from the lowered focus on the story until the very end, after the point of no return, where I felt the game forgot its own tone it set. The characters ended up being too one-note and underdeveloped, with most of them existing for the sake of driving someone else's character arc, though I still enjoyed their dialogue between each other, and liked Ashe, Balthier, and Basch, who feel like the closest to main protagonists.

Nevertheless, I found the intro and credits sequence to be excellent, while the middle of the game had a lot of low points. The music being great is just a Final Fantasy standard, and the ambient tracks were the star of the show for this game. However, I felt like the lack of combat music for normal fights took a lot of intensity out of the game, though I did get why they did it to make the game feel more seamless.

The worst part of the game is how slow it is to play. This game has an excessive amount of walking in it, to the point of having a step counter in the menu. While it isn't a true open world, it's made up of many interconnected zones that have a loading screen in between, which is perfectly fine except for the fact that you walk incredibly slowly and there's no run button outside of Chocobo's in a select few locations. It would also be more bearable if most of the environments weren't just long hallways, deserts, or flatlands. The remedy for this run button is the 2x/4x speed, but I find that more of a band-aid fix than a substitute because it just feels like your time is being wasted exploring the same environments at a snail's pace. The combat also feels incredibly slow. In the beginning, when you do not have many skills, there isn't much you can do other than watch the combat animations and fill the ATB bar, which takes forever even with max battle speed in the settings. 2x with max battle speed on Active Mode is what I recommend for most of the battles in the game outside of boss fights since you do not need to perform many actions if you have your gambits set up properly.

As for the combat itself, it's very unique, but I can see why no game really replicates it. The most apt description I can give of it is that it is very similar to a tab-target game with a long global cooldown like FFXI or FFXIV. Where it differs is in your control of your party members and how you can automate nearly everything in the game with the gambit system, which makes the game feel more akin to a tower defense game where you set your parameters beforehand and then watch your strategy play out. I found the combat most enjoyable when fighting the bosses because you had to adjust your gambits for all of them because usually a simple attack and heal when low setup wouldn't suffice, so you have to find their weaknesses and vulnerabilities to status effects. Though, by the end of the game, I did feel like it did get too easy with you being able to easily stack every status buff before battles with the amount of gambit slots you get, and there was little need to adjust my setup, which is the whole gameplay loop. I also found fighting the normal enemies very boring, as they usually don't pose any challenges, so it's mostly just watching the battle animations play out, so I would recommend fast-forwarding on those parts.

This is a game that lives or dies based on its balancing. The Zodiac Age ends up being too easy, especially when you get two jobs, and that leads the game to play itself with no effort or grinding, while I found the original PS2 version to be much better balanced and offer proper challenges to bosses. It's even arguable that this is the most challenging Final Fantasy game if you don't grind, though that's not much of a high bar, and the game's balancing is easily broken by the end of the game once you get a proper gambit setup going and have access to a majority of the skills.

The other main difference between the PS2 release and The Zodiac Age is the addition of jobs. In the PS2 version, every character shares the same license board (this game's version of a skill tree), but they all start with slightly different skills matching their default armor and weapons. By the end of the game, all the characters have access to nearly all the same weapons, skills, and armor, which some may dislike, but I ended up preferring it since you can completely change your characters on the fly without them having any set roles or having them specialize in different areas. For example, I had Penelo be a mage with high evasion and mystic armor that focused on using white magic with her gambits, while I had Basch be a tank with an axe that focused on buffing himself and drawing aggro away from the rest of the team. Nothing stops you from switching them around if needed, which means you are very adaptable and aren't reliant on any character specifically. On the contrary, The Zodiac Age went with a more conventional job system where you pick two of the twelve classes for your character to specialize in; these jobs would have smaller, more focused license boards that only allow you to use certain weapons and magick compared to the adaptability of the original. The job system seems like it was in the original vision of the game, but due to time constraints they couldn't implement it properly it. Even so, I'm not a fan of the way it's implemented, as it seems the game is balanced completely around everyone having access to anything. The Classic Mode mod also restores the summoning animations for Espers, which adds some flavor to them if they are a bit too long and the summons themselves are not really worth using. The Quickenings also have some of the best animations in the series but also have the same issues as the summon system.

In retrospect, it honestly is impressive how expansive this game is, however oversized it may be. There are so many locations, and the dungeons are so diverse. If you enjoyed the gameplay loop, this game has the highest quantity of side content, with the main focus being hunts. These operate similarly to the Monster Hunter games, where you have to find some kind of enemy to slay in the overworld with information given to you by a bill. These hunts have some of the most challenging boss fights in the game and can give you some of the best items in the game, though by the end I did start feeling like they got way too tedious with the amount of backtracking you have to do for some of them as well as having to go back and forth to people to turn the hunt in. You can definitely see the MMO elements that remained in the game from when it was planned to be one. This is even confirmed by the producer in an old IGN interview where they said: "Back in 2000, when Final Fantasy X, XI, and XII were originally announced as being in the planning stages, X was announced as an offline game while XI onwards would be online games. Obviously, in the process of developing Final Fantasy XII, that changed—it is, of course, an offline game that we have now."

This game is a strange game to recommend because there are a lot of parts that have merit, but at the same time, I can fully understand how people may say the game is boring or a waste of your time. I would say it's only worth playing if you want a slower, more grounded Final Fantasy with a world you can fully engross yourself in, full of things to explore. A game about where the characters aren't the main focus, even lacking a true main protagonist entirely. Instead, it's a return to form for the older games that had a focus on mechanics and role-playing over a finely woven narrative. Final Fantasy XII dares to be different, and that is something I can respect.

Normally, I wasn't planning on playing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, but it went up for sale and I couldn't pass on it. In the end, I'm glad I decided to play this game because otherwise I'd miss out on a very interesting experience.
Final Fantasy XII's story, while not as exciting as in most of the other Final Fantasy games, is still well-written for the most part.
The gameplay on the other hand, is amazing; it's innovative because it makes you feel like playing an offline MMO game instead of a typical turn based JRPG. The gambit system is basically programming an AI, it's genius and I love it. The license boards add extra layers of character customization, giving you the opportunity to build each character differently. Overall, the combat system is extremely fun, the customization is fantastic and the mechanics work perfectly.
The characters are good too; some of them are a bit underwhelming but most of them are fine and few of them are truly great.
The visuals hold up well and the CGI cutscenes are stunning, and the music is very good as well.
Also, the world in Final Fantasy XII is probably one of the best in the series.
Now, although Final Fantasy XII does many things well, it also has some noticeable flaws; the story for example, is not engaging at times, it feels a bit disjointed.
Lastly, many dungeons get tiring after a while because of their lenght.

Pros:
+ Decent story
+ Addictive gameplay
+ Unique mechanics
+ Nice characters

Cons:
- Inconsistent narrative
- Overwhelming dungeon design

Narrative: 6/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Content: 9/10
Characters: 7/10
Music: 8/10
Graphics/Audio: ?/10

Final Rating: 8/10
- Great -
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is a unique, rewarding and enjoyable RPG.
If you're a fan of J/RPGs but you haven't played the original version of Final Fantasy XII before, you should give Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age a try.

Do I recommend it?:
Yes, even to those who don't play JRPGs at all.

almost a perfect game, really, if not for the unfortunate pacing issues in the last third... going from political intrigue and breaking out of prisons and into palaces and all kinds of fun shit to dungeon and ruin diving was a mistake, but mistakes happen

gameplay ruled, characters ruled

hot take: vaan and penelo are actually good characters, they never get in the way of the story but are there to support the main characters when it matters and then back the fuck away when it matters! as usual the internet is full of shit and probably illiterate! D:

vayne going full cyborg god freak at the end was probably the biggest hiccup, it really came out of nowhere, but if i let every weird nonsensical thing ruin a work for me i'd hate most things and that's boring

gambits, bring em back! also gimme an if block!

oh and also: the best remaster they've done, unless you count the pixel remasters, which are full on remakes in unity, so i don't, and it's a real fucking shame they didn't put this much effort and polish into their other remasters... maybe one day

O jogo envelheceu extremamente bem, é de se surpreender que o jogo original foi lançado em 2006, a historia é basicamente um Star Wars. Senti que a progressão do meio pro fim do jogo da uma desandada, em algumas áreas os inimigos são muito difíceis e em outras muito fáceis, o sistema de batalha baseada em gambits é bem diferente e infelizmente esqueceram desse sistema nos jogos posteriores, seria bem legal ver esse sistema de uma forma melhorada. A cutscene final fecha o jogo com chave de ouro, eda o toque que precisava pra você ter a certeza que toda a jornada valeu a pena.

"I am simply myself. No more and no less. And I want only to be free."

É impressionante como Final Fantasy consegue se reinventar a cada título, todos com mecânicas e execuções completamente diferentes. O desse caso, um RPG imperial com exploração em um semi mundo aberto em 2006, é audacioso, e único.
Com sua temática politica onde o império controla as cidades, no totalitarismo, seguido de uma guerra fria e direta entre seus países, exerce um lado muito diferente a série, muito disso advindo de Star Wars, é impressionante o quanto esse jogo se inspira nos filmes, não só na presença do império, como visualmente nas naves e seus embates, como até em seus personagens, Balthier carrega uma função muito similar ao Han Solo. Me impressiona sua execução de diálogos ter muito dessa vibe Shakespeariana, muito se parece uma peça teatral, e sua narrativa, que apesar de passar por suas quedas de ritmo, segue uma execução diferente, de mais foco na realização pessoal textual de cada personagem do que uma temática geral. Mas sim, há presença de temas, o principal sendo a aceitação do luto, e claro, a liberdade das amarras do império. Eu sempre fico fascinado com o World Building da série, todos os jogos me prendem no mundo de forma a ficar curioso com o que irá acontecer com seus personagens.

Seus personagens contribuem positivamente para tal, a Ashe tem conflitos muito bons de como tratar de sua inimizade aos reinos, se devera ter ódio e vingança ou não, o Balthier carrega sendo o mais carismático (e um dos melhores da série), Basch com seu tema de lealdade, e a Fran com um dos subtextos da obra, que é esse valor do natural em comparação ao manufaturado, além de eu amar a parceria dela com o Balthier. E sobre o Vaan? É um caso peculiar, eu gosto desse crescimento dele de perceber que mentia em seus propósitos para se enturmar a situação, e como cada vez mais ele se parece com um pirata, mas sim, ele apenas serve como uma visão de fora do conflito para identificação do jogador, e a Penelo é basicamente o mesmo, só que mais falha. E junto de tudo isso, a interação de todos como um grupo é ótima, tanto no humor quanto no plot, gosto como se trabalha vários núcleos menores e também um maior de todos juntos.

Uma crítica muito específica quanto ao jogo é a utilização das cutscenes em CG, no FF10 há utilizações tão boas, e nesse jogo me incomoda como elas só são usadas para expressar a grandiosidade dos lugares, naves e outros, e pouco usada em momentos chaves da história, muitos momentos teriam mais impacto se usado corretamente.

Sua história unicamente não é o suficiente para carregar toda a experiencia, e por isso temos um dos maiores brilhos do jogo, sua jogabilidade. Seu maior destaque, o sistema de gambits, é prazeroso planejar suas situações com "if's" nas batalhas, quase como uma programação de computador, e aos que dizem que automatiza o combate de maneira tediosa, eu discordo, o jogo balanceia o suficiente para sua estratégia não ser inteiramente nos gambits mas sim intervir sempre em momentos chave, principalmente em boss battles. Você montar sua estratégia contra o inimigo, e ver ela funcionando ao seu controle é muito bom, e sempre que necessário, ligar e desligar gambits e agir por você mesmo. Minha única crítica vai ao sistema de Esper, fica mais como uma opção "for fun", porque não há situação que seja mais útil do que jogar normalmente, o mesmo quase pode ser dito dos Awakenings, mas eles tem seus momentos de utilidade, além de terem lindas animações. É irônico o quando poder acelerar nesse port do PC coincide para uma melhor experiência, por conta dos mundos enormes e a automação do combate.

Embora a narrativa seja pouco cativante, com uma progressão que te deixa apatíco e se questionando se o jogo esta mesmo avançando em algo por falta de um melhor direcionamento narrativo e o jogo careça de um(a) protagonista mais presente e que englobe os temas e coloque seu arco na frente da narrativa de forma mais tematica e acessivel, mas ainda assim as coisas ainda são estranhamente bem escritas e bem dirigidas com picos onde voce ve bastante alma naquela historia, e principalmente nesse mundo que exala personalidade, me fazendo ficar até emotivo no final, apesar de eu não chorar como eu esperaria de um Final Fantasy. entretanto, tudo em relação a sistemas do jogo é divino, tornando o combate em basicamente um jogo de estrategia em tempo real com uma profundidade de possibilidade que eu nem me atrevo a tentar destrinchar, em questões sistemicas de um RPG ele deve ser o mais profundo que eu joguei, e sem falar de outras partes do jogo que fazem voce se questionar se isso era realmente possivel no ps2, e em um final fantasy singleplayer ele tem de longe as melhores dungeons em um nivel que eu nunca esperei que a franquia tivesse, ele ao seu proprio modo é um dos jogos mais unicos e especiais que eu já joguei, apesar de sim faltar a alma que eu esperaria de um dos melhores Final Fantasy, mas é sem duvidas o melhor Star Wars.

Often summed up as "Anime Star Wars", FF12 is a bit of a controversial entry - the Gambit system, effectively giving you 100% control over your party, was maligned as complex, and the story is a lot more political and slightly more abstract than other games in the series.

I played FF12 because i really enjoyed Matsuno's work on the Bozja storyline of FF14, and although i took a break between beginning it and actually finishing it, it didn't disappoint. FF12's main story is effectively a subversion of Chosen One plotlines, although anything more would definitely need a spoiler warning. To a degree, the story somewhat subverts the idea of a Evil Empire and Good Kingdom - but again, you'd have to play for it not to be more of a spoiler.

FF12 suffers slightly from the lack of real character development - only Balthier, Ashe and Basch get any real development, and Vaan gets less - with the other 2 basically along for the ride. I don't particularly think this is too much of a sore spot, but also it'd have ended up more interesting to me if, say, there was more chances for the party to feel like a party.

The soundtrack is phenomenal and atmospheric, and most of the graphics still hold up despite the age of many of them - oh, and you're definitely going to want to toggle on English VA - it's completely exceptional and very widely liked.

great story and, at times misunderstood why vaan deserves to be the protagonist.

Some of if not the best world building in a Final Fantasy game and along with the gambits system some of the most fun to be had in a "turn based" RPG gameplay-wise.

All in all an amazing and impeccable experience.

Played it on the ps2 originally when i was very young and absolutely loved it, got it again on pc with the zodiac age upgrade and fell in love even more with it

I'm not normally one for JRPGs - this is the first Final Fantasy game I've seriously played that didn't charge me a subscription fee - so it was surprising to see how far I took this one, stopping just short of the final two optional superbosses. One of the first things that caught my attention was the realisation that unlike a lot of video games, I wasn't playing the story of a single protagonist, but rather, a much broader story of a moment in Ivalician history, presented through the trials and agencies of the six characters that make up the party. The game opens with a lengthy montage of military invasion, multiple royal deaths, betrayal and schemes. It's a lot, and there's a certain passion one needs to have for excessive fantasy worldbuilding to immediately get much out of it (I loved it, obviously)

With all of that swirling around, we sensibly draw back to Vaan and Penelo, passionate and principled, but powerless in the face of an imperial occupation of their home. From there, we have a stable grounding from which we can expand back out, capturing pirates and princesses, floating fortresses and resistances, until we're out of the footnotes and into the annals of history. An excellent balance is struck between the immensity of Ivalice's inter-imperial politics and the individual, personal story that acts as the immediate, played narrative. It all connects and coheres, without needing to hold back on introducing characters and locations. Even if it does, at times, feel like the events that are happening on screen are filling space between things that are actually important, and two of the three women in the party have very little to do or say about anything important, it's a remarkable progression that suits the game well

That progression, as with most RPGs, is at the heart of the game, but not in the way I expected. Here, the typically time-consuming and dull number scaling of experience points happens without input - you don't need input, because all of the interesting decisions are on the license boards, where you specialise your characters and find that satisfying synergy that makes building characters so entertaining. Since you (mostly) can't miss any license board upgrades, you're always building your characters up from a sensible baseline, and simple completion of the story has plenty of room for building inefficiently. It takes off a lot of the pressure that normally comes with such decision-making, and creates a wonderful, intrinsic incentive to pursue side content and see how well you do. Not only that, but the gear that you get from pursuing that side content, delving deeper into each of the story's dungeons, is often the best and most interesting in the game.

Which is where we come to my first big issue with this game, and a broader issue I find I have with the genre. As I've discovered in wiki-diving, there's a lot of gear that you'll simply never get, because it only has a slim chance to be obtained from an enemy you only have one chance to fight, or it has a slim chance of appearing in a room you have no reason to walk into more than once. I couldn't tell you what rare items I obtained, because I couldn't tell you if they were rare or not. From my perspective, I just opened a box. Any perceived rarity has nothing to do with what I actually experienced. I earned the gear, certainly, but who's to say what I never even knew I missed out on?

The same philosophy applies to the game's approach to much of its optional content, however. I did my best to take the game as it was, but if your curiosity is peaked by the promise of a new fight or area, there's a good chance you'll have to look up what you're supposed to do to actually get it. For example; there's an optional boss fight in a locked room hidden behind a puzzle, which you can open by getting a key by trading an item (that you got from an unrelated sidequest) to an NPC you've never heard of, who you can't see, in a corner an area that is nowhere near the locked door and you have no reason to revisit, much less thoroughly examine every corner.

I think the intent is that players learn about these things through methods other than just, like, playing the game. Maybe there was a time when hearing about a legendary sword at the peak of the Great Crystal was something significant, and being fortunate enough to find it was a story worth telling. Unfortunately, whether or not it's a fair criticism to put on the game, what that looks like now is just skimming any one of a number of guides available online. There's simply no other way to engage with, frankly, sizeable chunks of the game, even if you do want to take it at its terms. It's a frequent occurrence, and unsatisfying every time.

This method of obfuscation seems to me a very deeply held part of the genre. The nature of Final Fantasy XII is that it's always throwing you at new enemies, new problems to solve with your party of heroes, all without telling you exactly what you're in for. It's something of a double-edged sword; the downside is that every new problem is met with a brief period of experimentation, where you find out what exactly it is you're not allowed to do. So much of the challenge in the game centers on this; the more you delve into the game's Espers and Hunts, the more you encounter enemies who refuse to be Slowed, or Sheared, or affected by most any of the tools at your disposals. Some bosses enter lengthy phases of invulnerability, where you're left more or less standing around and waiting for them to finish. Of course, they have no trouble including enemies who cast spells that simply kills your entire active party as soon as you start the fight. It's often exasperating, and I can't help but wonder if there isn't - in a completely different game, mind - a better approach they could have considered.

The developers do need to do something to force players to change their strategies, though, otherwise we'd just find something that works and stick to that the entire game, which would be a tremendous waste. Developing a strategy in this game is an exercise in flexibility and improvisation, aided by the wonderful specialization of license boards and the frankly brilliant Gambit system. They're so pitch-perfect for this style of gameplay that I'm surprised to not have seen them elsewhere. All of the non-decisions of picking targets to attack, juggling obvious elemental advantages and healing are taken care of, leaving you to focus on the edge cases and complexity that actually make combat interesting. Between that and the generous, welcoming progression systems, it really does feel like developing a party of competent heroes, who have a place in a story of such scale.

There's other things to talk about, like how it's easily one of the most gorgeous games of that entire console generation, or the refreshing and inspired Ivalician aesthetic, or the wonderful blocking in the cutscenes, or how they really didn't have to make all the men in the game as hot as they did, or how fucking ICONIC Fran is, etc. I really wasn't expecting to find so much to love. It's mired in an often frustrating philosophy of obscurity that permeates every minute of actually playing the game, but without the pointless busywork of random battles and grinding, the worst moments are over quickly, and the moments of triumph feel like a direct result of careful planning, quick thinking and versatility.

A huge game that I’m not yet willing to put the full time into doing all the side activities as they’re pretty daunting. However, having completed the main story I very much enjoyed my time with FF12. The combat, whilst different, was personally enjoyable. Ashe, Balthier, Larsa, Cid and Fran were all really cool and interesting characters that I enjoyed learning more about. Basche’s story was also very touching, especially in the final act of the game.

I wish there were moments where the game took itself a bit less seriously (thank you Balthier for the levity you bring). Overall though, I felt the heart put into the game. As much as people might call it Star Wars, I think that’s just diminishing the effort that went into every aspect. I can’t deny similarities but by the end I was satisfied that this is its own story.

I feel similar towards this as I do to 5, and much like that game, I can see myself replaying this and trying something different.

Been sitting on this one for years, but finally played it. I'm glad I did, because while I don't have fond memories of the original, I really enjoyed my time with Zodiac Age. The secret to enjoying this game is removing Vaan from your party and pretending that nearly anyone else is the main character.

Joking aside, this game has a strong cast of characters, both heroes and villains. Sometimes the story falls a little flat and does a disservice to these characters, but overall it's a solid piece of storytelling.

The music is incredible with a good number of memorable themes. I feel the imperial theme is one of the strongest reasons people compare this game to Star Wars.

Combat is excellent and you're rewarded for how much work you put in. You can completely ignore the gambit system if you want, but I found it fun tweaking the system to get the best performance out of it. I did have a problem with the sheer amount of status effects the enemies loved to throw at the party, and the final area was more frustrating than enjoyable, but they made some great improvements over the original and this is well worth playing.

Right off the bat, I think I prefer FF9's characters more cuz I like the goofier vibe they have.
Regardless of that, this game's more serious tone really allows for some amazing interactions between the game's 3 best characters who are always in the party. The political side of this game is so interesting and I loved watching it unfold, seeing the ways in which the antagonist did their utmost to essentially save the world in their own way even if it involved so much bloodshed. Vaan is definitely not as good of a protag as Zidane and that's mostly cuz Vaan doesn't get as many moments to show off his character, but when he does it's great. Gameplay-wise, this game is an improvement over 9 in basically every way for me because I just LOVE building my own party using classes I can pick and customize, and as long as you're not stupid it's actually pretty easy to have an easy time in the game (minus those freaking Espers that're optional). Music is great, too, but it's obviously more cinematic and less about being a good standalone listening experience like FF9 was. I'd say I enjoyed this one as much as FF9, and it's a story I wanna revisit really badly cuz I wanna pay more attention to what it was showing me.
And yeah, it's a pretty great Star Wars movie