I've played this game for the first time since it was brand new, way back in 2006. So I'm actually considering it a first playthrough, as I had no recollection of the story.
However, I did have memories of one thing: the locations, which is one of the aspects Final Fantasy XII shines. We go through the familiar tropes: ruins, caverns, deserts, big-ass towers, fortresses... but each location and town feels full of life, organic, thanks to some really clever design choices like weather and the rare games: upon revisit, you'll find it's now raining, you may encounter a unique, much stronger monster you didn't encounter before. Makes the world feels living and pulsing (and turns the game into absolute RNG hell for completionists out there. I'm glad that's not me!).
That being said, dungeons can be needlessly large, and I recall getting fatigued playing the original release. Absolutely not the case with the remaster: thanks to a lovely fast forward feature, you can play the game at twice or even four times the speed, blazing through the terrain.
The art direction may be my favorite in the series, it's incredible how cohesive and fully realized it all is, but it might not be a fair comparison, as this game takes place in Ivalice, and it's hardly the first game to do so - the same kind of praise and observation goes for the world building.
And, while there's no doubt in my mind that this soundtrack is inferior to the Nobuo Uematsu's compositions of previous games, it's still strong, and each song matches perfectly with the mood and area, giving the game a grand feel and flair that kept impressing me until the end.
Then the most controversial aspect of the game: the story. It goes for a far, far different approach than any other FF - you could say most of the series is about the impact the characters have on the world, while FFXII is about the impact the world has on the characters. In a sense, the true main character here is Ivalice itself, as you spend dozens of hours with this party, while simultaneously barely spending time with them. There's little banter or interaction between them.
In a franchise that is very much character-centric in its stories like Final Fantasy, this game sticks out like a sore thumb - I didn't even mention Gabranth, a complete non-entity who the game pretends was a huge deal during the final hour or so.
At the same time, Basch, Balthier and Ashe feel realized (Ashe in particular felt strong), and Fran is okay in what the character sets out to do. It's truly unbelieavable how out of place both Vaan and Penelo feel however. While everyone else has clear motivations and goals, there's one scene where Balthier asks Vaan "what is it you want?", and Vaan legit answers "I don't know" - that's the writers talking to us, I think.
There is an attempt to make Vaan a mirror/foil to Ashe, but it comes across as very "last minute rewrite". Penelo, they don't even fucking try. Vaan tags along because he's bored, Penelo tags along because Vaan is going. It even feel uncomfortable watching the rest of the cast babysitting both of them and acting as if it's normal that they're journeying together.
This is particularly annoying because it's painfully easy to see how, with a couple of fairly easy and insignifcant rewrites, they could have Larsa and Vossler replacing them. Just genderswap Vossler to keep the 50/50 men-to-women ratio, and done you now have much better party.
So Vaan and Penelo are this ever-present shadow of "whyyy" hovering over the plot, but the story as a whole gets my thumbs up. I was pleasantly surprised by Vayne who, while not amazing by any means, fulfills well the role of "villain lurking in the background manipulating things" - faaaaar better than FFX's Seymour, who I always thought to be lame. Dialogue is strong and well-written, but ocasionally too flowery, getting in the way of comprehension. They do manage to convey solid scenes with very few words though, which I find commendable.
It ultimately sits on the tier of stories I personally enjoy, but have too obvious flaws for me to say are "good", being similar to FF13 in that regard actually. If Gabranth was more fleshed out and fully realized, if the Bahamut was properly setup and foreshadowed, if Vaan and Penelo didn't feel like such an afterthought, if the party actually interacted with each other... But alas, that is not the case.
I don't have much to say about the gameplay, just that I love the gameplay loop, the gambits, the whole thing, and the addition of jobs makes everything so much better. Apparently, the devs originally intended for the game to have jobs since the original, but they felt that having both that and gambits would be too overwhelming, and decided to make one License Board for the whole party - a decision they regretted immediately upon hearing player feedback.
However, I did have memories of one thing: the locations, which is one of the aspects Final Fantasy XII shines. We go through the familiar tropes: ruins, caverns, deserts, big-ass towers, fortresses... but each location and town feels full of life, organic, thanks to some really clever design choices like weather and the rare games: upon revisit, you'll find it's now raining, you may encounter a unique, much stronger monster you didn't encounter before. Makes the world feels living and pulsing (and turns the game into absolute RNG hell for completionists out there. I'm glad that's not me!).
That being said, dungeons can be needlessly large, and I recall getting fatigued playing the original release. Absolutely not the case with the remaster: thanks to a lovely fast forward feature, you can play the game at twice or even four times the speed, blazing through the terrain.
The art direction may be my favorite in the series, it's incredible how cohesive and fully realized it all is, but it might not be a fair comparison, as this game takes place in Ivalice, and it's hardly the first game to do so - the same kind of praise and observation goes for the world building.
And, while there's no doubt in my mind that this soundtrack is inferior to the Nobuo Uematsu's compositions of previous games, it's still strong, and each song matches perfectly with the mood and area, giving the game a grand feel and flair that kept impressing me until the end.
Then the most controversial aspect of the game: the story. It goes for a far, far different approach than any other FF - you could say most of the series is about the impact the characters have on the world, while FFXII is about the impact the world has on the characters. In a sense, the true main character here is Ivalice itself, as you spend dozens of hours with this party, while simultaneously barely spending time with them. There's little banter or interaction between them.
In a franchise that is very much character-centric in its stories like Final Fantasy, this game sticks out like a sore thumb - I didn't even mention Gabranth, a complete non-entity who the game pretends was a huge deal during the final hour or so.
At the same time, Basch, Balthier and Ashe feel realized (Ashe in particular felt strong), and Fran is okay in what the character sets out to do. It's truly unbelieavable how out of place both Vaan and Penelo feel however. While everyone else has clear motivations and goals, there's one scene where Balthier asks Vaan "what is it you want?", and Vaan legit answers "I don't know" - that's the writers talking to us, I think.
There is an attempt to make Vaan a mirror/foil to Ashe, but it comes across as very "last minute rewrite". Penelo, they don't even fucking try. Vaan tags along because he's bored, Penelo tags along because Vaan is going. It even feel uncomfortable watching the rest of the cast babysitting both of them and acting as if it's normal that they're journeying together.
This is particularly annoying because it's painfully easy to see how, with a couple of fairly easy and insignifcant rewrites, they could have Larsa and Vossler replacing them. Just genderswap Vossler to keep the 50/50 men-to-women ratio, and done you now have much better party.
So Vaan and Penelo are this ever-present shadow of "whyyy" hovering over the plot, but the story as a whole gets my thumbs up. I was pleasantly surprised by Vayne who, while not amazing by any means, fulfills well the role of "villain lurking in the background manipulating things" - faaaaar better than FFX's Seymour, who I always thought to be lame. Dialogue is strong and well-written, but ocasionally too flowery, getting in the way of comprehension. They do manage to convey solid scenes with very few words though, which I find commendable.
It ultimately sits on the tier of stories I personally enjoy, but have too obvious flaws for me to say are "good", being similar to FF13 in that regard actually. If Gabranth was more fleshed out and fully realized, if the Bahamut was properly setup and foreshadowed, if Vaan and Penelo didn't feel like such an afterthought, if the party actually interacted with each other... But alas, that is not the case.
I don't have much to say about the gameplay, just that I love the gameplay loop, the gambits, the whole thing, and the addition of jobs makes everything so much better. Apparently, the devs originally intended for the game to have jobs since the original, but they felt that having both that and gambits would be too overwhelming, and decided to make one License Board for the whole party - a decision they regretted immediately upon hearing player feedback.