Gambit. System. Is. Amazing. Being able to program your party AI with preset if statements and watching it play out on auto was so much fun, and made tweaking the system really rewarding. The single player MMO style gameplay reminds me a lot of Xenoblade (which I suspect was inspired by this), and it's really fun, I really love the amount of freedom you're given to go off the beaten path and explore areas well out of your league. Challenge-wise this game surprised me, ending up being one of the most difficult Final Fantasy games, and you really have to plan your strategies for certain bosses carefully or your party will get absolutely sweeped. Hunts provide even greater challenges, and to my surprise I ended up doing almost all of them aside from a few endgame superbosses (Yiazmat someday).
Area and dungeon design facilitates the gameplay well, and there's some pretty cryptic puzzles in dungeons that require you to put a lot of thought into (though some go a little too far). I did think some dungeons went on a bit long for what they were, and the great crystal dungeon was designed by a maniac attempting to out-FF3 at its own game of sadistic dungeon design, but overall I liked them a lot and some grew on me more than I expected (such as the tower).
I'd be lying if I said this was my introduction to Ivalice—I've played a bit of Tactics and found its world excellent, despite the gameplay putting me off—but I still wasn't prepared for how interesting the world building would be here. It feels inspired by traditional high fantasy, where there is so much more going on in this massive world with its rich cultures and history, that the journey your characters face feels more like a tour that barely scrapes the surface of it all, rather than the central driving force. This is enhanced by the amount of NPCs with interesting, refreshing dialogue, many of which are deigned worthy of names (a rarity for this series). I only wish this had an in-game glossary like FF13/16 so I could dig even deeper into discovering the histories of the areas and their cultures.
The music had me a little unsure going in, as out of context I'd always found FF12's soundtrack to be more forgettable than other FF games. However in context I was a lot more impressed, and they did a really great job at setting the atmosphere for the game. Visuals were a similar case—it looked bland to me in screenshots/videos, but playing the game for myself left a much stronger impression.
STORY SPOILERS START HERE
I don't usually leave this part for last, and that's because unfortunately... the story and cast here feel like an afterthought, which is really odd for this series. Things start off strong when you're getting introduced to each character one by one and plunged into a tale of political intrigue, and Vaan gets a fairly nice arc that solidifies him as the protagonist (for now...). Balthier, Fran, Basch and Asch all have interesting premises, and I was really looking forward to seeing their individual journeys. Penelo wasn't immediately interesting, but hey, surely she'll get more later?
So everything goes nicely enough, right up until the Leviathan gets destroyed and the party makes their escape. After that, there's no immediate change in the storytelling quality. Instead, it just... kinda stops. Cutscenes rapidly become more and more sparse, characters feel less like people and more tools for gameplay, and the political story is mostly shoved in the background while we focus on gathering the macguffins of the ancient king or whatever. It says a lot that I can't even remember the reason why we were doing that. I think the last scene of note I can remember for a large swath of the game is the Fran age joke—which is absolute comedy gold—and I guess the destruction of that pilgrim city we barely got to see. Then... nothing really happens until we get to Archadia, in which we finally confront Cid... or so you'd hope! No, instead we're led on a wild goose chase by him, go here and there, and I guess eventually confront him in that tower dungeon for a pretty lame conclusion. His motives are undercooked as hell and they don't do much of anything for his relationship with Balthier. Vayne and Gabranth aren't much better—they both feel like characters that should have had more of a presence throughout the story, but instead are relegated to minimal screen time until we need to kill them off. I feel like Vayne probably could have been an interesting villain, a dictator who believes he's correct and wishes to free humanity from the thumb of divinity in an ends justify the means manner, so it's a shame he's hardly memorable as the story is now.
Oh and after a point, they pretty much give up on pretending Vaan is the protagonist. Asch drives the plot 100% from the moment she joins the party, and any attempt to put Vaan at the forefront of certain scenes to remind us he's supposed to be the protagonist is laughable, especially when Asch is the only one getting any character development by the end of the game. Basch, Balthier and Fran are still neat but... they're kind of just tagging along, and don't have much to say. Don't get me started on how quickly they give up on poor Penelo.
What really made me sad was Larsa, who starts off as a super cool side character with an interesting role in the plot, but then vanishes for an absolutely massive section of the game after his kidnapping, only making a reappearance in the finale. The conflict in his family, along with his role as the only idealist who truly desires peace with no ulterior motives, really felt like it should've played a greater role in the majority of the story.
STORY SPOILERS END HERE
All in all, while I really got addicted to the battle system and enjoyed the general vibes of the game, it's a shame the story and characters feel like such an afterthought to the overall experience. I do feel bad for Matsuno, as it's pretty clear he was nowhere close to realising his vision with the game, and I can't imagine making Vaan the protagonist was his decision. FF12 is a good game that feels like it should've been so much more, and even with the significant QoL improvements of the Zodiac Age version, the overall potential is still so far away from what we have.
Area and dungeon design facilitates the gameplay well, and there's some pretty cryptic puzzles in dungeons that require you to put a lot of thought into (though some go a little too far). I did think some dungeons went on a bit long for what they were, and the great crystal dungeon was designed by a maniac attempting to out-FF3 at its own game of sadistic dungeon design, but overall I liked them a lot and some grew on me more than I expected (such as the tower).
I'd be lying if I said this was my introduction to Ivalice—I've played a bit of Tactics and found its world excellent, despite the gameplay putting me off—but I still wasn't prepared for how interesting the world building would be here. It feels inspired by traditional high fantasy, where there is so much more going on in this massive world with its rich cultures and history, that the journey your characters face feels more like a tour that barely scrapes the surface of it all, rather than the central driving force. This is enhanced by the amount of NPCs with interesting, refreshing dialogue, many of which are deigned worthy of names (a rarity for this series). I only wish this had an in-game glossary like FF13/16 so I could dig even deeper into discovering the histories of the areas and their cultures.
The music had me a little unsure going in, as out of context I'd always found FF12's soundtrack to be more forgettable than other FF games. However in context I was a lot more impressed, and they did a really great job at setting the atmosphere for the game. Visuals were a similar case—it looked bland to me in screenshots/videos, but playing the game for myself left a much stronger impression.
STORY SPOILERS START HERE
I don't usually leave this part for last, and that's because unfortunately... the story and cast here feel like an afterthought, which is really odd for this series. Things start off strong when you're getting introduced to each character one by one and plunged into a tale of political intrigue, and Vaan gets a fairly nice arc that solidifies him as the protagonist (for now...). Balthier, Fran, Basch and Asch all have interesting premises, and I was really looking forward to seeing their individual journeys. Penelo wasn't immediately interesting, but hey, surely she'll get more later?
So everything goes nicely enough, right up until the Leviathan gets destroyed and the party makes their escape. After that, there's no immediate change in the storytelling quality. Instead, it just... kinda stops. Cutscenes rapidly become more and more sparse, characters feel less like people and more tools for gameplay, and the political story is mostly shoved in the background while we focus on gathering the macguffins of the ancient king or whatever. It says a lot that I can't even remember the reason why we were doing that. I think the last scene of note I can remember for a large swath of the game is the Fran age joke—which is absolute comedy gold—and I guess the destruction of that pilgrim city we barely got to see. Then... nothing really happens until we get to Archadia, in which we finally confront Cid... or so you'd hope! No, instead we're led on a wild goose chase by him, go here and there, and I guess eventually confront him in that tower dungeon for a pretty lame conclusion. His motives are undercooked as hell and they don't do much of anything for his relationship with Balthier. Vayne and Gabranth aren't much better—they both feel like characters that should have had more of a presence throughout the story, but instead are relegated to minimal screen time until we need to kill them off. I feel like Vayne probably could have been an interesting villain, a dictator who believes he's correct and wishes to free humanity from the thumb of divinity in an ends justify the means manner, so it's a shame he's hardly memorable as the story is now.
Oh and after a point, they pretty much give up on pretending Vaan is the protagonist. Asch drives the plot 100% from the moment she joins the party, and any attempt to put Vaan at the forefront of certain scenes to remind us he's supposed to be the protagonist is laughable, especially when Asch is the only one getting any character development by the end of the game. Basch, Balthier and Fran are still neat but... they're kind of just tagging along, and don't have much to say. Don't get me started on how quickly they give up on poor Penelo.
What really made me sad was Larsa, who starts off as a super cool side character with an interesting role in the plot, but then vanishes for an absolutely massive section of the game after his kidnapping, only making a reappearance in the finale. The conflict in his family, along with his role as the only idealist who truly desires peace with no ulterior motives, really felt like it should've played a greater role in the majority of the story.
STORY SPOILERS END HERE
All in all, while I really got addicted to the battle system and enjoyed the general vibes of the game, it's a shame the story and characters feel like such an afterthought to the overall experience. I do feel bad for Matsuno, as it's pretty clear he was nowhere close to realising his vision with the game, and I can't imagine making Vaan the protagonist was his decision. FF12 is a good game that feels like it should've been so much more, and even with the significant QoL improvements of the Zodiac Age version, the overall potential is still so far away from what we have.