FFXII is a weird one - It's still one of the most fully realized FF worlds, with its brilliant artstyle, character designs, music, history, dialogue and wonderfully grounded tone. Yet for all these apparent strengths, it was also the point where a younger me had to begrudgingly accept that FF wasn't my go-to for great character stories anymore - because there simply isn't one. Nada. Nothing!
Where it really shines, especially in the Zodiac Age, is its mechanics - the heart of the game lies in the planning phase, the refining of a strategy until it's damn near perfect. It scratched a programming itch I didn't even know I had; hitting fast forward like a proud parent knowing that my team wouldn't need my help - their battles having already taken place in my mind's eye, the path to victory laid out before them by my own design.
"It plays itself" you might say - but hey, maybe once you've developed a good enough strategy to defeat a Sewer Rat you don't actually need to fight every single one manually to feel like you've achieved something, yeah? That puzzle is solved, you move onto a bigger one.
So yes, within this majestic and beautifully fleshed out world is a very dry, technical game that forgets to tell its own story - which makes it difficult to recommend to most people - but it's still one of my favourites. I can only dream of another attempt at the gambit system, fully unchained from the limitations of being a PS2 game... maybe an Ivalice game with some actual characters and a fully developed plot, while I'm still dreaming.
Where it really shines, especially in the Zodiac Age, is its mechanics - the heart of the game lies in the planning phase, the refining of a strategy until it's damn near perfect. It scratched a programming itch I didn't even know I had; hitting fast forward like a proud parent knowing that my team wouldn't need my help - their battles having already taken place in my mind's eye, the path to victory laid out before them by my own design.
"It plays itself" you might say - but hey, maybe once you've developed a good enough strategy to defeat a Sewer Rat you don't actually need to fight every single one manually to feel like you've achieved something, yeah? That puzzle is solved, you move onto a bigger one.
So yes, within this majestic and beautifully fleshed out world is a very dry, technical game that forgets to tell its own story - which makes it difficult to recommend to most people - but it's still one of my favourites. I can only dream of another attempt at the gambit system, fully unchained from the limitations of being a PS2 game... maybe an Ivalice game with some actual characters and a fully developed plot, while I'm still dreaming.