The long awaited return of Final Fantasy removes the worst aspects of the series and the genre, while improving the best
Another new innovation is the Gambit system. The Gambit system allows the gamer to automate almost anything you want, making repeated commands...well, not repetitive. All Gambits include a "condition" to be met (for example, ally's HP is below 40% of their maximum) and an "action" that will occur if that condition is met, such as, cast Cura, a healing spell. The player can purchase these "conditions" from stores or find them as treasure. The "actions" are simply limited by what skills your party is capable as of the moment. WIth a little creativity, the player can come up with very tactical gambits such as to cast Firaga on the enemy if it is weak to fire, or Attack the enemy with the lowest HP first. In addition, Gambits can be prioritized, meaning you can choose use to use your healing Gambit before your Attack gambit, or use your reviving Gambit before triggering the healing Gambit. Some may think that Gambits basically take the fun out of the battle, but in fact you'll be surprised to know that the battles are more entertaining since you can focus on doing what you want to do, instead of worrying about "chores" like healing or removing status effects. Nevertheless, once you learn how to use Gambits to your advantage, you will wish RPGs had Gambits a long time ago.
The character developement in Final Fantasy XII is handled by the License Board. Similar, yet vastly different to the Sphere Grid of Final Fantasy X, the License Board is the first time in Final Fantasy in which you can fully customize every character and truly "role-play". The License Board is a grid filled with Licenses, which is the idea that all equipment and skills can only equipped or used, respectively, if you are licensed to use it. Obtaining licenses cost License points (LP) earned from defeating monsters. Once a license is obtained, the surrounding licenses become visible for future planning. Using the License Board, you can give one character Licenses for Heavy Armor and Greatswords to create a "tank". Or you could give another character Licenses for Mystic Armor, Staves, and White Magick to create the classic White Mage. Everything from weapons, armor, accessories, magicks, technicks, summons, and even the limit breaks are obtained through the License Board. Note that even if a player has bought a spell or weapon, he or she cannot use it until they have acquired the License for it.
A few of the minor changes are summoning and limit breaks. The limit breaks are called Quickenings, and rightfully so. Each character can obtain upto 3 Quickenings from the License Board. Using Quickenings require Mist Charges, which are basically divisions of your MP. A Level 3 Quickening requires your entire MP, while a Level 2 Quickening only requires 2/3 of it. Fortunately, acquiring your 2nd and 3rd Quickenings effectively double and triple your MP, respectively. Once you select to use a Quickening, an animation will show during which you have the ability to chain Quickenings with your allies. Chaining becomes more and more difficult as the chain length increases. Chaining not only increases damage drastically, but can trigger Concurrences, powerful finishing attacks. At first, Quickenings seem to be overly too powerful but soon enough the bosses start have very high HP, and wasting tons of MP on Quickenings is not reasonable, especially since the best Concurrences require lots of luck and speedy reflexes. Yet, the player has the choice to adjust the difficulty of the game, by choosing when to unlock each Quickening.
Summons are called Espers (a nod to Final Fantasy VI) and they can only be obtained once you defeat them in combat. Most of the Espers are obtained through challenging sidequests. Only one character can obtain an Esper's License and thus summon it. Yet, there is no limit to the number of Espers a character obtains. However, one can access the Party Menu and switch characters at will, therefore all Espers are accessible at any given time. Summoning an Esper requires Mist Charges, just like Quickenings. Once summoned, only the Summoner remains in the battlefield. The Esper and the summoner continue to battle until either the Esper is dismissed, killed, or 90 seconds are up. All the Espers have Gambits of their own, so most of them require certain conditions to bet met in order to unleash their ultimate attack. The major sidequest in FFXII is bounty hunting. These monsters provide the real challenge of the game and the bounties can be highly rewarding. This sidequest takes up a tremendous chunk of the game's time and keeps the player quite busy. Smaller personal sidequests can be found by visiting and speaking with everyone. Yet, bounty hunting is probably the most entertaining and challenging of the Final Fantasy sidequests.
Sticking to its revolutionary nature, the plot style diverges from the stereotypical characters, cliched themes, and predictable events that plagued most games of this franchise. The world is Ivalice, where 2 empires: Archadia and Rozarria are at odds. The game begins with the marriage of Lord Rasler of Nabradia and Princess Ashelia of Dalmasca, who are being married both out of love and to unite their two kingdoms. Unfortunately, the Archadia's push to control all terroriories toward Rozarria includes Nabradia and Dalmasca. The cost of the invasions result in a drastic chain of events for many people, but only 6 of which you control. The game doesn't linger on a single character, or in fact on any character, as the plot is event-driven, rather than forced by the past histories, intentions, and actions of each of the characters. Yet, they all have one shared goal: overthrowing the Archadian Empire. But things get complicated as the plot takes twists and turns, revealing the true nature of the events at hand. The plot is filled with intrigue and politics, with a fair share of deceit, blackmail, assassinations, betrayal and other unpleasant events. The story style mimics the dark, brooding, yet very focused nature of Final Fantasy Tactics, still it provides something new altogether. In the end, the plot is highly rewarding because it takes itself seriously, but it is directed professionally in order to be more gripping and rivetting than the predictable fare from the most games in this genre.
The visuals in this game are truly unparalleled for a 6th generation console. Rivaling the dazzling graphics of games like Metal Gear Solid 3 and Resident Evil 4, the art style is a vast change from Final Fantasy X. Instead of a futuristic netherworld, FFXII brings back the medieval mix of magic and technology that Final Fantasy VI so boldly introduced. For the first time in a Final Fantasy, there is a fully rotatable and zoomable camera. In addition, the cities and dungeons are fully explorable, without any prerendered regions. The game has variety of panoramic landscapes, from the mountainous Mosphoran Highwaste to the decrepid Nabreus Deadlands to the vast Ozmone Plains. Many areas include unique weather effects such as heavy sandstorms, rainstorms, or snowstorms, each of which provide habitats for the game's most unique monsters. FFXII has decreased the number of polygons from Final Fantasy X by half yet vastly increased the depth and quality of the textures of the characters and settings. This results in detailed faces, bodies and clothing; gigantic lifelike cities that reach to the sky; vegetated forests filled with vines and flowers; and fog that really does play tricks with your mind. Yet this also results in the CGI movie characters to be less impressive than that seen in Final Fantasy X. Nevertheles, the facial expressions are jawdropping and provide a rich addition to emotions. The draw distance is spectacular, allowing monsters, objects and landmarks that are far away to be visible. The game includes a "flicker filter" which reduces the flickering that often plagues games. In addition, the game supports widescreen. As expected from a Final Fantasy game, FFXII lives and exceeds all graphical potentials of its innate console. The music is majestic, but definitely not the best in the franchise. Even with Nobuo Ueumatsu gone from the composer's chair, the music is just as fitting with Hitoshi Sakimoto (renowned for Final Fantasy Tactics) in the driver's seat. The music in the cities sound appropriate to the grandeur and regal nature, while scores in the darkest of dungeons are spine-tingling and subtle. Nevertheless, not many of the tracks are really "catchy" and therefore doesn't compel you much to purchase the OST. On the other hand, the sound in FFXII is phenomenal. The voice acting is is simply perfect. Perhaps with the largest range of dialects, accents, and voices full of emotion, Final Fantasy XII does not hold back when it comes to well-written dialogue being annunciated well by talented actors. While running around with your allies who wear armor, you can hear the individual "clacking" sounds of each one's armor. The characters during battles have a range of exclamations and phrases as they deal damage, take damage, or alas fall during combat. The game supports fully surround sound in Dolby Pro Logic II, so having a good setup is worth the effort. FFXII has probably the largest learning curve of the franchise. This is mainly to get adjusted to the Gambit, License Board, and battle system. In addition, the game itself is quite noticeably more difficult than the rest of the franchise. Another note is that FFXII has an remarkably large focus on gameplay, as fully completing the game can take almost 3-4 times longer than just finishing the story. A few (very few) things fall short in FFXII. First is the randomization of treasure chests. In FFXII, there is a certain probability that a treasure chest actually appears where it is supposed to appear, and then you have to be lucky to either get gil, a common item, or a rare item. This is at first a fine idea, but most of the time the player ends up receiving a tiny amount of gil or just some useless item instead of the rare item they expected. The only way to reset these chests are by reloading or moving away a couple of screens and returning. One is the camera oddly rotates in the opposite direction that most people are accustomed to. Yet this hinderance is overcome within a few hours of gameplay. Some people may be annoyed by the "sheathing-unsheathing" of weapons when a monster approches the party's vicinity. The just "on-par" music may disappoint some FF fans as well. There isn't much replay value at all, since the game itself takes a long time to complete, although this isn't surprising for most RPGs. There will obviously be a lot of controversy with the purists and "old-school gamers" over the revolutionary aspects of the game. For example, most FF gamers are used to a plot that is character-centric, rather than event-driven. Yet most people, including a former-stubborn purist like me, have been convinced that FFXII has opened up the right doors for the franchise's future success.
I've been waiting for a game that takes the best of RPGs and improves it and removes the obsolete and annoying aspects as well. The Final Fantasy franchise has been a roller coaster for the last 2 decades: many were disappointed and turned off by Final Fantasy X and its inferior sequel, while others were dying for a game like Final Fantasy VI and Tactics again. Nevertheless, this game fully lives up to and exceeds the title of "Final Fantasy". and it will be hailed as many great things, but mostly known as one of the best RPGs ever made.