Simply Amazing, so I guess change is good.
First of all, Square took a different approach with XII's story. Since Final Fantasy VII there has been an un-ignorable love filled understory, but that all has slid into an evanescent haze over the beautiful world of Ivalice. You find yourself (mainly) in control of a young boy in the city of Rabanastre, the sprawling metroplois that acts as capitol over the desert nation, Dalmasca. Meanwhile, to the north, the dark empire of Archadia is having unnerving disputes with the southern country of Rosaria. With Dalmasce between the two, Archadia begins to utilize the old aphorism: "the quickest route from point A to point B is a straight line." And with that, Dalmasca falls into the hands of the dark empire, most of which is fuelled by the aspirations of one Lord Vayne, next in line for the imperial throne. Vann is disgusted by the empire's stranglehold over his life, so he decides to break into the Rabanastre palace on the night of Vayne's banquet to make a fool of the man. A revolt quickly turns things sour as Vaan finds himself being chased by sky pirates who eventually offer their help. Together, Vaan and the pirates, Balthier and Fran, get caught up in the interests of several familiar faces, and a group of six friends must together rise from nothing, to the saviors of a nation. XII's story is a deep, intruiging, and long one. The game took me a good 70+ hours to complete (not excluding the hordes of sidequests). The game turns away from the old style of random friends saving the world, and takes more of a fate of nations approach. The best part of the story, however, is that you can feel the side of Archadia. There were in fact times that I thought the characters' actions were becoming a little too drastic. -Characters/Enemies-
Directly related to XII's story is its characters. The game keps the party small, which is a good thing. You feel a ral bond with you the six characters you trained up so high. Also, with voice acting, the characters are given deep personalities. The voices do sound weird at first, though (especially Fran's), but they do grow on you, and become just as natural as the annoying battle theme of Final Fantasy VI.
Sub characters play a big role as well. Infact, there are a handful of characters who join your party in the story, becoming a fourh party member, and then there are even more who join on some sidequests to bring the maximum number of characters in a party to five.
As for monsters, however, XII slightly disapoints. Because of the game's size, many of the monsters' forms are repeated over and over. The game still manages to execute great creature originality, though. -Gameplay-
The gameplay of XII is where the game truly shines, though. XII introduces a new gambit system that allows for total customization of characters you don't feel like controlling in the normal course of battle. You can set up everything from which type of enemies to use lightning attacks on, to how much hp you want your characters to have before your healer casts curaga on them. The gambit system requires quite a bit of strategy so your characters are doing what you want when you want, so the game calls for quite a bit of planning. Also, the gambit system works with the game in the sense that all six characters must be ready for battle because XII's bosses are harsh, and there is no chance of beating a majority of the later bosses with only one party. At any time in battle, as long as a character is not targeted by an enemy, you can switch out party members. This is even forced if a whole party of three are knocked out. The game takes this a step further by allowing you to even change equipment in the heat of battle.
The gambit system comes hand in hand with an all new, free-roaming battle system that allows you to choose which monsters you want to fight, and which ones you want to re-draw your route to avoid.
In addition to these changes, your character evolve in two ways. One, through normal experience and leveling. Two, through liscenses for new weapons, armor, and technicks/magicks. Everything from healing spells, to swords, to summons (espers), and limit breaks (quickenings) is available on the liscnese board. The board does require a huge amount of planning, however (much like Final Fantasy X's sphere grid). So much so that casual Final Fantasy players may find it much too frustrating to bother with. Finally, the limit break, or quickening, system and summoning, esper, systems are all new. For quickenings, your character and the targeted enemy enter a world were magic is made into big damage, and by pressing the correct buttons, you can bring other characters into this world and have them use similar attacks at the expense of their own MP. Similar to this are the espers. Using the lisncense board, you assign each esper to a specific character, and when summon, a certain amount of MP is consumed and the character and esper are alone in battle, and when certain conditions are met, the esper will se a quickening of its own. -Graphics-
The most advanced aspect of XII are its graphics. The custscenes are big-budget-film quality that make the game look like it belongs on the Playstation 3. As for in-game graphics, there are many environments where it is hard to tell the difference between gameplay and cutscene. -Music-
As for XII's music, fans can rest easy knowing that the classical music is back, this time lacking the synthesizer effects. XII's music does a great job capturing the games mood from the catchy, upbeat Rabanastre theme, to the haunting, but beautiful theme of Archadia. -Conclusion-
So, the overused creature models and confusing liscense are some downsides to XII, but they are quickly, easily, and surely washed away by a huge, interesting story, revolutionary gameplay, and graphics that rival the next generation.