Final Fantasy 12 attempts to be revolutionary, but falls on its face with MMORPG-like gameplay, without the MMORPG.
The storyline to Final Fantasy 12 is probably the best we've seen since Final Fantasy 7. For quite some time now, the series seems to have been hung up on trying to create love stories that are as important or more important than the rest of the storyline. Final Fantasy 12 mostly ignores the love story aspects of the story, instead focusing on the important thing: stopping your opponents. The story overall focuses more on political maneuvering and operatic battle scenes along with smaller-scale rivalries. The graphics are top-notch; each dungeon or town has a different feel to it and is detailed, it's obvious quite a bit of time was spent creating them. This is one of the games that really pushes the PS2's hardware and it shows, particularly in the well-rendered cutscenes. The only complaint I have is here is that many of the outdoor areas look the same, which can make adventuring in the outdoors a little blah. Fortunately, outdoor areas are usually only put in as a way for getting from point A to point B.
The sound is of solid quality, sound effects sound exactly like what you would expect and the voice acting is generally well done; though in the first parts of the game the voice actors seem to have a Shatner-like tendency to pause a bit too long, making their conversations seem awkward
The value of the game can be very high for those who enjoy the battle system, as there are many monster marks to find and fight as well as a variety of side quests to follow.
Unfortunately, I didn't find the gameplay terribly interesting. While it may be a first for a single-player RPG, the gameplay of Final Fantasy 12 is essentially the same as MMORPGs, and it's not terribly complex either. First off, random battles no longer take place, you'll see an opponent when on a battle map, and then can choose to take a variety actions against them, or to aid your fellow party members. You can have three of the six total characters in your party at one time, and unlike previous Final Fantasy games, if your party of characters all fall, you can get have the other three heroes jump in to resurrect the other character or finish the battle themselves (or both).
You have a basic attack ability, where you attack with whatever weapon in hand, magic filled with your standard array of attack, boosting and healing spells, techniques (which are various special abilities that don't cost mana) , Mist abilities (which I'll get to in a moment) and you can use items in battle. You can also flee (in real time) by holding down the R1 button and running from your opponents. With the exception of quickenings and summonings, all actions take a certain amount of time to charge up before they are done; the time it takes for an action to charge up depends on the character's speed and the speed of the action.
After defeating an enemy, you'll get experience points and license points, experience points level up the character after you acquire enough of them; new levels give you stat bonuses just like other Final Fantasy games. License points are used to unlock licenses, which are required for you to use anything from weapons and armor to magic to quickenings; unlocking licenses can also give you bonuses like extra hitpoints or extra health or mana from healing items. As you unlock licenses, new licenses become available to you and there are usually multiple ways to get to a license. Ultimately, I felt like the license system was kind of pointless, as I generally was able to acquire enough license points to get whatever I wanted and I then some.
Mist abilities are divided into two types of attacks, Quickenings and summonings, which are performed immediately, and temporarily pause the action until they are completed; unlike other Final Fantasy games Mist abilities use up mana and in large quantities, In Final Fantasy 12, summons summon a creature to the battlefield, sending all friendly characters but the summoner away. The creature is only around for a short time, and if the summoner is knocked out then the creature is unsummoned. In order to be able to unlock a summon ability, you have to defeat the creature in combat first, some of these creatures are in the main game and some are only found through side quests.
Quickenings are special attacks executed by the characters; similar to Limit Breaks and the various other special attacks from other Final Fantasy games. The main difference is that these attacks can be strung together in combo with both the character themself and other characters in the party; the longer the chain of hits the more powerful the attack is overall. These combos are constructed by hitting buttons at the right time before time runs out while one character is executing an attack.
Ultimately however, you'll find that you'll be using your basic attack and healing spells again and again and again until you're sick of them. There's little point in using much else until you get to a boss fight, most enemies will fall to these attacks swiftly. Summonings are fairly useless about an hour after you get the first one as well; a summoned creature with a summoner will quickly find themselves outnumbered against mobs of creatures and will usually be brought down by anything that the normal group couldn't handle in short order. If you're lucky, they'll get off their most powerful attack (which they only perform when low on hitpoints or when their summon time is about to run out). Ultimately, there's not much strategy in the fighting here, just a long, long grind to the end of the game. Even in boss fights, generally you'll just smack on the boss long enough to get them down to about a third of their health and then finish them with a Quickening chain (when a boss monster's health is low, they gain stat boosts).
Ultimately, Final Fantasy 12 could have been much, much more, but as it stands it plays like an MMORPG without the social aspects that make an MMORPG interesting; and that's a damn shame. If you absolutely love MMORPGs and you love Final Fantasy 12, then this game is for you. Everyone else should probably spend their money elsewhere; Final Fantasy fans should wait for the next Final Fantasy should probably wait for Final Fantasy 13 to hit shelves and see what it's like, rather than pick this up.