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| Final Fantasy XII Review; Rating: 8/10 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 21 2009, 09:48 AM (446 Views) | |
| Fate | Oct 21 2009, 09:48 AM Post #1 |
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![]() Title: Final Fantasy XII Developer: Square Enix Publisher: Square Enix Platform: Playstation 2 Genre: Console Role-Playing Game Mode: Single-Player Release Dates: Japan: March 16, 2006 North America: October 31, 2006 PAL Region: February 23, 2007 International Version: August 9, 2007 Official Sites: | Japan | North America | Europe | Out of the main games in the Final Fantasy series, this is the twelve. Though many tend to dislike it, the game boasts a perfect 40/40 score from Famitsu. An International version was also later released as part of the Ivalice Alliance subseries, along with a sequel to the game: Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. Plot: Final Fantasy XII is set within the land of Ivalice, where swords and sorcery are commonplace. Ivalice is divided into three continents: Ordalia, Valendia, and Kerwon. The empire of Rozarria lies within Ordalia, while Archadia lies within the continent of Valendia. Caught in an endless conflict, these two empires wage war against each other. In the middle, the Dalmascan Empire has been subjugated. Main Characters: Vaan Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca Penelo Balthier Fran Basch fon Rosenburg Gameplay: Battle System: Final Fantasy XII was one of the rare Final Fantasy games that did not feature a turn-based battle system, nor random battles for that matter. Instead, it has a somewhat full-time one, though some waiting is required as well. Something called Gambits is also used, which I will get to next. Assuming there are no Gambits involved, you need to press the X button to bring up the attack menu. Here, you can select to attack, cast magic, use items, summon Espers, or use Quickenings. If enabled, a blue line will form from your controlled character to the targeted enemy; likewise, a red line will form from the enemy to the character that it is attacking as well. After the option is selected, a gauge will start to run on the bottom. Your character will not attack until the gauge reaches its end, and its speed depends on what you're doing. Gambits: Gambits are one of the most easily abused aspects of the game. Once you obtain them, you can set up to ten different Gambits. What they are is preset commands in battle. For example, if you have a Gambit that is Enemy = Closest > Attack, your character will always attack the closest enemy, regardless of whether or not you actually told them to do so in the attack menu or not. If they have a Gambit that is Hp > 50% > Curaja, they will cast Curaja whenever their HP reaches below the fifty percent mark. Whatever Gambit is first in the list will be the primary one. If a Gambit to attack is before a Gambit to heal, then the character will not heal as long as there are enemies to attack. Using Gambits, you can leave the controller unaccompanied and still have your characters fight; you'd still need to do the moving, though. They can also be turned on or off. License Board: Another unique aspect of the game is the License Board. Accessible via the main menu, this determines what weapons, armors, abilities, summons, and so forth that the character can equip or use. On the License Board, there are, as you would guess, licenses. These have a number on them, which signifies the amount of License Points that you need to unlock it. License Points, or LP, are rewarded after you defeat enemies. Not all licenses are shown in the first place, but if you unlock a license panel, all adjacent panels will also be shown; you still have to actually unlock them with License Points, though. Something else is that you need a corresponding license of a weapon or magic to equip or use it. If you have a Mythril Sword but not the license for it, you will not be able to equip it; the opposite is also true, so if you have the license to equip a Mythril Sword but no Mythril Sword itself, you will also not be able to equip it. Quickenings and Espers are also located on License Boards, and once one character obtains it, that panel is eliminated from all other characters' License Boards. Quickenings: Located on the license Board for fifty License Points each, there are a total of eighteen Quickening panels. However, each character only has access to three, and as stated above, once one character obtains a Quickening panel, it disappears from the other five. Obtaining Quickenings will raise the character's MP, up to three Mist bars. Though that isn't what it's mainly for. To use Quickenings in battle, you need to select it from the attack menu under the Mist command. Each character has three different Quickening attacks, with the first taking up one Mist bar, the second using two, and the third depleted all of their MP. But as you would have guessed, the more costly they are, the more damaging they are. Once you use a Quickening, your character will enter a separate screen where only they attack. If either or both of the other characters in your party of three have Quickenings, they will also join. Some commands will appear, and your job is to press them to use more Quickenings. Each character will have a different button assigned to them, and you can shuffle around with the R button to make them show up. If you perform enough level one, two, or three Quickenings in one go, you can also activate a bonus attack in the end, which is quite damaging and automatic. Espers: Later on in the game, you will also have the option of using Espers in battle, magical creatures who fight alongside you. Once you defeat an Esper in the game, they will become a panel on your License Board. Like with Quickenings, only one character may obtain any given Esper. Also like the Quickenings, they have level one ranks, level two ranks, and level three ranks, which cost the same as well. Once an Esper is called forth, the other two characters will disappear from the battle, with the Esper replacing them. They also have their own Gambits and will follow them. Located on the bottom is another gauge. When this one runs out, the Esper will disappear and your other two characters will reappear. This will also happen if either you or the Esper loses all HP. All Espers also have a deathblow, a powerful final attack, which they will usually initiate right before they go away, but others need certain requirements to be fulfilled before they perform theirs. Bazaar: Item Creation is not a possibility in Final Fantasy XII. However, trading items is. Every shop will have a Bazaar option, which is filled with some of the rarest equipments in the game. You need to unlock them first to view their ingredients. Once you do, you need to gather the ingredients themselves. These are called Loot, and they are found by defeated certain enemies. Once all the required Loot is collected, you only need to buy the Bazaar item at the cost of trading all your Loot and handing over a sum of Gil, the game's currency. Hunts: Hunts are the equivalent of missions in other games. You can accept these as you see fit. Once you do, you have to speak to the person who posted the request to know the target. They will send you to a variety of different places, and your goal is always to eliminate a powerful enemy. These enemies will not appear in the game, ever, until you accept their Hunt. When the boss is taken care of, they will usually drop a lot of License Points, and when you return to the requester, they will give you some sort of reward. Ratings: Overall Gameplay: I find it strange that a lot of people disliked the battle system of Final Fantasy XII. As a fan of full-time battle systems more than turn-based ones, I favored this one a lot. Though, I was not a huge fan of the running gauge that had to fill up before your characters actually perform the attack. Sometimes, if your attack is too slow, you will be killed before you can move again or attack. But other than that, I loved everything about it. I thought the Loot part was fun, the License Board provided a good enough challenge for an easy game, and the rest is memorable. Rating: 8/10 Plot: The plot was good, in my opinion. It was nothing too significant, but it had a point. Though it is a bit debatable of who the main character actually was, and some parts were a bit confusing. But other than that, I liked the plot of revenge. These tend to have a lot of unexpected twists of events. It wasn't perfect, but it was certainly all right and decent enough. Rating: 8/10 Graphics: When I first played the game, I marveled at the graphics. I thought that for a Playstation 2 game, it was beautiful. Objects and characters look like a picture taken from real life, and some of the cutscenes are very impressive. Some parts might stagger a bit, though, but that's hardly noticeable. Rating: 9/10 Music and Soundtrack: To be honest, the music from the game isn't exactly cheerful and filled with glee as some games might have. I guess the war atmosphere of the game took its place. But really, they had some good soundtracks. Most of them are pretty suspenseful, though, almost like it was from a horror film. Rating: 7/10 Replay Value: To acquire everything in this game takes an awfully long time, especially gathering Loot for the rare weapons, as well as finishing Hunts. But it is definitely worth playing a second or third time. Something a lot of people miss is the most powerful weapon in the game, so that was another reason why most people replayed it: to obtain the weapon. Some also try to challenge the game by having all characters at the lowest possible level, since the game was so easy. Other people like me also want to watch the cutscenes and read the dialogue again to fully understand the plot of the game. Rating: 8/10 Final Rating: 8/10 Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to post any comments on the review or the game in general. |
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| Fayt | Oct 21 2009, 09:41 PM Post #2 |
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Easy wins have never been my style
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Very good and detailed review, nice work Fate!I think you answered your question, it's essentially a contradictory battle system. It's action, but your still waiting for the gauge to fill before you can act. It missed the boat trying to get an ideal blend, Valkyrie Profile 2 has a way better blend of action/turn based imo. And just like you said, as good as Gambits were they were just pure abuse in the end, you are walking around in a semi-automatic game. The true challenge of FF battles seems to have gone missing. I can recall some truly epic battles from FFVII to FFX-2, but as a result of this battle system I can't here. Anyway, FFXII is clearly not one of my personal favs.
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| Rally | Oct 22 2009, 02:59 AM Post #3 |
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Are you high!?
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Actually, with the Active Dimension system, in battle, FFXII cannot be called an action game. As long as actions require time to execute, it remains a turn-based system. Although guised(?) well, that's what it is. A gripe I had with the game personally, involving the story, was the villain really sucked. I mean, really. He's just not that interesting of a villain, Vayne. And I feel Vaan(I just realized... Vaan and Vayne... o_O) had little to no personality anyway. He only really got started as a character near the end, but by then it was too late. Regardless, great review Fate!
Edited by Rally, Oct 22 2009, 03:00 AM.
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| Kylecake | Oct 22 2009, 05:25 AM Post #4 |
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~Galuf's flame has flickered out...~
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I'm sorry to say Fate but I didn't enjoy twelve, as I have told you before. I think that it's a little lacking in things and the battle system was god awful... I think that I would place it at the bottom of my Final Fantasy list, I might even go a step further by saying that FF7 is above it. (Remember this is my personal opinion.) I'm not saying it's a monstrosity but I would rate it 6/10 or 22/40 because the graphics and the music was excellent, the storyline wasn't bad but it could of been a LOT better. I guess the real problem was that horrid battle system which really effects the gameplay and the Re-play value. I go back to every single Final Fantasy game each year to have a play on them except this one... It's a shame I suppose. |
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| Gumdrop | Apr 23 2010, 07:41 PM Post #5 |
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Cute Snugglepuffs
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I love to meet other who liked XII! Too many hate this game just becuase the battle system and that bugs me no end as personally I play RPG for the story not the battle system >_>' I thought I wouldn't like the battle system becuase it sounded bad on paper but actually took no issue with it in the end. I actually prefer it to XIII's which everybody seems to love + its good that they tried something very different. As for it being hard to tell who the main character is this isn't surprising really since Basch was originally going to be the main character but they changed it at the last minuet deciding that actually younger players would find it easier to relate to a younger hero. Personally I see Ashe and Vann as kinda sharing the spot for main character. I guess if I had to pick then I would say Vann though. I like this new thing they seem to have of not having one obvious main character though becuase I don't see why there should be one in these games since their all equally in it together :p |
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