"Shakespearian Script Meets Old-school RPG Style."

Pros:
-Voice Acting is top-notch
-Excellent voiced and written scripts
-Artistic direction is conceptually realistic
-Innovative game-play
-Boss battles are the most fun of any recently released RPG
-Strong exploration element; Ivalice feels genuinely vast and diverse
-A solid cast of characters... no character has a grating or inconsistent persona
-The best end-game sequence of any FF

Cons:
-Story pacing could have been more consistent
-Developers missed opportunities to enhance character interaction
-Esper, Quickening, and License Board concepts could have used improvement
-While still beautiful, the game suffers from looking and sounding like an RPG intended for release in 2004
-Some requisite storyline side-quests feel poorly done or half-baked

Introduction:
Having been a long-time advocate of Final Fantasy, I was excited to see a fresh perspective on the old-school style of game-play for this current installation. Final Fantasy 12 shifts the focus away from story- and character-driven dramatics, and back onto pure game-play. That's not to say that FF12 is story-poor or that the characters are dearth of any development. However, after a dozen hours of game-time, one can tell that the challenge of battle and the excitement of exploration is the focus of this particular Final Fantasy. This was a refreshing change of pace. So while, in FF12, I missed the almost "spiritual" story-telling of FF7, or the strong pseudo-bond I developed with characters in FF10, these failings were compensated for by the introduction of a fun, new fighting mechanic, a challenge that made almost every significant battle victory feel like an accomplishment, and a worthwhile exploration dynamic that you rarely experience in an RPG anymore.

***Aspect Summary***
Gameplay: (9/10)
This is the single greatest area of polarity for FF12. On one hand, the innovations with respect to the overall design of the battle and exploration system are highly innovative and a tremendous boon due to the reduction of "dead time" associated with battle loading. Also, many mundane actions, such as switching to a separate menu to cure or heal or remedy status, have been virtually eliminated. Moreover, despite my initial doubts, gambits work surprisingly well, giving you just enough strategic command to seriously lighten your burden and remove tedium, but never so much such as to feel like you are watching the game, rather than playing it. Simply put, the nature of these innovations had to happen to the FF series sooner or later, and FF12's directors chose a good overarching direction to proceed in.

On the other hand, the classic FF game-play mechanics and conventions involving summoning, limit breaks, and character customization, manifested in FF12 in the form of Espers, Quickenings, and the License Board, have all been done better in past Final Fantasies. That's not to say that these 3 entities are poorly done... Quickenings, once the system is interpreted, can be a rather exciting and strategic wrinkle. Moreover, the License Board had merit, but could have been more logically organized and intuitive, in my opinion. I did sincerely disagree with Esper implementation. They simply seemed ‘nerfed', for lack of better terminology. In other words, they had very limited usefulness. Granted, I only obtained the main story-arc espers (and therefore others may have been more useful), but for the ones I did obtain, I found them to be of little use against either bosses or for world adventuring. Regardless, I feel that all of these concepts could have been explained better, and beyond that, could simply have afforded better executed.

For example the implementation of Quickenings, which function a little bit like an interactive "Knights of the Round" summon from FF7, was counter-intuitive to all the down-time reduction they'd achieved with this new system. It was like going back to FF8, where you might button-mash to increase a summons power, but were still left with an odiously long and disruptive (though beautiful) attack sequence.

While I appreciated the free-form nature of the customization system, the License Board could have been designed such that it was more intuitive than what it was. For example, following the weapon path of hammer & axes, a 1-h weapon path, will eventually bring you to 2H blades, which might cause you to re-arrange your battle strategy because having a shielded fighter is important. Or establishing an elite ‘black mage' with no ‘time magick' training will eventually allow you to unlock the best time magicks without having developed lesser, rudimentary time magick skills. Not only is this counter-intuitive to logical development, it also makes it much trickier to develop a character without knowing the paths beforehand. The License Board is still a rather fun way of developing a character and sometimes it is effective and engaging, but it generally becomes an ambiguous and convoluted mess of half-thoughts of development once you arrive at the latter stages of the game.

Ultimately, this is still a very compelling system. The free-form nature of character development, unusually difficult challenge, and apparent wealth of optional questing will probably extend play-time well beyond the requisite 50-60 hours to complete the main story. So, there's a lot of compelling game to be played here, and it's challenging and engrossing enough that you'll feel inclined to do so. Hunter mark sub-quests and obtaining hidden Espers (despite their limited usefulness) were really intriguing to me, and will motivate me to come back to this game a second time around. The unusual challenge was also very welcome, though I think things will go more smoothly now that I'm equipped with a better understanding of game principles.

Another game-play item to note is that the game doesn't seem to do things well outside of the main game battle mechanics. Requisite side-quests that rarely cropped up were really not fun and distracted from the flow of the game, rather than add to it. I won't give details to spoil anything, but there are 2 major sub-quests in large cities that you NEED to complete to advance the story. They served as poor distractions, rather than welcome diversions.

Finally, I was able to appreciate the fact that FF12 effectively borrowed concepts from MMORPG. Fortunately, they borrowed only the good concepts, and left out the trite time-sinks, like fetch questing. Anyone who has played FF11 will recognize several familiar concepts, such as zone lines, Overworld warp crystals, and monster linking, just to name a few.

Graphics: (8/10)
This score was difficult for me to assign. On one hand, the artistic direction of this game was phenomenal. I especially appreciated a few character designs that harkened back to "Vagrant Story". Furthermore, each protagonist and antagonist was expertly designed and pleasing to look at. Even many routine NPCs featured a variety of flair and visual appeal. I should also mention the impressive architecture and surprisingly detailed monster and opponent designs. When you consider that your opponents are always rendered within the context of the environment, and that there is no separate "battle screen" to load to, it is rather impressive that they accomplished what they did with monster and environmental schemes.

On the other hand, it is difficult not to note the numerous times that graphics and environments appeared "grainy". There's also something of a noticeable disparity between how characters appear in the field, how they appear in cut-scenes, and then how they appear in FMV sequences. It's a little jarring because you witness an incremental upgrade/downgrade each time. When compared with a game like Metal Gear Solid 3, where cut-scenes are almost completely consistent with in-game engine appearance, this disparity becomes even more prevalent and less forgivable. Then again, Metal Gear Solid 3 is a much shorter game, so arguments can be made on either side.

In summary, the artistic design for this game is very solid, as environments, landscapes, cities, faces and humanoid body structures look believable in theory. However, the production value of the graphical quality is surprisingly low. As such, the gamer gets the unmistakable sense that Final Fantasy 12 was probably intended for release in late 2004 or early 2005. This is not to say they're bad graphics to look at, by any means. This is more of an indication that an RPG you might have played recently (perhaps Xenosaga Episode 3, Morrowind: Oblivion, or Valkyrie Profile 2) is likely going to look more aesthetically pleasing in terms of technical graphical achievement. That being said, Final Fantasy 12 is still graphically competitive with most games out there. I scored graphics as an 8, but only just barely. I could easily have given it a 9.

Sound: (9/10)
Much like the graphics, this was another area where, in concept, the music is excellent. But, to a lesser extent than the graphics, the production values on music seemed lower than what I might've expected. There were a significant number of tracks that had that unmistakable "electronically synthesized" feel to it, as opposed to something more professional or orchestral sounding. I'm no musical expert, but I would suggest that Dragon Quest 8, while not having as strong of a composition conceptually, actually has higher production values for its score.

Still, this production value issue wasn't quite as prevalent as it was with the graphics, and composer Hitoshi Sakimoto does an excellent job overall, delivering some truly memorable tracks. The music ranges from appropriately ambient at worst, to truly spectacular at best. This score features the best introductory theme from any Final Fantasy, and one of the better boss battle themes. The Archadian Judge theme, another credit-worthy track, evokes a similar reaction to that of the Imperial theme from "Star Wars".

Furthermore, the voice-acting is truly top-notch. In that respect, FF12 has progressed significantly from FF10, and most other video games. Not only was the dialogue convincingly written, it was convincingly delivered, and that went a long way to impress me. There was nary a weak voice-actor that could be picked out, which is surprisingly rare in this era of gaming. One could probably make a legitimate argument that FF12 has the best voice-acting of any game created to date, including the Metal Gear Solid series.

Story: (8/10)
While not having a "poor" story, or even an "average" one, I would say that story and character development were (surprisingly) not a strength of Final Fantasy 12. Again, this is not to say that the story detracts from the game at all, or that character development was weak. In fact, it was all rather motivating stuff, supplemented by one of the strongest scripts I've ever seen. But once the story is all told, and when you think back on this game, you probably won't be remembering the story or characters as much as you will remember that awesome boss battle that had you running around, slinging X-potions and hastega spells just to stay alive. That said, if or when you come back to play this game upon completion, it will more likely be to master the impressive new game-play, or to re-experience the amazing environments, as opposed to trying to re-live the story, or witness the character interaction.

I believe this decision of direction was part of the creator's design. There had been such a shift away from game-play oriented focus in Final Fantasy for almost an entire decade. Perhaps Matsuno (FF12's director) was trying to remind us of how Final Fantasy started out... with lots of tough monsters, occasionally unforgiving dungeons, a whimsical exploration element, and ingratiating character-building. Perhaps he felt the need to briefly deliver us back to that era. This is all conjecture, but if it's true, it would explain a lot.

That being said, you simply won't get that "spiritual" experience from the story, and there is no real commentary on philosophical concepts to be explored, as opposed to the stories in FF7 or FF10. That could really be a good or bad thing for you, depending on the style of RPG gamer that you are. What you WILL get is one of the best and most intelligent scripts, both written and voiced, in any RPG you have ever played. It's what I expect might happen if a Final Fantasy were written with Shakespearian prose in mind.

Additionally, while you'll still grow attached to a uniformly strong group of characters, you'll also probably be left wishing you had seen just a little more idle interaction between them. Personally, I would have liked to have seen them having more fun moments, or tense moments, between party members along the way. The characters are all just as fascinating, perhaps even moreso, as in any other FF. However, I was left with the feeling that I could have been exposed to the characters' personas a bit more often than what I was. Particularly on the longer dungeon treks, I feel the game creators missed opportunities to add in short dialogue exchanges between party members to ingratiate the gamer. Also, one of the great things about a strong “character interaction” game like FF7 was that you could roam around a town as the main character, and often find other party members going about their business. Tifa might be reminiscing with a childhood friend, while Red XIII might be complaining about his nose drying up due to the heat. Those things might seem mundane in description, but they really added depth of character. This feature was largely absent from FF12. I remember seeing Penelo on her own a few times in Rabanastre, but that was all.

So the summary of the story is that, while it is solid enough to tie everything together, it misses being that tour-de-force that you might be accustomed to. And while the game features a uniformly enjoyable cast of characters, you'll probably be left wishing you had felt just a bit closer to them than what you do.

Atmosphere: (10/10)
This may have been the strongest area of performance for FF12. The artistic quality, the whimsical music, the diversity of environments, and the sheer vastness of Ivalice all combine to create a truly unique and ingratiating experience. But that's not all. Diverse cultures, a detailed bestiary, the interesting political dynamic... all of these factors (and more) combine to make things more believable and more immersive for the gamer. This inspires one to attempt to learn more about Ivalice. Environments, NPCs, monsters and such are appropriately interactive (and independently active on their own accord), adding even more to the sense of immersion.

From top to bottom Ivalice is well-developed, and while this is the first Final Fantasy to be set in a previously conceived world (in theory) nothing deters this installation from feeling like a genuine "Final Fantasy". All game-play concepts, nostalgia-inducing phenomena, and other "historical" aspects of Final Fantasy are present and accounted for in full-force. Moreover, the old-school challenge and feel of the game-play will probably invoke even more positive feelings about the atmosphere surrounding this game.

Probably the best testament to the strength of this game's atmosphere is that I will never forget the first time I set foot in, and began walking around, Dalmasca's capital city of Rabanastre. It reminded me of the first time I loaded up Mario 64 and immediately realized that the gaming genre had just been taken to the next level. I feel (or hope) that, in the future, RPGs will strive to create the sense of immersion and inspire the sense of wonderment that I felt while traveling through cities like Rabanastre for the first time. Unlike most other RPGs, where arriving at a new town could be a rather bland or forgettable experience, FF12 makes this occurrence a vast, exciting, and rewarding experience.

Extra Thought: This game felt like a loose combination of FF6, FF11, FFTactics, and Vagrant Story. All games that I greatly respect.
***END SUMMARY***

Conclusion:
Final Fantasy 12 does many things right. However, there is also quite a bit of room for improvement in this game. Fortunately, the good far outweighs the bad, and the areas that require improvement were generally done well enough in the first place. FF12 sets the Final Fantasy series in an exciting new direction. If you exclude Final Fantasy 11, this is clearly the most unique Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy 2(Japanese version). As such, while FF12 is a must-see experience in its own right, I'm also excited to see the interesting new directions the series takes on the next-generation gaming platforms.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/06