"Everything that makes this series special is missing in this hollow, soulless installment"

I was, like everyone else, eagerly awaiting the release of Final Fantasy 12, which promised to be "the first real FF" in since Final Fantasy 10 in 2001. Well, after completing Final Fantasy 12, I faced the unfortunate realization that....after 5 long years, we're still waiting for it.

The development of Final Fantasy 12 (from here on, it will be known as FF12) was a turbulent one. Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi would, for the first time since the creation of the series, have no involvement whatsoever in a "Numbered" FF title. Instead, FF12 was to be the project of Yasumi Matsuno, the guy who made the cult spinoff FF: Tactics and the cult hit Vagrant Story. He was originally credited as the "Writer/Producer/Director" of FF12 but apparently could not handle the project. After endless delays, Matsuno left the project for "health reasons" and since then FF12's been in the hands of numerous producers who tried to lead the game to completion. In the final product, Matsuno's only credited as the one responsible for the "Scenario and Concept" of FF12. Numerous people left the team at different times, (some leaving Square-Enix entirely,) and the game ended up taking over 5 years to be made. It's hard to say if all this was responsible for how mediocre Final Fantasy XII ended up turning out or whether this project was just poorly conceived from the beginning, but what we ended up with here is a game absolutely loaded with content but one that lacks any sort of soul. Under all the gigantic and explorable locations and 50 hours of main story gameplay is a hollow core.

Graphics and Voice Acting:

I'm going to discuss what they did manage to get right about FF12 first; the graphics are absolutely stunning. This game was originally meant to be released years ago; you would expect the graphics to be outdated, but that wasn't the case here at all. The developers of FF12 HAVE kept up with the increase in technology despite all the delays, and as a result, the game looks excellent. Definitely the best-looking game on the PS2. Environments are huge and expansive, cities are bustling, enemies roam the environments, characters and buildings are very nicely detailed, and all this with only some small and occasional framerate drops. At times this game really looks almost next gen. The PS2 was released in Japan in 2000, and it's amazing that 6-year old hardware continues to produce better and better looking games. And of course, the FMV's look better than ever, offering some truly stunning battle sequences and some great vistas and camerawork. The area that impresses the most, though, are the facial expressions in the game's regular cutscenes. They have to be seen to believed. FF9's art director returns here to create some really stunning locations as well and while nothing here shines exactly like his work from that game, there are some areas in FF12 (like Mt Bur Omisace and Eruyt Village) with really stunning, almost next-gen, artistic visuals.

If there's one graphical shortcoming, though, it's the character designs. Colors on the characters seem to be a bit washed out, with some characters (like Ashe,) just looking ugly, especially compared to how she looks in the FMVs. Vaan's hair looks like a dying bird lying on his head. There's also the "boy who you'll think is a girl," character who seems to be getting more and more common in RPG's lately. And the lip sync is still not exactly perfect, although I'll admit that it's a huge improvement over FF10's.

Characters aside, graphically, FF12's nearly perfect for a PS2 game, and this attention to detail also applies to the voice acting department; I'm not a big fan of how the dialogue was written, (more on that later) but I've gotta give the actors here credit; they do an amazing job. The voices add SO MUCH personality to some otherwise dull characters and if you're looking for a game that shows exactly how storytelling can benefit from great voice acting, look no further than FF12. Particularly worth noting is the voice of Balthier, who single-handedly turns the character into the best in the game. The person who voices Larsa also did a great job of bringing some personality to the character. Not ALL voices are perfect, (some of the voice acting can feel a little dry, and occasionally the acting for Vayne, the villain, seemed a little flat,) but overall, the voice acting offered in Final Fantasy 12 is among the best I've ever heard in a video game. And while some obvious audio compression and some non-voiced cutscenes (a definite step back from the fully-voiced FF10,) negatively affect this category a little, overall, they do not take away from the fact that the voices and acting here is nearly perfect.

Gameplay:

The game's combat system is also nearly perfect, by far the most fun in the series. In fact, it's my 2nd favorite RPG battle system of all time (behind only the one used in Shadow Hearts: From the New World) and the lack of random battles was really a great idea. It's basically the same ATB system from past FF's except attacking's done automatically, battles take place right on the field, and they're quick and actually really fun. The gambit system is pretty nicely pulled off and while many gambits are almost entirely useless (I'd say 99%) it's great to be given so much customization over the actions of other party members. You're meant to rely on gambits and the AI to control the other characters, but you CAN control them if you want by turning their gambits off, or by entering a command, which will override any action they may be doing at that moment. There are some flaws in this battle system, though. The License Board, where you pick up new skills, as well as the ability to equip armor and magic, ends up basically making all your characters complete clones of each other, and this time they don't even have their own limit breaks to set them apart. Unlike Final Fantasy 10, you CAN still level up (in addition to stat increases and skills learned on the License Board,) but leveling up does not increase defense, etc. Only equipment does that. And unfortunately, you can't equip weapons, armor, etc. until you unlock them on the license board first. Same goes for buying magic. Yeah, you can buy them, but you can't equip them until you unlock them on this board. There's too much you have to do on this board and it ends up being very clunky and tedious to manage. It works well for stat increases but there was really no reason things like weapons and armor had to be connected to the License Board. Other flaws include uneven difficulty; you'll face bosses that are unfairly difficult, yet then face bosses that are unbelievably easy, sometimes within 10 minutes of each other. Some bosses are the hardest I've faced in the series, yet the final bosses in FF12 were unquestionably the easiest. The unbalanced difficulty and sometimes poorly-placed save points end up being a bit of a problem. One "memorable" instance had me travel for about a half hour, reach and defeat a very challenging boss, and then spend about 10 minutes in another dungeon...to be killed suddenly by a SAVE POINT. (Yes, the save points in this game can kill you. Please don't ask.)

Summons are entirely useless, (using them makes you completely vulnerable,) and getting surrounded by enemies on the field (some of which may be ridiculously over-powered,) is brutal and unfair. Switching characters in mid-fight can also be very difficult as the game, very frustratingly, won't allow you to switch anyone out if they're "selected" by anyone or anything. Also not fun is being surrounded by enemies who are brutally damaging and killing your party, and there's a door right there that will lead you to safety, but the game won't let you open the door, because it thinks you're trying to open the battle menu. These frustrating elements aside, though, it's an amazingly fun and addictive battle system and I wouldn't mind seeing it again, as long as it's in a better game.

The world in FF12 is huge, and you can spend hours wandering through it. The areas you explore are huge, some even gigantic, and while this ended up being a game-ruiner for me, I can see why some people would look at the gigantic size of the environments as a positive rather than as a negative.

Storyline, Characters, and World Development:

The big problem with FF12 is that the developers really focused all their attention…on the wrong areas. Here we have a game with a gigantic, amazing-looking world, with lots of quests to participate in, as well as a very fun battle system that makes the gameplay incredibly addictive. But under this, there's nothing but emptiness. FF12 completely fails in plot, character, and world development. They filled this world up with tons and tons of locations, but none of them are ever of any importance! They set up some great characters, but none of them are given any time to develop. They set up a pretty decent storyline, only to have it be completely abandoned for hours and hours and its interesting ideas completely go to waste. Nothing in this plot is developed at all, and we end up with characters and situations that just go nowhere.

The plot starts out promisingly enough with an amazing opening FMV battle scene. I'm really not going to describe much of the plot, (although there really isn't anything to spoil,) except to say that the plot is basically; the evil empire wants to take over neighboring kingdoms and Ashe, the princess, wants to take her kingdom of Dalmasca back from the control of this evil empire, Archadia. She is helped by Vaan, the main character who lives on the streets, as well as his long time friend Panelo, Balthier the Sky Pirate and Fran, his assistant. And there's Basch, a knight who lacks anything even remotely resembling a personality. The game then basically becomes an item hunt. Now….I'm AMAZED that a game in the FF series would use this "race against empire to collect objects that'll grant the users amazing power" plot. It's the most cliched, done-to-death plot in existence. But at least other modern RPG's with this plot get to much better ideas and storylines mid-game, something that never happens in FF12. It doesn't help that it also borrows very noticeably from other Final Fantasy games, especially Final Fantasy 9, without "borrowing" any of its charm.

Cutscenes are kept as short as possible, often having plot exposition but giving the characters no time to actually say what THEY think of what's going on. Characters rarely interact with each other, (I'm still wondering if they even all knew each other's names) and when they do, their exchanges lack any sense of humor or excitement. Vaan and Panelo are probably the only people in this game (besides the awesome Balthier,) capable of cracking a smile, yet every time an important discussion is going on between the characters, Vaan (supposedly the main character,) and Panelo conveniently scamper off to joke around quietly amongst themselves while the other characters deliver the dry dialogue that we actually have to hear.

The sad thing is that Vaan starts out as a very likable main character, as does everyone, but they're given NOTHING TO DO OR SAY and by the 2nd half of the game, they seem like nothing more than action figures, mindlessly hacking away at enemies for hours and hours at a time without any sort of motivation for doing what they're doing. As if realizing this, the writers even threw in a cutscene about 15 hours in where a character asks the obligatory “why are you all here”? question, and each character responds. To give an example of the characters' complete lack of motivation, Basch simply replies that he (say it with me, RPG fans) “has business” at the next location they're heading. Uh huh.

"Why they're all there," is a good question, because unlike other FF games, the characters here show absolutely no interest in Ashe's journey or her dilemma. Unfortunately, Ashe, easily among the least likable female leads in the series, does nothing to get us, the gamers, interested in her journey either.

Any fun or interesting ideas at the start of this VERY predictable and generic storyline are forgotten over the course of the game. Vaan's desire to become a sky pirate is so casually dismissed about 15 hours in that it's like a slap in the face. An intriguing scenario about a murder is also completely ruined by a bizarre plot mechanic ("It wasn't me, it was my evil twin") and a really interesting connection between Larsa and the main villain is wasted when they both vanish from the plot entirely, not to reappear again until near the end of the game.

The fact that the developers didn't care whatsoever about the storyline becomes extremely apparent after about the 20 hour mark. Very few bosses beyond this point are story-related, with most just being big monsters that jump out of nowhere and attack the main characters. Without saying a word, the main characters fight and defeat these bosses, then continue on the adventure without speaking. You'll spend hours and hours traversing across massive plains, beaches, forests, as well as brutally drawn out and repetitive dungeons... without a word of dialogue between any of the characters. It becomes common to go for up to 5 hours without seeing a single cutscene. As a result, the plot becomes very difficult to follow. After spending over 5 hours traveling to Archades, including dungeons with tough bosses and unbearably large environments I had to pass through, I forgot why I was even going there to begin with. This happens all the time in FF12. Even before things like Sun Crysts, light and dark crystals, and the Occuria, (none of which is particularly well-introduced or explained,) started getting involved in the plot, I was totally lost. By the end of the game, I officially had no idea what the hell was going on. And while I could see why they made the choice to give the characters Shakespearean dialogue, it made many crucial cutscenes hard for me to understand, which obviously didn't help.

...Not that I was really missing anything of interest. Nothing is ever at stake in this dull story, and don't let the action-packed commercials and trailers fool you; those are all from the opening FMV. There's very little action at all in this storyline, with much of it being told, (rather than shown,) to you. To make things even worse, the villain fails to generate any interest; he spends most of the game sitting at a table discussing diplomatic plans with his associates.

Despite being prominently featured in the game's trailers, airships and air piracy play such a small role in the game that I don't know why they were even included. You never get to explore Balthier's airship, and you rarely have any reason to make use of the cool Aerodromes located in every city. Those expecting a fun and cinematic "Skies of Arcadia"-like adventure here will be extremely disappointed.

Despite being well-populated, towns and cities aside from Rabanastre are under-utilized. Rather than being used for plot advancement and character development, cities are places to stock up on armor, maybe complete an annoying quest and watch a brief cutscene, then you're out of there, off to the next hour-long trek across the plains to head to yet another multi-hour dungeon. It gets to the point where you're no longer being rewarded for playing; you spend hours hiking to Mt Bur-Omisace, and when you finally get there, you're treated to a stunning-looking location... for about 10 seconds, then…it's off to ANOTHER dungeon. You're constantly in battle, whether across fields, plains, forests, or dungeons…and you're never rewarded for it with cutscenes and character and plot development.

I understand they wanted to take the series in a different, more gameplay-focused direction with this installment but by completely neglecting the plot and characters, the developers ruined any motivation I had for continuing the game. I was FORCING myself to continue playing this. And eventually, I started to realize how empty this game is. It's packed with many locations, and they ARE varied and great-looking, but they lack any sort of energy or creativity. There's nothing here like the Evil Forest from FF9, or the Moonflow from FF10. Things like the floating Military Gardens from FF8, the hovering City of Midgar from FF7…nothing like that is here in FF12. The game's locations all completely fail to be interesting and this world neither captures the “magic” of medieval FF9's world nor the "spirituality" of FF10's. FF12's world just seems to exist as decoration, much like the characters that inhabit it.

Music:

The musical score from Hitoshi Sakimoto (replacing series vet Nobuo Uematsu, who only contributes the theme song, which unfortunately sucks and doesn't fit the game at all,) shines during several events and overall conveys a true sense of cinematic scope that the plot seems entirely disinterested in replicating. Pleasant and warm tunes play as you explore the atmospheric but very boring towns, and there's a lot of diversity here. But unfortunately much of the game is spent wandering through fields and dungeons, with songs that unfortunately scream “generic” with a bunch of bland “adventure themes” playing while crossing these massive areas but none that give them any sort of individuality from each other. (The same one track repeats in many areas to the point of annoyance.) To be fair, though, Sakimoto had very little to work with, as there's really only so much he could do to add personality to areas that serve no purpose aside from being backdrops for endless level grinding.

Verdict:

The fact that the last hour (or so) is fun and exciting story-wise only shows us what this whole game could have and should have been. As it is, FF12 fails to be anything but a tedious dungeon crawler with pretty graphics and the occasionally cool cutscene. It lacks the memorable plot elements and characters of other FF's that stuck with me years after completion, (the Squall/Laguna/Kiros storyline in FF8, Aeris from FF7, Vivi and the black mages from FF9, the Farplane from FF10) and what's here is completely forgettable, and worse, it lacks any traces of charm or humor; it's a boring game with a story that thinks it's much more "mature" than it actually is.

Seriously, I don't need a love story or a "save the world" scenario; I just need characters and a plot and world worth caring about, and this doesn't have it. Everything that made other games in this series so special is missing here; as an RPG, FF12 just has no heart. It's like playing a very average MMORPG but without the fun of playing an MMORPG.

....and so, we (yet again) look to the next installment. Final Fantasy 13's in development, and it's from the FF10 team, who, at the very least, know how to tell a story. Let's hope it's released soon; we've been waiting so long for the next "real" Final Fantasy game. Hopefully we'll only have to wait a little bit longer.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07, Updated 12/23/08

Game Release: Final Fantasy XII (US, 10/31/06)