After waiting years for the next installment, Final Fantasy is back and holds up the name as well as another another entry in the series. Ignoring XI, of course. However, it is impossible to play Final Fantasy XII and not notice the impact that MMORPG’s have had on the series.
The main impact comes in the battle system. Battles are in full real-time, and no cutscene takes the characters to a different battle field when encountering enemies. You can now run circles around an enemy all you want, lead them away from a group, or ignore them all together. This can make travelling through different regions quick, and lets players ignore those obnoxious low-level creatures later on.
The system also introduces Gambits, which allow players to make settings for frequently used attacks and spells. Basically, there is no longer a need to tell a character to attack every turn, and you can have players heal automatically when their health drops past a certain level. This makes for a very quick battle scheme, easily the fastest in the series. It’s a great way update a system that was on the verge of a painful death.
It’s now actually fun to go out and level up. Characters still gain levels through experience points, but can also gain new skills and attributes through license points. What this does is allow each character to retain certain strong points, like magic ability, but also allow for a degree of customization. You’ll soon find yourself digging a path through the attunements, finding helpful HP bonuses and increased Battle Damage. The eventual goal is, of course, for every character to have every ability. Unlike the unwieldly and huge system in FFX, it’s an attainable achievement here.
So what’s bad about it? Well, the story presentation is entirely flat. It’s still a rebellious group taking on the evil empire, which isn’t so much the problem. The real deal is that it doesn’t feel like there’s enough interaction between the characters. There’s not enough tension. Previous installments have had a love story, taking the characters out of their determination for salvation and seeing that there are other aspects to life. This version is unfortunately fairly straightforward. In the beginning, it seems that there’s a chance for this tension to grow, but it just sort of disappears, and instead follows a path of “here’s where we have to go next” mentality. Why many gamers like FFVI is because of the deep characterizations of the 20 odd characters available. Here, you pretty much get your main group fairly quickly.
Basically, it lacks surprises. It would be painful to see a character you’ve spent so much time on leave the group, and then have a new character take their place that you have to build up all over again.
Regardless of the problems, FFXII is well worth the experience. Long-time fans will be happy to play the new installment, and new gamers will enjoy the fast-paced action.
-mlbradley
durden26@comcast.net