REVIEW - Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003)

Genre(s): Strategy / RPG
Released: 2003
Available on: GBA
Developer(s): Square Enix
Publisher(s): Square Enix, Nintendo
Players: 1-2

In June 1997, six months after the release of Final Fantasy VII, Square published Final Fantasy Tactics - a cult classic in tactical role-playing directed by series veteran Hiroyuki Ito and the creator of Ogre Battle, Yasumi Matsuno, who went on to direct the highly acclaimed Final Fantasy spin-off Vagrant Story and was also the original director of Final Fantasy XII before he dropped out of the project. In 2003, as the first sign of newfound friendship between Square and Nintendo, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was introduced. Unlike the rest of the Advance series, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a whole new stand-alone game instead of a remake. Although I find it enjoyable in a certain state of mind, the game once again goes to show that tactical RPG's aren't my thing. It takes a lot from me to look at it from the view of a strategy gamer... but I'll try, since I want to end the Final Fantasy marathon with a high note!

Life's lessons, some shameless promotion and a little art o' war

A group of bullied school kids discovers an ancient tome that changes the city of St. Ivalice into the kingdom of Ivalice known to the kids from the Final Fantasy game series. In this parallel universe, bullies have become monsters, the crippled can walk, the poor have become royalty and races live as one. In other words, it's a dream world. Marche must find his little brother and friends, and a way to restore the real world, since he's smart enough to know that reality is a thing every living person must face some day.

When I first got the PlayStation, I got Konami's Vandal Hearts as sort of a freebie along with Gran Turismo and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. I didn't play it at all. I tried, believe me, a couple of times in fact - I tried liking it, too, but tactical role-playing hit me as something RPG haters see standard J-RPG's as: fighting and talking. I'm fine being the "great tactician" every once in a while, but I don't buy a game to read lengthy dialogues and jump from battle to battle, 'cause that's exactly what this is even if they try to disguise it. It's simply not my thing, and I'm not sure if I'm even qualified to review this game. On the other hand, I kind of respect the game and it's not all that bad. I'm probably never going to return to it, but I enjoyed this run to some extent.

I could've reviewed the Mana series, Chrono Trigger, Mystic Quest, Vagrant Story, and the SaGa series - at some point, all of these games have been strongly linked to the Final Fantasy series, and I have access to all of them, but only Vagrant Story is a real Final Fantasy spin-off, while the rest have been promoted as Final Fantasy-related games due to the brand's success. Also, just imagine how insane I would be right now if I'd included all of these games in the marathon - that's ten additional games on a quick count - I would probably never play a Square RPG again. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a game I had to include due to its close relation to the main series in terms of setting. Yeah, sure, Vagrant Story is also set in Ivalice, but it's not namely a Final Fantasy game. Also, if we have a genre - or style - which I've never personally liked, AND a ridiculous plot which involves modern-day school kids who have a thing for video games including the Final Fantasy series, tons of bad moogle humour and the rise to power of a downtrodden loser called Cid, how can I simply resist the urge?

A little bit of self-lovin'.

The look of the game is colourful and cutesy, and technically it looks quite OK. It could be a bit more lively, but it's basically a strategy game, so it really doesn't matter. It's very true to the series and feels like a 16-bit Final Fantasy game, with the main difference being that it's all delivered to us from an isometric view. Some of the sprites were directly carried over to appear as trophy avatars in the Sky Pirate's Den in Final Fantasy XII. It's nice to see them in action. The music is really not too interesting, or memorable. Nobuo Uematsu contributes with one single track, while the rest is written by Hitoshi Sakimoto and two other assistants, Kaori Ohkoshi and Ayako Saso.

Like any other tactical RPG, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is split into two different parts; one's for dialogue and one's for fighting. You can't move at all, in the traditional sense. Even on the world map, you just pick your destination and you're taken to that spot automatically, after which you choose an action from a text menu. There's absolutely no point in following the plot, if you're seriously not into life's lessons for kids or shameless plugging of how they love their Final Fantasy games, so the dialogue is pretty meaningless. The game's all about the missions. There are two kinds of missions; storyline missions and random tasks given to you by a shady pub owner in just about every inhabited area - which could be categorized as sidequests in any traditional RPG. There's a hefty fee on each mission, with the primary rule being that the tougher the mission, the more expensive it is. It's quite easy to weed out the missions you aren't ready for yet.

To do these missions, you'll need a clan. After the first couple of tutorials, you'll have a clan. For each mission, you need to assemble a party which suits your personal needs best. The main character Marche (erm... fag... erm) is kind of an all-around guy by default, and there's a White Mage, a Black Mage, a Monk, an Archer and a Soldier available to you from the beginning and you can assign them all to a job if you want. With time, you can - and must - hire new guns to your clan, and you can manage and maintain them in any way you like. You can change the clan members' specialties, abilities, and of course, equipment, by spending some of your hard earned money at the many shops around Ivalice. It's all quite cool, IF you like these kind of games. Every once in a while, you can "return" to a previously visited location to do a treasure hunt, but it's not really that much of a hunt. You just keep a keen eye on the map, and if a location icon shakes, it means there's a treasure. Haul your ass down there, and choose "Treasure Hunt" from the list, and you'll get whatever was shaking the foundations of the place. One of the main reasons I'm not into these games is just that everything besides fighting and talking is just brief extra.

I so totally agree.

Although confusing menus tend to clutter up the screen for the duration of the whole game - shopping is pure hell! - the fighting's really not that hard, once you take a good look at all the stuff in a standard battle screen, and don't just attack aimlessly. It takes some time for your eyes to get used to the scheme, but after a few missions, you should have passed the learning curve. It's really not that different from a standard battle menu, it's just a bit more stuffed. The very basics of fighting are taught from the very beginning; you move on an invisible grid, and the distance you can move is defined by many factors, such as class. The possible range of your attacks is a no-brainer. Ranged combatants and mages can execute commands from a distance, while all others need to get right next to the enemy to attack. Each race has its own Totema, though - that's Esper for you traditional Fantasy fanatics - which can be used to a limited extent (explained later) in battle by any class. As logic would have it, getting behind an enemy or to his side and being able to execute a short-range attack does the most damage - and using black magic on an enemy who has a clan member right next to him isn't too healthy for you, since it will do damage on a radius based on the strength of the spell. Ohhh, so that's what the "Tactics" stands for.

Each battle, except incredibly tough battles fought in lawless territories known as Jagds, is overseen by a Judge Magister. What's his purpose? To fuck with you. Seriously. The CPU rarely makes mistakes - read: never. You, on the other hand, are in trouble. Each mission has its own laws, which should be carefully reviewed in the beginning of each mission. There's no automatic lockdown on specific commands, for example Item or Combo Tech - you can use them, and if you do while they're deemed illegal, the character pulling a Judas Priest goes to prison immediately, and you need to get 'em out of there to be able to use them in battle again by "bribing" the authorities for a full pardon. Oh yeah, "prison" is a place where people are taken to when they break the law. Imagine that... thanks, Montblanc, for clearing that out for me.

There are many detailed specifics to battle and the grand scheme of the game which I will not go over to save some space, but I have to mention Judge Points to give the bastards some due. Each time you defeat an enemy, you get a Judge Point, which enables you to perform special attacks, or "Combos". They're kind of like Limit Breaks of some fashion and they can do quite a number even on the stronger members of the opposing bunch. Acquiring certain numbers of JP will also enable you to use Totemas in battle. You need to defeat each Totema before being able to use its aid in the first place, though.

Fran, darling, is that you?

The game starts off all nice and easy, or should I even say automatic, but it gets difficult very fast for a casual gamer who's not used to its style. The gap between many missions of the same rank in terms of difficulty level can be pretty damn big. The use of menus is mercilessly hard, probably the truly hardest part of the game, and I don't believe that has quite been Square Enix's intention. It needs a lot of getting used to, but the game's basics are not too hard to learn.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is truly a game that I probably won't take for another round ever again, but it has taught me to like and understand tactical "role-playing" a little, and like I said, I do respect the game; I can see at least some of the things that some people like about these sorts of games. In other words, I would most definitely recommend the game for a choice audience.

Graphics : 7.5
Sound : 6.5
Playability : 7.0
Challenge : 8.8
Overall : 7.2

Trivia

GameRankings: 87.64%

REVIEW - Final Fantasy XIII (2009)

Genre(s): RPG
Released: 2009
Available on: PS3, X360
Developer(s): Square Enix
Publisher(s): Square Enix
Players: 1

As some sort of a tradition would have it, the development of Final Fantasy XIII began before its predecessor was complete. It was originally intended to be one last Final Fantasy game for the PS2, but a technical demo of Square Enix's new Crystal Tools engine was so well-received that the game went under an additional 2-3 years of development, so that it could be released as a seventh generation game utilizing the new engine. In 2006, the first teasers of the game emerged and people began to speculate whether this game was to be the true follower to Final Fantasy VII. As more and more details emerged, such as the implementation of a wholly evolved Active Time Battle system and interesting character specifics, the hype grew to unimaginable proportions. In late 2009, the game was finally released in Japan, and it became the fastest-selling Final Fantasy game to date, surpassing the record previously held by Final Fantasy VIII. The word from Japan was that the game was all everyone had hoped for... I guess everyone didn't include us living everywhere else. Final Fantasy XIII is not a bad game... it is just a bad Final Fantasy game, and to me, as a hardcore fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, it's perhaps the biggest disappointment of the 21st century.

Out of Focus

STARRING
Ali Hillis : Claire Farron, "Lightning"
Troy Baker : Snow Villiers
Georgia van Cuylenburg : Oerba Dia Vanille
Reno Wilson : Sazh Katzroy
Vincent Martella : Hope Estheim
Rachel Robinson : Oerba Yun Fang
Laura Bailey : Serah Farron
Daniel Samonas : Maqui
Erik Davies : Cid Raines
S. Scott Bullock : Galenth Dysley / Barthandelus

Above the world of Gran Pulse, floats Cocoon, a sophisticated, artificial globe inhabited by humans, whereas the world below is mostly rampant with savage beasts. Cocoon is ruled by fal'Cie, machines that have been granted godlike powers by an entity known as the Maker. The fal'Cie have total control over the human race - they are both benefactors and oppressors. At any time they wish, they may choose any one of their "slaves" and brand this person to do their bidding as l'Cie, whatever that mission, or Focus, might be. Reward for their success is eternal life in crystallized form; for failure, the punishment is transformation into a Cie'th, a mindless creature with the inability to distinguish right from wrong. A former soldier calling herself Lightning rises against the fal'Cie in an effort to save her younger sister Serah, who has gone missing after becoming an l'Cie. Unbeknownst to her, Serah's fiancee Snow, the leader of a fal'Cie resistance group, is also on the move for the same reasons. Lightning, Snow and their three newfound allies find Serah, but they also find that they have all been chosen by the fal'Cie as well. The group separates due to conflicting personalities, but soon they see how destiny has brought them together.

I pre-ordered this game as soon as it was possible. From the same company that brought me into role-playing in the first place, there was to be this game that would blow the rest of the role-playing genre off the map. Final Fantasy XII was a good game, but it wasn't really that much of the Final Fantasy we all more or less grew up with. Final Fantasy XIII was to be a return to the roots of the franchise's mainstream success. Lightning was to be the female version of Cloud Strife. The Active Time Battle system first conceived on the behalf of Final Fantasy IV was to make a comeback, better than ever. Final Fantasy XIII was supposed to rock! ...For the first eight hours, I thought I had the game I had expected on my hands. Despite a clearly lackluster story, mediocre music and the introduction of some of the all-time worst Final Fantasy characters, the game felt good to play, it looked perfect, but just a few more hours were all I needed to see what everyone was cursing the game for. 30 hours into the game, I found out I had beaten about 90% of the story, but just about 50% of the game. And I was already bored to fuckin' tears. There's cool stuff in it, but a great game Final Fantasy XIII is not.

The story is not all that bad, but it could use a lot of trimming. There's a lot of totally useless, over-the-top mumbojumbo, and even more totally useless characters who are simply not interesting and their mere inclusion in a Final Fantasy game is just embarrassing. Director Motomu Toriyama started out as an event planner for Final Fantasy VII, which, as you should know, is my favourite video game of all time. He went on to manage the same job in both Final Fantasy VIII and X. He then directed Final Fantasy X-2, which wasn't that great but regardless, the guy has so much experience with the series that he should most definitely know what it's all about. Lightning IS a great character. Lightning isn't the kind of girl that slaps people in the face, she downright punches the living daylights out of them. She hates people, and she doesn't like herself too much either. The only person she really cares about is her sister. Too bad that we know from the start that Lightning's going to change during the storyline like Cloud and Squall did, and in her case, it happens too damn fast. She breaks from a no-bullshit war machine into this worried mommy mode without any pit stops. Sazh is another cool character. Kind of ridiculous, especially the 'do and the Chocobo chick living in it, but I like his lines and his backstory quite a lot. Could've worked on him a little bit more. I absolutely love Fang. Wild girl, great moves, lovely Australian accent. It's not a sexual thing, instead she gives off an image of a female Steve Irwin, it's surprisingly cool.

The best and the worst.

Then, the OTHER HALF. Snow. For several hours, I totally dug this guy. It doesn't take more than a trenchcoat and a scruffy chin to convince me that this guy could've been so damn awesome. Most of the time, he's just useless. And worst of all, he believes himself to be a true hero, and he says that a lot, too. A LOT. There was a huge topic on first impressions of Final Fantasy XIII on a PS3 forum the day the game was released, and Snow was pretty much voted the most hated playable character. I still don't agree on that, 'cause we have someone who simply drives me insane with each and every line she says. That's Vanille, who is THE worst, most useless, most annoying character ever in a Final Fantasy game, and hell, any video game ever. I would like to lock this constantly clucking and giggling piece of white ass into a cramped rocket together with Bubsy the Bobcat and send it flying on autopilot to the heart of the sun. I just had to see what the voice actress looks like. Luckily she's hot. Lucky her, lucky me. It's funny, that her Australian sounds faker than Milli Vanilli, and she's really Australian... while Fang's voice actress is American. Well, overdoing your part makes even your very own accent sound bad. Oh, well, it was a bad part anyway. Hope... there's no hope for him. Like Vanille, Hope is a kid. Unlike our little miss sunshine, Hope hates the world for reasons that are revealed during the game's first hour - especially Snow. He has these tall tales of revenge, but when it comes to it, he's a useless coward, who we're waiting and waiting to see growing a pair during the storyline; we just know it'll happen, it's the Japanese way of storytelling and it never changes. After he does, he becomes a little more bearable... but never the more useful.

Moogles once again appear only in imagery, while Chocobos serve as steeds on the vast battlefield of the second half. Cid appears as a villain for the second time in a row, this time as a much younger person. Once again, the long-haired dude is first introduced as a kind of conflicted character, we aren't supposed to quite know what his aim is, but we've seen many Final Fantasy games; Cid is a villain, no matter what happens. We just know. Not the main villain, though - that spot is reserved to possibly the most cryptic, uninteresting main cheese since Final Fantasy VIII. Yeah, I know what you all think of Necron in Final Fantasy IX. Let me say this one final time now that we're finally at the end of the marathon: no matter who you fought, Kuja was the main villain. If there hadn't been an out-of-the-blue final boss in his stead, he wouldn't have been able to make the redemption his character was practically screaming for ever since we learned of his origin! So shut the fuck up. Thanks. Let's get back to this much worse game.

Like its predecessor, Final Fantasy XIII is simply perfect from a visual standpoint, but it doesn't really deserve a full rating since it's the first Final Fantasy game of the seventh generation, and movement in the game is quite damn restricted, the first half of the game has way too much background as opposed to the actual field you can walk. The environments also look a tad bland. Going into the second half of the game, the visual design and proportions of the game switch gear to simply phenomenal, off the charts - it's just what a Final Fantasy game should look like in this day and age, especially after a visual masterpiece like Final Fantasy XII. We all know it'll get even better, that's all... even though just looking at some of the most gigantic Pulse beasts in standard definition takes one's breath away.

Leona Lewis' music in a Final Fantasy game? Yep. And get this: it isn't even the most unbelonging crap on the so totally non-Uematsu soundtrack. Actually the song is quite good, that's a lot coming from me. The soundtrack spans four CD's... supposedly. I don't buy that. To me, it feels like there's a million remixes of that revolting, repetitive title track, and just a few additional tunes. Seriously, imagine playing by using a team led by Vanille (because you're forced to!), running on a field which seems to go on for an eternity, and the only breaks you get from that horrible song are cutscenes made just because Vanille wants to turn around and say something retarded to Sazh, who I so want to just raise his guns and put a bullet or two in his companion's head. Did I already mention how much I fuckin' hate that noisy bird? There are simply no classic Final Fantasy themes here. Even the Chocobo theme is totally different than ever before; it contains the same basic melody as always, but it's almost unrecognizable. No classic victory fanfare, nothing. Overall, the soundtrack isn't quite as bad as that of Final Fantasy X-2, but it's still below mediocre on the series' standards.

The voice acting is excellent. With the exception of Vanille who just deserves the axe from every possible angle (preferrably all at the same time), even the worse characters are well delivered by their actors, it's just the script that takes some more or less lengthy breaks to suck. There are some strong points in the story, but it just isn't interesting as a whole. The actors make it a little bit more bearable even at its lowest. There's this one particular scene I love in this game, it induces a positive shock truly worth of the franchise that goes somewhat to waste in this game. Strangely enough, Vanille is involved, and she delivers her only good lines in the whole game in this very scene. It's just beautiful - but it also reminds me of all the fine potential the game had.

Usually Final Fantasy games are very hard to explain, but Final Fantasy XIII is very easy to break down into two words: running and fighting. There are no towns in the traditional sense. You just run through the game, seriously, from point A (the beginning) to point B (whatever lies in the horizon of Pulse). On the way, you do visit some towns, but they're all part of the same tube as the rest of the game. So, the first half of the game is all about managing three separate teams on their straight line to somewhere, and of course, tutorials... which you don't need. The game makes believe of a really complicated scheme, which isn't complicated at all unless automatizing everything goes over your head.

CID.

You talk to NPC's automatically by approaching them, and they never have anything important to say. All shopping is done at save points. There's also an equipment upgrade system, which kind of works like selling loot in Final Fantasy XII; you can manually upgrade your equipment by using the loot you get from enemies. Some loot works better, some worse. It's all about trial and error. Adding a Crooked Fang to Lightning's Gunblade won't make it a Fang Sword or anything like that, the equipment does change over time but there's no real logic to the stuff you use to upgrade the equipment. It's a quite brainless system, all in all. There's no real feeling of customization. Hell, most of the time Final Fantasy XIII doesn't even feel like a game. Much less an RPG.

The biggest reason for that is the "evolved" ATB system. You can either spend a lifetime scrolling through the battle menu, or do just what everyone else does to even their own dismay: set up an autochain. Upon using Libra on an enemy, each character can build an autochain of commands to use on them, which remain until the game's very end. For example, if an enemy is weak against ice and water, a Ravager's (Black Mage) autochain consists of powerful Blizzard and Water spells. You don't need to do anything but use the Autochain command. That's right, the game is nothing but X mashing, all the way... almost.

You control the party leader at all times. The party leader changes constantly, and each character is one at some point of the first half - yes, even Vanille. At least twice, actually. If the party leader dies, the game is over, for no logical reason at all, you can't just swap the party leader on the fly like you could in Final Fantasy XII. You can use Phoenix Downs on everyone else, like always. To ensure the safety of your party leader, along with everyone else, you need Paradigm Shifts, which changes everyone's "Roles". Since the game takes liberties with just about every other Final Fantasy term and element, Job becomes a Role a character takes on in a battle. There are six different Roles. Just one is available to you in the beginning, Commando (Warrior), but the other five are unlocked at a fast pace and once you make it to the second half of the game, you have total freedom to give everyone the Role you want. Each member of the active party having a Role is called a Paradigm. Paradigm is a combination of any three Roles, like Commando - Medic - Ravager, or even a group of three Commandos. It's totally up to the player's strategies which Paradigms they want to use. The Paradigms can be changed manually at any time, or the player can let the CPU work out some useful combinations. Is there anything about the game that doesn't have an automatic option?

Well, Crystarium is the forum for developing your characters. Instead of AP or LP, you get CP - Crystarium Points, or something like that, and use them to advance on a crystal grid that is exactly like a 3D version of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. You can choose which Roles you want to truly focus on for each character, but there's pretty much one single route you can take on each grid, and on the first half of the game, you aren't allowed to develop your characters too much, so forget excessive level farming on the first half altogether.

"We don't need another hero..."

Each character has his or her own Eidolon. All of them appear as bosses during the story, and have to be fought in order for them to join the character. As bosses, they're quite cool - they always require an exclusive strategy based on traits of different Roles to be used on them, they can't be just simply beaten into submission. If their personal time limit is exceeded, it's game over. In use, the Eidolons are kind of ridiculous. They're like a collective anime version of Transformers - they become these sort of vehicles for the characters. Their special attacks can be controlled and managed for a certain period of time, before they unleash all hell with their most powerful attack, either automatically or manually. They're quite useless altogether, just like in the previous game.

After the totally linear first half, you're thrown on Pulse, an extremely large playground of wild animals and savage beasts of all difficulty scattered around the barren lands. At this point, you'll have freedom on your hands, but even that freedom is limited to searching for pretty useless treasures by using a Chocobo and doing mark hunts, which are carried over from Final Fantasy XII as Cie'th Stone Missions - pretty much the only sidequests you have the option to try and conquer in the game. Personally, at this point I had originally lost all my interest in the game. It becomes weaker and weaker right up until that point, and even though freedom is a welcome element into the game, it comes a little too late; everything that has been remotely good about the story has already been used up, and even the good characters have fallen flat. OK, so they wanted to make a different Final Fantasy game, a visual treat with a compelling story. They got the visuals right. I hate the several flashback sequences, 'cause I just couldn't care less about most of the plot and these lengthy scenes distract the player from an already lame game. They wanted to make the battles as dynamic and flowing like they were in the Advent Children movie. OK, so that explains everything. They wanted to make a MOVIE, it seems. Well, you should've done a movie then. What we players want from a Final Fantasy is a GAME.

Yeah, suck it, Behemoth King. Suck it.

Final Fantasy XIII is not a difficult game, it just has very severe difficulties to keep a player interested for the tens of hours he or she could easily spend with a real, exciting Final Fantasy game. Learning to use the Paradigms efficiently, and just watching which enemies to fight and not to fight are the only things that are truly challenging about it. Difficult enemies can quite easily be avoided, just by keeping distance or using these Shrouds, which either give your characters pre-battle buffs or make you totally invisible to enemies. The Trophies/Achievements are mostly about patience, and that's quite fitting since that's exactly what you need with this game: iron will and a patience of steel. Even the Cie'th Stone Missions aren't that bad. They're just all the same. Five-starring each Cie'th Stone Mission is probably the most challenging achievement to make, in terms of actual difficulty. Yep, you are ranked from 0 to 5 stars for each battle. Have fun cursing at the game's inane logic from time to time with these rankings... if you even care. I don't.

Heh, I just read this all through and figured that this has to be the most literally bored review I've ever written. I don't want to call Final Fantasy XIII a bad game, 'cause it has its brief moments and because it's such a visual snack, but it is damn boring for damn sure, and the weakest Final Fantasy game since the first game's original version. In a way, we've come full circle here then - we still have one game to go, but it's not from the main series. I was hoping to pass whole different judgement, but my opinion on the game sadly hasn't changed within the nine months it's been out in this part of the world; if it has, it's definitely for the worse. No more protection from the hype.

Graphics : 9.9
Sound : 7.0
Playability : 6.7
Challenge : 6.5
Overall : 6.6

Trivia

GameRankings: 85.17% (PS3), 82.18% (X360)

REVIEW - Final Fantasy XII (2006)

Genre(s): RPG
Released: 2006
Available on: PS2
Developer(s): Square Enix
Publisher(s): Square Enix
Players: 1

The era of the PS2 was coming to a close, so was the run of Final Fantasy on the particular platform. Final Fantasy XII was in production for five years. During this time, Square Enix published two Final Fantasy games to mixed reviews - the sappy Final Fantasy X-2 and the critically acclaimed, but on the account of PS2 owners, very unpractical and expensive online game Final Fantasy XI (NOTE: the PS2 version was never even released in Europe). No one knew what to expect from Final Fantasy XII. To some people who had grown up playing Final Fantasy, the franchise was long dead, especially after its driving forces Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu had parted ways with Square Enix. Directed by accomplished Final Fantasy veteran Hiroyuki Ito, responsible for some of the finest games in the series, and artist Hiroshi Minagawa who made his directorial debut, Final Fantasy XII was promoted as a thematically faithful Final Fantasy game, but a whole different gameplay experience. Set in the world of Ivalice which had served as the setting for many Final Fantasy spin-offs including the 2000 classic Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII was indeed a bombshell. It can definitely be recognized as a Final Fantasy game right away, as all imaginable classic elements, even some long gone from the series, are in place. However, although it's strictly a single-player experience, as far as gameplay is concerned Final Fantasy XII has more in common with real-time MMO's like its predecessor than any old Final Fantasy game you might've played. The story's like a crossover between vintage Final Fantasy and Star Wars without all the science fiction. How does it all work? Like a dream... for the most part. Final Fantasy XII is an excellent game with potential to be one of the finest games in the whole series, however some of its ambitions work against it.

Star Wars vs. Final Fantasy in the World of Warcraft

STARRING
Bobby Edner : Vaan Ratsbane
Cat Taber : Penelo
Gideon Emery : Ffamran mied Bunansa, "Balthier"
Nicole Fantl : Fran
Kari Wahlgren : Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca, "Ashe"
Keith Ferguson : Basch fon Ronsenburg
Elijah Alexander : Vayne Carudas Solidor
Johnny McKeown : Larsa Ferrinas Solidor
Michael E. Rodgers : Judge Magister Gabranth
John Lee : Cidolfus Demen Bunansa, "Cid"

Six freedom fighters rise against the tyrannical Archadian Empire, all for their own reasons. Young Princess Ashe is the rightful heir to the throne of Dalmasca, who faked suicide after her husband's death to go underground and carefully plan a resistance movement. Vaan is an orphan from the streets of Rabanastre, who dreams of becoming a sky pirate. Penelo is his best friend and companion. Balthier and Fran are infamous sky pirates always willing to make a quick buck, and Basch is a former knight captain of Dalmasca, accused of high treason and murder, set out to redeem himself.

Final Fantasy XII has often been praised for its story, which I simply don't understand. The weakness of the story is the first negative that rears head about it. The localization is very good - the voice acting and everything is simply magnificent - but the script itself is so God damn confusing. You need to keep jotting down bits and pieces to simply know what's going on and to make doubly sure you know the difference between Dalmasca, Rozarria, Archadia and whatnot. The game's sophisticated English is extremely good and it's totally opposite to the localization problems of the past, but it doesn't really serve its purpose - even I don't understand all of it, or I need to work extra to get all there is to get, and then I miss something else crucial. In short, I still can't make heads or tails of some of the things that drive the characters. The characters themselves, on the other hand, are extremely strong. Their personal issues and conflicts are what make the game's story for me instead of their means of mutual struggle.

Vaan and Penelo are introduced as the game's lead characters at first, but very soon it becomes clear that they are far from being the stars of the show, they are more like by-standers, kids learning the ways of the world from their elders. Vaan is still officially forced upon the player as the lead, which is a drag since he's arrogant and thick as a brick, much like most child characters in Japanese games. Penelo is Vaan's polar opposite, a level-headed, reasonable girl who keeps her boyfriend (well, that's what he obviously is!) in check. Too bad there's nothing really memorable about her, comparing her to the rest of the cavalcade... except her butt. I mean... sizzling. Speaking of hot, we have two greater female characters who are both quite damn easy on the eyes, both in their own way, and in the case of Fran, that way is quite twisted since she's not even human. OK, so Rikku wasn't exactly human, but Fran is a Viera. Vieras are over six feet tall, they have hooves for feet and long bunny ears to indicate their strong senses. I stand by my declaration, Fran's hot. It's a fetish for bunny ears, I guess. Blame Playboy magazine. Moreover, she's very wise and calculating, a no-nonsense type of character without a sense of humour or at least the ability to laugh - there's not really a classic shady character in the game, but I guess she's the closest to being one, although her personal traits are just in her tribe's nature.

Come on, tough guy. Why waste your strength
on a kid? Take on the real leading man.

Right down to her choice of clothing and surly attitude, Ashe is like a prototype of the next game's lead character Lightning; she could almost be her twin, only her hair is shorter. Ashe is also the sort of character that was meant to be a non-stereotypical female lead; a tough, bitchy character that would spell absolutely nothing but trouble for all men around her. However, she is introduced a bit differently, as a complete opposite of herself, so we know right off the bat it's all just a charade. She's really a nice girl, just a bit stuck up. And besides, that thing she has going on with Balthier has Princess Leia & Han Solo written all over it... just like everything in this game has Star Wars written all over it. Speaking of Balthier, if they did something right with this game, it was the creation of this lady-killing, smooth-talking sky pirate. The only problem with Balthier is he's so much like Han Solo - my favourite character in the Star Wars universe - that he makes Fran look like Chewbacca. The ONLY problem, since Balthier is most definitely one of my favourite Final Fantasy characters of all time. I usually like those dark, brooding characters I mentioned, but Balthier utilizes a different strategy to win my vote. He's clever, sarcastic, and has a punchline for every possible situation; double all that with a devilishly arrogant British accent in the English version. Gotta love Balthier! To introduce the last playable character, a personal quote from Balthier is more than fitting; "Kidnapping the princess is a serious crime. It wouldn't do much to lower the price on your head." "What's the bounty on your head these days, I wonder?" Of course, we're speaking about Basch, a fallen captain who is desperate to clear his name, but he knows the evidence is stacked against him, so he doesn't really take it as an offence if someone's fitting a noose on his neck. Basch is the first playable character we see in the game - although at that point those who haven't read about him should have no idea that he would show up as a playable character some time in the future. Anyways, we know immediately that this guy's worthy of our trust and fandom, whether he pulled the plug on his own king or not; he must've had his reasons, because he's that damn cool. He, Balthier and Ashe are definitely the three characters that force me to be a little more interested in the game's story and its outcome - and, their dialogue is magnificent. I very much consider Basch and Ashe the game's main characters 'cause a lot of the storyline especially in the early goings revolves around them.

Final Fantasy XII isn't really a reboot, it's more of a one-off to try something completely new after years of going back and forth with an age-old standard, in better and worse. Still, it qualifies as some sort of a reboot 'cause even classic elements are wholly redesigned. Cid appears as a villain for the first time in the franchise's history, as an Imperial scientist specialized in Magicite research; exactly the same as he was in Final Fantasy VI, but this time he's obviously sinister from the first time we lay eyes on him. Chocobos look a bit more like wild animals than usual; they're still kinda cute, but they look a bit dirty and the kind of big, tough birds that could really hold their own in a fight. Moogles who return to the main series in an official capacity for the first time since Final Fantasy IX are completely redesigned; they still say "Kupo" a lot, but they're taller and look purely lagomorphic instead of mysterious anime creatures. But, one thing remains, and it has been this way since Final Fantasy VII, except in VIII in which the main villain was a woman: the bad guy has long hair. I don't know what's even the point in selling Vayne as a good guy and a hero of the people - maybe it's a tribute to Seymour - when we know for damn sure that he's a loyal spokesman of the Empire and the only moment in the game he sounds friendly, sincere and selfless, lasts for about two minutes. And again, he has that long hair, made famous by Sephiroth, Kuja and Seymour. Rest assured, you're gonna fight that guy. As if you didn't know that already. Even if Final Fantasy XII was something totally unexpected as a game, some things never change.

Before going into specifics, I feel the awful need to point out some of the most obvious connections this game has with the Star Wars saga - I'm trying not to spoil too much for those who are truly interested in the story for one reason or another. First, there's this tribe of sand peop... I mean, Urutan-Yensas, little guys in robes who live on a desert, don't like humans and communicate with high-pitched voices that could be described as squeaking. I already went over the relationship between Balthier and Ashe. It's more like mutual respect than a romantic relationship - Ashe is quite obviously cold as a freezer - but there's a definite Han Solo / Leia undertone in their dialogue. There's a huge bounty on Balthier's head which has just about every headhunter in the kingdom tracking him down, and he travels the lands in an extremely capable airship, with his "alien" companion attempting to find more and more ways to make easy money, going home is not an option. At one point, he's lured to a city in the clouds to take care of business. That's Han Solo for you, and as much as it hurts me to say this, Fran is indeed a talking, female Chewbacca. Don't get me wrong, I love Chewie, but he doesn't really tickle my interest like Fran, if you catch my drift. What hurts me even more is that Vaan is quite a lot like Luke Skywalker, with less character development. He doesn't really accomplish anything, at least at the pace Luke does - he just dreams and flaps his gums. The connection between Vaan and Luke said, I consider Old Dalan, an NPC who's kind of like the mentor to each street urchin in Rabanastre, the obvious, yet minor reference to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Last - at least for now - we have the Judges, who serve as the game's "mascots", as there's one of them pictured in the European cover art and the game's title screen. Darth Vader, anyone? At first the Judges seem like way lesser factors in the storyline than anyone or anything else, these elite executioners in traditional dark armour seem like just tools to scare the player, but actually, they're quite important to the game's mysteries.


One last thing to say before I begin: one doesn't just walk into Final Fantasy XII. Be prepared. It has many qualities which serve as links between it and the rest of the series, but if you've never played an MMO, a Western RPG or Final Fantasy XI for that matter in your life, you're in for some hard schooling. It might have been made in Japan, but Final Fantasy XII is way more delicate and precise than any other J-RPG. That said, you're in luck since the game has many tutorial files which you're able to review at any time, it's not nearly as hard to learn as it might first seem, and most importantly, it's a very good game. I believe you're gonna be hooked, as complex as it seems, and as admittedly boring it might be at its worst.

As you should by now, I don't go passing out perfect tens to any qualities, much less overall games, very lightly. When the graphical display of Final Fantasy XII is in question, I have no choice - there is no better-looking PS2 game out there. First of all the game's in full 3D, which simply means that you can control the camera in any way you like. You can zoom in to Penelo's nice butt or check out Basch's awesome scar up close with no problem at all. This, and the sheer size of the game's environments, both interior and exterior, are simply jaw-dropping. The characters and their movement are well designed, each and every texture is carefully refined... but not too refined. The overtly clean and polished look of Final Fantasy X is dropped out, and in turn we get much more believable facial expressions and decent lip-sync work. The only thing that remotely hurts my eyes about the game is the use of those flat, poor dialogue boxes on the bottom of the screen; the classic dialogue boxes only show up in tutorials and some choice situations. The game is damn beautiful; a true technological breakthrough that goes to show why the PS2 has lived such a long life.

The classic Final Fantasy theme song "Prelude" starts up the game for the first time in a single-player Final Fantasy game in years, and makes one shed a nostalgic, very happy tear. We're really dealing with a Final Fantasy game here, and judging by the sound of things, it's gonna be awesome. The victory fanfare also returns, yet it only plays after storyline bosses, due to the regular battles being seamlessly fought in real time. The music written for the game by Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata and Hayato Matsuo is surprisingly great. There is absolutely no techno or electronic music here - it's classical, epic music all the way. That also means that Uematsu's personal rock influences are gone from the fray; there are no synthesized guitars or anything of the sort to spit out some crazy riffs in climactic points like usual, but the epic, progressive soundtrack is very supportive to the game's style. I'm fine without Uematsu this time around, as surprising as it might seem. It might not be the best Final Fantasy soundtrack and as background music, it could use a little more variety, but it's ten times better than all the other non-Uematsu shite out there. ...And you know what? There's a remix of "Clash on the Big Bridge" from Final Fantasy V. If that wasn't a spoiler, I don't know what is... but I just had to mention it since it's my favourite Final Fantasy song of all time.

Like I have pointed out a couple of times, the voice acting in this game is phenomenal. What I know of Final Fantasy XI, is that it didn't have voiceovers at all. They wouldn't have made any sense in an MMO, anyway... Captain Obvious strikes again! So, the closest comparison to the voice cast would have to be that of Final Fantasy X and X-2. The latter did OK, but we have still come a long way. The voices have a much stronger connection to the characters on the screen, and most lines are delivered with passion. Sometimes the characters' accents fail in mid-sentence and some particular actors overdo their accents, but there's not a moment that would remind me of the worst of X or X-2. Special mentions go out to Kari Wahlgren (Ashe), Keith Ferguson (Basch), and of course, Gideon Emery, who makes Balthier a ten times greater character than he already is.

To business. In May 2002, Final Fantasy XI was released in Japan - first on the PS2, and a few months later, on the PC. Even today, hundreds of thousands of players, most of them Japanese, log in daily to check their progress. Back in 2002, though, MMO's were kind of limited to who other people referred to as nerds and no-lifes. Massive multiplayer games had never been that big of a global phenomenon, although there were many Western role-playing games, both online and offline, that were out to challenge the Japanese success story of Final Fantasy. They just rarely left their home computer environment, and when they did, they flopped. Then, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi became a fan of Western RPG's, and he came up with the concept of an online Final Fantasy game. He had nothing to do with the final product, but he created the spark of getting rid of restrictions that many fans of the Western style as well as the online freeroam had felt to hold the series back. Final Fantasy XI was a success in Japan and North America, but not the success story that would define its sequel.

In November 2004, World of Warcraft conquered Australia and North America. Four months later, Europe was also devoured by the largest MMO ever conceived. No longer was online playing limited to nerds and no-lifes, but kids and their parents, even the school teachers of those very same kids. Ozzy, Mr. T, William Shatner, guys that we all know showed up on just about every website ad, promoting World of Warcraft. Today, World of Warcraft is still the most popular online game of all time - the much-anticipated Cataclysm expansion pack was actually released just a few days ago, and the game is six years old! Square Enix already had their mind set on making Final Fantasy XII a single-player experience, to oppose their still active online community and truly serve the fans that didn't have the necessary hardware or money to buy it, for a change. However, making a standard, single-player Final Fantasy game in the golden era of Western MMO would've been a bad business move. So... they made an MMO for single players only. Paradoxical, I know, but by far the only way to easily describe the game for fans of traditional J-RPG.

Let's see. Four people against an overgrown
tomato. Unfair? Nah. Just the FF XII way.

The game's beginning is full of different tutorials and trials of soon-to-be common elements, so I'll skip ahead a bit because you're in for hours of playing before you can even assemble your first proper party. For most of the storyline's first quarter or so, your three-person party is accompanied by a CPU guest, who brings along an additional 25% chance of survival. Some random helpers are also likely to pop up in the field during the first hours of the game. It's like the designers are holding your hand every step of the way. Soon enough, though, you'll be on your own - about 30 hours into the game, at least at my pace. Until then, you'd better have learned the basics.

Every location in Ivalice is connected. You can get pretty far just by walking. Apart from a city in the skies and a few heavily guarded territories, walking is a recommended method of transportation for obvious reasons. Every connecting path is full of enemies, apparently glad to take part in a little sword vs. flesh. There are no random encounters at all. Enemies pop up on your minimap as red dots and you can either target them from afar or try to find a way around them, if you're not into fighting at the moment or find the enemy to be a little too hot to handle for you at your current experience level. Very difficult enemies appear from time to time from the very beginning of the game, but very often there's a trick to just having them ignore you. Just watch out for rare creatures, don't use magic(k) around Entites or Elementals, and don't spontaneously attack the otherwise docile Saurians, and you should be fine. Use a little discretion while scanning the huge horizons of the game. It's not the non-stop, one-button EXP fest it might look like at first.

Libra, a traditional Final Fantasy ability you might know better as Scan or Sense, is absolutely crucial to use in the game. By using Libra at steady intervals, you'll not just be able to see an enemy's EXP level before going in all guns blazing, but also traps that have been laid out just about everywhere, especially in most of the final dungeons, which are potent enough to kill your whole party at one single step. You can order a character to re-use Libra automatically whenever its effect ends by using the new Gambit system.

The battles are fought in real time (ADB = Active Dimension Battle), but you must use the traditional menu from time to time to give commands you aren't able to apply via Gambit yet. "Gambit" is a fancy name for a traditional, Western tactics system, which allows you to apply auto-commands for your party - that is, your whole party. You can Gambit your chosen main character if you like, personally I prefer manual control over the lead character, but it's perfectly possible and very common to give everyone a list of auto-commands. How many different Gambits you can apply to a character depends on the amount of their Gambit slots, gained via the whole new character development system among everything else, their specific talents which are also acquired via the board, and simply the skills and Gambits you have bought, or found in the field. That's right, Final Fantasy XII returns to the age-old system in which you have to buy everything. Skills, spells, Gambits, weapons, armour, accessories. And yes, as the age-old games would have it, everything's damn expensive. You'd like to think you have all the money in the world, but it's never enough for everything on sale. Actually, one of the game's weakest points is that the stores restock their wares a little too often. Advance one single step in the storyline - like watch one 30-second cutscene - and the city you left by foot many hours ago might have new stuff on sale in every store. You'll find yourself backtracking to the city of Rabanastre about a dozen times in AT LEAST the equal amount of hours. Yeah, you'd like to think that you don't need the stuff on sale - sometimes you don't, but sometimes you do if you want to survive with flying colours. And hey, every Final Fantasy player alive wants all the stuff fresh out of the oven.

Not enough money? Go back into the field where you had your very first battles, stock up on loot to sell and some Licence Points along the way. Is it really this easy? Yes, it is. Regardless of your EXP level climbing up to 70 or 80, or your history of killing about a million wolves (Level 3-9), you'll always gain one Licence Point from them, which is the same amount as you would gain from a Bomb or Nightmare much later on in the game. With the proper key items, you can gain even better loot from them in the later stages than in the beginning of the game. So, it's like this: walk for miles to reach your next destination. Teleport (luckily you can do that in choice territories) back into Rabanastre. Recheck the stores. Sell your loot. Buy everything. Broke? Go for your umpteenth one-hour stroll into any desert nearby. Return to Rabanastre. Buy the rest. Go back to your original spot... oh, wait! Check the bulletin board in the bar first, there might be a new bounty available! Oh, and did you remember to return to the Clan Hall for a possible - but not certain - prize for your recent beheadings, check your current rank or visit the Muthru Bazaar for your new clan provisions? While you're at it, you might want to check the new stocks in other cities you've visited! The game is very hectic, just chock full of backtracking. It is huge, no doubt about it, but are there really that many different territories in it? No. Can you honestly spend 70 out of 150 playing hours just backtracking back and forth? Absolutely. At times I'm even reminded of the infamous Earth Cave in the very first Final Fantasy game. There are some dungeons in the game which you have to enter for one reason or another, and fight halfway through it, then return outside, just to go back again, to visit a now unlocked part of the dungeon to do something else. I hate to say this, but as great as Final Fantasy XII might seem, seriously one of the best games in the series due to its unique qualities, a big part of it is just a waste of valuable time.

Actually, the game is at its very best when you're navigating through the many dungeons. Yes, real labyrinths of death are most definitely back, made possible by the appliance of full 3D. Not only are the interiors confusing and trap-laden, the exterior, connecting paths between points A and B are also maze-like; since you'll be doing a lot of walking, the game is like one big dungeon, minus the many cities, of course. By the time you get an airship under your command, you'll probably have visited each location on the map already, except for the stage for the final battle. The airship is no more than a module for shortcuts, and the (pseudo-)world map is perfectly flat, not even as interactive as it was in Final Fantasy X. Navigating through the dungeons lets you forget every sub-technicality about the game; you simply advance, level up, develop your characters and collect a shitload of loot. Looting is the primary source of income, and it's extremely fun. Its purpose always isn't - decisions on what to buy just keep getting harder and even unfair with time - but it's always exciting to see what kind of a price a rare of piece of loot you just found while skewering a zombie's innards fetches on the market, and there's always a possibility that the one strip of foul flesh or a piece of a bat's wing is an ingredient a merchant needs to whip up a new killer item for you.

A modified version of the "!?" system from Final Fantasy IX returns, but this time a mark appears from a distance away - there's just no way you can spot everything by yourself in the game, since there are many hidden corners with treasure barrels or chests, and non-highlighted doors. In this game, treasure containers respawn, and what they contain is pretty random - if I'm not totally wrong, what you find is up to your current level and needs. Remembering the pain of finding Eye Drops whenever you desperately needed, say, a Tent in some earlier game makes this theory quite comforting. Speaking of Tents, Save Points themselves, both kinds, cure all ailments like they did in the previous two single-player Final Fantasies. There are indeed orange save crystals which serve as teleports between each other. Almost each major location in the game has at least one of them. There are also airship cruisers you can use to travel between cities, and of course, Chocobos to travel on battlefields, but renting them is damn expensive and you can only use them for limited periods of time. However, there are dungeons which you can only enter with the help of a Chocobo, as tradition goes.

Once you have your full party of six, you can change members any time you like, and not just that, but if your active party dies in battle, you can immediately switch to another party, and even revive your previous one if you like. This allows the use of some extremely cheap tactics, but the game still isn't easy, not by the longest shot. You might notice that even if you're the kind of player that has always refrained from using protective spells and debuffs against the enemy, spells like Dispel, Protect, Shell, and the new duo of Bravery and Faith are some of the most crucial spells in the whole game, much more important than any offensive mana. They just take a whole eternity to acquire... like almost every truly important ability or spell in the game.

The Licence Board is innovative, but it has true
purpose only in the middle of the game.

Just buying everything is not enough. You can't do shit with any weapon, or use any spell, which you don't have a proper Licence for. I mentioned Licence Points earlier, and you indeed get at least one from every single enemy you kill - they're the same as AP was before. You use the Licence Points to advance on a Licence Board, a developmental system similar to the Sphere Grid, but much less restricted. There are two separate boards: one is for acquiring licences for weapons and armour, one is for everything else: HP/MP augments, technicks, magicks, accessories and other auto-abilities. Acquiring the licence for something always unlocks everything one step next to that licence. Each character has the very same board, but they all start from different points. You can advance to any direction you like, meaning you can promote someone as a mage, while focusing on the physical skills of another character. This also means that each and every character can learn everything in the game, and they can also use any equipment. Balthier starts out with a pistol and Vaan has the Steal ability from the beginning, but you can easily turn the tables by licencing and equipping Vaan with a gun, and making Balthier your melee thief. Sounds quite stupid, I know, but it's an example. Personally, I stick to the original weapons in the case of most characters; I have some sort of obsession to equip Ashe with axes and hammers, and Basch with spears and poles, even while they're both natural-born swordfighters, though. But again, it's all up to the player. The Licence Board is quite all right in my books. It just takes a very long time before the licences start paying off properly. Even if you get a licence for some Magick or Technick right away, it might take tens of playing hours before you can actually purchase the skill, and vice versa. Towards the end of the game, the board loses some of its point since everyone likely has enough points to complete the whole board, there's no more need for specific abilities for specific characters.

Quickenings serve as Limit Breaks, and they appear in corners of the Licence Board. Each character has three different Quickenings, and once a character has acquired a licence for one, it disappears from every other character's board, and the other characters have to get their licence for a Quickening from another corner. What's different about these special attacks in comparison to a classic Limit Break is that they consume MP, and with good Quick Time reflexes, they can be used several times in succession during one battle - AND, performed together with other members' Quickenings. A good combo results in an ultimate Quickening, which does a huge bulk of damage to any opponent. The hard part is the consuming of MP, you won't have any left on those characters that participated in the combo, and curing members manually or by Gambit is a very important part of each challenging battle. Luckily MP recovers automatically, and there are augments on the board which shorten the recovery time in several different methods.

Summons return as Espers, as they were called in Final Fantasy VI, but there are no stalwarts here. Actually, each vintage name of a summon is given to an Imperial airship in the game - Leviathan, Ifrit, Bahamut, and the sort. I don't quite understand their exact meaning to the plot, but all the Espers in the game are sort of guardians of ancient secrets, that want to test the characters before lending them their power - in other words, you have to fight each and every Esper in battles some of which are exceedingly tough. After acquiring an Esper, the wretched thing appears on the Licence Board and you can permit one character to use it with a very small Licence price. It's funny that as tough as some of the Espers are as bosses, they're useless in battle aside from the fact that they're good cannon fodder in the stead of your characters. They fight on the side of whoever summoned them for a set period of time, until dying or automatically reaching a Quickening of their own. Usually they die. They don't have much to go on when it comes to artificial intelligence.

Character development is not restricted to the Licence Board. Of course it isn't, since if and when you complete each character's board, you'd have six identical characters, only with different Quickenings and Espers. Each piece of armour also affects HP and/or MP, and the characters' basic stats grow with EXP.

The last thing I'll talk about is the "minigame" I mentioned a couple of times already. Since Final Fantasy XII is a flowing, real-time RPG with Western influences, there really isn't a distraction of any sort - but it wouldn't be a Final Fantasy game without some sort of prominent sidequest or "game" that is present throughout the main game. That's why we have mark hunting. In Final Fantasy X, there was the option to go hunting for enemies in different territories to create several superbosses, which could all be fought at a battle arena. You might think that mark hunting is the same thing, but it's actually completely different - it's more like bounty hunting. There are several NPC's with one certain rare monster or individual they want dead for one reason or another, and it's your job to go get these gradually toughening bastards for gil, rare items and fine equipment. Now this is fun, extremely so... but the backtracking strikes again. Let's say you have just beaten the longest dungeon in the game. You go to the nearest bar to check the bulletin board for any new marks, and there is one, in the middle of that very same dungeon, and even at high levels, you have no guarantee of being able to beat the mark, or at its worst, even FIND it, since there are sometimes some really weird, cryptic criterias to be able to even encounter some of the enemies. Regardless of where you are, each time you gain a rank, you should haul your ass back to the Clan Hall in Rabanastre right away to see what the chief moogle offers you as a reward for your hard work or if he has some new info on some really tough bounties called Elite Marks, then check the new stock of a special merchant that works exclusively for the clan. Later, yet another guy comes along that wants you to go on a hunt for other rare creatures outside the confines of the marks posted. Yes, there is much to do, but one's interest holding up through the whole damn ordeal is another thing. You ALWAYS have to return to your employer to collect your check - which is incredibly stupid. Why not just kill whatever they want you to kill and automatically receive the spoils for it? Is it perhaps considered challenging to make that one trip to some random guy to tell him his dirty deeds are done, when you could easily just get your big prize and continue your journey, perhaps cut a couple of extra hours off the game while you're at it? I'll tell you: it's plain boring.

That Chocobo looks ready for war.

Before Achievements and Trophies became every day business for owners of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, respectively, we had Final Fantasy XII and the Sky Pirate's Den, an extremely nice and comprehensive trophy system. The game is quite difficult, even in the storyline the most challenging battles require full knowledge of the pros and cons of the Gambit system from the player, the effective use of Gambits provides the most natural challenge in my view for players that are not familiar with any games that are practically based on predefined tactics. The Sky Pirate's Den prompts the player to go all the way, on the first time, since the game is made so (perhaps intentionally) that it has perhaps the least replay value out of all Final Fantasies, it's just so damn lengthy, even disregarding the hours that go to total waste. It's the kind of game you're supposed to beat just once, in my opinion. You can't save in the final "stage", so your last save will always be at a point in which you can tie up some loose ends whenever you want to, as long as you get that far. Getting every 16-bit sprite into your Den practically means you've done absolutely everything in the game, since it requires you to finish all marks, including the ultimate superboss of the game - Yiazmat, who has no less than 50,000,000 HP and literally takes HOURS to kill. I never made it past his "predecessor" Hell Wyrm, myself, so I'm in for a lot of work as well, if I ever find the time and interest to fully complete the game.

The beautiful Princess Ashe, before she goes
all Miss Parker on us.

The placement of save points is very awkward. Primarily, in cities save points pop up around just about every corner, but even in the lengthiest dungeons, you're lucky if you'll see two of them. If you suddenly get tired or just bored of the game, you often need to backtrack to the entrance and save there, and fight the very same horde of monsters you just vanquished along the way. EXP and LP extravaganza, for sure, but fun? No.

Final Fantasy XII could've been a masterpiece. It's smooth, flowing and thoroughly cool... but in turn, it has a crappy, confusing story - with many interesting characters, though - and dozens of hours of pointless backtracking as its biggest pairing of ball and chain. As a dungeon slasher the game borders on phenomenal despite some really cryptic and nerve-consuming mazes like the Great Crystal. Interacting with NPC's and simply running back and forth through the cities and between them, really isn't as fun as it could be, and has been. Despite stark punches of boredom right to the kisser and some unrefined features, Final Fantasy XII stands as one unique, visually perfect and deliciously offbeat Final Fantasy experience, which everyone should try out.

Graphics : 10
Sound : 9.1
Playability : 8.2
Challenge : 9.0
Overall : 8.5

Trivia

GameRankings: 90.64%

The game holds a Guinness World Record for the longest period of development in video game history.

The second Final Fantasy game to spawn a direct sequel. Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings was released exclusively for the Nintendo DS in 2007.

Although not involved in the game's development, series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi was very interested in original director Yasumi Matsuno's work, and impressed by it. After Matsuno left the project, Sakaguchi refused to play the game beyond the first tutorial.

The world of Ivalice was first introduced in Final Fantasy Tactics for the PS1 in 1997.

Judge Magister Gabranth (voiced by Keith Ferguson instead of Michael E. Rodgers) appears as an extra antagonist in Square Enix's all-star anniversary game Dissidia - Final Fantasy, released on the PSP in 2008.

MUSIC REVIEW - The Black Mages: The Black Mages III - Darkness and Starlight (2008)

BAND LINE-UP
Tsuyoshi Sekito : guitars
Michio Okamiya : guitars
Keiji Kawamori : bass guitar
Arata Hanyuda : drums
Nobuo Uematsu : keyboards
Kenichiro Fukui : keyboards

TRACKLISTING
01. Opening - Bombing Mission (Final Fantasy VII)
02. Neo EXDEATH (Final Fantasy V)
03. The Extreme (Final Fantasy VIII)
04. Assault of the Silver Dragons (Final Fantasy IX)
05. KURAYAMINOKUMO (Final Fantasy III)
06. Distant Worlds (Final Fantasy XI)
07. Premonition (Final Fantasy VIII)
08. Grand Cross (Final Fantasy IX)
09. Darkness and Starlight (Final Fantasy VI)
10. LIFE ~ In Memory of KEITEN ~

It seemed like it was never going to happen, but here's the third and final album by The Black Mages, released four years after their most popular CD. As pretty much expected, Darkness and Starlight is the band's most experimental album. Most of the songs are marginal tracks, not the most obvious choices - for example, an instrumental version of "Distant Worlds", the originally vocalized ballad from the online curiosity Final Fantasy XI, tracks from Final Fantasy III and V, games that were only recently up for international release for Nintendo handhelds, and simply some tunes that I would imagine not being on many a man's actual wishlist. There's also another original track, a piano piece dedicated to Nobuo Uematsu's young fan who died of leukemia. It's an album the guys made with themselves in mind instead of the franchise's mainstream fans, which is quite respectable.

How about the band's sound on this last piece of theirs? The first album was a very industrial record, the second a full-blooded metal album, this one's perhaps a little too balanced, so balanced that these songs could easily be featured in the games themselves - or their possible remakes? (A certain someone got his hopes up with the opening track again...) It's not too heavy, and not too light, either. It's smooth and flowing, video game music with an edge. That said, it's all a bit bland. Quality music, no doubt - fun to listen, but the album has the weakest variety in truly remarkable tunes out of all three, and it doesn't really catch a rock and metal fan's interest like the previous CD did.

One of the previous CD's element is carried over, too bad it's the worst quality of it: lead vocals, this time sung by the guys themselves. Three songs which make up the legendary opera scene in Final Fantasy VI have been clamped together as a 15-minute medley that serves as the album's title track - and yes, since the opera scene became famous for its synthesized vocals, unheard of in the golden era of the SNES, they just had to re-record them with real singing. Once again, the guys prove that Japanese people, no matter how talented musicians they are, really aren't capable of judging good singing. Well, at least they sing in their own language instead of coming up with some bad English lyrics sung in even worse English.

Had enough of all the negativity? Well, I've got good news for you. First of all, an album that begins with a medley of two songs that brought me into this great series along with millions of other people, can't be all bad. Second, even if these songs aren't the best material the Final Fantasy franchise ever had to offer and true climaxes are nowhere to be found, it's all quality music. Seriously, the only truly unlistenable song here is "Darkness and Starlight", and it's made unlistenable only by the lead vocal parts and distracting narrative - the band's musical performance is outstanding. The album might have a lame sound and the tracklist might be as lacking as always, but I think we have a decent ambient album here. A good listen, if nothing more.

RATING : 6.5

MUSIC REVIEW - The Black Mages: The Black Mages II - The Skies Above (2004)

BAND LINE-UP
Tsuyoshi Sekito : guitars
Michio Okamiya : guitars
Keiji Kawamori : bass guitar
Arata Hanyuda : drums
Nobuo Uematsu : keyboards
Kenichiro Fukui : keyboards

GUESTS
KAZCO : lead vocals in "Otherworld"
Alexander O. Smith : spoken part in "Maybe I'm a Lion"
Mr. Goo : lead vocals in "The Skies Above"

TRACKLISTING
01. The Rocking Grounds (Final Fantasy III)
02. Zeromus (Final Fantasy IV)
03. Vamo' Alla Flamenco (Final Fantasy IX)
04. Hunter's Chance (Final Fantasy IX)
05. Otherworld (Final Fantasy X)
06. Matoya's Cave (Final Fantasy I)
07. The Man with the Machine Gun (Final Fantasy VIII)
08. Maybe I'm a Lion (Final Fantasy VIII)
09. Battle with the Four Fiends (Final Fantasy IV)
10. The Skies Above (Final Fantasy X)
11. Blue Blast - Winning the Rainbow

"We're no longer a trio of middle-aged video game composers with a synthesizer and one rock guitar, we're a heavy metal band, we're having fun and so are our fans!" They could say that, or just blast out "The Rocking Grounds" - no explanation needed. The Black Mages' personnel has grown from three people to a group of two guitarists, two keyboardists, a bass guitarist and a proper drummer. As expected, the synthesized, mechanical sound of the first album is blown to hell by bottom-heavy prog metal mayhem. How great it sounds, that's another thing. Overall, we're dealing with a better album. But.

I'll get the downsides to the album out of the way right now. First of all, the tracklist is still lacking some really good tunes. They went and exploited Final Fantasy VIII, so where's "The Landing"? I can pretty much imagine they left "Liberi Fatali" completely out of consideration due to the original's massive sound, which made a new arrangement pointless in itself, but "The Landing" would've made for some heavy, locomotive shite. Also, Final Fantasy IV would've had a lot more potential songs for the band to sink their teeth into. Well, this time the band took to the better part of Final Fantasy X's soundtrack with two songs, but infamously arranged both songs with lead vocals. "Otherworld"'s very deep-end death metal rant is replaced with crystal clear, female lead vocals by J-Pop artist Kazco Hamano a.k.a. KAZCO, whose English pronounciation isn't quite on mark, and she has these weird mannerisms to further drag the extremely strong performance by the musicians down. Tomoaki Watanabe, credited as Mr. Goo, totally destroys the album's title track, a vocalized version of the classic "To Zanarkand" theme. Not only are his skills with the English language non-existent, but his singing, which kind of reminds me of the late Leslie Nielsen singing opera in the first Naked Gun movie, is simply horrid. The power metal arrangement rocks, though. Square's American localization specialist Alexander O. Smith says that corny "maybe I'm a lion" bit in the beginning of... well, "Maybe I'm a Lion".

So as you might have already noted, The Skies Above isn't all about battle themes, unlike the band's first album. The classic "Matoya's Cave" from the first Final Fantasy game brings in a good five minutes of solace in the middle of the album with acoustic guitars and a great, ethereal atmosphere... that is, until another one of Uematsu's hectic organ solos comes in out of nowhere. I thought the guys were through with these! Oh, well, it's still a good version of my favourite tune from the classic (albeit quite bad) NES game. "Blue Blast - Winning the Rainbow" differs from all other songs since it's not a Final Fantasy song at all - not even a video game tune, but instead a song composed by Japanese kickboxer Takehiro Murahama. It fits the album surprisingly well, since as a song it's got Uematsu's signatures all over it.

After another 51 minutes of heavy Final Fantasy-fueled madness are over, I find myself craving for more and listening to the CD again. There are many flaws, worst of them being two vocalists who both botch fabulous songs. I can't believe talented musicians and music producers let these two performances pass with flying colours, moreover released them on their own album. I wish the Japanese had as much talent in judging singing as they have in composing music. As I was saying, there are many flaws, but this heavy sound does the whole experience wonders, as do a few truly outstanding arrangements. On my account it would've been a great idea for the band to consider re-recording the first album with this new six-piece line-up of theirs. I reckon that would've sounded simply awesome.

RATING : 7.7

MUSIC REVIEW - The Black Mages: The Black Mages (2003)

BAND LINE-UP
Tsuyoshi Sekito : guitars / bass guitar / programming
Nobuo Uematsu : keyboards / programming
Kenichiro Fukui : keyboards / programming

TRACKLISTING
01. Battle Scene (Final Fantasy I)
02. Clash on the Big Bridge (Final Fantasy V)
03. Force Your Way (Final Fantasy VIII)
04. Battle, Scene II (Final Fantasy II)
05. The Decisive Battle (Final Fantasy VI)
06. Battle Theme (Final Fantasy VI)
07. J-E-N-O-V-A (Final Fantasy VII)
08. Those Who Fight Further (Final Fantasy VII)
09. Dancing Mad (Final Fantasy VI)
10. Fight with Seymour (Final Fantasy X)

The Black Mages' history roots all the way back to the year 2000. Square composers Kenichiro Fukui and Tsuyoshi Sekito were hired to compose a rock soundtrack for All-Star Pro Wrestling, which became a moderate hit in Japan. The two men enjoyed working together so much that they began to work on rock and metal arrangements of Final Fantasy music. Neither one had ever worked on a Final Fantasy game before, as that had always been Nobuo Uematsu's job up to that point. In 2002, Uematsu heard some of their arrangements and liked them so much, that he was asked to join Fukui and Sekito's band. At first, the maestro declined and said that he would like to come and play keyboards with them live, one single time. Fukui and Sekito said that if Uematsu wouldn't join the band, they wouldn't form it either. After that one gig, Uematsu was so taken by the traits of being a live musician, that he changed his mind and joined Fukui and Sekito's partnership. Thus, The Black Mages were born. And, in 2003, the band released their eponymous debut album on DigiCube, a now-defunct label founded in the mid-90's and specialized in the promotion of video game music.

The Black Mages have become known for playing pretty much the songs they want, with no strict theme except a wide variety of songs to serve a wide audience. The first album, however, is a tribute to battle music through time. I find myself asking a few questions while listening to the album. I don't actually have to listen to it at all, just looking at the tracklist is enough for now: within this theme, I find it hard to comprehend why the main battle themes of Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy V, some of the best in the series, have been left out and replaced with quite standard compositions. It's also quite surprising that there are no tracks at all from the soundtrack of Final Fantasy IV, which is one of the most critically acclaimed soundtracks in the franchise. However, we have a lot of good tracks here - and to tell you the truth, if The Black Mages had strictly made just this one album and tried to cover everything people wanted to hear metallized, there would probably be 40 to 50 songs here. With these song lengths, the album's production would've been a nightmare to finance. These are their favourite arrangements at the time - so let's take a look-see and enjoy these 51 minutes as they are.

Nailing "Battle Scene" from the first Final Fantasy game as the lead track was genius. It grooves like a moose and all the bases are covered: this is what The Black Mages sound like at their best. Heavy guitars, a steady bass line, an inspired and innovative arrangement from all standpoints, and great work with the synthesizers by Nobuo Uematsu himself. However, as the album goes on, these synthesizers bite off a chunk that's a little too big in comparison to everything else. For example, "Clash on the Big Bridge", which might be my favourite Final Fantasy tune of all time, is still a killer track, but it lacks precise double bass drum action, which would've fit in perfectly, and it features an impromptu synth solo, which kind of slows down the song's drive. The Black Mages are definitely a progressive metal band, and they own these songs, and therefore, they are allowed to do anything they please with the tracks, but I think that with some songs some hint of arrogance and need to show off arises. No songs are actually destroyed by manic progression, and even the mechanical sound of the sequenced percussion doesn't hurt the record, but some arrangements could've turned out a lot better and more flowing than they are. There's a definite lack of balance at work here.

My favourite songs are pretty much scattered across the CD; the opening track, "The Decisive Battle" and "Battle Theme" from Final Fantasy VI, "Those Who Fight Further" from Final Fantasy VII - in which the band's classic rock influence is at its most obvious. Even as an original song, it sounded like something Deep Purple would whip out, but in this form, it's almost pure Purple. The guys are at their most progressive in "Dancing Mad", of course. The longest and most complex piece Uematsu has ever written for any game clocks in at 12:04, and it rocks - it's simply amazing, however I have to concur with most critics who say it sounds a little too much like the original. Well, on the other hand, that goes to show how epic the song sounded even as a MIDI tune on the SNES. They don't make songs quite like "Dancing Mad" anymore. Too bad "One-Winged Angel" has always stolen its spotlight as the ultimate boss theme. But, surprisingly it isn't here, so let's dance mad! Of course, even with the break-action synth solo, "Clash on the Big Bridge" stands out as my favourite track, and I have a custom of listening to the song at least once every Friday and/or when I'm cleaning my apartment, for some odd reason. I even linked the live version below - it's a bit heavier and more energetic than this studio version, too bad the audio isn't quite up to par.

Overall, The Black Mages' debut offers every Final Fantasy fan out there something to rock out to, especially those who are even a little bit into rock or metal, and preferrably musicians themselves. We're sincerely talking about some of the best musicians in Japan here. Maybe they're a bit too experimental, and don't have the best taste in tunes - some extremely potential songs have been left out of the fray and in their stead we have the weaker battle theme of Final Fantasy II, the lackluster boss theme from Final Fantasy VIII, the moderately cool but utterly unmemorable Seymour boss theme from Final Fantasy X, and the most overtly synthesized song in the bunch in the could've-been-great "J-E-N-O-V-A", plus several intermissions and passages out of the bushes throughout the album - awkward stops along a smooth way, but all in all, the album's good, enjoyable work. Less crazy synth dribble and more of those dandy guitar riffs which truly emerge in the middle of the album, and we would have an undisputed winner.

RATING : 7.0