|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Information
Videos | Title | Views | Length | Date Added | | 16 | 5:20 | 9/18/2008 | | 13 | 3:22 | 9/18/2008 |
Reviews The PS2's final Final Fantasy could be this year's RPG of the Year, November 13, 2006 Rating: 9.5/10 By zeroinitiate The tenth iteration of Final Fantasy was released in the early days of the PS2. Whether it’s coincidence or irony, Final Fantasy XII’s launch comes near the end of the aforementioned console’s life. It’s a very fitting conclusion because Final Fantasy XII is one of the best RPGs for the PS2.
The game is set in the land of Ivalice, which is already a familiar place to anyone who played Final Fantasy Tactics for the PS1 and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Game Boy Advance. It tells the tale of two empires that are at war with each other and what happens to the independent kingdoms between them. You will play an assortment of six characters, led by an orphan named Vaan, and try to set things right. In typical Final Fantasy sense, “setting things right” will involve exploring forbidden dungeons, fighting elite armies, raiding ancient catacombs, going against the occasional empire and, of course, kicking a lot of monster butt.
Combat in Final Fantasy XII is done differently. First, there are no random encounters. You have an overhead radar that tells you where the monsters are, so it’s up to you if you want to fight them or not. Second, combat is done in real-time. When you approach a monster or vice-versa, you’ll see target lines that indicate who’s attacking who. Once that’s done, a progress bar next to your character’s name will appear. When it’s full, your character will attack automatically. Or you can assign a different action, which brings us to the third difference: the Gambit system.
Gambits are basically a set of priority-based rules that you program for your character to determine how they behave in combat. For example, do you want Vaan to attack foes on sight or do you want him to steal something from them first? When one of your party members is low on health, do you want Vaan to stop what he’s currently doing and heal her or should he continue attacking? If he does heal her, should he use a single-target healing spell or should he just go ahead and heal the entire party? These are all determined by the Gambit system. You can assign specific actions, targets and conditions. You’ll start off with a few basic Gambits at first, but as you familiarize yourself with the system, you’ll begin creating more complex ones. With the right settings, you can simply walk into combat, observe and then walk away. If that doesn’t appeal to you, you can still play the game the old-fashioned way and input your commands manually. Doing this will override any preset Gambit, so it’s also useful for emergency actions. Most boss fights will require you to do this.
One of the other things that the game uses is the license board. It looks like a giant chess board that you have to unlock in order to equip items, cast spells, use abilities and so on. This means that you can’t just buy the most expensive sword in the weapons shop and use it. You have to unlock it first in the license board before you can do so. You gain license points from combat, which you’ll use to unlock the license board. The board is arranged in a logical manner. When you unlock swords, you open a path to the stronger swords. Unlocking a Cure spell will lead you to more powerful healing spells. This system allows, maybe even forces you to customize your characters because they don’t come to you in neat little packages, meaning they’re not your stereotypical healers, mages or fighters. It’s up to you to unlock what path you want them to take and what role they’ll play in your party.
The game’s graphics do a very good job of immersing you into the world of Ivalice. The models are detailed and well-rendered. The monsters offer a lot of variety in terms of their looks and abilities. Cities and towns are well-populated and are bustling with activity. The environments are well-designed, providing convincing backdrops of what they’re supposed to be, whether it’s a long-forgotten underground passage or a busy street packed with people. The game’s music is also of high quality. You’ll hear scores accompanying you everywhere, some of them interplaying with familiar Final Fantasy-related tunes.
As you’d expect from a Final Fantasy title, the game has very high production values. The CGI sequences are top-notch. The high-tech airship designs combined with the usual sword-and-sorcery blend well together instead of feeling out of place, since science fiction and medieval fantasy are not often mixed together. The voice actors do a realistic performance and give the characters a lot of personality. Thankfully, they’re all generally likeable.
Final Fantasy XII is an excellent and innovative take on the console RPG. It offers an immersive world not unlike an MMORPG, a great cast with superb voice acting, a well-developed story and plenty of imaginative gameplay deviations that turned out to be very welcome. It’s a very good candidate for the PS2 RPG of the Year. Yes, it is that good.
Similar Games
Buy It
From eBay:
From Amazon
|
|
|
|
|
Add to Collection
