This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Eric Dayday.

Final Fantasy is without a doubt the name when it comes to RPGs. Unfair or not, fans tend to fall within two extremes - love it with every ounce of their beings or hate it because it’s only good because it’s so mainstream and thus overrated. And now we have the return of the series to a strictly non-MMORPG console title in Final Fantasy XII, but with Square bringing in some of the elements from its online XI, longtime fans of the series were worried about how much those extreme changes in the gameplay, particularly the battle system, would affect their experience. I, too, was one of those skeptical, though still open-minded, to the ideas. I like to have some sort of semblance of control over my party’s decisions. After spending some good quality time with it, however, I can assure you that the overall package of Final Fantasy XII did little to disappoint.

Final Fantasy XII returns us to the world of Ivalice, long established by old PS1 Square games, Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. But, this version of Ivalice is very different than the Ivalice found in those games, though there are hints to a connection amongst them. In XII’s Ivalice, you’ll find many a species littering the streets of the first city, Rabanastre. It invokes a Star Wars type feel. In fact, the intro, with all of its dogfighting airships and hundreds of foot soldiers marching through the streets during a ceremony feel like they were ripped out of the original trilogy. Heck, as you progress through the story, there’s a resistance versus the empire plot point. Sound familiar? A friend of mine put it best with his “Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings” comment.

Despite that air of familiarity, the game does an excellent job of immersing you into the atmosphere of its not-so-tiny little universe. There seem to be literally hundreds of people in the town of Rabanastre alone, all minding their own business, whether it’s just to chat it up with a friend on a corner or busily shopping in the crowded bazaar district. While you can only talk to the ones with an icon above their heads, they are plenty interesting. They can either steer you in what direction to go next, drop a clue on a sidequest, or just help flesh out the history of Ivalice and how it’s gotten to be in its current situation.

While not as ground breaking as when Final Fantasy X first showed up, Final Fantasy XII is still a beautiful game. The environments are all rendered with small details that would normally be overlooked. Taking the time out to stop and smell the roses is definitely recommended here. And since most of your journeying requires quite a bit of hoofing it on foot between the different maps, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to do so while traveling through the seamlessly connected world of Ivalice. And though there are quite a few breath-taking fully rendered cutscenes, most of the story unfolds with the in-game engine. However, they look and animate so beautifully that you’ll be hard pressed to complain about it. And hey, the US got the addition of 16:9 support, so there’s even less to complain about.

The main cast of characters is definitely a crew that will become endearing over the course of the game – well for the most part. There are a few characters that will have you scratching your head and asking why they’re there. Surprisingly, one of those you’ll be asking that question about is the main hero, Vaan. His reason for journeying with the core group, as well as his friend, Penelo’s, seems rather trivial, and unfortunately, those two suffer from the least amount of development. The other four and the various guest characters that will join you is another story, however. The other character that most will know from promotional materials is the displaced princess of the kingdom of Dalmasca, Ashe. There’s also the fallen knight, Basch; the sky pirate, Balthier, and his Viera friend (the all-female humanoid rabbit hybrids), Fran. Don’t be turned off at first because they all seem pretty generic, but they’ll quickly turn into well-rounded fleshed out characters. Balthier in particular I grew very fond of, spitting out one-liners left and right with a very strong hint of “humble arrogance”, if you will. In fact, sometimes, it seems like Balthier plays the hero bit better than Vaan. I’d say more, but that’s treading into spoiler territory. Just take my word when I say this cast is pretty hard to hate.

What helps is the fantastic voice acting jobs by most of the cast. Yes, there are some that aren’t a perfect fit, some synching is off, and the subtitles don’t match the spoken dialogue sometimes, but those gripes are easy to overlook when looking at the bigger picture. An interesting stylistic choice is using Olde English as well as a large variety of accents. I love this decision as it gives XII more of a worldly feel. It works all the more because of the fantastic acting making it sound very natural, not wooden or forced. And there really isn’t much to be said about the music except that it’s up to FF standards. Lots of variations on old themes permeate the soundtrack, but the original compositions are nothing to shake a stick at either.

I guess it’s high time we covered the largest and most controversial change found in FFXII – the battle system. Taking a cue from XI, random battles or running into an enemy avatar no longer triggers a change into the battle screen. Instead, exploration and battle are woven into the same map. Enemies are strewn about the maps and battle is not initiated until you give the order to do so or the enemy decides it wants to eat you for lunch. That’s a big change in itself, but bigger still is the actual battle mechanics.

The active time bar is still in effect, with the character’s speed stat playing a large role in how quickly one of them will act on their given order. Battles play out much faster than they used to, so constantly giving orders to three separate party members can prove taxing if you lose track of ordering what to whom. This is where the gambit system comes into play. Gambits are automated orders that a character will perform when a situation constraint is placed on it. For example, if you have a gambit such as when Ally: HP < 50% combined with Cura, that gambit will tell the character to use that particular white magic when anyone in the party falls to under half of his or her max HP. That’s just one gambit example. With hundreds of gambits to collect/buy as well as a laundry list of skills and commands, it can seem overwhelming, especially since how you order the gambits affects how the AI will handle combat. Luckily, XII eases the system on to you slowly by only offering a handful of gambits and skills at the onset. Unfortunately, that’s when it will seem sort of boring because you don’t have a lot of options to play with it. But once things start to open up, it’s very satisfying experimenting with different gambit set ups.

It’s a surprisingly deep system, which caught me off-guard because I thought the hands-off battle system would be a total turnoff. But, seeing how well an automated system can handle it – if you set it up correctly - feels very gratifying. Of course, the same can be said for the opposite case. Incorrectly set up your gambits and prepare to see your party decimated because someone is constantly using a skill or magic that benefits the enemy mob. Catch the mistake too late and it’s either a very deep hole to climb out of or game over. Then you smack your head as you realize the one mistake you made. But hey, at least you can change gambits, as well as party members, on the fly.

The complement to the gambit system is the license board. You can customize each character as you see fit using the license board. Think of a variation of FFX’s sphere grid, and you’ll have a general idea of what to expect. Purchasing licenses is what enables characters to equip weapons, armors, accessories; learn all sorts of magicks and technicks; and even gain stat boosts. The license board for each character is the same, so this leaves their progression entirely up to you. You can take the knight Basch and turn him into a white mage or take cute little Penelo and turn her into your meat shield-slash-tank. While I love the open-ended nature of the license board, it would’ve helped had the game given you more hints as to what directions to take. What I mean by this is that to see what you haven’t unlocked yet, you may need to blindly spend precious license points. When you spend points to buy a license, only the ones adjacent to it become unlocked. And sometimes you’ll be spending points trying to build someone a certain way and hit some sort of dead end. Here, you’re down to two choices – waste the LP to see where what leads (you could always reload if it’s not where you wanted to go, but that’s annoying especially if you haven’t saved in some time) or hoard the points and keep the character’s progression stagnant until you’re ready to check it out. It’s hard to build someone up efficiently without looking ahead by using some sort of guide. License points are earned after every fight (even for those not in the active party, though non-active members gain no XP), but they are still a precious commodity that should not be wasted.

As if juggling licenses for all of those things weren’t complicated enough, there are other things to consider within each of those categories. Armor comes in three types – light, heavy, mystic – all with their own special attributes. Light armor gives HP bonuses, heavy gives extra defense, and mystic armor gives quite a hefty bonus to magick power. And I love all of the different weapon types available. Not only do they offer differing kinds of attack, but their powers are based on different stats. Swords, both one-handed and two-handed, spears, and crossbows are your standard attack power plus strength weapons. Damage from bows and daggers are based on the weapon’s attack power plus the character’s speed. Katana and staves are based on attack power and magick power. And guns and poles ignore an enemy’s defense and magic defense, respectively. With so many different enemy types and ways to build up characters, trying to figure out what weapons to use for whom can be a chore itself. But, just like the rest of the gambit system and license board, it’s so rewarding knowing that your super black mage can deal massive physical damage by using a katana; or watching your heavy hitting knight come across a monster with a high defensive stat and smacking it for minimal damage, then seeing your gunner rip a hole right through its HP. It’s good stuff I tell you.

While I had a fun time with those systems, there is no denying that it is complicated and by nature difficult to fully grasp and take advantage of. There is no gray area with all of the changes made in FFXII – you either love it or hate it. Because of that, XII isn’t nearly as accessible as other RPGs. Unfortunately, because it is the biggest name on the market, FFXII will get name dropped the instant the letters R-P-G are mentioned and may be someone’s first foray into the genre. Though battle is automated, this isn’t the game to be diving head first into without a small bit of extra knowledge.

The way the story unfolds may also turn off those expecting a grandiose story. A good 30-35 hours is enough to bust your way through to the end while skipping the loads of sidequests. However, when you finally do get there, you’ll get the feeling of “what, that was it?” The majority of the story focuses squarely on Ashe and her reclaiming of the Dalmascan throne; Basch trying to serve Dalmasca as best as he can despite being branded a traitor to the crown; and Balthier and Fran weaving their way into the web eventually. This is where the questions of how Vaan and Penelo fit in, but it’s more of a lack of character development than lack of their motivation for being on this journey. If you make a beeline to the story’s end, you’ll miss a lot of the bigger picture – the war between the empires. By talking to the NPCs, you get a better grasp of just what exactly is going on around you. I actually liked this decision by the development team. The story focuses on your core cast, but it shows that the world goes on without you, whether you choose to let it or not. I put this in the bad and ugly section because again, I can see it turning quite a few people off, thinking that the story isn’t fleshed out enough, but it is; players just have to let it develop for them instead of being spoon fed the story through cutscenes.

However, I do suggest not doing that. You’ll want to do a lot of the sidequests not just for the great loot they give, but for the levels and gil; plus they’ll add a lot of hours to your play clock, almost doubling it up in some cases. Excessive level grinding isn’t really necessary, but taking some time out to gain a few levels does help. XII isn’t overly difficult, but if you’re caught unprepared, it can be damn frustrating. And gaining money has been overhauled. Instead of gil mysteriously being dropped by monsters, they will instead drop items for you to sell to the various shops. These shops also have bazaar items that come for sale when you sell enough of the right drops to them. Unfortunately, nothing in the game tells you what items open up what bazaar specials and the shops don’t keep a memory of what you’ve sold to them before, so either sell everything in bulk all at once if you really want those bazaar items, or sell when you need the gil to keep your equipment upgraded. That ties into the difficulty since attack power and defense is solely based on the weapon, no longer increasing with levels. Strength and vitality do play parts in the formula, but not as much as it once did. So in essence, you’re killing three birds with one stone while grinding – leveling up, gathering items to sell for much needed gil, and earning those ever important license points.

On the technical front, the only gripe I have is the camera. It’s a tad unwieldy, even with the fact that you can reset the camera to behind the lead character with the simple push of R3. But, if you happen to initiate a fight with your back up against a wall, be prepared to watch the top of your character’s head. And trying to move the camera to a more favorable angle is a fruitless endeavor. In addition, when facing off against a towering enemy, all you will see is the party swiping and sniping at the monster’s feet. A wider angle would have been nicer in those situations.

Mist Charges/Quickenings are XII’s equivalents to limit breaks and espers make their return as summoned creatures, most of which are optional. The problem is that they are, for the most part, not that useful. You can easily tackle anything the game throws at you with a party using normal tactics. Ok, quickenings aren’t entirely useless because you can chain them together to form some very damaging combos that can drain a boss’ HP very fast. Each character has three available once you purchase them on the license board. The catch is that it requires the use of all MP. In XII, MP is a precious thing. Though it restores as you travel, it’s the fastest and most efficient way to heal and sometimes damage enemies, and it restores at a pretty slow pace. Yes there are ethers, but for the majority of the game, they’re rare and you’ll want to keep them in stock for emergencies. Situations with no MP to cast a cura are dire ones indeed.

Esper battles are a change of pace. When an esper is summoned, it becomes a part of the team, but only it and the summoner are left to fight. If the esper falls in combat, so too does the summoner. Again, it was something I didn’t find very useful other than experimentation.

As I said before, you’re either going to love or hate FFXII. It has a lot of what FF fans have come to expect – high quality presentation, a grand adventure, a likeable cast, and lots of fighting. But, it also has a lot changes to which not everyone may warm up – gambits, revamped battle system, and a different way of storytelling. Some say that it’s not even deserving of being called a Final Fantasy title. I find that a little extreme.

Even I was a little hesitant when I first heard of all the changes being made to the core gameplay, but if you’re like me and approach it with an open mind and let the game sink in, I can honestly say that you will not be disappointed by Final Fantasy XII.

New system - not perfect, not terribly flawed either. Very deep with plenty of customization.

Not as breath-taking as when FFX first dropped, but still amazing nonetheless

Fantastic acting by most of the voice cast; old theme variations bring a hint of nostalgia.

If you told me an automated battle system would be fun a year ago, I wouldn’t have believed you

Not much incentive to play through again, but lot of sidequests runs clock up past 60 hours.