Let?s talk about the idea of potential.
When a game is in the earliest stages of development, when it?s just a formless, shapeless, nebulous idea, it has the potential to become anything. Sometimes, the game itself lives up the possibilities presented by the original concept. Sometimes, it doesn?t, and falls short of every expectation we had.
Final Fantasy XII falls in the latter category.
This is a game that had absolutely no reason to fail. By 2006, Square-Enix had become legendary, establishing itself as the undisputed titan of the genre. No development company was better at making JRPGs than Square-Enix, and no Square-Enix game was better than their flagship title, Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy XII was to take place in the world of Ivalice, a setting already established by Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. The game was coming near the end of the PS2?s life cycle, meaning from a technical standpoint, it was going to be stunning. The budget had never been bigger, and the development team, hot off the heels of FFX, had never been more eager to tell a story.
In terms of sheer potential, Final Fantasy XII might have had the most of any game I?ve ever seen.
That?s why it?s such a tragedy that the game was so awful.
To start with, FFX?s Sphere Grid was expanded on to become FFXII?s License Board. It?s an idea that?s interesting on paper, but in execution, it falls flat. The License Board controls every aspect of character growth- every aspect, including the items he/she can use and the weapons and armor he/she can equip.
I can sort of see what they were going for- it?s vaguely reminiscent of the Job Class system, which limits a player?s abilities, weapons and armor to a specific set to match the job (Knights wear heavy armor and use swords, Wizards wear light cloth and use staves, etc, etc)? Except FFXII doesn?t actually have a Job Class system. Every character is literally identical. It makes the License Board a very thinly disguised, pointlessly tedious way to pad out gameplay time.
The next problem was the battle system. It?s not a bad system at face value, and I can certainly see the appeal in doing away with the traditional ?random encounter?. However, XII saw the birth of a trend that?s clung to Final Fantasy ever since like a cancer; taking control away from the player.
In traditional Final Fantasy games, the player has total control over every member of his party, an absolute necessity in difficult battles where a good strategy can be all that stands between you and oblivion. In FFXII, you are given control of one character, the designated Party Leader, while the other two members of your party are control by AI. You can guide their actions using the Gambit system, which allows you to set certain actions for certain conditions (use a potion when health drops below 25%, for example), but they are never fully under your control, and in moments where you need the full, undivided strength of your party, you?re entirely at the mercy of the computer.
This, to me, is a cardinal sin. You absolutely cannot take control of the party away from the player, and you certainly can?t expect some conditional ?if->then? command line to make up from actual human judgment. To this day, I don?t know what Square-Enix was thinking. Part of me thinks they were trying to make the game easier, but not being able to control your party actually makes the game a great deal more difficult than it should be.
My final complaint would have to be the writing. This is not a popular opinion, but I always thought the dialogue in FFXII suffered from a severe case of purple prose. The story is actually quite interesting, but it?s very, very difficult to get into when every character is speaking with this awful ?We?re kind of Shakespearean by way of Middle Earth? dialect. The Final Fantasy Tactics PSP port suffered the same problem. Luckily, Square-Enix seems to have dropped this practice in the years since.
Sorry to any FFXII fans who happen to be following me, but this game is a consummate disgrace, and for me, it represents the beginning of Square-Enix?s fall from grace.
