Final Fantasy XII (PS2)

“Although the changes in this game were unwelcome... It was nice to see Final Fantasy lose it's needless love story. Finally, a story about war and loss. Final Fantasy is taking a turn for the better after this title, they just need to change their...”

“Although the changes in this game were unwelcome... It was nice to see Final Fantasy lose it's needless love story. Finally, a story about war and loss. Final Fantasy is taking a turn for the better after this title, they just need to change their gameplay style.

Graphics were beautiful.”

“Iz got one thing to say about this F****** game Yazamt WTF 50 Million HP EPIC”

“Iz got one thing to say about this F****** game Yazamt WTF 50 Million HP EPIC”

“I like my Final Fantasy have most of them but this one just falls way short of my expectations. Dont get me wrong the graphics and story are great but game play is lame and uninteresting. ”

“I like my Final Fantasy have most of them but this one just falls way short of my expectations. Dont get me wrong the graphics and story are great but game play is lame and uninteresting.
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“The one thing i've always liked about Final Fantasy series is the story, if the game has an amazing story i can forgive some things the game otherwise would be lacking. FF XII story reminded me why i enjoyed FFVII so much, complex and good...”

“The one thing i've always liked about Final Fantasy series is the story, if the game has an amazing story i can forgive some things the game otherwise would be lacking.

FF XII story reminded me why i enjoyed FFVII so much, complex and good characters that you can relate to. The whole lore amazed me how deep it was that actually reminded me (and alot of other people too) star wars kind of lore and story telling.

Another thing worth mentioning is the Gambit system, which was a nice add to the game, since the combat is pretty much real time, and Gambit system allowed it to be more fast paced. You could assing different "gambit" for all the characters, so they would for example, cast a healing spell or use item whenever the health drops below 30% etc. This system allowed you to play with the character that you liked most, and you didn't have stop the fighting every now and then just curse that AI is too stupid to heal them selves, or they use all of MP's when you'd wish they saved it.

On the other hand i must say, that was pretty much the only thing i liked about the new combat system. I dunno why, but i've always liked the more "traditional" JRPG fighting system, oldschool turn based. But on FF XII you didn't quite grasp what they were aiming for.. how i see it, is that they tried to balance the turn based system to active/realtime battle and well.. maybe it's just me, i didn't like the only thing that "saved" it for me was the Gambit system.

There was also the ability (again familiar from the older final fantasy series) customize you character anyway you want. That's one thing i've always enjoyed.. i've always looked at the character in a certain way, that one looks like he or she is a magic user for sure, and that one a strong melee character, or you can just mix them to be more all-around chars.

And finally we had a FF with decent voice over! And the odd FF X voice-over that didn't quite work yet as it was supposed to, somebody says a line or two then there's a long silence and somebody replied and that felt akward. Now the dialog is more seamless, well this most likely is 'cause the FF X was released pretty soon after PS2 was released and when XII was released they had the know-how.

As a long time fan of Final Fantasy series, this is one of the best. To everybody else who hasn't ever tried any game of the series, i'd recomend this!”

“My least favorite of the Final Fantasy games”

“My least favorite of the Final Fantasy games”

“I really, really, wanted to enjoy this game more than I did. I liked many of the gameplay changes, the free-range ATB system, the license board, even the summons. Although, I did think many of the summons felt underpowered, well at least in...”

“I really, really, wanted to enjoy this game more than I did. I liked many of the gameplay changes, the free-range ATB system, the license board, even the summons. Although, I did think many of the summons felt underpowered, well at least in comparison to other final fantasies.

It was the story and characters that killed it for me. Not that their terrible, their not. It was just so...well, Final Fantasy. You had the "evil empire" vs the small peaceful kingdom. The mad emperor plotting world domination (who is killed and invariably replaced by a greater evil). You have the thief with a heart of gold, the princess in hiding/rebel leader(shes also the willingly kidnapped princess). The cocky rogue, the stoic warrior, the traitor turned rebel fighter, (who also happens to be the "innocent criminal" oh AND he has an evil twin!) the quest to save the world, etc, etc.

I just felt like I had played the game before, about 10 times to be precise. The characters felt like they had little...well, character. Think I'm wrong? Compare the cast to any other FF cast, excluding the first three games perhaps. You won't find another group of more generic RPG characters in the bunch.

All this criticism probably makes it sound like I hate the game, I don't. Despite all that, it is still a solid game, it just doesn't quiet reach that FF standard. If I hadn't ever played a Final Fantasy game I probably would have loved it. If I have any friends that need introducing to the Final Fantasy series between now and the release of XIII this will be the game I have them play.”

“Not the best Final Fantasy game, but it definitely tried to be. The new battle system is, I think, very good. It needs some tweaking in the fact that you can't escape an attack once you're locked on by an enemy, but over all it's this game has a...”

“Not the best Final Fantasy game, but it definitely tried to be. The new battle system is, I think, very good. It needs some tweaking in the fact that you can't escape an attack once you're locked on by an enemy, but over all it's this game has a good play style. A huge frickin' world, for those who like to explore, however it's lacking in pace when it comes to story line. You'll be lucky if you get 1 cut scene every 3 hours once you have your six party members with you. You really have to be motivated to achieve something when playing this game”