In 2001, Final Fantasy IX arrived in the UK as one of the final popular PS1 exclusives and did so as a love letter to the past of the series. Six years later, we reach Final Fantasy XII in a similar position for the PS2, and likewise its third mainline series entry (on the basis that you can construct very reasonable definitions which exclude one of Final Fantasy X-2 or Final Fantasy XI). This time, though, Square Enix were looking less to the past than to the future. Square’s tendency to reinvent Final Fantasy’s mechanics alongside its story with each game had long been one of its hallmarks (in contrast to Enix’s mechanically more consistent Dragon Quest). Final Fantasy XII would take that mechanical freedom a long way.
The basics of the actions available to you in battle — the attacks, the magic attacks, the status attacks, the healing — are the same as ever. You can even micromanage them turn by turn if you want, but it would be rather missing the point. The big new alternative is the ‘gambit’ system, a kind of programming language that’s crude by language standards but fantastically sophisticated in context. You effectively set up a series of if/then statements which your characters will run through. As the early game starter: [Does one of my teammates have less than 50% health? -> Cast cure on them -> If not, is there an enemy nearby? -> Attack them]. This is central enough that much of the game’s shopping for resources is to buy new objects and operations for the language.
The much more open-ended game which Final Fantasy XII builds around this draws some inspiration from MMORPGs, including Final Fantasy XI, and it brings it closer to some other visions of RPGs in the process. Equipping your characters, pointing them at a battle and rapidly watching the dice shake out leaves this Final Fantasy not just referencing Star Wars but resembling Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Except that it feels less chaotic and more strategic. Gambits do much of that, but the brightly coloured arcs that link battle participants to the targets of their attacks or actions are a brilliant enhancement to legibility. Having compared several Championship Manager games to Final Fantasy, this is the first time I’ve found myself feeling the reverse and enjoying the particular feeling of leveraging limited control over tactics and watching the flow play out.
Final Fantasy XII’s systems still mean that battles with individual enemies feel less thrilling than those in the past, and it’s not just because you have to play for hours before getting to your first battle-winning fanfare. It recognises this and makes the larger sweep of dealing with multiple oncoming enemies the focus instead, with mechanical twists to each dungeon that bring that out further. Together with slightly more generous opportunities to escape (if your three active party members get defeated, you can always switch to someone else and leg it back to a save point), I found myself completely engaged by dungeon forays and decisions about strategy and when to retreat, in a way that well exceeded the series norm. It has its own frustrations, but even coming to it for the first time now it felt enjoyably new. It even has the confidence in the system to make its main side quest line about hunting down further battles, and it works.
The audience of the series had stuck with it through changes to the point where Final Fantasy XII scored its biggest first week sales yet. That this wasn’t affected by changes to gameplay was based not just on a confidence that Square Enix would make those all work, but on faith in storytelling. The promise of another epic and original tale could outweigh any less welcome changes in style. Final Fantasy XII lives up to that but while its approach to story is a less obvious case of ripping it up and starting again, it has its own new angles too, telling a slightly more subtle and thoughtful story about imperialism and existing in its shadow.
Princesses actively wanting to be kidnapped is not new territory (Final Fantasy IX again) and neither is milking a relationship between a dashing rogue and an uptight knight. Final Fantasy XII takes the olde theatrical dialogue of Final Fantasy IX a step further, not afraid to throw in words like “exigencies” and the nature of fate, and has a flair for using it on both comedy and politics. The way that the game starts off with a history, slowly revealed as that told by the victors who you will be set against, sets things off on a complex and thoughtful road that it follows through on as it zooms in a lot further to those swept along by that history.
For all that it does verge more than usual on stuffiness, it’s still a game which has you hunting down rogue cacti, and has just enough of a lightness of touch. That’s also helped by the pleasing surprise that the game is enhanced so much by its voice acting, by which I mean foremost that Gideon Emery’s droll performance as sky pirate Balthier is an early highlight of 2007. Nicole Fantl taking to the thankless task of playing sexy bunny girl Fran by channelling Björk is also great. It all goes into a game which is less flashy than many of its predecessors, but very enjoyable to spend time with.
Top of the charts for week ending 24 February 2007:
Top of the charts for week ending 3 March 2007:
