This is a hard game for me to review becaese I love so many things about it, but one of the key things that I have always loved in the Final Fantasy series is missing this time around... character development. This is a drastic change from FFX in which all of the characters were fleshed out to a point where they seemed real. FFXII lacks a main character, sure the game is kindof told from Vaan's point of view, but he is never driving the events in the story. While I am disappointed in the game's characters, the plot is much more adult this time around, which is a nice change. While I am not as enamored with the characters this time around, Final Fantasy XII succeeds everywhere else. The graphics, from a technical, and artistic standpoint are fantastic. The PS2 continues to surprise me this late in its lifespan. It has been said elsewhere that the game has a European influence in its designs, and it does from the architecture, to the costumes nothing in the game feels very Japanese, which is cool to see from a Japanese developer. The core gameplay of Final Fantasy XII might be controversial in that it plays more like KOTOR than it does like Final Fantasy, but it is an incredibly deep system, and a welcome change that eliminates random encounters and makes levelling up enjoyable again. All in all, while the characters didn't keep me engaged in this game, the gameplay did, which is such a rarity in a Japanese RPG. All in all if the characters and story had been a little more engaging this would easily be my favorite Final Fantasy to date, but even still it was well worth the wait, and shouldn't be missed by fans of RPGs.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This is the approach that many game franchises take. Sure, they’ll make a few changes here and there, but the core game stays the same. Final Fantasy is at the top of that list. Despite p... Read Full Review
The road embarked was rocky, to say the least. The departure of Hironobu Sakaguchi from the critically acclaimed RPG series wasn’t the best injection of confidence fans needed. Music dictatorship by Nobuo Uematsu was ove... Read Full Review
