Gimme a crossbow, dammit!
And so we have Final Fantasy XII. It's a game that so easy to fall in love with, and it innovates in so many ways –sometimes good, sometimes not so much. Unfortunately, it all comes to naught, because when it comes to a real turn-off of most RPGs ever released, Final Fantasy XII fails to do away with the one element that absolutely needs to be changed.
But before I reveal my really huge problem with Final Fantasy XII, it makes more sense to talk a bit about what I love in it. For starters, it takes place in one of the most atmospheric, living fantasy worlds in any game I've ever played. The setting is Ivalice (familiar to players of the Final Fantasy Tactics games), and it's full of fantastical cities, a plethora of inhabitants of various races, and plenty of distinct, fairly interesting characters. It's easy to find yourself sucked into an RPG when you absolutely love the world it takes place in.
Major innovations take place in the battle system, however, and there are three that I think are most important. First is the way the battles unfold. There's no battle screen, and there are no random battles. Instead, all the (relentlessly respawning) enemies are visible as you explore your various dungeons, castles, deserts, and the like. Once you get close enough to an enemy, you can target them. There's then a bar that fills up in real time, much like in the ATB system of Final Fantasies IV through VI; when the bar is full, your character executes his or her command.
A second major innovation is the Gambit system. It allows you to set specific commands for each and every character in your party based on certain criteria during battle. For example, you could tell a character to cast Cura whenever an ally's HP drops below forty percent, or tell another character to cast Thunder on any flying character. There are tons of possibilities with this system and it allows you to custom fit your party for each and every encounter – though frankly, it's more trouble than it's worth for anything other than major boss fights.
That's because of the complexity of the system, which lends itself to a fairly cumbersome menu design. Trust me when I say you'll be constantly switching gambits for characters depending on the environment and the types of enemies you'll be fighting; the problem is that assigning targets and actions for up to three or four gambits for each of six characters is just an annoying process. I can't really imagine any way that it could be streamlined, though, and I appreciate all that the Gambit system brings to the table, but I still think that this problem is still one worth bringing up.
Despite the fact that Final Fantasy XII's battles take place in real time, it can be a fairly hands-off experience. In fact, you could hypothetically play through this entire real-time battle system game without directly controlling any of your characters at all, and instead turning on Gambits for every character and micromanaging them via that method.
However, the most successful and satisfying play experience with Final Fantasy XII will come from a combination of direct orders to characters and blanket Gambit commands. For example, during a boss fight, it might make a lot of sense to have your magic user with healing Gambit, and then directly order her to cast a few offensive spells when there's no need for healing. All told, the battle system in Final Fantasy XII is smart and fairly strategic, allowing for a lot of fun for micromanagers like myself.
The third and final item of interest regarding Final Fantasy XII actually has less to do with battles and more to do with character development. Rather than featuring a class or job system, you acquire License Points by defeating enemies, which are then spent acquiring licenses. In order to equip anything or use any magic, you must have the license for it. Purchasing licenses allows you to purchase nearby licenses, which encourages you to develop characters in a particular "direction". For example, purchasing the license for White Magic 1 might allow you to purchase White Magic 2 and Green Magic 1.
I'm a huge fan of this system. I absolutely loved the job/ability system of Final Fantasy V and the Final Fantasy Tactics games, and I think that the license board is even better. It allows for a ridiculous amount of character customization, and the sheer variety of weapon types – the usual swords, spears, rods, and bows, plus guns, crossbows, poles, and more – ensure that each character will be unique. The one problem with this system is that I feel I got more characters than I needed. You get six characters, but I used up virtually every weapon/magic item on five, leaving one character completely neglected.
While I really appreciate what Square-Enix has done with the license board, it feels way too limited. As I complained in my Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 review, the weapons you use are determined less by licenses and personal preference and more by what equipment is available to you at a certain time. I understand that there needs to be some pacing in terms of what weapons you acquire, but at times the poor selection of weapons to buy is absolutely unacceptable. For example, I wanted one character to specialize in crossbows, so I bought up several crossbow licenses for him. "Great," I thought. "Now I just need to buy a crossbow." Alas, the developers decided that I didn't deserve a freaking crossbow, so as a result I have to use whatever weapons the developers give me. So much for character development.
While I'm on this semi-angry rant, let me give another example. With another character, I thought it would be pretty badass to have him specialize in guns. Again, I bought up some licenses and even managed to find some guns for sale. The problem? They were all pathetically underpowered. Why would I bother using a gun that does 6 damage when I could use a level 1 sword that does 1,938? Really, Final Fantasy XII's character development system is little more than an illusion. It pretends to offer you all these choices for equipment, but in reality you'll be playing by the developers' rules and not your own.
Frankly, though, I would have been able to overlook this issue had it not been for the fundamental problem with Final Fantasy XII: the amount of leveling-up you'll have to do to take on some of the game's ridiculously overpowered bosses. I understand that level-grinding, as it's called, is a staple of many traditional RPGs. However, Final Fantasy XII shows itself off as anything but a traditional RPG, boasting its real-time battle system and deep character development. If Final Fantasy XII had truly wanted to be revolutionary and ground-breaking, it would have be paced such that you could beat it without spending countless hours mindless trudging through dungeons over and over again for the sake of a few levels-up.
Really, that's what makes me angry about Final Fantasy XII: it's a poser. It pretends to be this brand new style of role-playing game when, in reality, it's a fairly old-school game with a few creative twists. It's a shame, really, because as I said the world the game takes place in is absolutely beautiful and the story is fun. It's still a game worth playing, so long as you're willing to accept that this is in fact a fairly standard RPG and all the baggage that comes along with a label like that.