Square Enix doesn't seem to really get a break from recent Final Fantasy releases from questionable spin-offs to constant re-releases of the old games that some of which hold up fine while others not so much. If there is one Final Fantasy game that cannot hold itself up to other games in the series alongside XIII, II and VIII is XII and it is one of those where either fans and gamers are going to like it or hate it. I am still as of this moment one of those people that still hate the game due to the amount of huge serious issues with the story and gameplay which really lets the game down in so many ways. Final Fantasy XII originally came out on the PlayStation 2 back in 2006 for US and Japanese gamers while Europe had to wait till 2007 to get it, then afterwards there was a Zodiac Job System which was Japan Exclusive and it whole-fully enhances the game with a Job System to try and streamline the License system and that version ended up getting the HD treatment. Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age came out on the PlayStation 4 in 2017 containing all of the updated extras from the Japan-only Zodiac Release on the PlayStation 2 then we had a well optimized PC port and now we see the game on the XBox One and the Nintendo Switch. To be honest the Zodiac release should have remained as a Japanese exclusive for a good reason, none of the Zodiac versions fix up many of the issues in many ways and this version on the Switch and XBox One gives out mainly one improvement but still don't improve the game all that much.
I will let you guys for this review I won't be going to detail about the gameplay, the presentation and the storyline but will cover the only improvement that the Switch and XBox One port of the Zodiac Age has. If you want a full indepth review of the entire gameplay and mechanics check out my reviews of Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age on the PS4 and PC that I have done on my channel.
So anyway the storyline of Final Fantasy XII takes place in the world of Ivalice where the countries of Arcadia are at war with the Imperial Empire and Vayne Solidor is trying to claim the Nethicite so that he can use them to win the war. Vann goes on a quest with a group of side turning fighters who can't decide if claiming victory against the Empire is for the good of everyone or just simply try to find a peaceful side to the Empire. Aside from Balthier and Gabranth who show some care and thought for what is happening the storyline relies too much on the whole politics side and the majority of the characters get no actual development from it. Most of the characters like Vann, Pennelo and so on tend to really lose care for what is happening and Vann doesn't feel all that involved the plot and is just there to be just there for the ride.
Final Fantasy XII's gameplay acts out as an MMO just without any of the online features. When exploring fields and dungeons the areas you explore has plenty of enemies to fight and treasure to collect occasionally you'll have a boss fight you have to fight against and then you go to the next destination. It is an open world game where you can explore any area as you wish but however you are given no warnings or information regarding enemies that means going off the rails from the intended path will end up throwing back to the title screen when you go into combat.
The game has dozens of side quests ranging from hunts, optional boss fights and so forth and many of them are poorly designed because the game decides to throw ridiculous objectives just to try and get some enemies to spawn and the game never makes any of them clear what you have to do.
The combat system is rather boring on the surface, you press a button and a menu appears allowing to to select who to attack or items and who to use it on and then wait a second or two for whatever character to do the action. These could be using regular attacks, offensive and defensive magic spells to offer support for the party and other temporally buffs. Having to control your main character by using menus is rather tedious and the Gambits that you get later on just become major confusing especially when you have Gambit options that have similar actions and results. You also have limited spaces which also limited different possibilities that would make the Gambits effective. Having Gambits allow the game to control all of your characters without needing to press a button but it takes away the control you have leaving the battles to actually play itself. That's right if you set the right Gambits every character will automatically target the enemy and fight them and you don't have to do a thing. You know how with video games today where everything is dumped down, has many markers telling you what to do and that a video game thinks you are stupid and you need to have your hand hold the whole time to the point where it is not even a game at all and instead it is more of an interactive movie. Final Fantasy XII in my honest opinion is too blame for this cause not only is the battle system too overly simplistic but it is also slow and boring, thank goodness you can press the speed up button to speed up the battles very similar to speeding up and grinding in RPGs played on console emulators on PC otherwise getting through the whole game especially against some bosses would be a complete borefest from start to finish.
Dungeons are horrendously designed with traps that either damage just one character or throw status effects or worse kill of nearly two or the whole party that one of your idiot party members would just trigger it when you try to avoid it, resulting in death unless you have the Float Effect active.
The Boss Battles are the worst aspect of the game, some of them aren't too much of a problem if you grind your way through but however there plenty of unfair boss encounters which use immunity barriers which drag the fights on and on and you can't do anything to dispel it, a optional boss named Yiazmat which has 50 million health and it takes about 2 hours at most to beat him, plus there are bosses were you are restricted in certain abilities, bosses which have attacks that instantly kill one or two of your party members and a boss battle where you are striped of your equipment. All of these kinds of elements in the game are just frustrating to put up with and they just make the combat a chore to get through just like with the sidequests. The Trials aren't any better they tend to have enemies that can instantly kill of a party member or just heal all of their health instantly all of the time.
Now let's talk about the License Board System which was one of the changes that honestly ruined the game. Every single character can use any kind of equipment, magic spell or ability provided that a character has a License to use that. In the first few hours you don't get to get much Licenses unlocked so that you can use the better equipment at the start of the game, it's not until a bit later on after you suffered a fair bit that you can use get a few Licenses going making you a bit more equipped even if you are still not going to be well equipped to deal with the unfair challenge. Once you had unlocked the Licenses on the board for each characters all of them end up playing exactly the same as each other. The Zodiac Age attempted to remedy this with a job system which allowed to have unique Licenses that were exclusive to each class but you couldn't switch classes which meant that if you picked the wrong class you could be screwed and be stuck with it the whole. This would not have been bad if the class system was good but it isn't. Thief's are worthless as Daggers do very poor damage and all other classes has access to the Steal Skill. Now the version on the XBox One and Nintendo Switch now allows you to switch between the different classes as you see fit and it is what the other Zodiac Versions should have had in the first place. It still doesn't improve the system all that much because no matter what class you pick you will end up doing the exact same actions as everyone else and it should have stuck with the old License Board from the PS2 original instead.
About the only thing that was good about Final Fantasy XII especially modern Final Fantasy games are the presentation, XII's graphics just looks really stunning even for a PS2 game that was released near the end of it's life cycle. The HD version upscales the resolution but the game still doesn't run at 60 FPS the whole time compared to the PC version which is able to run at 60 FPS. The details on the environments may look a little pixilated but however the various effects from attacks to summons and so on look amazing and the updated characters look well detailed. The soundtrack on the other hand is a mixed bag, the remixed tracks of the main theme and the victory theme are great and some of the boss battle themes are cool but the town themes are really forgettable.
It seems as though Square Enix continues to really test people patience with the Final Fantasy series, they constantly throw ideas that are executed poorly and also tell terrible storyline with forgettable and unlikeable characters and the battle systems that are just atrocious. Final Fantasy XII's gameplay was terrible even back then and it still sucks on this so updated Nintendo Switch and XBox One and it takes so many assets from other MMOs and does everything so wrong. Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition is what takes a really good RPG and updates it perfectly for the new generation of gamers where as Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age takes a deeply flawed mess of a game and doesn't really improve the game all that much. Plus Tales of Vesperia manages to hold itself well after all these years whereas Final Fantasy XII has not aged well in the slightest and it still is an absolute chore to play through from start to finish. With the way Square Enix keeps unleashing poorly done games like Dissidia NT, The Quiet Man, Left Alive how they are going to treat the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake as an Episodic game you just have to wonder how the Final Fantasy trainwreck is going to continue till the company decides to put the series in it's classic turn based roots. I still can't believe that this mess gets well received reviews alongside FFII and FFVIII and I feel really sorry for people that grew up with that steaming pile of garbage instead of Tales of The Abyss, Pokemon, Dragon Quest VIII and Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Hopefully with this we can leave Ivalice for good and we can also throw this horrid entry in the series in the dungeons for good and we can look forward to a good Final Fantasy game again, that is if that would ever happen.
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Game Score: 3.3/10
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Game Title: Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age
Platform: Nintendo Switch/XBox One
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: Role Playing
Age Rating: PEGI 16+
Release Date: 30th April 2019
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The Good Points:
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Still looks great, looks well detailed even on the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
The Bad Points:
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Battle system is very boring, punishing and at times no fun at all
Setting up the Gambit system for all of the characters becomes really confusing to use and it takes away the control of the leading party members
New Zodiac Job System is poorly implemented like original License System
Some boss battles are cheap and unfair
Optional Sidequests are either misleading, tedious to figure out or frustrating
Weak Storyline with mostly uninteresting characters
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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