Having played and beaten Final Fantasy XII, I offer this review:
Graphics: The character designs are better than those of FF8 or FF10, but I have to admit I liked the renditions of the characters in those games better. The rest of the game, from the scenery to the designs, was fantastic-beautifully rendered and designed, and there were subtle touches here and there, like the images of the characters in the Feywood, that made things even more immersive and atmospheric.
Sound: I miss Nobuo Uematsu, I really do. Although FF7’s music was, for the most part, stale and reptitive, Final Fantasy 9 was awesome, and Final Fantasy X was passable. The soundtrack in general just wasn’t up to what we’ve been spoiled with in Uematsu’s work, although it is better than FF10, and the opening theme was absolutely fantastic, and the ending song was great too.
This is going to get me flamed, but I’ve never seen the big deal with Japanese voice actors. They all sound high-pitched and frankly a bit annoying to me. To be fair, I don’t watch much anime, but I’ve never seen Japanese voice acting that outdid its American counterpart. FFXII’s voice acting was great, and the voices suited the characters perfectly. Maybe I’m a Philistine, but I liked FF12’s voice acting just fine.
Mechanics: The License system was easy to use-almost too easy, sometimes. I often wound up with a surfeit of License Points because I wanted each character to have a specific role in the party, and didn’t want them getting abilities that didn’t fit in with what their Job was. In the end, however, I ended up teaching all my characters some White Magic for healing purposes, although of course I made sure that the right characters got the spells first.
Vaan: I made him a Thief with White Magic as a Secondary Ability. Mainly used Daggers and Swords, light armor and occasionally Guns, and various Technicks that were “thiefly” in nature, like 1,000 Needles.
Balthier: I ditched his guns and made him a Knight, giving him Swords and heavy armor, while teaching him Technicks like Wither and Expose. No magic for most of the game, although he did finally learn some White Magic at the end.
Fran: A mix of all kinds of magic, along with Bows, Spears in melee combat, and light armor. I decided she was a Geomancer, and that her abilities could be replicated by “nature”, so to speak.
Basch: Wielded heavy Swords, Axes and Hammers, while wearing heavy armor and casting White Magic. Classic Paladin, folks.
Ashe: Staffs, Rods, and the occasional Mace, wearing Robes and casting Black Magic, with White Magic a Secondary Ability. Black Mage all the way.
Penelo: Again, Staffs, Rods, Maces and Robes, casting White Magic with Black Magic as a Secondary Ability, making sure she didn’t learn the -aga spells until much later in the game. As the hero’s love interest, obviously she had to be the White Mage.
Combat was interesting, although some aspects drove me crazy, like when your characters have charged up and are ready to do an attack, only they have to hold off because the game is animating a long attack, which threw off my strategies. It was also irritating the way your characters could suddenly draw their weapons and go running off in another direction to attack an enemy I had no intention of fighting. The balance between different kinds of magic and weapons, on the other hand, was very effective.
One thing that could be annoying was the difficulty in getting enough money to buy everything I needed, occasionally requiring further hunting trips to get the items I had to sell, which sucked. What sucked even worse was that there was no way for me to get the best artifact-level weapons and armor through sidequests, it seemed-I still have no idea how to get some of that stuff, and I finished the game with store-bought equipment.
Story and Atmosphere: This is where the game shone above all its predecessors. With backstory and history included in the Beastiary, information on the monsters, locations and history of the game, the ability to gain and sell treasures for money, being able to accept quests like an adventurer in an MMORPG, the presence of other hunters and adventurers either in the Clans or even simply encountered in the wilderness (like the characters you occasionally team up with in hunts, or simply wandering through the wilderness-I occasionally ran into some wandering Garif warriors who helped me out in fighting the monsters, oddly enough) all contribute to the sense that Vaan and company are just a few of the world’s adventurers-the idea that there are other adventurers out there with their own agendas makes the world that much more alive.
The story was, in a way, oddly refreshing in its down-to-earth basis, being involved in a local conflict instead of a global one. The fact that it was so easy to fly around the world map in previous Final Fantasies always made the worlds seem really small-by comparison, Ivalice is far larger than the small corner we see in the game. I especially liked the detailed backgrounds for many of the characters, and even more so the fact that there are quite a few shades of gray in the game-neither Vayne nor the Occuria can be totally viewed as Kefka-esque in their supposed evil, and Archadia isn’t just the black evil empire; one villager, IIRC, even raises the possibility of Dalmasca becoming an empire itself if it abused the powers of magicite.
The one thing that bothered me was that we never really got into Vayne’s head, like we have with many of the previous villains-we never got to see things from his point of view, or get to know him. He wasn’t as flat and boring as X-Death, mind, but still kind of disappointing.
In sum: This is the best FF ever, bar none. I’m baffled as to why people say it isn’t as good as previous installments-the only FF that comes close to matching it is FF9, IMO.
If you could always buy everything immediately, the game would have been much easier. You have to ration your choices. And yeah, the best items require you to sell particular things to the Bazaar, something almost impossible to keep track of without an FAQ.