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Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age proves that once again, I find myself reviewing a remaster, and once again I find it being a game I had never played.
Interestingly, I was 90% sure this was an online game and that was the reason why… I even switched it on, expecting it to be. Turns out I was wrong. Also, it turns out that my original trepidation about playing another remaster was incredibly wrong because I am going to spend the next few hundred words telling you why you need to own this game.
Final Fantasy is one of the biggest gaming franchises about and has released so many games that you could never get round to completing them all – mainly because each one takes a good 40 hours to finish. However, some of them just need to be played: Final Fantasy 2, 5, 7, 9… and now 12 has just been added to that list.
I was pleasantly surprised that FF12 is not only not online, but also has an absolutely compelling story, and one which I will not ruin for you, but will leave you constantly wanting to find out more. It’s a story which is more real-life than any other Final Fantasy I had played. It focuses on betrayal, misuse of power and love. This is something we can actually get enthused by and I found myself falling in love with the story. It just feels that a lot of modern games try and come up with rubbish for a confusing storyline which doesn’t make sense at all. What Final Fantasy XII delivers is one you can believe and I wish I’d played this when I was younger. Saying that, I talked to a few mates and barely any of them had played it either. This could be because it came only a few months before the PS3 was released, which diverted everyone’s attention.
Off I went into my adventure – into the land of deceit, lies and betrayal. There is a king who is killed, someone is called a traitor and the world goes in to turmoil. Add in a little boy who seems often to find trouble, and whose brother was killed during the slaughter of the previous king, and not all is what it seems. The boy gets caught up and becomes the centre stage for what is yet to unfold. Fittingly, the story reminded me of Game of Thrones, which was perfect as I started playing this just when the first episode of the new season was out.
Gone are the days where you can pick up an RPG and understand the gameplay straight away. Most important is the fighting mechanics – this is an area which has turned me off so many games. I am constantly hunting for another game which offers me the gameplay of Final Fantasy VII or even Golden Sun, but I haven’t come across this in my experience of all the games I’ve played, and that’s a lot. FF12 doesn’t disappoint in this avenue. It took a few hours to realise the fighting mechanics were quite clever. The tutorial does an adequate job in explaining them, if you don’t get the jist from me. Like with the hundreds of hours spent on FF7, during most fights I would just attack with my weapon and heal when needed. This is what I do also in FF12 and I have no shame – slaying foes, saving MP, high in HP, killing plenty – that’s my motto!
There are two ways of fighting: gambits on or gambits off. You’ll normally fight with three characters in your party, but if you have a guest member (special guest performance), you’ll have four. Most of the time, you don’t have control of the latter, either – much like it would be in show business. Pick which type of fighter your character will be (right at the start) and these range from white mages to Bushi and even machinists. Each class has different abilities in which they specialise, and you need to think carefully before you choose.
Gambits are a set of commands which determine and organise before your fight which your allies will follow whilst in battle. Not only can you set the command, but you also set who they are aiming at and the order. I have my white mage’s first priority as cure – any ally – once health is lower than 40 percent. Then her second option is set to apply slow to the group leader. For one of my attacking outlets, I may get them to attack group leader and perform a technique if needed. This all sounds confusing, but after I got my head round it, I found this being one of the few battle systems that I enjoy. Saying that, if you want complete control, you can do this by turning gambits off.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game.
Levelling up works in correlation with the fighting system – every time you slightly level up, you get license points and then can spend them on the license board. The board consists of a range of things and you’ll need to pick your journey wisely. If you want to focus on health, then open up those avenues, whereas if you want to focus on weaponry, choose those. I found myself levelling up quite a bit because I made some bad choices. I wasn’t too worried about that as I like levelling up more than my opponents. It took me a while to get use to this, but I found it helpful that when you were buying weaponry, magic, accessories and such, as it would always tell you whether your character could or couldn’t use it. Apart from the weapons which you need ammunition for, it was annoying when I couldn’t afford the ammo and, thus, couldn’t work out why one of my characters was standing around like a lemon all the time.
Overall, I found myself really enjoying the gameplay. Yes, this may be partly down to how good the story is, and so is my desire to adapt to ensure I enjoyed the game. Either way, not for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised. Everything takes a little while to get used to, but if you are willing to give it the time it becomes more than worth it.
When it comes down to visuals, I was never expecting to be blown away – after all this was originally a PS2 game. However, I was very impressed, even within my first 30 hours. You could tell that they have done a great job touching it all up. Of course, you’re not going to be blown away by them like you would be with Horizon Zero Dawn, for example, and they aren’t going to be as quirky or bright as they are in Persona 5, but they are absolutely fine. The cut scenes were an area that particularly impressed me. I would say these graphics rival that of titles like The Last Guardian.
Visually, one area which particularly annoyed me and that was the camera angles. If you’ve played Super Mario 64 or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, then you’ll know where I’m coming from. It always seemed to me like when I was against a strong enemy, the camera goes off centre and I can never seem to orientate it back. This wasn’t always the case and was never a game changer, but it is an area that annoyed, too. Luckily, before most big fights you can save, so even if I died I was never far away from being back at the same point. Even though this is a PS2 games, the graphics have been remastered well and this *doesn’t* look like a PS2 game – and it doesn’t look very out of place on the PS4, either.
There are few things in life which are always constant: Donald Trump to cause some political scandal every other day, someone to moan about Brexit, NHS staff to be under appreciated and Final Fantasy to include an amazing soundtrack. I have played a lot of the FF games, and enjoyed a few but every single game I have played from the franchise has had a full and enjoyable orchestral soundtrack. FF12 has this in abundance. Throughout my time of writing this, I have had the soundtrack on Youtube on repeat (well maybe not repeat – it does last four hours) and just enjoyed the memories of the game it brings back.
They leave no leaf unturned, ensuring they hire the best Japanese music makers in the world and it feels so polished and pure that you can’t help but get lost in the world. When it comes to thinking about where this soundtrack stands, I need to give it time. It does have potential for being better than FF7, but I will only be able to decide that in 10-15 years time… and after the FF7 remake. Nothing about the sound did I not like, and at no point did I consider putting the useful Spotify app on during gameplay. However, I must add that voice sync shows that it was clearly made for Japanese dialogue. That said, clever direction means you rarely see the character’s lips move when they are talking, otherwise this may have annoyed me more.
For current gaming priorities, Final Fantasy XII is the one I play straight away when I switch on my PS4, and I highly recommend this title which is such a solid remaster, and a lot better than Final Fantasy X, in my opinion.
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is out now on PS4 and PS4 Limited Edition Steelbook, and click on the packshot for the full-size version.
Important info:
- Publisher: Square Enix
- Developer: Square Enix
- Players: single player campaign
- HDTV options: up to 1080p
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
8 10 9 9 |
| OVERALL | 9 |
I have been a video game player since 1993 and a music fan since I can remember. I studied Film and Journalism at university and ended up becoming a Primary School teacher. Video games changed my life and sent me on the right track and have stayed with me ever since.
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