This Penny Arcade post more or less mirrors my thoughts on Final Fantasy XII, which just came out last week. Glenna and I have been playing it just about non-stop over the last few days, and so far we really like it. My mini-review:
Combat
The Final Fantasy series’ quality has varied quite a bit over the different installments, though I’ve found aspects of each that I’ve liked. One thing that hasn’t changed significantly since the original came out nearly 20 years ago is the basic way in which the battle system works. Granted, you’ve had variations such as active time battle and such, but it has always worked like this: You stand on one side of the screen, enemies stand on the other, and you take turns swinging at each-other.
A process requiring strategy, to be sure, but still very much a ‘process’. Many aspects of combat such as position and timing seem to be left out or left to random number generators as much as anything. The scale and beauty of these games obscure this, but hours of game play are spent repetitively performing the same actions over and over again.
With the latest installment, Square Enix made some radical departures in how they handle combat. Most obviously, combat is no longer separate from exploration - no longer will an elaborate screen transition move you from exploration into “battle mode”. Battle and exploration are one and the same. While you can’t necessarily avoid all fighting situations, this does make the game experience feel a lot less disjointed.
Also, you can now control where characters stand in relation to the enemy. For instance, my main warrior-type character can stand behind an enemy and whack it upside the head with his sword while another attacks from the side. A third character can stand back and shoot arrows into it, or smite it with fire spell after fire spell. The point being that now, finally, terrain and positioning actually does make a difference. Standing higher than an enemy gives you an advantage, and being backed into a corner by a half dozen vampire bats is a very bad, bad thing as it prevents you from easily escaping. The team behind the Final Fantasy Tactics games was involved in this game’s creation, and this focus on tactics is proof of it.
Finally - and most controversially - a new aspect of game play called ‘gambits’ are used to put characters into an auto-pilot mode. As a developer, I recognize this for what it really is: a very rudimentary programming tool that allows you to define a character’s artificial intelligence. No longer do you have to micro-manage each and every action a character takes. Now, you can program them to behave as you would if you were directly controlling them. For example, we usually keep our magic users set to automatically heal anyone under 50% of their normal hit points. If that condition isn’t met, they can either strike or use offensive magic. The more you build up your gambits, the more intelligence you can imbue on your characters to deal with different situations.
When I first heard about the gambit system some time ago, I was worried. It seemed that putting the combat process on auto-pilot in this manner would remove a lot of the challenge from the game. This hasn’t been the case, though. It turns out that it really only automates the tedious things that you would almost always be doing without a thought anyhow, while still allowing you to override them when needed. Gambits are smart, but you still have to compensate and take different actions as strategy dictates. This adds a great deal of depth to the game, and I’ve found myself more engaged in combat - not less.
Exploration
One thing I noticed right off is that the game world is absolutely huge. You could spend hours wandering around the initial city you start in alone and still not see everything - in fact, you more or less do wander around this city for the initial few hours of game play. I didn’t mind this so much, but the game does take a while to get off the ground and this could be annoying to more impatient gamers. Then again, it could also be said that impatient gamers shouldn’t be playing role playing games in the first place.
Story/Characters
Unlike previous games, this is definitely an ensemble cast. We’ve over 25 hours in and so far I’ve yet to determine who the “main” character is. The tale is of a wider scope, involving copious amounts of political intrigue and war between two large countries with a few smaller kingdoms stuck in between.
All of the major characters are unveiled right off the bat, with background story dropped in here and there. It’s a very different take on the usual Final Fantasy formula (there’s no cloying love story this time, thus far at least!), and a welcome departure. Each character is memorable and interesting, some moreso than others - the sky pirates Balthier and Fran in particular come to mind. I look forward to seeing these stories develop as the plot unfolds.
One criticism that I had of the more recent Final Fantasy titles (Final Fantasy X in particular) is that they were somewhat linear. Often, you felt like you were being led by the nose through a series of tasks with little say in how it occurs.
This is still largely true, in a sense. The more developed a story line such a game has, by definition the more constrained you are to a central plot. It’s hard enough to maintain story continuity with a traditional 2-3 hour film - it’s almost impossible to do so in a 40-60 hour video game with multiple branching plot paths. What the game does do differently, though, is open its world up to exploration pretty early, allowing you to take on small side quests in order to build up experience. It’s not quite as open as some - ie. the recent, and also quite good, Dragon Quest VII - but it does have a more tightly woven story so this is to be expected. All in all, I believe that a good middle ground has been found.
Complaints
While it’s kind of fun to play around with, I do have some problems with Final Fantasy XII’s licensing system. Much like the sphere grid from Final Fantasy X, this allows you to build up points (license points) with which to improve a character’s abilities and stats. You do this by purchasing what are known as “licenses”. However, these licenses are also required in order to allow you to wield weapons and use armor. Weapons I can understand to some degree, but armor? I don’t see what skill is needed to wear armor other than the ability to actually put it on. This makes no sense to me.
Second, in order to obtain the ability to use spells, you must buy them (and license them). This too seems odd - spells seem like something that should be earned through practice and experience, not purchased as if they were an item. This doesn’t make a big difference in the game’s mechanics, really, but it does take away from the atmosphere of the game somewhat.
…
Overall, I’m pretty happy with this installment. Square Enix took a big chance with the game, and so far it seems to have paid off. I was worried for a bit that they were going to focus their efforts of MMORPGs (which I have little interest in) and spin-offs of previously established franchises (Final Fantasy VII, which they refuse to let die). It’s nice to see that the first truly new installment in 5 years turned out to be worth the wait.
