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Final Fantasy XII |  | From: Square Enix
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $3.00
as of 9/6/2010 11:19 CDT details
You Save: $16.99 (85%)
New (78) Used (99) Collectible (12) from $3.00
Seller: QUICK333
Rating:  288 reviews
Sales Rank: 478
Platform: PlayStation2
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: PlayStation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.6
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: 90407
Model: P2SQE 662248904078
UPC: 662248904078
EAN: 0662248904078
ASIN: B000F5IH2I
Publication Date: October 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Completely new voiced cut-scenes added for the North American release | | • | Gorgeous CG cinematics and cut-scenes in Dolby Pro Logic II combined with real-time graphics rivaling those of next-generation titles | | • | Shocking plot twists take players on an unforgettable journey | | • | Active Dimension Battle (ADB) system enables players to move seamlessly between exploration and combat | | • | Highly customizable Gambit system allows complete control over character AI during battles |
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Product Description
Square Enix Final Fantasy XII Since 1987, the FINAL FANTASY® series has sold over 70 million units, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. FINAL FANTASY XII carries on the tradition of gaming innovation, fantastic graphics and epic storytelling. With a brand-new battle system bringing more realistic and seamless action to the player's fingertips, this latest installment promises to take role-playing games to the next level through a beautiful and heart-stopping adventure. The story of FINAL FANTASY XII takes place in a world called “Ivalice,” in an age when magic was commonplace and airships plied the skies, crowding out the heavens. War was on the horizon. Seeking to strengthen its base of power, the great Archadian Empire had been invading and subjugating its neighboring kingdoms one by one. The small Kingdom of Dalmasca was one such kingdom. Our story follows Vaan, a young man living on the streets of Dalmasca's Royal City of Rabanastre, the Princess Ashe, the sole remaining heir to the Dalmascan throne who had been given up for missing, as well as Vaan's friend Penelo, the sky pirate Balthier, Balthier's partner Fran and many more on an adventure through Ivalice that traces the mysteries behind the Archadian Empire's invasion.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 288
 Possibly the Worst FF Game September 5, 2010
Sorteal
I'm not going to take up too much space with this review. Not because I feel that all the reviews before mine have said everything that needs to be said, but because this game doesn't deserve that much attention. Okay, so this is the first in the series to drop turn based battles and it just might have been the worst decision EVER!! While FFXIII has an amazing battle system (if not a bit picky and repetitive) FFXII's is horrible! It's kinda like WoW's battle system but without so many options, so think of it as WoW but even more boring.
The story has always been central to Final Fantasy and XII is no exception. This time around the story focuses more on the politics of the world it's set in and less on the typical Hero vs. Super Villain. While this could have been AMAZING it comes off as unimagined and not very well thought out. It is by far the worst story in the series sans maybe FF1. I noticed many reviews before mine hyped up the story, throwing out words such as "adult", "modern", and "creative" to describe the story. Well, my words would be, "disgrace", "boring", "adolescent", and "cliche". I applaud Square-Enix for their attempt at a more rousing and in-depth story with a focus on adult tastes but it's like they hired a high schooler to pen the damn thing!
Please, do yourself a favor and skip this entry. If you're looking for the best Final Fantasy games out there then play Final Fantasy VI, VII, X, and XIII.
It actually pains me to write this review being such a big Final Fantasy fan, but Square-Enix could have done a lot better, both with the battle system (which I still feel was too early to switch to real-time. Play FF XIII and you'll see what I mean after experiencing its awesome real-time system.) and with its story. I love that they attempted to do a more "adult"/"in-depth" story but it falls flat on its face after just a couple hours (and NO the story does not get better later in the game, actually it gets even worse).
There are so many better Final Fantasy games out there that I recommend leaving this one alone. You'll save yourself money and heartbreak.
 Great game September 1, 2010
Shane (Tri Cities - Washington)
I bought this game just over 6 months ago, and although I find it may not be a game to play over and over again, it is definitely a must buy. It is a very lengthy game that can keep you occupied for hours. This is the first Final Fantasy game that I have purchased, but I am looking forward to purchasing more Final Fantasy games. It's an extremely fun game, and like I said before, it will keep you occupied for hours.
If you enjoy doing nothing, you will enjoy FFXII. August 30, 2010
J. J. Weijs
Where do I even begin for this one? Final Fantasy XII is the only Final Fantasy I haven't finished. I managed to get in about 50 hours of gameplay, and even with that investment I think I'm still only halfway through the story.
Which reminds me, where is the story in this game? This is the first time I played a FF game where I honestly can't even remember what it's about. I tried picking up where I left of some time ago, only to give up in frustration again. The characters are about as boring as they come. Vaan, the protagonist, is a whiny teenage boy (what a surprise..) who is rebelling about something, and he wants to be a pirate, and he's pissed about some stuff, and the other people in the party are angry about something too, though you wouldn't really know it since they appear to have no emotions whatsoever. The dialogue, which is hidden somewhere between the endless monster grinding and side-questing, is about as bland as natural flavored oatmeal. There are no witty one-liners, there are no heated debates, they just tend to walk along stating facts, making dreary comments about the socio-political problems of their world. If I wanted that, I would watch C-SPAN, not play a video game.
What this game really lacks, and desperately needed, was a bad guy. Oh there's some Prince or whatever who's manipulative and sneaky, but it's so dull. Bad guys need to be bad, they need to have an evil laugh, you need to see them torch a village to the ground so you can hate them and want them to die. FFXII has villains, but they're not interesting, there's no drama, there's no excitement or anything.
The gameplay is really contradictory, the battle system has you auto attacking for basically 80% of all battles. Then there's about 200 different macros, or gambits, that you can make to help make the game even more dull! But wait, it's not gonna be that simple, you have to find all of the gambit parts first, oh and if you want to cast spells, you have to first buy the spell, and then learn the talent for it. That wouldn't be so bad if the spell buying system wasn't so completely frustrating. Oh you want this spell? Sorry this store doesn't carry it, but you could go past a dozen loading screens and check the other store, which probably doesn't have it either. Which brings me to another point: loading screens. My god this game is absolutely plagued by them. The maps for all the towns and places are divided into dozens of sub-sections. Getting to the sewers in the main city will probably mean you need to get through 5 or 6 loading screens. And I hope to god you have all the maps memorized, you don't want to have to look them up, since getting to the map where you're at will require you to load about 5 screens because when you bring up the map, you start completely zoomed out instead of zoomed in.
This game just goes out of its way to frustrate people. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get past how badly it was made. The soundtrack is so dull, it's lacks any sort of emotion or creativity. I usually buy soundtracks ahead of time, because FF music is always worth it. Well it wasn't for this one, it sounded like a regurgitation of the FFT:A soundtrack.
All in all there's about a hundred RPGs I'd recommend for play before this one. If you missed this title and are afraid you're missing out on something then don't worry, this game is something you can miss without regret.
 The gameplay, graphics and voice acting are some of THE BEST I've ever seen in a game! The story however fell flat August 30, 2010
Vincent Valentine (Los Angeles, CA)
I finished playing the main game (around 50hrs) and spent another 70hrs playing through almost all of the sidequests including the most difficult boss fight... now well over a year and a half later, I decided to replay the game to see if my opinion has changed... other than a improved appreciation for a well-planned and sophisticated plot, nothing else has really changed for me.
GRAPHICS: SquareEnix had outdone themselves again! Even compared with FFVII, Advent Children, the cut scenes measures up to that movie if not better in some regards, such as the epic battle scenes! Absolutely breath taking. The opening scene left me almost as inspired as my experience with the opening of Star Wars nearly 30 years ago. Their work with FFVII Advent Children have taken them to the next level. Even the in-engine cut scenes are extraordinary. The awkward and sometimes out of sync gestures that littered most of the dialogue scenes in FFX and FFX-2 are almost non-existent. The motion capture is nearly flawless here. The character models look really clean this time around and the backgrounds blend in seamlessly. One reviewer mentioned that this is FFX done right! I couldn't agree more.
GAMEPLAY: They made the right decision to make battles within the environment instead of being interrupted constantly while I am exploring. I still remember struggling to pick up where I left off after a long battle. That alone made the game flow smoothly. I love the large open areas in the game. Those areas and the cities really gave the sense of scale that Ivalice is. One issue about the gameplay is there are way too many dungeon crawls in the opening of the game (something I am sure we've all grown tired of). I am not saying previous FFs are devoid of them, but they appeared boring to me for the first time because the story is lacking (more on that below). The excessively and sometimes unnecessarily large maps almost meant a lot of time wasted walking around. Of course I don't mind the large maps, but SE should just put in more teleports within the map. I don't find it particularly entertaining to waste time taking long walks through the same areas over and over again.
The less restrictive license board also proved problematic. The limited paths of the sphere grid in FFX forced specialization of the characters. Without similar restrictions, even early on in the game, my characters pretty much developed the same skills and used the same weapons and spells. There is a tremendous lack of variation in character strengths and ability we usually see in an FF. Also, in the endgame with 1000s of license points, the board became irrelevant. It crumbled into a pain in the ass to fill up the whole board. SE should put in something like the clear spheres from FFX to allow players to re-invent the board with all those extra points.
Gameplay elements such as summonings were not integrated into the story as well as previous titles. In addition, compared with the Mist knacks or even magic and melee attacks at higher levels, the Espers are virtually useless... therefore I hardly used them. Same thing with the boss fights. In previous FFs, the characters would often talk about a certain upcoming boss fight and its reason for being there, thus building up the suspense and anticipation. In FFXII, we get boss fights sometimes out of nowhere. It almost felt like a random encounter of previous FFs. It added very little to the game.
The side quests also became less interesting as it revolved around the mob hunt. The player must clear them in a certain order. Therefore, I cannot start certain quests before clearing some first. I don't know what possessed SE to make sidequests linear!
Finally, I absolutely love the "controversial" gambit system. For years, I've wished "Hey wouldn't it be nice if the characters could automatically heal and revive each other if this happens" instead of having to manually do all the support tasks (healing, protect, shell etc). The player can also manually override or even turn them off any time during the battle. Very well designed! The system leaves the player with more fun tasks such as strategizing attack and defense patterns. The only point of improvement I would make here is to have several different configuration settings for equipment and gambits that I can quickly swap. During some tough boss fights, I have found myself going into the menu and changing the Gambits and equipment over 10 times. Some people complained about the lack of direct involvement because of this, but I would much rather manage strategy than performing mundane support tasks in battle.
I liked the eliminated random encounters and new gambit system so much that I played the game for almost 130hrs even though nothing else really stood out to me.
SOUND: I was completely blown away with the theatre quality voice acting. The best I've seen so far in a game. The speech by Vayne in the beginning of the game was superbly written and delivered. I was blown away by how well it appeals to the audience's feelings and needs. Much better than most of the speeches I see in movies today or even from our politicians. This is a voice acting cast who can deliver on conveying a deep and involving story, but unfortunately, beyond a strong opening, we don't get the opportunity to see them realize their full talent (more on this below). As for the music, even though Nobuo Uematsu was not directly involved with this title, his essence remains. Almost all the pieces felt as though he had composed them. The battle music and themes for the different environments are very fitting. I thought if Nobuo didn't compose them, I wouldn't like it, but now, I am almost embarrassed to say that I like this soundtrack better than FFX. Sakimoto is a worthy successor to Uematsu.
STORY: The best way I could describe the story is FFXII compared to previous FFs is like the second Star Wars trilogy compared to the first. All plot and no story. Much like Lucas, the director focused on the political backdrop and "special effects," thus sacrificing the story. It is the weakest in recent FF history. It doesn't even come close to the stories of VII, VIII, IX and X. All of them have a theme: Identity - VII; Camaraderie - VIII; Independence - IX; Challenging tradition in X. The main characters also experience a catharsis around the theme near the end or during the climax of the story arc: Cloud discovers who he is and his purpose in VII. Squall realized that there is love and support all around him if he cared to ask in VIII. Vivi, Zidane and Kuja each realized what free will is and the choices they make meant to them. Yuna, Auron and especially Wakka each realized they cannot follow rules and tradition blindly in X. What's the theme in XII? Ok, we get that Ashe is tempted with power, but the story never clearly illustrated that she was willing to give that up.
I never had the opportunity to get to know the characters. There is virtually no tension between them nor internal conflict between right and wrong. I never had the opportunity to see Ashe's inner struggle with power. Almost all the interaction is nothing more than an exchange of facts with each other. I might as well read a history book on Ivalice. I know the world of Ivalice is much more in depth, yet I felt much more connected to the worlds of FFVII through FFX because they were observed through the eyes of the characters; for example, in FFX, Rikku and Wakka's opposing opinions about the religion and Yuna's subsequent loss of faith. However, in FFXII, the characters hardly ever get angry, jealous or laugh at each other nor do they talk about their opinions of each other like previous titles. There are no characters for comic relief either (eg. Zell in VIII, Steiner in IX, Wakka in X etc). Al-Cid is a good candidate with that playful high-energy personality like Rikku in X and X-2, but we never have a chance to get connected with him! These are just some of the areas that all previous FFs had delivered brilliantly. There is a meager sample of scenes to get the player emotional at the end, but they just come across as manipulative because the story never invested us in any of the characters. I am frankly shocked that they screwed this one up. The story began with a very promising epic opening of war between nations, betrayal and under the table deals. Vann is introduced with dreams of being a sky pirate, which is not exactly approved by Penelo. There is a resistance plagued with disagreement and wavering loyalty. All the right elements are there. It is heartbreaking to not see the story go anywhere. All the the awesome facial animations and voice acting never had the opportunity to live up to their potential! I even went back to FFX and noticed that the dialogues are about twice as long. When dialogue scenes do come up in FFXII, the characters will just begin to go into their back story, barely enough to whet my appetite and the scene will end. Frustrating! Its quite obvious that rich back stories were written for the characters, but somehow, the director decided to drop them. Probably because people have complained about extended dialogue scenes, but those can easily be skipped if the player is not interested. The player is left with little idea about why the characters are doing what they are doing... as one reviewer pointed out, Vaan seemed to have no purpose. Because of this, there are also no awesome plot twists typical of a FF title, which had always occurred from some unknown information about a character (sometimes hidden in secret story elements that can be unlocked -- which are also absent). I wanted so badly to like this game. The final fantasy series has been some of the most immersive experiences in my life. I am sure you can understand my disappointment.
Based on the numerous raving reviews I've read so far, the story doesn't seem to be an issue. This is a clear indication of changing trends in games. Gameplay, graphics and style is King. SquareEnix delivered those with flying colors, one of the best I've seen so far. That seems to be all that matters these days. But what has always set FF apart is the story, without that, the series degenerates into JUST another RPG. I don't think that's what SE wanted and certainly not what I want. If the characters doesn't draw me into their world, the whole game falls apart for me no matter how brilliant the overall presentation....
One of the best games ever August 29, 2010
Priscilla
I loved almost all the Final Fantasy installments, but this game, was by far the best game I have ever played. This game is thoroughly entertaining. I am over 220 hours into this game (the game can be completed in less than 150, but I STILL play it.) and I am still enjoying how the storyline progresses. There is so much to do in this game. It does come with a challenge, like almost all Final Fantasy games, but this isn't a game that you will be easily discouraged by. The storyline is so intriguing that you won't ever want to put down the controller. It is simply an awesome, well-thought-out game that is worth every penny. This game is very different from all previous Final Fantasies, but the gaming system is awesome. I love the gambit setup and on-screen battles, although controversial with some. I think this is a very unique game that everyone will love no matter who you are or what other games you like. It's hard not to love this game. :)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 288
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