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Final Fantasy XII - First Look Preview
Jon Wilcox
05/12/2006
While the PlayStation3 gets the 'baker's dozen', European PS2 owners will finally get to play number twelve in 2007...
Scheduled for released in Europe in early 2007, around a year after it first hit stores across Japan, Final Fantasy XII is the last time that the long-running franchise will be available on PlayStation2. Having secured critical acclaim in both its home territory and North America (where it was released at the end of October), the instalment is set to continue evolving a number of ideas seen in recent chapters; TVG takes a look at what gamers look set to experience when it finally arrives...
When it does make it to European shores, Final Fantasy XII will be the first 'true' instalment (MMO Final Fantasy XI excluded) released in Europe for three years, following X-2 in February 2004. Development lasted for five years between 2001 and early 2006, and endured the loss of original Lead Producer/Director Yasumi Matsuno, who was replaced by a trio of Hiroyuki Ito and Hiroshi Minagawa (taking over directorial control), and Akitoshi Kawazu, who took the role of Executive Producer. Despite such a jarring event, the game has already gone on to achieve critical success in both Japan and North America; although in a recent interview with TVG, Kawazu-san did express disappointment at the sales performance of the game Japan: "We would have liked for it to have sold a little bit more than it did - as for the US we'll have to see very soon to see how that goes."
It's a view that opposes Square-Enix's CEO John Yamamoto when he announced the PAL release of the game earlier in the 2006, stating that, "The game has been a massive success in Japan and looks set to become one of the crowning glories of PlayStation 2." Kawazu-san may agree with the second point - but sales a little in excess of two million across Japan have meant that it wasn't quite the 'massive success' described by Yamamoto-san. So can Europe meet with expectations? Let's look at what Final Fantasy XII will be offering on its early 2007 release...
Perhaps best described as a 'not-so Cold War', Final Fantasy XII is set in the world Ivalice, where two super-powers, Archadia and Rozarria, are in the midst of a great conflict. Caught in the middle of both countries however is the land of Dalmasca, which is invaded and held by Archadia; the story of FFXII follows the leader of the Dalmasca resistance, Princess Ashelia, and a young man called Vaan as they try to fight back against Archadian forces. It's not the first time that fans of the series will have walked across the world of Ivalice, having been the location for events in both Final Fantasy Tactics (set 800 years before the events of FFXII) and another Square-Enix RPG, Vagrant Story. However even at the start of the game, it's very apparent judging by the visual style used by the development team, that Final Fantasy XII has a much darker edge than perhaps some of the previous instalments in the franchise - even a character that personifies the typical hero if a Final Fantasy title is slain during the Archadian assault.
Taking a lead from the previous title, MMORPG Final Fantasy XI, the game drops the stereotypical Japanese RPG split exploration/battle screens, which also has the knock-on effect of reducing the number of surprise attacks that litter other titles in the genre. Instead, enemies are now visible in the exploration screen in a way that's archetypically Western RPG in style, giving players the choice to prepare for battle, or even avoid confrontation in the first place (though this obviously has a knock-on effect on a party's ability to defeat tougher monsters later on). Kawazu-san explained why such a dramatic move was made: "Since the design concept of the game was to have the player very much be exploring and walking around the world itself, the decision to move to a system where monsters are already present in the world...made the switch to a real-time system a very natural one."
Dubbed the "Active Dimension Battle" system, combat drops somewhere between both real-time and time-based in structure, and uses a time delay on each move (aside from Item use, which is instantaneous) that varies depending on the action chosen by the player. This is where the new (yet optional) Gambit system comes in to play...
Gambits are can essentially be compared to "If...Else" logic statements in computer programming - not that we want people to panic at this point by thinking that the system is tremendously over-complicated. Each character in the party begins with two Gambit slots, building up to a maximum of twelve, which the player can then fill with various commands which are then automatically carried out when certain conditions arise during the battle. There seems to be quite a significant amount in diversity in the type of commands that can be used, from using Health Potions if a character in the party reaches a certain percentage of their full Health Points, to targeting and attacking the nearest Foe. Throughout the course of the game, additional commands can be set as the number of Gambit slots increase, with priority given from the top of the list.
Developing the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X, the twelfth instalment of the series utilises a checker-board system called the Licence Board, which quite honestly looks incredibly complicated if you view one at an advanced stage (as we found during our first experiences with the game, a demonstration given by Square-Enix). Like the Gambit system however, this evolved system for character development is actually straightforward enough in reality, and is actually far easier to interpret how each character progresses through the course of the game. As Kawazu-san explained to TVG, "If you look at the Sphere Board, the roles that the characters are going to play are already very much pre-determined by their starting positions on the board...[Final Fantasy XII Battle Director Ito-san's] design philosophy is very much more to give players the freedom to make the characters the way that hey want to, which is very different to the design philosophy for FFX."
Finishing up with his opinion on what makes a Final Fantasy title, Kawazu-san revealed that, "It's a difficult one to answer...[originally] our goal was to make a role-playing game more interesting than any that had come before it...Other than that, it's difficult to say 'If I put this in then it's a Final Fantasy game', it's not something that you can really safely say."
It may be difficult for Kawazu-san to say, but there is at least one feature however: it wouldn't be a Final Fantasy title if it didn't feature airships...which of course, Final Fantasy XII does.
Anonymous
Date Added:Wed 11th Jul 2007 20:49
Plus the lack of attempts at various creatures instead giving a variation of wolf, bunny or snake made me even more peeved a... [ Read full comment... ]
Drago
Date Added:Mon 9th Jul 2007 21:02
Anonymous
Date Added:Tue 29th May 2007 13:02
STS_Syflarce
Date Added:Mon 16th Apr 2007 04:37
ffjoker
Date Added:Wed 28th Feb 2007 20:09
owls1993swfc
Date Added:Sun 25th Feb 2007 20:52
ffjoker
Date Added:Sat 24th Feb 2007 01:09
owls1993swfc
Date Added:Sat 3rd Feb 2007 22:08
ive completed ff 7/9/10/10-2
i fought no.8 was crap!!!!
Anonymous
Date Added:Sat 3rd Feb 2007 13:03
Especially Larsa.
Anonymous
Date Added:Thu 1st Feb 2007 17:04