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Final Fantasy XII is the last installment of the Final Fantasy series on the Playstation 2, and boy did it go out with a bang!

In Final Fantasy XII you play as Vaan, a would-be sky pirate who’s brother was killed during Archadian invasion, and who now hates Archadia because of it. So Vaan decides to break into the palace and steal a sacred artifact in order to get revenge, but he gets more than he bargained for. Vaan eventually meets Balthier and Fran during the break-in, who join your party after the conflict.

The first thing you’ll notice about Final Fantasy XII is it’s graphics. I was blown away by the beauty of the landscape, the size of the kingdoms, the details of the characters, everything just looked superb. I have no idea how Square Enix got away with these graphics on the Playstation 2, but I applaud them for being able to pull it off. And this is considering that I played the game on a Standard Definition TV set. I could only imagine what it would look like on an HDTV.

Another thing you’ll notice when playing the game is the battle system. Square Enix totally revamped the battle system to make it more action-based. When you are on the battlefield, you will be able to run around and get attack any of the enemies in the area. When you bring up the battle commands, it has the feeling of the old Final Fantasy games with it’s typical “Fight”, “Magicka & Teckniks”, “Item” commands. When you issue a command, whether it be a Fight or Magick attack, you will notice that when you highlight an enemy, a blue line will point out the enemy you wish to attack. The same goes for the other characters in your party. When issuing a heal or buff to anyone in your party, a green line will point to the character you want to heal or buff. And that goes for the same with enemies, you will be able to see who they are targeting by a red line that will point to their target.

One thing that most critics are saying yay-or-nay about is the Gambit system. I’ll try to explain the Gambit system as best as I can. It can best be described as a “If-Then” process. Let’s say you set up a Gambit with one of the supporting characters heal anyone who’s HP goes below 50%, whenever that happens, the supporting character will automatically put a heal command in their queue. Once their current command is complete, then they will begin charging the heal. And viola! The Gambit system can be set to a multitude of things, like setting it to work to attack an enemy who has attacked a specific character with a specific type of attack (Melee or Magick), heal or revive a character, etc.

Conclusion

All in all this is a great game for any fan of Final Fantasy. There are a couple of things you need to get used to like the new battle system, upgrading your character, or the Gambits, but once you get used to it, you’ll relize that it’s another great addition to the Final Fantasy franchise.

[Edit: Added some pics to spice up the review]

PS2, FFXII