Final Fantasy XII

I have been playing this game for about 10 hours. Every minute of this game is worth it, the battle system is fantastic, and I really enjoy the new direction they took the series. The Gambit system is a fine addition to the battles, and it really gives players a lot to choose from when customizing each character for battle.

The license board is also done well, and it kills the sphere grid previously seen in Final Fantasy X. You can customize your characters differently or the same, and you have the freedom to do it, there are no restrictions like in the Sphere Grid.

It's refreshing to play something new from Final Fantasy, and it does not disappoint. The story so far is very interesting, and extremely involving. This is one game, especially in the Final Fantasy series that one will not want to miss.

Final Fantasy XII is a really great game with a lot of extras to keep you busy for a long time. The fighting system itself has been overhauled - instead of running into random encounters and being transported to a battle screen, the enemies are on the field and you fight them right there. The system does take some getting used to, especially in the beginning when you only have one person in your party. The system works best later on, when the enemies (and you and your party) are quicker, stronger, and smarter, resulting in fast, amazing battles. Any fan of World of Warcraft or other MMORPGs will adapt to this game in two seconds, as it's basically the same fighting system.

I found the weakest link was the story, which is odd because Final Fantasy is known for great stories. It never felt epic to me, and it didn't feel like the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. It had to do more with politics and war (probably because the head guy of this game was the same guy behind Final Fantasy Tactics, which focused less on fantasy and more on warring kingdoms). Also, while the game advertises Vaan as the main character, it's not really so. It makes you wonder why they didn't just scrap him and go with some other party member as the main character, as there are three others with more "main character" story lines than Vaan. The music is also nothing compared to past games. Finally, the only way to make serious money is by selling the "loot" you find off dead monsters. You will find yourself broke often because everything - weapons, armor, magic, Gambits, technicks, EVERYTHING - costs a lot of money.

But those are actually minor grievances once you start playing the game. The sidequests in this game, mainly hunting Marks, are incredibly fun. There are great bosses, the Judge Magisters are cool and intimidating, the voice acting is superb, the cutscenes are excellent, the graphics push to the PS2 to its limit, there are tons of different weapons and spells, the cities are large and sprawling with life, and Gambits - if you like 'em - can be mastered to perfection.

All in all, a great game and a great addition to the series

Excellent! Bravo! Best game out there, i'd give it a 20 out of 10.

But this game took me 185 hours to beat! But I completed all of the side quests along with all the optional bosses etc. Probably 1/4 of that 185 hours was storyline.

I still remember the feeling of waiting for the game to come out, staying in my room playing 10 and 8, just thinking and wondering what the game was going to be like, then I got it and was thrown into a world of war and peace and kings and queens. Definitely the Final Fantasy that is apart from the others. You know what I mean FF fans, the other FF games are all corny and crap, then 12 comes in and it's about war and crap, which definitely made it better.

I loved the game play. No more random battles people! Thats a thing of the past man, they had to move on and they did! I was very happy. You could actually see the enemies in ADVANCE! The storyline was well thought out but It could of been better I believe.

Square Enix also had the time to make huge and extremely hard bosses. Take Yiazmat for example. A total of approximately 50 million HP, and doubles his level to level 146 when you almost kill him. Took me 5 hours to beat.

Well there you have it, reasons the game had gotten the best rank of the FInal Fantays series, all in a couple paragraphs.

To start off let me just say that I have played Final Fantay since its inception on the NES and therefore have seen and played the best and worst of the series. After FF 8 I saw a steady decline in the quality of the FF series 9, although a good game and interesting storyline, no where near matched the quality and grace of 7 or 8 (which btw are the two best in the series to date). FF 10 was a good game and very innovative in its own way with the use of voice actors, but the sphere system was very confusing at first it took too long to understand the how it worked but once it was understood it was a very powerful tool. FF 10-2 was possibly the worst idea I have ever heard of in a Final Fantasy period. FF 11 was a bit better but I did not like the idea of it being and MMORPG.

With that out of the way I move on to FF 12, the much needed revival of the Final Fantasy series. When I first heard of its release I was a bit apprehensive given the lack of quality in the ones preceding it. What convinced me to pick up this game (more than it being a Final Fantasy) was a review of it I saw on X-Play on G4. Now any one who has ever watched the show knows that Adam and Morgan judge games on a scale that is near impossible to get anything above a 3 out of 5, they gave this game a 5 out of 5 so I played it. This game is the revival that I have been longing for in the Final Fantasy series; any gamer who loves the series needs this game. The people at Square Enix decided to get rid of the old random battle sequence (thank God, I was tired of running in to Ruby Dragons in Centra). They instead went with a more live action style of battle system where you see the enemy and can decide to either engage the enemy of you feel you can win or flee with out sustaining any damage. Also new was the Licences system, which I like, it is reminiscent of the sphere system of FF 10 but is much easier to pick up and run with. Another think that I loved about the game was that Yoshitaka Amano is back on with the Final Fantasy crew (Welcome Back!!!). For those who don't know Yoshitaka Amano has been director of character design for all of the Final Fantasy's except for 11 and 10-2 I believe, but he was back on for this one. The movie sequences are beautiful they are the true gem of this game, if you love CGI you'll love this game even more. I like the story line for this one because it is different, which is what the FF series needed, in that it isn't a win or the world ends; it's more political but still very in-depth and interesting as each character has a defined back-story and their own purpose for joining the quest against the empire.

The only think that I really didn't like was in the beginning it seemed like I was just playing a little between movie sequences, but that soon changed and more game time was alloted and less movies.

Over all this is a must have for Final Fantasy fanatics and hard core gamers alike or if you just love awesome games.

This game is simply amazing. The epic story, interesting characters and dynamic battle system always leave me wanting more. The Bestiary system is also a fantastic touch, providing background lore to deepen an already amazing world. Would highly recommend.