Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

Ever since stumbling upon the the news of Final Fantasy XII’s release the rest of my life has almost been a complete blur. It’s pretty scary when you realize that your sanity in coping with the universe is highly dependent on the quality of a video game for a franchise that hasn’t seen anything new since 2004 (and, arguably, not anything good since 2002). X’s sequel may have been the best thing that has happened to the Final Fantasy franchise for the simple reason that it forced Square-Enix to think about why there are so many fans of the Final Fantasy series. Square made that series what it is and, honestly, I don’t think anybody at the company after Square’s and Enix’s merger understood why the FF series is the defacto flagship RPG for the gaming industry.X-2 introduced a major paradigm shift in the series and, while it had several pluses, it was effectively rejected by most Final Fantasy fans and gamers in general. Four years later the series has some life breathed back into it. Millions of RPG addicts outside of Japan could finally stop itching and get their fix in for the new game. Every delay between releasing a game in Japan and the U.S. starts the trigger of me going into a bookstore. And yes, I’m fully aware that I have a problem here.

As expected, the launch of the game was not a smooth one for me. I feel the need to share this small part with you about the game because it paints a very clear picture about my obsession with RPG’s. Monday night was the planned release for the game and I had even worked out a sleep schedule where I could sleep until an hour before midnight, get the game, play it until 7 am, then get ready for work AND be completely rested. After calling the game store before taking the rest somehow the plans for the release got changed so the only store that was doing a midnight release for the game was in a town I had never been to and is about an hour away from my house. After a long debate about driving outside Rochester to get a game and completely nuke my office productivity for the next day I decided that Tuesday was indeed an acceptable day to start Final Fantasy XII.

Why am I telling you these things? The answer is simple- if you are a fan of gaming and a fan of good storytelling then I feel it is perfectly reasonable to sacrifice sleep, skip house cleaning, ignore non-gamer friends, answer the phone with a disclaimer about Final Fantasy only conversations being allowed, and all the other normal and healthy reactions to a great new game being available. Playing this game reminds me of why I started gaming and why continue to play video games. There are great new movies, books, and music that constantly makes owners of those hobbies happy, and I will have words with anyone who feels that enjoying this particular art form is somehow completely underneath any other hobby.

What scares me is that I honestly believe that my body decided to help out with my addiction without me even realizing it. As I was unaware of XII’s release only until most of my vacation days had been used or allotted for later in the year (and while it was tempting to cancel Christmas plans to play a game I decided that my family might take issue with being bumped for a game) the best I could hope for was a full weekend of gaming without interruption. In college you can skip class or ignore homework for a couple days usually without massive repercussions. Sure, a major test or project being due is an unavoidable road block, but if you have the right teachers you know what you can get away with and still get above a 3.0. Just over a day after getting my hands on the game my aching back decided it was time to force a dependency on a cane and pain medication for several days. Normally this would bother me, but this time it meant being able to sit in front of the television for four days and do nothing but play XII almost non-stop.

Playing this game for the past week has taught me that even with all of the console bashing going around, especially now that we are on the doorstep of having the next-gen consoles ready for battle, my love for gaming has not diminished one iota. This was an important revelation for me because I had gotten to the point where all of the bookmarks that I maintain for gaming news I had feared clicking on. This is not a good place for an avid gamer to be in. So basically I desperately needed XII to bring something fresh to the table.

Everything about XII reminds me of why I became a fan of the franchise in the first place. It also tells me that the PS2 era is ending on the right note. Just as all of the best games of the franchise have done, the music in this game draws you in, the visuals capture your eye, the cut scenes and movies take your breath away, the characters compel you to explore the world in its entirety and resolve conflict, and the battle mechanics feel fresh and intuitive. I even had to edit that sentence several times to avoid over-selling what I’ve seen so far so you may want to look at it again. After claiming that Final Fantasy is the benchmark for keeping a franchise fresh, XII reinforces that argument from almost every facet I had pondered before making that statement.

Let me expound on that point. There are several distinctive points for what keeps these games fresh. Looking at many of the past games in the franchise these are the major items that change every time and are what I feel are always the highlights of the game.

Character dynamics are always interesting and you never see the same main character twice. Some games do not have a lead character and some do. While roles are always filled you can never say that one character talks and behaves the same as any other character. You will never see another Cecil, Kain, Terra, Cyan, Cloud, Vincent, Zell, Selphie, Tidus, Wakka, or even Garnet (Final Fantasy VI still holds the most impressive display of characters). Some characters are vaguely similar and some are borderline useless (okay, you caught me, I was looking for another excuse to mention Yuffie again). If and when the day comes where I see a character and start looking for jokes from the developers that they stole them from a previous iteration I will retract that. Until then I welcome newcomers into the party in Fran, Balthier, Zaan, Ashe, Basch, and Penelo.

The soundtrack is a very big item for me. As music is playing for 99% of every game I need to rely on the fact that reused tracks like a town’s theme is not going to get on my nerves after hearing it during the 40th hour of me in a shop upgrading my equipment. I need to be able to jump onto an airship or leave a town to do some traveling without having to fear the traveling music. I want scores from boss fights, cut scenes, movies, and most other places to send shivers down my spine. XII’s soundtrack has yet to disappoint, although admittedly I am relatively easily to please and am prone to missing subtleties in music that can shift the tone of a scene.

The battle system also is a big deal to me. It can sound rather unimportant, but if you make several games without ever reworking how you deal with enemy encounters you are going to make most of your followers incredibly bored. The Dynasty Warriors franchise serves as the best example of having repetitiveness drain the life out your work faster than a Creed album. We have seen Espers, Materia, Magic Capturing, Sphere Grid, Jobs, and now Gambits. And while we’re on the subject, the shift into eliminating random encounters is not completely true. While you do see the majority of the enemies on the landscape before you fight or run from them enemies do pop out of the ground or slither up from the grass to take you by surprise. What makes this more compelling is that if you are not careful you can move around in a fight and draw way too much attention to yourself. Any veteran of Diablo can tell you some very ugly horror stories in this matter.

While I have yet to make it through the game once (45 hours in and I feel as though I’ve barely scratched the surface at level 31) I am eager to rush back to the game and continue playing it. I want to unlock all of the abilities. I want to see how the story turns out. I want to see which characters are going to turn on me. And if you think I’m going to stop exploring this game after one play through you’re insane because it is a universal fact that you always miss something major the first time through a Final Fantasy game (well, unless you’re spineless and insist on using a guide).

What I find remarkable about this game in particular is that, while VIII still stands as my favorite, the battle system, aside from being a completely fresh change for Final Fantasy fans, provides a good challenge for many of the boss fights. Very quick reactions are required to win boss fights even when you force the game to wait while you go through your ability menus. Yes, some fights are pretty easy but there have been a couple that have forced me to really study all the intricacies of the battle system. The best part is that I have already told myself this twice, so I know there’s something else coming around the corner that is ready to take me by surprise.

It is still relatively early for me to assemble my overall impressions of the game. What I can tell you is that not one aspect has made me groan in disgust, several scenes have drawn me deeper into the story, there are several wow factors, and, probably the biggest ticket for me, this game has a good chance of becoming the new king of the series depending on several key factors- how impressive are the big spells, how much satisfaction is there in finding the best equipment, how do the characters play off of each other, how impressive is the story ending, and does the epilogue, complete with the musical score, definitively punctuate the game.

I’ll just have to do my best not to ignore everything else in the gaming world in the meantime.

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