Reviewed by TL on 1/22/2007
I'm not quite sure what to make of FFXII's production. The game seemed to be surprisingly polished in some areas, but quite lackluster in others. Examples abound, but the clearest embodiment of this phenomena can be found in the bestiary. Back in the 16 bit days all the way up to Final Fantasy VI, programmers used a technique called palette swapping to conserve memory on the game cartridges, whereby they would simply change the colors of monsters and call it a new species (or more precisely, change the color palette that each monster image drew from). This has occurred to some extent in every about every RPG title boasting hundreds (or even thousands) of monsters, and FFXII was no exception. What made it exceptional (in a negative way), is the extent to which the programmers recycled their creations in this installment. Throughout, I was nagged with a sense of deja vu; "Didn't I just kill these guys in the last zone? Oh, wait, these have a tuft of red fur on their heads.". Were they that strapped for memory resources that they couldn't create a larger number of monster animations? It was like Squenix completed (excellently) half of the requisite work to create a truly amazing bestiary, then just called it good. That's the way the entire game was. The locales, the cutscenes, the voice acting, the quests... they all had about half (maybe a bit more) of what was required to create a knockout title, but left out the other fraction and settled for "alright". Great voice acting, but poor recording quality. Huge dungeons, but obviously recycled components USEd (ha ha) to create and lengthen them. Awesome quality CG cutscenes, but short and few in number. Great looking weapon models, but no representation of armor, headgear, accessories (?! FFXI had this and a lot more equipment to boot). Awesome monster design, but insufficient camera control to really appreciate it. Cool spells, but only one spell/ability can usually be used at a time (resulting in long spell queues). The list goes on and on.
The storyline was... well, like watching Star Wars through a fantasy lens.
As a last note, FFXII does not rip off Skies of Arcadia. Much.
Favorite moment: Any airship battle
Worst moment(s): Collecting rare items for the bazaar
