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Final Fantasy XII |  | From: Square Enix
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $4.45
as of 7/31/2010 20:33 PDT details
You Save: $15.54 (78%)
New (70) Used (98) Collectible (9) from $4.45
Seller: ulterior_motives
Rating:  281 reviews
Sales Rank: 475
Platform: PlayStation2
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: PlayStation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.6
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: 90407
Model: P2SQE 662248904078
UPC: 662248904078
EAN: 0662248904078
ASIN: B000F5IH2I
Publication Date: October 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Completely new voiced cut-scenes added for the North American release | | • | Gorgeous CG cinematics and cut-scenes in Dolby Pro Logic II combined with real-time graphics rivaling those of next-generation titles | | • | Shocking plot twists take players on an unforgettable journey | | • | Active Dimension Battle (ADB) system enables players to move seamlessly between exploration and combat | | • | Highly customizable Gambit system allows complete control over character AI during battles |
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Product Description
Square Enix Final Fantasy XII Since 1987, the FINAL FANTASY® series has sold over 70 million units, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. FINAL FANTASY XII carries on the tradition of gaming innovation, fantastic graphics and epic storytelling. With a brand-new battle system bringing more realistic and seamless action to the player's fingertips, this latest installment promises to take role-playing games to the next level through a beautiful and heart-stopping adventure. The story of FINAL FANTASY XII takes place in a world called “Ivalice,” in an age when magic was commonplace and airships plied the skies, crowding out the heavens. War was on the horizon. Seeking to strengthen its base of power, the great Archadian Empire had been invading and subjugating its neighboring kingdoms one by one. The small Kingdom of Dalmasca was one such kingdom. Our story follows Vaan, a young man living on the streets of Dalmasca's Royal City of Rabanastre, the Princess Ashe, the sole remaining heir to the Dalmascan throne who had been given up for missing, as well as Vaan's friend Penelo, the sky pirate Balthier, Balthier's partner Fran and many more on an adventure through Ivalice that traces the mysteries behind the Archadian Empire's invasion.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 281
 Fantasic Storyline, Amazing Graphics, a Must Have November 22, 2006
Lisa Shea
66 out of 87 found this review helpful
Final Fantasy is sometimes thought of as a kiddy game with chocobos and moogles. Final Fantasy XII proves that this series can present an awesome storyline and graphics that all ages will adore.
Don't worry if you haven't played all of the other Final Fantasy games. You don't need to. There are subtle carry-overs, but this game is meant to stand alone. You are a young orphan in a city recovering after a war. The cruel Empire has taken over your home town, and you enjoy causing trouble for the soldiers.
Soon, of course, you're swept up in an epic rebellion. The storyline here is just *amazing*. Not just the plot itself, but the voice acting, the dialogue, the graphics, they are top notch. This is really like being a part of an extremely well done drama movie. They delve into issues of honor, loyalty, love, betrayal, and more. I'm an adult gamer, and I was staying up many long nights because I wanted to see where the story was going. Some of the subtle interactions between characters in cut scenes are just amazing. The small nods, the looks in their eyes, you are hard pressed to remember that they are animated in a computer game.
Gameplay itself revolves around a party of characters going on quests, fighting in battles and moving through the large world. Each character gains experience and skills as they go. You buy them new weapons and armor, train them in spells, and aim them in their career growth however you wish. There is a dual system in play here. First, you need to physically own the weapon or item you wish to use - say an iron sword. But then you need to KNOW how to use it too! You can't just hand an iron sword to a 10 year old piano player and expect her to know how to use it. That skill is called a "license". You have an online license chart that lets you manage what each character knows. Licenses relate to each other. If your character learns the basics of sword work, now they can learn a more advanced version. It is very intuitive and adds a fun element to the game. It's not just one straight line that you choose and are stuck with. It's an all-directions layout where you can try new skills or expand out as you learn the system better.
I really like combat in this Final Fantasy as well. Instead of random battles where enemies appear out of nowhere to assault you, all enemies are "on the map" with you. If you're running along a path in the desert and see something really scary in the distance, you run away from it! You don't have to worry about enemies springing up out of nowhere to slam you into the ground.
The enemies in general are challenging but not impossible. There are spots where you really have to think about the enemy and what its weakness is to defeat it. You can't just brute force bash away at everything and hope to succeed.
Still, as great as the gameplay is, and as gorgeous as the visuals and music and voice acting are, I really have to come back to the plot and characters as standing out here. There's been a lot of talk in the gaming world about a game that finally goes from "little pixels on the screen" that you move from X to Y to the point of *caring* about these characters, about what they are going through, and feeling emotional about their highs and lows. I really think Final Fantasy XII has hit that level. Yes, there are one or two twerpy characters that can be annoying. Even Star Wars had Luke whining about the Takashi Station at the beginning, to set his "basis for growth". In general, though, every single character here seems real, seems complex, and you don't want to put the game down.
Highly, highly recommended.
Should you buy this game? A personal opinion of FFXII September 6, 2007
C. Merryman (Beverly Hills, CA)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
After a complete playthrough, I decided to give the positive and negative points of this epic campaign called Final Fantasy XII.
Positive:
- Better than its predecessor FFXI; FFXII takes the best elements of the online version and incorporates them well into this verson.
- Intuitive combat system, challenging when played live and not turn-based
- Beautiful graphics and a great soundtrack despite the system's limitations
- Better voice acting than FFX, contributes to character development
- The best storyline in an RPG to date, there is nothing better
Negative:
- Combat system is easy; essentially automatic on regular enemy fights
- Confusing license system
- Combat relies mostly on melee and healing spells, mages are slow and almost worthless
- No progressive scan feature (not a big deal, but would be nice for HDTVs)
- Setting up spell and auto attack features for characters becomes a chore
The game in itself is an epic story told through a video game. You could easily take the policial issues shown in this game and incorporate it into a Tom Clancy novel, only set in a mideval atmosphere. I am hard-preseed to see another RPG that has something this deep and adult-oriented on plot.
The main character you play unfortunately doesn't play into the political strife of the game, and I think it is mostly because of his age. You play a 17-year-old vagrant named Vaan. While I dreaded playing a whiney teenage character due to previous RPG experiences (dot hack and FFX being prime examples), Vaan is anything but. He does go off on tangent at times, but it is nowhere near the extent that I expected. Despite his maturity on the situation, you feel Vaan is more of an observer of the politics than a player. He stays quiet through many of the cut scenes. Basch would have been my pick for the main character. He was directly involved with most of the story, and had a great redeeming quality about him I felt could have been explored more if I followed him instead.
Beyond the storyline and character development, the combat system is a mixed bag of bolts. The gambit system, which dictates how your character friends fight for you, was a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing in that I didn't have to worry about taking care of other people in my party beyond myself, and a curse in that it made the game easy. You can set up the gambit system and ADP to automatically fight battles. This makes it so you run in the direction of an enemy and it is killed without having to press a button. I didn't understand how the core element of gameplay could be automated like this and not have been improved upon (Star Ocean's battle system is a great example of how FFXII could have been).
I also found that bringing a caster character that didn't heal was a worthless slot. Fighter characters do more damage over time, and you can set them up to heal themselves. If you bring a character that only does spell damage, they take twice as long to cast, and do the same damage as a front-line fighter. There were many instances were a mage character (Fran) wouldn't be able to get a spell off on an enemy till a boss fight. I had an easier time with a team full of hybrid healers with one primary healer than I did with a damage caster.
However I consider these nuisances small toward the total scope of this installment of Final Fantasy. Plot development is top-notch, and other RPG companies can easily take a lesson from FFXII on how not to make another dull manga-looking game about "saving the world from total destruction". This game will remain timeless because of its quality, and I recommend playing this to anyone who enjoys epic RPGs.
Well, here goes... November 7, 2006
Cloud (Canada)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I'll use the old cliche: RPG's have been hand in hand with Final Fantasy. In fact, there's even best-of lists devoted to non-Final Fantasy games. As such, it's hard to believe we haven't had a proper entry in the series since 2001 with Final Fantasy X. Yeah we had the online XI but really, who actually can afford all those fees and everything just to play the game? The twelth game in the series had a frustratingly long gestation period with numerous delays, people walking out as well as doubts about whether the game would actually be good. Must be tough for those who doubted the game. I don't know whether people will regard this as one of the series best but as it stands, this is probably the best RPG available right now.
Story: Taking place in the world of Ivalice, the Archadian Empire has taken over the kingdom of Dalmasca, placing it under their rule. The story centers around a group of people who are caught up in political intrigue and mystery as well as the protection of Princess Ashe, the heir to the throne. As for this story, you might not respond in the way you did to Cloud and Aeris or Locke and Celes but the characters are endearing and the plot is definately the maturest they've done since VIII but what hurts the story is development. You can tell the emphasis was on the story as opposed to the characters so while they all go on this mission, there's really no personal interest in each other as a group. I will say though that I quite like Ashe's character and Balthier is the kind of sly cool guy we all wish we could be.
Graphics: When X came out, the graphics quite frankly stunned me. They still do. Here, they stun but the novelty as worn off since they're not new but boy do they impress. The demo and intro movie are just gorgeous and the in-game cinematics are handled well. This is also probably one of the most fully-realized worlds I've seen. Everything here looks like it has a story to tell or a history and it's very easy to get immersed in. My one knock is that on my widescreen TV, there's actually space that's not used since it's for subtitles and the like and let's face it, with a story like this, you kinda need subtitles.
Sound/Music: Done now by Hitoshi Sakimoto of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story, I find his music well composed and arranged and he's great at using an orchestra but his problem is melodies, or shall we say, lack of them. Revisiting the soundtrack independent of the game made me appreciate some tracks more (the Esper Battle theme is power by definition really) but some tracks go through a few changes that while fine in the game, they're so overwritten it hurts the replayability. As for the voice acting, it's hit and miss. Sure characters like Basch and Balthier and especially Ashe work though she sounds slightly older, but then we have whiny Vaan(show you bad it is, Tidus to me outdoes this guy) and Fran has the most peculiar accent. Ultimately though their voices don't take you out of the game, they're just not as well cast in certain roles.
Gameplay: The straw that might break the camel's back for some people. It used to be that you'd roam the field and whoosh! be met with battle music and the fight than a separate screen for your spoils such as EXP and Gil. Not here. The enemies appear on the field and you just walk right up to them and fight them right there. It's still ATB based so if you pick a command, a bar fills and once it fills, that command is issued. Exp and LP (license points) pop up above your enemy so you don't go to a separate screen. Only problem with this is that sometimes enemies overwhelm you and the EXP jumps rather considerably as you level up. In the first few enemy-infested levels you traverse, your requirements for levelling up can easily jump 300 exp and when each individual enemy has maybe 10 or so, that's a lot of fighting, and your Cure and whatnot don't come fast enough. The camera can cause problems, especially in dungeons where you went left instead of turning right.
Like every single game since probably V, the game introduces a gameplay system on how to level and manage your characters. From the Materia system to Junctioning to the Sphere Grid, every game has had a different approach and it's the same thing here. The License board is essentially a re-worked Sphere Grid. Beating enemies in battle nets you License points which can be used to "buy" licenses, such as the ability to equip certain equipment or spells or enhancements such as increased potency of potions and spells or simply raising your strength and increasing your HP. However, just because you bought that license doesn't mean you can use it. Certain things like spells and skills have to be bought as well so buying the Cure license doesn't mean you can cast it, you have to buy it first. To be honest, this works better than X's system because unlike that system where you had to level up your health, strength, defense etc, individually, your traditional levelling up does it for you while the licenses are merely bonuses. However, there's no thieves/white mages-type thing here so you can actually make characters all equip bows if you wanted which takes away a bit of their uniqueness.
The other addition is the Gambit system. Basically these are "if commands" which state that if a certain condition is there, an action is performed by your character. For example: if a character falls below a certain health percentage, your character or an ally will automatically perform Cure. If there's a fire-based enemy, you can have your ally automatically cast Blizzard. You can also set order preference so curing and health management take priority over attacking for example. Some say that it later makes the battles easier but personally it makes it funner and considering that they're all controllable, it's fun to not have to worry about them.
Money has been changed as well. Enemies no longer carry vast amounts of Gil in their pocket, but instead they carry treasures. They can carry furs, stones and such and then those are sold in the market. Also you can take on various bounties where you hunt down a creature. It works in theory as well as just simple common sense(how is it that a bat carries Gil and what for anyway?), you don't get as much money as you should, especially considering you have to buy spells as well as techniques, weaponry, protective garments as well as supplies. As for the difficulty? It can get quite hairy. One early boss encounter pitted me up against at least 6 enemies, 2 of which were the main enemies and boy did they pack a wallop, finished me in 2 minutes flat. Party management and levelling are a must if you're to survive.
I don't think there even is a Final Fantasy that's absolutely perfect but it's probably still going to be one of the more impressive RPG's you've played and XII is no different.
This game truly deserves the perfect score it got from Famitsu!! November 1, 2006
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Ok, when I first the game I had very high expectations and after playing it for about 20 minutes I was kinda disappointed by the GAMEPLAY, the battle system was wierd and not that great but I was definitely amazed by the intro which was simply spectacular
I kept playing in spite of my disappointment, till the point I got Balthier and Fran in my party and then things began to get better, the story finally picked up and cool things started happening and also the introduction of the Gambit System was wonderful but unfortunately due to the lack of Gambits at the beginning, it was underwhelmed
Ok, the Gambit System is very unique and it allows you to set your characters' commands and actions cleverly and it never gets annoying and it also adds a lot of strategy to the game as well since choosing Gambits needs a lot of care and thinking
The graphics are simply amazing, the PS2 is dying but this game just gives it life once again... the FMVs are spectacular and the in-game graphics are improved upon the graphics of FFX which were already perfect, and dungeons are wonderfully designed although they like variety of styles but none the-less-they still look good
The game also has the License Board which is truly unique but doesn't have as much customization as previous systems but it's still good, the camera is fine but it has its flaws and the music is simply spectacular
The story might be slow-paced at the beginning but when it picks up around an hour or two later it will become wonderful with all kinds of twists and turns everywhere and it's actually darker and more mature than any other FF storyline to date
This game has numerous side quests available from the beginning of the game making it nonlinear, the side quests are awesome and there's a fine variety of them and they're actually too many and need numerous hours to be fully completed
The difficulty is perfect, it's harder than any FF to date and also there are several other changes but originality is still there and it's still a Final Fantasy, in spite of the new battle system
Overall, FFXII wasn't a disappointment after all, it was quite fun and I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed numerous other games so this is a must have for all RPG gamers
I can't put it down! November 9, 2006
S. M. Jones
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I can't remember the last time I was so addicted to a single video game and quite frankly, at age 26, I really didn't think I could get into one like I did when I was younger. That was until I purchased FFXII and fell in love with RPG's all over again. I have to say that if you just give the new battle system a chance you will REALLY love this game. There are so many areas and levels and secrets and side-quests... it's incredible! And quite frankly, the battle system is just a different take on the original turn-style battle system. All they've done is make it more interactive, fast, and given you the option to automatically have a battle plan so you aren't having to repeat the same commands over and over. (If you're having difficulty with the gambits maybe you need to go play something less challenging.) I enjoyed FFX but I didn't like how little you could move across the board freely to explore new levels and areas. It was basically a single path that you had to take. And FFX-2 was great but I think it was geared more towards marketing the title to a younger female population and sort of lost some of it's appeal. FFXII has finally done it. PS2 could not possibly have gone out with more style. Get this game, lose some sleep, call in sick, and you will thank me.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 281
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