The Final Fantasy XII Effect

After playing Final Fantasy XII for what amounted to the greater part of a weekend, I was left with a couple of thoughts.

First, this is absolutely one of the most well-crafted role playing games I've experienced. There are rocky aspects, sure, such as some flaws in the License Grid system, but the sheer magnificence of everything else far outweighs them. The battle system has the depth of an ocean, the story, while not overwhelmingly original, is enthralling, the music is phenomenal, and, at the risk of depleting my adjective pool, I'll say that the sheer amount of crap to do is staggering. Above all of that, however, Final Fantasy XII is the first game in the series that has really made me feel like I'm just a small (though quite vital) part of a much, much larger world. Some RPG fundamentalists pissed and moaned about how you can't talk to every single NPC in towns and cities, but I'd venture to guess that FFXII provides just as many talkative characters as any other game, it just happens to have a lot of other people and creatures that have better things to do than mingle with strangers. The attention to detail, in some twisted sense, makes Final Fantasy XII quite realistic.

I then considered something else: Final Fantasy X-2? A year ago, I wrote the following review for X-2 in Gamespot's user section:

I’ve been a fan of the Final Fantasy series since the 8-bit era, and I absolutely love Final Fantasy X-2. Most hardcore fans of Final Fantasy and RPG gaming in general will view this as blasphemy, and there exists reasonable merit to such an allegation. True, X-2 essentially ravages much of what’s great about the Final Fantasy legacy to date for most people: the story is rather frilly and is filled with girl power moments, the game is a direct sequel to the most popular game in the franchise (unheard of thus far in the Final Fantasy series), significant changes have been made to the battle system, and the game follows a fairly linear course. Despite all of that, however, there is much to love about Final Fantasy X-2.

The battle system, for instance, is probably my favorite in the series so far. Keep in mind that I’m a huge fan of every Final Fantasy game ever released (with the exception of Final Fantasy III, which is yet to be released in America [actually, you can buy it on DS now, though obviously it wasn't out at the time of this review], and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest) and you’ll see why this is a rather important proclamation. X-2 takes the “Active Time Battle System” from the pre-FFX games and tosses in an immense amount of spice, and the result is utterly fantastic. Battles are fast and furious as there is very little waiting that takes place in between each action taken, and players are awarded bonus damage for chaining their attacks together in striking combinations. Sure, because of the increased speed things get a little simpler as there’s less time to consider each battle option and merely selecting the basic attack function is often the most fruitful course of action, but that never hinders the fun of it all. Besides that, there’s a bevy of skills and abilities to choose from for players who wish to take a more cerebral approach anyway.

It is because of the newly reinstated and revised job system that there are so many abilities, a fantastic new feature that Square-Enix would do well to work into future Final Fantasy titles. This job system is part Final Fantasy Tactics, part Final Fantasy V, and part dress-up, and it functions extremely well. Over the course of the game, your party will pick up various dress spheres that allow you to change jobs at will. The dress spheres come in a nice variety, opening up the possibility to change your warriors into samurai, “Lady Luck” (a luck-centered character, vaguely reminiscent of the limit break style of Final Fantasy VII’s Cait Sith character), the typical black mage, and many, many more. The most intriguing aspect of the dress sphere system is the ability to shift jobs in the middle of battle by binding the dress spheres to “garment grids,” which are essentially laid out like a very small board game that your characters must move through to change jobs in the heat of battle (so if there’s a white mage sphere in front of your alchemist sphere, you must first change into it first). While it can sometimes be frustrating to have to rotate through a couple of jobs in the garment grids before approaching the one you want, there are a variety of garment grid shapes plus you can place the dress spheres in any order you want outside of battle, so things are still in your hands for the most part.

Outside of the battle system, the game suffers a few noticeable falters, but none of them are horrendously offensive. As expected, the story is somewhat girly and shallow, but it has its moments regardless. While you’ll likely not feel any particular empathy for the characters, certain scenes and plot developments are still immensely satisfying, such as the “1000 Words” segment and the experiences at the Farplane near the end of the game. Unfortunately, these moments are often somewhat cheesy, but are just fine if taken with a grain of salt.

Not so forgivable are the immensely embarrassing girly-girl segments littered rather abundantly across the entire game. No one in the entire world is likely keen on having Barbie moments tossed randomly into their action-packed RPG titles, and yet Final Fantasy X-2 wears them proudly, which makes the game rather painful to play in the company of others. For example, there are several moments in which Yuna flakes out and jumps around whilst chortling embarrassing popish music (these scenes are separate from the game’s true vocal performances that are used twice), and much of the interaction between the three main characters (Yuna, Riku, and newcomer Paine) is equally faux-feminine and painful on the ears. Sure, the girls are scantily clad, but it seems that Square-Enix decided to cater the fan service more to pre-teen girls regardless. Definitely an aspect of the game that is impossible to defend.

Furthermore, the music in X-2 is absolutely atrocious in most instances, which comes as a surprise considering the Final Fantasy series’ reputation for some of the best gaming music ever composed. I’m not sure who’s idea it was to keep Nobuo Uematsu out of this particular project, but it certainly didn’t pay off for anyone. The battle music is awful as are many other examples of background music. Admittedly, I’m somewhat fond of the vocals, but everything else sounds as though a ballpark pipe player got absolutely loaded and made sweet love to a synthesizer while being spanked by an electric guitar. If only this was sarcasm.

And yet, to me, the gameplay and certain segments of the story more than make up for all of the game’s shortcomings. Simply put, Final Fantasy X-2 is the most fun RPG experience I’ve had in a while. The game’s length of 20 hours is just right for the type of experience it encompasses, and as such I feel comfortable labeling this game as a “Bubble gum RPG masterpiece.” Take that as you will, and give X-2 a chance, especially as it’s only $20 new these days. 9.1/10

Okay. The battle system in X-2 is probably the ultimate refinement of the ATB system, at least so far, this much I shall still concede. Before I delve further, the issue of comparative game reviewing must be addressed, I think. Should a game's merits be scrutinized in relation to other games of the same genre, or should every title be looked at independently? In some sense, it is inevitable that a critic will use some comparative analysis. A focal point is a necessity in assessing the value of a title, this much is certain.

If I was to compare Final Fantasy X-2 to Final Fantasy XII, however, sweet God there would be no contest. It's pretty evident from my previous review that the generous score I gave X-2 was a function of its excellent battle system, but even that is completely blown out of the window with XII, which has the finest battle system of any of the numbered Final Fantasies. And the plots? I'd take XII's tale of war, power, politics, and conceit above X-2's weeaboo love story any day. Don't even get me started on the soundtracks. Don't even.

So we have the FFXII effect. Does that mean Final Fantasy X-2 is no longer a good game? Does that mean that all of the previous Final Fantasy titles are inferior, even the Super Nintendo classics? After all, a 2D, old-fashioned game from 15 years ago like Final Fantasy IV can simply not rival the refined excellence of a contemporary Playstation 2 title.

...Right? I wouldn't go that far. While Final Fantasy XII will inevitably morph the way I look at any role playing game in the future, it will never destroy the triumphs of the past. If anything, the Final Fantasy XII effect allows me to appreciate how glorious titles like Final Fantasy IV and VI were. There was something to those worlds that probably won't be captured ever again in a video game. But thankfully, like the trademark artifacts of every entry in Square's globally-celebrated series, they shall forever be crystals that can never fade.

Now, the dress spheres, pop music, and hunks of man meat named Shuyin (which sounds eerily similar to the Japanese word for "masturbation"), perhaps those are diamonds that are better off in the rough.