Final Fantasy XII

The Good
The graphics of FF XII are... well... WOW!! This game is so pretty that you will want to run through it and keep playing just because it looks so cool. However, graphics are not enough to make a game truly great.

The character structure and development are also done very well, though Vaan isn't quite as "cool" as Squall or Cloud, he isn't a bad character, more of a Zidane then anyone.

The music isn't bad in this game, however eventually it does get old and annoying.

FF 12 offers countless hours of gameplay completing the sphere grid-like leveling system and hunting hours and hours worth of monsters.

Story - The story causes a lot mixed emotions. It has a very good story, but it does not feel like a final fantasy game.

The Bad
FF 12 seriously falls apart when the word tradition is applied. FF 12 gives up on the classic "romance" that most FF games have held in the past. Though there is a love interest, it's forgotten and overpowered by the rest of the story line. Actually there is 2 love interests, and neither of them matter.

Summoning is terrible. FF 12 requires the player to summon ONE TIME in the entire game. Aside from that one summon not only is summoning unnecessary, but ineffective. Let's face it, the summons suck. What happened to the much loved Shiva, Ifrit, Bahamut, hell even Carbuncle would be cool to see again.

As mentioned before the music isn't terrible, but there is no battle music, only boss battle music. This means that when running around exploring a desert or plain, leveling up and whatnot, the same cycle of music will play the whole time... and sadly, the music was not composed by Uematsu.

Gambits... many people would argue this point and say that gambits are amazing and fun, this unique system allows players to set up a system of equations telling the party to do what and when. Basically meaning the game can be played one handed... and that hand is used to control where players walk, not what they do.

The Bottom Line
FF XII is interesting, unique, pretty, fun, and exciting. but FF XII also tries to change way too much. Many FF fans didn't take too kindly to FF XI because it was TOO different to be taken as a 'Roman Numeral FF game" (It should have been called Final Fantasy Online) and in my opinion FF 12 would have been better off named something completely different.

------- Amazing, but not Final Fantasy amazing ----------