In every good story, there's at least one character that stands out. In the case of Final Fantasy XII, the story is great and the stand-out character is Balthier, a lovable smuggler-type remnicient of Han Solo. Or James Bond in a galaxy far, far, away. Anyway, we're talking suave, debonair and on the prowl - for treasure. Balthier will have you smiling after every verbal exchange that he’s part of.
Of course, a good videogame story for naught with out visual flair to bring it to interactive life, which is exactly what this 12th iteration of the Final Fantasy series brings. The franchise has always pushed the PlayStation2's graphic capabilities to the extreme and this year's iteration is no exception; as unlikely as it sounds, it's a push beyond the already-pushed extreme. A timely push, too, with FFXII's release at this dawn of the new-generation console era, ushering out the PS2 with a visual bang, the hallmark of just how great PS2 games (eventually) could look.
Likewise, the aforementioned storyline is hands-down the stuff of hall-of-fame, from its "killer" start (literally), to its measured middle rife with dramatic peaks and plot twists and turns aplenty and past its pass-the-cigarettes climax.
The only really flaw in XII is perhaps the game's predilection for totally random battle outcomes; more specifically, how your special attacks will or will not pan out, in battle. To wit, in battle, you can do the exact same thing, the exact same button combos over and over again, and lose badly and yet, no obvious reason, said same attacks will take down a boss in 20 seconds - a pleasant but bizarre surprise after struggling through 20 minutes of failure doing the exact same thing
For that reason, boss battles can be extremely frustrating, too, though some say “challenging” as if frustration were a good thing. For example, main antagonists Judge Ghis can take anywhere from 2 minutes to almost 20 minutes to beat; all due to the aforementioned random-effectiveness of your special attacks. Well, that and the Judge is one bad mutha shut-your-mouth, but when you expect an attack to do a certain amount of damage and it doesn’t, some of the joy of battle may be wanting.
In the grand scheme of things, however, here in the waning days of the PS2, FFXII is one of the best games ever made for it. No RPG fan will be disappointed.
Note to renters: due to the game's tremendous overall length, you've got to do one of those week-long rentals - a one-day or one-weekend rental just won't cut it. And even then you'll need to spend most your waking hours with it. It's that big. Also, beautiful.
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