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Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
I haven't abandoned this run! Just got a bit sidetracked with the arrival of my PS5 and the holidays. Been chipping away at it again...

Alright, the gambit system. Got some followup thoughts from my brother to share after I sent him my previous post. He thinks one of the reasons the gambit system works great is because you can't completely automate yourself out of the core gameplay. He thinks they provided only 12 gambit slots for this reason.

This lines up with what Takashi Katano, director of The Zodiac Age, had to say about XII's stealing mechanic in an interview. Stealing is notable because there isn't a perfect gambit setup for it.

"As for play improvements, like what you mentioned with the stealing Gambit, we definitely didn't want to make it too convenient. We wanted to keep that element of trial-and-error, that sort of healthy player frustration that makes the game fun."

https://retronauts.com/article/421/...rial-mode-of-final-fantasy-xii-the-zodiac-age

I think this is an interesting game design mentality to have. It's reminiscent of what Katsura Hashino, director of Persona 3, had to say about AI-controlled party members in that game:

"There are a lot of RPGs out there where you can control every aspect of your party members... It’s true that we got some feedback stating that the party system was 'too difficult' to control effectively, but I’ll honestly say that I don’t regret doing what we did with it. I’m glad we stuck to our guns on that one."

Basically both games have frustration intentionally designed into their systems in the hope that players find creative solutions. This is risky, but I looove bold moves.

I find the evolution of game mechanics between FFXII and FFXIII to be fascinating. In FFXIII, the paradigm system is like having 6 perfectly optimized gambit sets each with a specialization (e.g. healing, debuffing, etc) that you switch on-the-fly in battle. They basically automated the player out of the gameplay, like Takashi Katano feared. Instead, the player "macro-manages" the party in FFXIII. Instead of giving characters specific commands you give them behaviors. This allows for visually spectacular battles. I like it! It might sound boring, but fortunately FFXIII is brilliantly balanced, so switching paradigms at the right time is the difference between victory and defeat.

As for the story, FFXII definitely has the least amount of it out of all the "modern FFs". After the midway point the narrative beats become really spaced out. I'm not knocking it, I love gameplay! Though unfortunately, the story starts to do more telling more showing, like with Balthier stating his past to Ashe.

On the flip side, I really enjoyed the scene where Vaan, Penelo, and Basch banter when they first arrive at Archadia. Ashe smiles upon overhearing their conversation. I like to think it's here we can start to see her believe in the people of Dalmasca more than the power of nethicite. Really well done.
 
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Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
FXIII's Paradigm system leaves... a lot to be desired in a way FFXII's Gambit system didn't. Especially once you branch out of the Comando and Ravenger roles and into the Saboteur role. The AI has horrible programing for applying debuffs. It just goes across the debuffs in the way they are displayed in the enemy information screen which is... a really bad order for applying them for reaons (why is Poison one of the last debuffs to be applied when it works the best when applied at max HP!). Even having just six Paradigms to have stocked felt... super limiting and frustrating to work with. It didn't help either that 90% of the trash battles in late-game are beaten fastest with COM-COM-COM and the only battles I had to really put a lot of thought into were the 2nd to last boss of the story and the optional super-boss.

FFXII's Gambit system is... ironically a lot less fool-proof and I found myself changing it a lot more often to tweak it for whatever enemies were in a given area, especially once I got to end-game (trying to attack enemies 10 levels above you in FFXII with the wrong gambits is... yikes...). I spent a lot of time interacting with the Gambit System in ways I never did with the Paradigm System. I also had the... weird experience of playing FFXIII first and FFXII:TZA second. And it was... very funny... how in just about everything but graphics, FFXII felt like an evolution of FFXIII. Everything you could do in FFXIII you could do in FFXII... just with a lot more freedom and a lot less hand-holding. It would be really hard to tell which game was an evolution of the other if the graphics of both games were from the same era.

The story of FFXII is... for better or worse, wrapped up in the story of how FFXII got made. Specifically in how the game's first director and story writer ended up leaving the game party-way though. Probably in large part to all the executive meddling SE did on the story so that it's "main character" was who SE wanted it to be (Vaan), not who the director wanted it to be (Bash, Balthier, Ashe; it changed a lot in development) and... lots of other stuff. The result is that the pacing of the last part of the game's story feels wonkey compared to the first part of the story.
 

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
I beat Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age. There's a lot to unpack. This might be a two-parter.

FFXII is basically a dungeon crawler after the Leviathan. There may not always be a ceiling over your head, but make no mistake the design philosophy is the same. The cycle starts with a nice cutscene to contextualize the upcoming journey. It gives you a destination and route. After gearing up at the local market, you set off! ...and fight battle after battle. From Rabanastre to Mt Bur-Omisace, Mt Bur-Omisace to Archades, Balfonheim Port to The Great Crystal... The promising story told in the first ten hours begins to look distant in the rearview mirror. The cycle reaches its final evolution with the Pharos, a literal dungeon crawl. And that's fine if you like the gameplay! It's just too bad the pacing is so at ends with the beginning of the game.

Leading up to the Leviathan, FFXII features traditional RPG storytelling to great effect. The world, characters, and narrative gradually grow in complexity as you play. Even the cutscene/gameplay ratio is good. But at some point things feel off. The characters just... stop acknowledging the world around them. Take the Great Crystal for example. The futuristic architecture is in shocking contrast with the rest of the game, but the party has barely anything to say about it. There's one cutscene, sure, but it lacks meaningful commentary on the absurdity of the environment. There's lots of examples of this stuff...

What's up with that trio at Balfonheim Port? I don't know their names... should I? The player just spawns into a conversation with them. Vaan doesn't even respond to what they're saying! It's clear the devs ran out of time to refine these moments.

What's up with the all the boss fights in the Pharos? Not a single word is spoken as the party warps to alternate dimensions, ride a malfunctioning elevator, or acquire the esper Hashmal. Things feel disconnected and at times bizarre. It's like the gambits took complete control of the party's minds, removing all unnecessary responses and emotions in the name of efficiency.

There are moments of brilliance though. Each dungeon crawl concludes with a memorable cutscene. At the top of the Pharos, Vaan effectively puts down his sword against Gabranth, the man who killed his brother. This is exactly what Ashe needed to see to solidify her decision to destroy the Sun-Cryst. It's nuanced, but great! Despite serious issues, FFXII gives exactly what the player needs to understand the core narrative. Had the game somehow managed to feature the pacing and cutscene/gameplay ratio of the first ten hours all the way through to the credits, I think we could've had the best FF yet.

I'll post my thoughts on the actual ending sequence soon.
 
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ForceStealer

Double Growth
Wholeheartedly agree. That's a great assessment of what makes XII so impressive, and yet why I have always struggled to connect with it. The story vanishes for such huge swaths of time, and the characters hardly even interact with each other.
Or: when Vayne gives that speech in Rabanastre and it's unexpectedly understanding and charismatic, it's super compelling. And then really nothing else happens with that for the rest of the game, lol
 

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
You can... pretty much lay most of the story problems of FFXII at the feet of SE executives that was fighting a game dev team over who got to tell the story. And the SE executives kinda won at the expense of the game director and main scenario writer leaving half-way through the game development. Hence the latter part of the story is messy because no one could quite write plots and characters as well as Matsuno did in the first half of the game.

But the bare-bones of the story Matsuno wanted to tell with the characters he came up with is still there, and it's... one of the more nuanced stories in the "modern" FF era. It's also unironically not a tragedy and... all the characters we care about get happy endings without any side-content.

For all that the FFXII development story ended... not so great for game devs... many of them would go on to Creative Division III and are now behind FFXIV and FFXVI (and a lot of them worked on FFXI before working on FFXII). Matsuno is constantly brought up by the devs in that division as the person who inspired them to be video games devs in the first place (and work at SE) and the game design philosophy of FFXII is alive and well in certain parts of SE. They just haven't been making single-player FF games (until FFXVI was announced).
 

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
So for that ending sequence, I thought it was alright. The Star Wars influence was at full force in the aerial battle scenes. And thank goodness video chat haven't been invented yet. Twice the party got away with disguising their voices over the comms, first by Vaan and later by Basch. Didn't really care for the heroic death baiting with Balthier. Felt forced, like someone decided the ending needed more drama. But the boss battles were fun. Though, I'm not really sure why Vayne and Venat continued to fight if history had already been wrested away from the Occuria with the destruction of the Sun-Cryst.

The "1 year later" scene was a bit clumsy. The feeling I got from it was that it was setting up a sequel, a bigger sequel than what we got with Revenant Wings. For starters, they show Ashe looking discontent being queen and Basch looking discontent being Larsa's shield. This tells me these characters have a bit more room to grow. Then there's the matter of the ending not revealing Balthier or Fran. It almost seems like they were saving that reveal for a bigger and better sequel. Finally and most obviously, the message to Vaan that promises further adventure. I get that Revenant Wings exists and that these things sort of get followed up on, but I also get the impression that they were hoping to do something grander. Maybe plans for a sequel were downsized after the soul of FFXII, Yasumi Matsuno, stepped away and the company observed that the game wasn't exactly igniting any fires. I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on this.
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
I loved the ending, it was one of my favorites for awhile. It punctuated the journey they all experienced, and Vaan being his own sky pirate with his own airship with Penelo at his side was adorable. I mean, it served it's purpose, they all have lives they have to get used to. I think Balthier and Fran leaving Vaan to go on his own was cool, seeing as how they were the kids of the group and definitely did have to grow into their own which they do in later titles.

And Vayne kept going cause he wanted to win. Vayne wasn't just in it to wrest control of history from the Occuria, he wanted to further his country and his house. He wanted to conquer and win. He had greater ambitions and ambitions for his homeland. So yeah, he wasn't gonna stop when he had all the power of the Sun Cryst's Mist at his disposal. It was war.

And there was an unreleased sequel to FFXII that was going to be released but got cancelled. Fortress.
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
The purity police would have a field day with an Ashe/Larsa romance!!!!

People straight up sharpen knives and load death threat muskets at FFXIV fans who dare to ship Alphinaud and the playable character cause Alphinaud is 16.

Nevermind literally every JRPG character is between 16-18, and gets shipped regardless, even in their own game. Yeah, you better watch out for antis :monster:
 
Anyway Larsa/Penelo is my OTP.
PS Just noticed Square Enix does seem to like het couples where the woman is older than the man. Aerith's older than Cloud, Lunafreya is older than Noctis, both Ashe and Penelo are older than Larsa and if we want to think of Fran and Balthier as a couple, well, she is slightly older than he is. I don't know about any of the others. (then again, age is meaningless when you're immortal/a ghost/created in a test tube)
 

Wol

None Shall Remember Those Who Do Not Fight
AKA
Rosarian Shield
The first time I put XII's japanese disc I was blown away. The game's presentantion and expansive world were a surprise and shocking..
because I jumped from PS1 FF titles to the XII edition, without playing X.

XII remains an elegant, grand and majestic entry, a nostalgic adventure.
 

Nandemoyasan

Standing guard
AKA
Johnny
I am considering getting this, on account of its streamlined job system and lack of the PS2's loading pauses in certain areas

But! Should I try replaying FFX first? That has a remaster available on PC now too

Edit: Trials of Mana is looking freaky and strange too, dang
 

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
FFXII stands out to me as the first time I didn't finish a playthrough of an FF game. Just played halfway through and...didn't finish. Wasn't even a conscious decision, some day I just stopped playing the game and before I knew it I hadn't continued in several years :wacky:
I eventually restarted and powered through the entire thing because I wanted to finish it before XIII released. Still didn't quite click with me though. :sigh:

Maybe someday I'll revisit this. I remember thinking that the dungeons in this game were kind of boring and too long so maybe the turbo mode from the Zodiac version would actually improve this for me :lol:
 

Lestat

He/him
AKA
Ergo, V
Started playing it again recently due to it being free on game pass. Currently lvl 70 just about to hit the bahamut but decided to finish off all the existing bounties so far.
Think I've done better this time at the whole job board thing as my team are fairly solid and hitting at least 6k per melee hit.

That said I've built Ashe to be a one stop arch mage and she generally takes out groups single handedly ?
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Maybe someday I'll revisit this. I remember thinking that the dungeons in this game were kind of boring and too long so maybe the turbo mode from the Zodiac version would actually improve this for me :lol:

I used the Turbo mode more in TZA than in any of the other remasters, lol. The game strongly benefits from it...which I still kinda mentally mark as a demerit against it.
 

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
Okay I splurged and got this for Steam! Yay FFs on PC! ^_^

Excited to try the Zodiac System, it pushes me out of my FFXII comfort zone of “everybody-everything!” I’m also excited to hear the orchestral remaster during the gameplay rather than just on YouTube ?
 
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