Game of the Month #109 (February 2024) - Final Fantasy XII

Two years after the fall of Dalmasca, the citizens are without guidance and direction. In the capital city of Rabanastre, the denizens gather and await the introduction of Archadia's new consul. To Vaan, a young man living on the streets of Rabanastre, the Empire is a hated enemy who took the life of his brother, the only family he had left. In an effort to exact revenge, Vaan hatches a plot to break into the palace and steal from the occupying imperials. There, he gets more than he bargained for as he runs into Princess Ashe, the sole surviving heir to the Dalmascan throne. Together, the two will embark on an incredible journey through Ivalice, tracing the mysteries behind the Archadian Empire's invasion. The choices they make will determine the very fate of the world.
How long is Final Fantasy XII?
When focusing on the main objectives, Final Fantasy XII is about 61 Hours in length. If you're a gamer that strives to see all aspects of the game, you are likely to spend around 159 Hours to obtain 100% completion.

Another old game I dropped. I couldn't get use to the mix of turn based and real time combat. Mate told me it gets good once you understand the Gambit system but I never really delved into it properly so not sure. Don't own it anymore so won't be joining this month

I'll give it a go. I last played it when it came out, and was disappointed that it wasn't the Final Fantasy I grew up on and loved, and disliked the combat system. We'll see how it goes this time!

I am really happy this won the vote (first I've participated in), since it's a big hit of nostalgia for me. I came of age with the PS1 and FFVII - my all time fave - so naturally I followed the path from VII through the ups and downs (however you want to look at it) of VIII-X. When XII came out on PS2 and I played it, I really didn't know what to expect and was very happy with the experience. Yep, some people hate the combat, but I found it to be a huge upgrade over random encounters and not nearly as complicated as some other JRPG combat systems. The license board system for progression is one of my favorites. Great customization. It's not the most epic or enthralling storyline in FF or elsewhere (one of the big criticism iirc), but it's certainly not awful by any means.

I bought the remaster a while ago, but only got a few hours in. If enough other people are going to play through it and discuss, I'm definitely in!

It always felt more like Vagrant Story II rather than a proper Final Fantasy game. That said I've never ruled out replaying it (I almost did when it was rereleased) , but it's looking increasingly unlikely that will be any time soon. I'm certainly not starting a replay now, weeks away from VII Rebirth.

SO I will take interest from afar.

This one of the few FF games I actually beat. I might watch a cutscenes movie to refresh myself on the story, I did like the political fantasy setting the game went for. The voice acting was also really good. I don't recall the gameplay being anything special but it is interesting I was able to see a game with a combat system like that to the end. I also like the visuals and art style too.

Disappointed it was not the greatest FF which is 13. But have to say FF 12 has the best plot of the series and literally feels like lord of the rings when you are playing the game.

I got off work a bit early today, so I put in the first 3 hours of this playthrough. Honestly, I had forgotten how much I loved this game, even with my raving earlier in this thread, and the remaster features are making me love it even more so far. You really can't go wrong with the job system unless you have 0 experience with RPGs (and even then it would be hard...), and the license board is straightforward and just a notch behind materia for FF character customization IMO. The game was never a grind unless you wanted it to be (bestiary, loot, etc.), but now the chaining system plus the remaster's 2x/4x feature is going to make this playthrough smoooooth. Gambits are the only thing that is "odd", and even then they aren't some great obstacle to overcome - they're just simple logic processors. For a slow button presser like me, they are actually quite a boon lol.

I know I'm in the minority, but having grown up on FFVII-FFXII, I always had XII ranked just behind VII as my personal favorite (even if it is secretly a weird Star Wars knock off in ways). Firing it up for a few hours reminded me of why.

TL;DR if you are an RPG fan on the fence, I highly encourage you to try this game. Especially the Zodiac Age remaster.

Alpha finally got his wish with this one!

Played about three hours of the Zodiac Age version. It's pretty enjoyable so far. My only complaint is that when fighting multiple enemies, I wish it would work like Xenoblade where after killing one enemy it would continue the auto attack on one of the others, rather than needing me to have to press attack every time it switches. Maybe there's a reason for doing it this way, I suppose I'll have to wait and see.

Played about three hours of the Zodiac Age version. It's pretty enjoyable so far. My only complaint is that when fighting multiple enemies, I wish it would work like Xenoblade where after killing one enemy it would continue the auto attack on one of the others, rather than needing me to have to press attack every time it switches. Maybe there's a reason for doing it this way, I suppose I'll have to wait and see.

Sounds like a gambit issue. iirc, Vaan doesn't start with something like Foe: Nearest Visible -> Attack, so you have to manually target. Just a wee bit more progression and gambits will fully unlock and you can set your party leader to something like Foe: Lowest HP -> Attack to auto focus down groups of weaker enemies.

Edit: I'd love to see how y'all distributed jobs to the characters since that more than anything colors each individual playthrough apart from the story.

My setup -

Vaan - Knight to tank and hold aggro.
Penelo - White Mage.
Balthier - Monk. Hoping to make a combo monster out of him.
Fran - Archer. Going to lean her towards support and green/time magicks.
Ashe - White Mage.
Basch - Bushi, or whatever the Katana class is called. Similar to Balthier I'm aiming for high DPS combo stuff.

Zodiac age is a little more restrictive, but I think there is dual class options later, so I'm hoping to sprinkle in some Black/Support Magicks in the mix.

Another thing I forgot to say I love about FF12 is the soundtrack is the best in my opinion.

I finished Final Fantasy 12! The only other FF game I've played is 7, and this will probably be a little controversial, I enjoyed 12 more than 7 in everything except for the story. For me, I was never really drawn into the story for 12. Not to say it was bad, but it just didn't really interest me.

The gameplay was what I really liked about it. It was quite good and I enjoyed swapping my characters around. This is one of the few RPGs where I felt encouraged to use everyone in the party. Some characters were benched more than others (Balthier) but even the bench had their purpose and just as capable as the first three I send out.

The gameplay wasn't always a complete winner. I think gambits are a good idea; but other than setting up a basic auto attack, and giving my mages basic cure, cura, and stona spells; I didn't really feel compelled to do much with them. I'm sure there are great gambit set ups that could have absolutely carried me, but I found that so long as I had good equipment and kept up on my licenses, I really had no priority for using gambits even for stuff like late-game hunts and espers.

I think overall I would give Final Fantasy 12 the same score I gave Final Fantasy 7. Which would be a 7/10. It's a good game but I don't feel as it's anything above a 7.

love this game and thennnnnnnnnnnnnn zelda distracted me and its been months since i've hopped back on: did NOT know it was game of the month so i'll try to see what i can do to finish it

Funny, I actually played this one for the very first time last month.
I was really liking the feel of it, but the length leaves me a little hesitant to delve in fully.

Sounds like a gambit issue. iirc, Vaan doesn't start with something like Foe: Nearest Visible -> Attack, so you have to manually target. Just a wee bit more progression and gambits will fully unlock and you can set your party leader to something like Foe: Lowest HP -> Attack to auto focus down groups of weaker enemies.

Edit: I'd love to see how y'all distributed jobs to the characters since that more than anything colors each individual playthrough apart from the story.

My setup -

Vaan - Knight to tank and hold aggro.
Penelo - White Mage.
Balthier - Monk. Hoping to make a combo monster out of him.
Fran - Archer. Going to lean her towards support and green/time magicks.
Ashe - White Mage.
Basch - Bushi, or whatever the Katana class is called. Similar to Balthier I'm aiming for high DPS combo stuff.

Zodiac age is a little more restrictive, but I think there is dual class options later, so I'm hoping to sprinkle in some Black/Support Magicks in the mix.

I played through Zodiac Age about a year ago. Finished the story, but haven't done much beyond that. I love the gambit system so much. My setup by the end of the game:


Vaan (42) - Monk/Shikari
Gambits: Heal if party is dead or dying, else attack.
Notes: I wanted him to be a cool fist fighting monk, but he ended up a boring generalist that could steal.

Balthier (45) - White Mage/Uhlan
Gambits: Heal if party is hurt, else shades of black.
Notes: A good healer. Shades of black is fun because gambling is fun.

Fran (58) - Knight/Foe Breaker
Gambits: Attack.
Notes: Her gambits didn't matter. She's here to go berserk. Vastly outclassed the others in damage, hence why she never left my team and her level was so much higher. I love her.

Basch (32) - Black Mage/Bushi
Gambits: Magic attack.
Notes: A weak, disappointing failure. I don't know what happened.

Ashe (41) - Red Battlemage/Archer
Gambits: Heal if party is hurt, else attack.
Notes: Pretty much the same as Balthier but less fun because no shades of black.

Penelo (45) - Machinist/Time Battlemage
Gambits: If Fran exists, make her go berserk, else haste party members and debuff enemies.
Notes: Had the most interesting gambit setup of all my characters.

I generally stuck to Penelo or Vaan as my point character. My go-to party was Penelo/Fran/Balthier, sometimes swapping in Vaan or Ashe for Penelo or Balthier. The goal was to keep Fran going berserk forever and then just not die. My goal by the end was to beat everything without pressing a button, but I ended up occasionally having to use items manually on bosses, especially the final boss.

I ended up playing through this and finished it up this past week.

Had a lot of fun with it, but I hate to admit did not delve into the gambit system all that much and ended up beating the game without having any elaborate setups. I have had some trouble with this series in the past, but found most of the boss fights and combat pretty easy in this game as long as my party was appropriately leveled.

I used the below setups with Vann, Basch, and Ashe as my primary party most of the time:

Vaan - Level 52 Red Battlemage / Knight
Balthier - Level 41 Machinest / Archer
Fran - Level 43 Black Mage / Knight
Basch - Level 44 Knight / Foebreaker
Ashe - Level 44 White Mage / Knight
Penelo - Level 40 White Mage / Time Battemage

I find the gambit system in ff 12 to be great but also not the funniest combat system in any ff i have played for some reason.

I finally finished this game... 7 months after I voted for it to be a game of the month lol.

Anyhow, I wrote a lot of my thoughts about the game and it's story in my blog on these forums. If you're into that, you can check it out here

I did respec the whole party once. At the end of the game my party was lvl 50ish and my setup was:

Party composition was nearly always a standard setup of: tank + support/healer + dps. Sometimes double tank or double dps.

Ashe: White Mage / Machinist mostly responsible for healing and buffing/debuffing
Balthier: Shikari / Foe Breaker and one of my two primary damage dealers. Haste/Berserk/Bravery for silly dps.
Basch: Knight / Bushi setup as one of my two tanks and secondary dps
Fran: White Mage / Time Battlemage and my second dedicated healer and buff artist
Penelo: Black Mage / Red Battlemage for a DPS glasscannon. Probably the most fun character in combat.
Vaan: Shikari / White Mage making him a bag of HP with a shield and heal spells. Surprisingly this was the better of my two tank setups.

Awesome game. Thanks to all who voted for it :)