Final Fantasy XII

For PS2.
Verdict: Back with a vengeance.
Rating: 4½/5
As an avid fan of the iconic Final Fantasy VII, I played it for over 100 hours with my best friend. Admittedly we’d just finished our degree shows and allowed ourselves some hazy downtime that involved sinking into an epic adventure and forgetting about the outside world for a week.
Despite Final Fantasy’s continual success over the years it was becoming a little stale as each iteration settled for dated rehashes of tried and tested gameplay and far too many random battles.
Thankfully Square Enix’s latest is a grand return to form and pushes the recently superseded PS2 to the limit in a swan song of epic proportions.
Creating a living, breathing world based around the lands of Ivalice, first seen in Battle Tactics, FFXII is a breath of fresh air.
Mixing sci-fi with distinctly medieval and Middle Eastern aesthetics, its tale of a petty thief mixed up in world changing affairs is entrancing, involving and of course, huge.
Besides a maturer approach to story telling, the most notable change to FF is the combat.
Ditching the static, turn based mechanics for a quasi-real time system that at first feels more like an action title than an RPG, FFXII has made a bold leap from its roots and will make fans of Vagrant Story and Knights of the Old Republic feel right at home.
Placing emphasis in combat on pre-defined ‘Gambits’ you can programme your team of adventurers to react to different situations mid-battle or pause the action and make on the fly changes if needs be.
Traditionalists may find it odd at first but once you settle in it works a treat and the fact that random battles have been banished to the history books should be more than enough to make up for any initial misgivings.
With an epic story, masses of side quests and a talent system that allows you to sculpt your characters how you like, Final Fantasy XII is brimming with charm, confidence and features that’ll entertain for hours and hours. If only I had a spare 100 to play it.