FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE

I played this when it originally released on ps2. I still even have the special edition steelbook case. A couple changes have been made since then. I mainly use the speed up function when running around the town and backtracking. Otherwise I enjoy it as its pretty much the same exact game.

I'd give a neutral review if I could.

Quality of PC port

The PC port crashes sometimes, but not under usual conditions. For example, it happened to me when I left the game AFK for a while on pause. The game autosaves frequently enough that it wasn't a significant problem. Other than that, the port seems fine. They added the ability to speed up combat by 2x/4x (configurable in settings) by pressing LB (toggle) which is a godsend.

Combat

The combat system in this game is probably the best in the mainline FF series. The gambit system lets you set simple rule lists which the characters follow. Each character has their own gambit list. They do the first action on the list which meets the specified criterion. Each gambit on the list is comprised of a criterion which includes a target (target X, e.g. "target enemy with >90% HP" or "target ally with status effect: slow") and an action (do Y, e.g. "Attack" or "[cast] Haste"). The list of criteria are not rich enough to do anything you want, but they're serviceable for the combat. E.g. you can "target an enemy if character health is below 70%", but you cannot "target the enemy with lowest health if character health is below 70%".

Narrative

The 'story' part of this FF game is among the worst. I played this game years ago and I remember not following the story. I couldn't remember anything about it. Upon replaying, I understand why. The characters in this story are among the worst I have seen in any RPG. There are six permanent party members: Vaan, Penelo, Balthier, Fran, Ashe, and Basche.

I find it interesting just how bad the characters and story are, because it would have been so easy to drastically improve this game with just a few scenes where the characters talk to each other, almost regardless of what they said. It seems like the faults in this game's narrative must have been the result of deliberate stylistic or editing choices by someone quite misguided.

The game suffers heavily from "I want to emulate the success of the Star Wars prequels" syndrome. The deposed princess (Ashe/Leia), the sky pirate duo (Balthier/Han Solo & Fran/Chewbacca), and the fish-out-of-water protagonist who we follow (Vaan/Luke).

The main cast (permanent party members)

Vaan and Penelo

Vaan and Penelo are peasant children. Vaan is 17, and Penelo seems slightly younger. Penelo is tagging along with Vaan for no other reason than she is afraid for her life to try and survive poverty without Vaan. Usually, they support each other by doing various odd jobs and Vaan occasionally steals and fences stolen goods for food. As for why Vaan wants to join the adventure of FFXII, it is mentioned in a single line of dialogue where Vaan says something to the effect of "It's better than sticking around this place." That's a whole lot of character motivation hanging on a single line of dialogue, delivered in a deadpan, unconvincing way.

You might infer that Vaan lives a boring, dead-end peasant life and he longs for something better. But that's never shown to us. We don't actually understand Vaan as a character. We don't know what he wants or values; we don't know whether he's the sort of person that values stability or would risk their life over and over just for the thrill of it. He seems pretty dull and lacks any special work-related skills, so it's hard to see him as the ambitious type. We really don't ever learn anything about his character, except that he appears to have a shallow and not-at-all-thought-out dream of being a sky pirate. But we understand that his character is young and naive, and this is just a childish dream of his which is spawned from the dead-end peasant life he is otherwise bound to. Penelo appears much smarter and world-weary than Vaan, though she suffers a bit from female-character-without-agency-or-opinions syndrome.

We see right at the beginning of the game that Vaan's brother (Rex; 2 years older) died at war, fighting for the kingdom of Dalmasca. Somehow, Vaan learns that Basch killed his brother, which is a plot hole because there is no plausible way for him to have found that out. Initially this causes some initial tension with Basch, until an hour or so later where Vaan goes "Eh actually I guess my brother trusted you, so if you say you had an identical twin brother then I believe you." Vaan could not be any more naive...

It's quite sad that Penelo is only joining this outfit for fear of trying to survive without Vaan. It's really quite a cruel thing for Vaan to put her through when you think about it. The game never dwells on it, but it really makes Vaan a strongly unlikeable character if you stop to think about it. Vaan is dull, naive, and cruel/indifferent to those who love him, whereas Penelo seems to care deeply for Vaan.

Balthier and Fran

Balthier is some kind of captain Jack Sparrow wannabe. So much so that the game even breaks the 4th wall with lines from Balthier like "Who am I? The leading man!". It is so bizarre to me. He says dumb things like "If they're taking us to a dungeon, there had better be a change of wardrobe!" which I think are supposed to sound witty and endearing and uplifting, but instead they come off like he doesn't understand the gravity of the events around him, and which include him. None of the characters react to these lines by the way; they don't even respond or show any facial expression or a chuckle or a groan or anything. He is talking directly to you, the player, breaking the 4th wall. It's really awkward and I'm not sure what they were going for with Balthier. He is out of place in a bad way. He's a 4th-wall-breaking insert that isn't used to any specific effect, such as bringing levity to the plot or commentary that could not be made be a character fully embedded in the story.

Fran has no character. She is following Balthier in the same way that Chewbacca follows Han Solo. No explanation, no backstory, no individual sense of values and motivations, just obedience to the captain. She left a tribe of rabbit-people who are isolationist and who shun anyone who leaves their community. Fran has no particular feelings about this. This just a fact about her; it doesn't seem to shape her personality in any way.

Ashe and Basch

At beginning of the game, Ashe's soon-to-be husband, who was son of the king of Dalmasca, was assassinated. Now at this point, before the wedding, Ashe was already a princess according to the game's narrator, so presumably she must come from another kingdom, and be the daughter of another monarch. However, the game continually tells you that Dalmasca is Ashe's kingdom. In fact, the whole plot is driven around this idea that she is a descendent(?) of a former king of Dalmasca. This made no sense to me, as the game definitely tells you that her bridegroom was the son of the King. Then it dawned on me: royal inceest. Yes, Ashe and her bridegroom appear to have been siblings. They never bring this up, it is just an awkward thing you can deduce if you think about the information the game gives you...

Basch is a (former) captain in the Dalmascan army. He is loyal to his country. That's his entire character. He has no individual wants, needs, emotions or even thoughts. He is tough captain man, loyal to his country.

The characters are flat

The characters don't talk to each other. They have no depth. Vaan attempts to join in a conversation with Ashe twice, to which she responds "DON'T INTERRUPT ME". It appears that Balthier has taken Vaan under his wing implicitly as a sky pirate, but this is never brought up. Vaan and Balthier never have a conversation with each other, as far as I can remember. Character interactions only occur as is absolutely necessary to move the plot forward, and not a single line more. This means that FFXII is missing the single most important thing in any JRPG: characters.

This game doesn't really have characters.

One of, if not THE, best Final Fantasy game.

Well this is definitely a video game, thats for sure.

- Me after beating the game

Although on a more serious note, this is a game that I have discovered to have a weird love/hate relationship with, as its truly a massive mixed bag of good, eh, and ugly, with each part just making the game that more of an experience that I have yet to have again, lemme go a bit more in to detail on this. (Note: Everything negative I say in this review I personally believe to be nitpicks and mostly small gripes, and the best way I can show my love for this game is by being critical of it.)

CHARACTERS
This was the first FF game I had played with characters that felt so... forgettable at times, which is most definitely not a good thing. Sure, Balthier and Vaan have fun banter with Penelo always being the shining cheeriness of the group, but there were very few moments in the game where the characters felt as if they had genuine character arcs. By the time you end the game, the only characters who have TRULY changed would be Vaan, as he has matured to become an actual adult, Ashe, as she accepts her duty in leading Dalmasca and her people, and Basch, who finally comes to terms with what happened with his brother. Balthier, Penelo, and Freya largely remain the same (outside of Balthier coping a little bit with his dad being evil and shit). The story's pacing and direction also does not help with this, as Vaan gradually becomes less and less important, with Ashe taking center stage towards the last 3rd of the game, which although it isn't inherently a bad thing, very little is done in compensation outside of ONE conversation he has with Ashe. Another issue I came across with the characters is that their designs seemed rather uninspired. I say this as this was the next FF game I had played after FF9, which had such a diverse cast of designs in the main party, and I am definitely a believer in the idea that a character's portrait makes them a lot more recognizable than we may think. It is to be noted that these designs in a vacuum are nice and appealing, and definitely fit each character; Vaan being quick and nimble with light armor, Basch having heavier armor to show his status as a warrior, Balthier having a myriad of satchels and pouches along with practical clothing to show his expertise as a thief, etc.

COMBAT
For being the first main line FF game I played to not be turn based (outside of FF15) I genuinely enjoyed a lot of how the combat worked. Sure, it's pretty much a direct copy from whats in FF11, but the adaptation of it is brilliantly done. The Gambit system truly makes it so your party members aren't acting like stupid AI robots, but rather characters you can tinker to have built for every scenario, and even more niche ones. This does come at a bit of a cost though, mainly in 2 areas. 1. There are waaaaaaaaaaaay to many status effects in this game, so much so that some bosses such as the Elder Wyrm basically become endurance runs rather than actually testing your preparations for the fight in how many items you have stocked and the proper gambits you have equipped. 2. It feels a bit unintuitive having to buy EVERY SINGLE gambit, I mean I get that its for EVERY SITUATION but seriously these could've been put into packs, and no, them being cheap does not excuse this for me. Moving away from that note, the overall fluidity of the combat itself piling on top of all of these systems makes the gamplay really smooth, grinding becomes easier, transitioning from fight to fight becomes faster, and the addition of the 2x and 4x speed really make it so all of the grinding you're gonna be doing takes next to no time to do. One last thing about the combat, I am a little sad that the whole hunting board and guild wasn't expanded upon outside of just being there for bloating out the amount of side quests, and while the rewards for this are nice, the lack of real direction for these quests lead me to not really use them all that often, and I bet most new players will experience the same thing.

WORLD
The world of FF12 is pretty damn huge, which is impressive for a game from 2006. The amount of freedom this game gives you in exploration; especially early on is insane, like you can cover about half the map after just the first few story beats. The region of Dalmasca itself also has an aesthetic that I really just love, as it's just such an interesting combination of so many different middle eastern cultures and styles, all while being so strangely (in a good way) futuristic. This is without mentioning the insane world-building itself too is also quite great, as a lot of the story REALLY spends a good amount of time expanding the gravity of everything going on in Dalmasca.

STORY
Oh boy this is where it gets really damn weird. See I really REALLY wanted to like FF12's story, but again it felt like such an insane mixed bag to me. Trust me, the world-building is great, and the game does a good job of establishing just how serious this all is, and actually does a good representation of how the political power and imbalances are affecting everything. However, the story itself leans too heavily on the world-building to remember to actually have the characters we are playing as actually be a proper part of it, and this especially shows in the main villain, Vayne Solidor. this guy is 99% of my problems with the story in this game outside of the main party, and is the most nothing villain I have ever seen in a final fantasy game, the most evil thing he does DIRECTLY is kill his dad and establish a dictatorship, meanwhile Cid is a much more engaging and actually menacing villain who's actions we see directly, and is also someone we have a better connection with as he is the father of Balthier (Gabranth also fits this as he is Basch's brother), and no, Vayne being Larsa's brother does not make him any more connected to the party, as Larsa himself only shows up so much. Let me paint you a picture of just how laughable Vayne is as a villain. It's 2AM, and I am finally finishing up FF12 and got done beating the shit out of Gabranth for a 2nd time on the Bahumat, Vayne is currently arguing with his little brother and the party steps up to the arena to stop him. Vayne reacts almost confused for a moment, and then welcomes them to his ship before asking "Who are you?" This scene had me dying laughing, so much so I accidentally woke my roommate up in the middle of the night from this one quote. In a symbolic sense, this quote has him establish that he is so far above the party both in terms of status and power that he is genuinely questioning their decision to even show their faces to him. HOWEVER in a literal sense I realized something, VAYNE DOES NOT MEET THE PARTY A SINGLE TIME IN THE GAME AT ALL. Outside of Larsa he has ZERO real connections to the party outside of being the man responsible for Ashe's husband's death (although it is to be argued that was something overall planned by his dad before being made the state ruler of Dalmasca). It doesn't matter if he was a mastermind behind anything, whether its Gabranth's genocide of the refuges on Mt. Bur Omisace, or Cid's tyrannical research, the only connection I can think of that he has to the party is Venat playing a role in causing the destruction of everything, which Ashe is meant to stop by overcoming Vayne himself. This very realization made me come to terms that Vayne is such a nothing villain, no flair no real personality outside of being a 2 faced dick head and a power hungry maniac. The ambiguity of his character doesn't help here like it would with Sephiroth, whereas Sephiroth is supposedly a ghostly like figure reminding cloud he still has PTSD and having the player judge if he truly is real or not (along with tying him directly to cloud's character), Vayne just doesn't do jack shit. He starts a coup and then launches a super weapon on dalmasca, thats kinda it.

Hope my schizo rant was a good read for you guys.

This game outside of the cut scenes just genuinely sucks ass. I have no clue why I would want to play a JRPG as a non-main character, as my main character

Bottom line: if you do not like the pace of MMO gameplay, you will not like this game.

Honestly I found almost none of the things I enjoy in Final Fantasy here. The slow burn (seriously slow, glacial) political story literally put me to sleep more than once. The characters of your party sound like they could be interesting on paper but never seem to come close to that potential. The 'Shakespeare at home' style of dialog is just rough to listen to. On top of that the 'main' character Vaan and his friend Penelo have incredibly minor parts to play in the story and could've easily been written out. The music is only fine, which is a black mark for the usually stunning Final Fantasy scores. Once you have your character's gambits (simple if-then conditions like: if enemy weak to fire, cast fire) set up you hardly need to do anything in a battle, just pop on 4x speed and fly through the boring environments, boring dungeons, and boring fights.

The one nice thing about this game is that it takes place in the world of Ivalice, so you get fun races like Bangaa, Viera, and Nu mou hanging around. They add a lot of sorely needed flavor into the world along with the very clear inspiration from the Star Wars prequels visually.

It's not even close to enough to save this absolute snooze of a game.

The story, the political intrigue, the gambits, the builds! There's always something to do. Whether its the story, hunts, side quests, etc.. It all culminates for me as one of my top 5 FF games.

I was a teenager when I first played this game on my PS2. It felt like the coolest game ever. However, it was too hard for me at the time. I got just past the Golmore Jungle and had to give up, as I did not understand the mechanics at all. It was also the first JRPG that I played. When I saw the Zodiac Age, and finally had a PC/Laptop that could run it, I felt that I needed to finish what I started 15 years ago. Man, the nostalgia hit just the right spot, and many hours later, I had the story finished. It felt like a warm and really frustrating experience. I really enjoyed the setting, music, and characters. The game excels at building atmosphere. The characters are interesting and have a lot of potential. There is a lot of content to unpack, for people who like this genre. Sadly, I am not one of them. I really enjoyed the game for about 20 hours, and got tired of playing it afterward, but I felt like I owed it to myself and to the game itself to finish it. I assume this is to the fact that I am 30yo at the time and was never a fan of JRPGs as they are very lengthy and are based on repetitive gameplay. The story and characters, although interesting, lacked an emotional impact and development by the end of the story. I liked the combat, but I just got tired of killing things for XP/LP, also the enemy variety seemed to be based on color-swapped monsters. As I got older, I really started to dislike killing things as a progression method. Even though the game annoyed me at times, I still could not stop playing it. For some reason, it surpasses the sum of its parts for me. I would recommend it, even though I never want to play it again, or any JRPG for that matter. Mostly, I liked the atmosphere the game created.
Also, yes, it does have some inspiration from Star Wars, but it is surface level stuff. That nonsense, is mostly some cheap comments, from people that did not play the game, or just want some clout. Enjoy the game for what it is: an atmospheric, mediterranean-styled JRPG, which is rich in content and surely fun gameplay for fans of the genre.
I would give it a 8.5/10
It is probably in the 7.5-8/10 range though

logged over 400+ hours when it first came out Ps2. Loved every second of it. SO glad I get to re-experience this journey on PC (cause PC superiority OFC) However My absolute LARGEST gripe is that I had search on Forums on how to turn off the bloody speed mechanic. I DO NOT want to play this game at double speed, and X2 speed SHOULD NOT BE THE DEFAULT. it was frustrating and stupid. Should not have to toggle game options to get it to slow down. those that wish to play the game so fast are missing a core part of the experience. Speed running takes the piss out of the storry. while X2 speed SHOULD be an option it SHOULD NOT BE THE DEFAULT. I hate hate hate it. LOVE this game. but the first hour of figuring out how to slow the game back down defualt almost made me not play this game and ask for a refund. You've been warned.

Obra de arte! Joguei no PS2. Mais de uma década depois o jogo parece ainda melhor 10/10 (e nem é meu FF favorito)

Best Final Fantasy Game out there.. Nothing beats the story or game play. All rounded for the best experience!

The fact it resets audio settings even when I set them through the audio mixer with windows is a perm thumbs down just for the sake of my bleeding fkn ears...

Good and decent game but not In STEAM. What is insufficient disc space while i still have 100 freed GBs and i am on the way grinding for the final boss? Nup, do not get this STEAM version.

I love the classics, but 12 might be my favorite Final Fantasy. This version is pretty easy due to the dual license boards for each character. But it's still a blast. Do it. You won't regret it.

Good Game. Goooooooood Game

I loved this game on Playstation and I'm enjoying it here as well. The new additions to the license system is refreshing. It was ported well and plays comfortably on keyboard and mouse.

Hello! It is I,Zushi/Bryce. I am here to talk about my experience and rating for FF12! Let’s go:


Story:7.5/10(The world of Ivalice is vast and beautiful and its lands are enriched with a powerful story to tell…..if the story was focused on the world you’d see that but instead we focus on 6 Rando’s fighting against an oppressive empire. Jokes aside,the story we are delivered while does come up short to the overall world,it’s still pretty good. The subtext and plot throughout the game is amazing. What we got in the games story is pretty good,I just wish they focused less on just our 6 characters and showed more of the events of the world throughout the story)


Setting:10/10 (The world of Ivalice is vast and beautiful and its lands are enriched with a powerful story to tell…..and that’s all I need to say! The world of final fantasy 12 might be one of the best worlds in a game I have ever seen. From the streets of Rabanastre to the hidden village of Eruyt and to the varying different and abundant locations you can visit,the world is just astoundingly gorgeous!)


Art:9/10(The Games art and design are amazing,I can go all day on how the world looks amazing,because it is true in my eyes. The character designs are also really nice to look at. The characters have DRIP. But some characters faces do just kind of look….off. World is 10/10,character designs are probably like an 8/10)


Music:7/10(The music fits the setting of Ivalice to a T,I listened to the ost isolated of the game and it’s a beautiful soundtrack and I liked it more than I thought I would but I will say that it is NO FF 6,7,8,9 or 10. It’s not nigh or straight up perfect. It’s serviceable but not enough that I could bump it almost everyday)


Characters:8/10(There isn’t much to say about the cast even though I rate them on the higher end. I personally just really like Balthier and Fran. I also like penelo quite a bit and Vaan. Basch I was mixed on until the end where at the end I grew to respect the man. I REALLY like Reddas even though he is short lived in the party….in more ways than one hehe. Larsa is a cool character that I didn’t expect to like cuz I thought he was a spoiled brat but after the second time I interacted with him,that wasn’t the case. Vayne,the main villain is serviceable but nothing special)


Battle/fights:6.5/10(I really don’t wanna talk about the gambit system…..I really don’t but I just have to say for 75% of the game I just couldn’t stand it. I’ve grown to be tolerant of it and respect it. The bosses are phenomenal in design and mechanics except for all the status conditions they throw at you and dear flipping gosh, STOP THE PHYSICAL AND MAGIC BLOCKS. For a game like this,30 seconds is more than enough of a challenge but 2 minutes of invincibility is overkill! Aside of those two issues,battles and fights are fun engaging)

Overall:8/10

Great game! It’s really good. I will be replaying sometime in the future for NG+. I recommend this! If you play it I hope you like it even more than I! Have fun!

The best FF. Very enjoyable combat, great world-building and presentation, absolute masterpiece of a score. Remaster's excellent, too.

It was made before it's time, now though I feel older and newer fans can enjoy the political aspect of the game. (war politics) If you enjoy grinding and hundreds of bosses, rare creatures, secret bosses, special hunt bosses, secret gear, and secret quest you will enjoy this game :3!! I love my brother for showing me this game and after 27 years of life I still come back to it.

A remaster of a 2006 title and one of my personal favourites of the series. Great value for money with hours of content to keep you entertained

Pros

• Story: The main story follows a small group of characters as they attempt to prevent the destruction of their kingdom by two warring empires. An underdog story full of betrayal and sacrifice with the typical Final Fantasy story elements of Crystals, Gods and Kingdoms.
  
  The cutscenes also give plenty of insight on how the main antagonist gathers power in preparation for the final battle whilst also leaving the final act a mystery.
  
  
• Characters: The group consists of 6 characters with largely opposite backgrounds ; Vaan & Penelo, the streetrat orphans; Fran & Balthier, the skypirate duo; and finally Basch & Ashe, the fallen knight and his queen. Though Ashe and Basch are the most significant part of the overall story, each feels like they have their place in the group and whilst they together somewhat early, it should be noted that Vaan is the only one played through 99% of the game.
  
  
• Combat: Combat follows an Active Dimension Battle system which moves away from the traditional turn based action of the older games. As such, movement is free and the battle flows much smoother as actions are input, charged and executed for each character at the same time. Combined with the inovative gambit system and, if chosen, unpaused menu option results in battles that no longer pause every second for player input.
  
  
• Music: The music, primary created by Hitoshi Sakimoto, works extremely well for each area/scenario, giving a great sense of adventure and battle. The soundtrack itself is worth listening to even when not playing the game.
  

Neutral

• Abilities: A minor issue with FFXII is that whilst the game is fairly adaptable, there are a few problems with magick and techniques. For example, of the spells available, fire, thunder, ice and dark have 3+ tiers yet others such as Holy, Wind, Water and Earth are either missing tiers or outright not available as a skill. This can cause issues in terms of truely exploiting enemy weaknesses, however there are still other options.
  
  Some Techniques are also pretty useless and only worth getting for the achievement as they are too weak and/or too niche for practical usage.
  
  It should also be noted that like many JRPGs, the bosses are largely immune to status effects and some spells whilst regular enemies are too numerous and/or weak to merit using anything other than brute force. Why bother casting status ailments on an enemy dead in 3 hits? I don't think I've every used spells such as "Death" or "Sight Unseeing" as there was never a need to use them.
  
  
• Limit Breaks/Quickenings: The game handles limit breaks via a reaction based minigame called "Quickenings" with the goal of chaining together as many attacks with a short time frame. For a first time playthrough, these can be quite the spectacle, however repeated use will cause them to lose their charms and you'll more often spend more time focusing on the time remaining than the visuals.
  

Cons

[list]

RNG: Not a huge issue for casual playthroughs, however for players looking to get the best weapons or collect everything, RNG is a large barrier. For example, one the best bows/weapons in the game requires either outright cheating or RNG manipulation with how astronomically low the odds are of acquiring it.

[*] Word scope: One of the biggest tragedies is how large and expansive the world building is and yet only a small portion is explored. Of the two continental empires at war, one has a few visitable areas including the capital whilst the other remains a lore piece despite the huge potential.

I enjoyed most of my time with this game. I have to say though, out of all the Final Fantasy games I've played and finished so far (FF15, FF9 & FF8) this one felt like the biggest slog to me personally.

Which is a shame because out of all the FF games I've looked at so far, FF12 was the one that interested me the most. I liked the story, even though it was a little difficult to follow at times, maybe I would have understood it better if I played FF Tactics since that's set in the same universe, I believe.

But the things I didn't really like about it the most were the side quests involving monster hunting and how large the map areas were. I did the first dozen or so hunts but I became pretty bored with them after a while because all they end up being is just your typical go here to talk to NPC and then go there to hunt newly spawned monster and then return. The world is so massive and the use of teleport stones required in order to fast travel conveniently made doing these quests quite cumbersome and the back-tracking can become very dull fast.

I loved the Gambit system essentially automates everything for you so you don't have to constantly pause the game to heal a character or cure an affliction because you can just add in commands that the characters will do that automatically. It reminded me of the Dragon Age: Origins tactics system.

I didn't like how the game seems to force you to grind. I began to alternate all of the party members, levelling them up in increments of 5 before switching out as I casually made my way mapping out the enter new areas I came to, ensuring to battle pretty much all the enemies to try and mitigate any grinding, but I eventually came to a point (around level 35) where all of my characters were under-levelled by more than 10.

It just became a pain, and I was forced to grind but could only be bothered to do it for 3 characters because I hate grinding, it's not fun nor challenging. Just a monotonous time waste. This is why I always make sure I kill every monster on the maps I go through in RPGs to try and avoid having to do that. If my characters aren't at an appropriate level after doing this, I consider the game to be flawed in this regard. I also hate it when party members only get EXP for being in the active party.

Saying that though, I still enjoyed most of my time with it and played the majority of the game on my Steam Deck and it ran flawlessly at 30fps and the power limited which ensured I was able to play 2-3 hours before needing to charge.

This game reminds me of my childhood. From back in the last dying days of the PS2 era. I remember as a 14 year old kid trying to play this game and getting stuck somewhere to never finishing it on PS2. I am glad I picked this up a while ago so I can relive some memories.

Second time playing this game and it is still one of my top favourite Final Fantasy games.

the definition of mid, good soundtrack tho.

This is the final fantasy game that got me hooked on the franchise since the ps2 days, everything about this game is just good, play it, you will not be disappointed

Best Final Fantasy game for me

Never got around to this game when it released on the PS2. Enjoying this game quite a bit. Well done port, cheats are fun, and visually looks great. This has one of the best OST's for a FF game as well. Gambit system is a bit of rip off of DA origins, but works well enough. Highly recommend

Final Fantasy XII has been my favorite game of all time ever since I first played it on the PS2 many years ago. It tells a genuinely epic story filled with many charming and compelling characters. The art design is astonishing. Everything from character design, monster design, architecture, magic particle effects, vehicles, NPCs, equipment, and everything in-between is beautiful and packed with incredible level of detail. The combat of the game can be simple if you're sticking to just experiencing the main story, or it can be incredibly complex and challenging if you choose to complete the side quests and Hunts, collect the 13 Espers, and take down the optional super-bosses. The volume of side content is greater than the amount of content in the main story, and in my opinion is the more fascinating and rewarding parts of the game. Every dungeon that you visit in the main story can be revisited for Hunts, Espers and/or side quests where you will unlock a whole new section of the dungeon with more challenging enemies and better treasure. The deeper you get into the game, the more intriguing and rewarding the experience of completing content becomes.

This PC version of Zodiac Age includes numerous quality of life improvements over the PS2 original. A "Speed Up" function makes backtracking and farming a less time-consuming grind by speeding the game up at either 2x or 4x speed. It has higher graphic fidelity and PC graphics configuration options, English and Japanese audio option, and a very convenient addition of auto-saves. There are also a number of great PC mods available for the game on NexusMods to tweak a number of features like enemy difficulty, player strength, EXP and LP gain rates, weapons and magic, and much more. Having this game on PC is the ultimate version of the game for you whether you're playing it for the first time or doing your 6th playthrough.

On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 12

Disclaimer: This is not a review, this is just my personal feelings on this game. I'm giving this a positive rating because the Steam port of FFXII: The Zodiac Age runs great and I highly recommend it if you are interested in playing FFXII: TZA on PC (0 issues on Steam Deck).

This was my first "new" mainline FF game since playing FFX as a kid in the early 2000's on the PS2. I fucking hate this game. I guess it's not really that bad or offensive overall but man, I think this game just sucks and I dislike almost everything about it. Is it as bad as FFX-2? Honestly? I'd say equal to or worse. Both games are extremely tedious to play in general let alone 100% but I would say FFXII is more offensive due to the sheer amount of RNG involved. The concept of an "offline single-player MMO experience" is unbelievably stupid to me and I've played Maplestory on and off for almost 20 years. The gambit and license systems sucked and were not fun or pleasant to navigate. The plot of this game is boring and generic compared to previous entries in the series and it has the weakest FF protagonist ever, Vaan. All of the characters were bland and uninteresting aside from Balthier. There were so many cringy cutscenes and they all last so long and everything is so slow and drawn out... and that's not even including the requirements to 100% the game. Getting all achievements in this game wasn't particularly difficult, just unbelievably long and tedious. My Steam time is recorded at roughly 84 hours but my in-game time is about 73 hours so that means 11 hours were spent RNG farming either the main-game or trial mode.

This game is terrible and I will never play it again in my life. I am so happy that it's finally over and I will pray for the people that consider this game good or fun. It's been over 2 years since I started my journey to 100% every mainline single-player FF game and after experiencing FFX-2 and FFXII I'm truly happy to have survived the PS2 FF era and won't be looking back.

Luckily this game has A LOT of cheese to help make it slightly more tolerable. I wasn't able to manipulate RNG on the Steam Deck so I couldn't get the Seitengrat, so the main cheese I used was Trial Mode abuse. I played the game as vanilla as I could, but once I got to the point that I just didn't care anymore and just wanted to finish the game (after a 3-month break) I researched how to abuse trial mode. I started off by stealing 3 Karkatas which later on turned into 3 Wyrmhero Blades and 3 Ribbons. This and abusing the "Wither" technick turned all of the superbosses into pushovers except for the Judges on Trial 100 which required the "Nihopalaoa + Remedy" strategy.

The Classic, lovin this game since its PS2 era

Back when i played this in the ps2, i have loved the game. Now that it is in steam, i bought it immediately but im sad that it crashes right before i can start the game.

Amazing game on its own, and The Zodiac Age does a great job of modernizing it.

I haven't finished the game but I def had fun with it. I didn't feel like pushing through just to end up ruining my overall good impression of the game.

The story was okay. The setting was nice, very Star Wars-like. The cast was hit or miss.

The systems were interesting and unusual. Especially, the licenses and gambits. The latter must be what makes this entry in the series so dividing - these are the rules you adjust for your characters for combat and the game basically plays itself (though you can completely ignore those).

Quality of Life features and the port overall are good - there's animation speed-up and even infinite money and license points if you don't want grinding.

What I didn't like was how the game handled side quests (not hunts) - some NPC gives you a task, and there are no notes or anything about it anywhere. You either have to remember everything or use an outside-of-game source to store information. That's the old JRPG approach I hope will never come back.

All in all, though divisive, for me retroactively, this feels like one of the best Final Fantasies.

Good story, pretty boring combat 90% of the time however.

Story's very mid, but the combat is excellent. Half the game is just strategizing, carefully determining the distribution of skills between your characters for different enemy types, as only one character can inhabit each class (and every character eventually must pick two of the twelve classes).

Some things you'll have to consider are which enemies are susceptible to which elements, ensuring at least one character in your party is capable of knowing the enemy's weaknesses, which accessories will most benefit you in certain situations, accounting for enemies which fly and/or are best kept at a distance, time magicks to strategically slow and delay your enemies (which will require their own planning to build around), which foes are immune to which skills, the order to fight the enemies in, which gambits (programmed strategies) you will pick, alternatives, why, etc.—the combat is just excellent in the later stages and it does get pretty damn difficult later on. Suddenly just ramps up in difficulty and hands you your ass right when you thought you had your team down.

So involved and so many different strategies you'll both have and need to constantly switch up to match the different enemy types which keep changing throughout the game. Taking 5 hours to determine which builds are most efficient just so you can absolutely demolish enemies in one place and get destroyed in another—that's the real bread and butter of this game. The planning and execution is just so satisfying.

Meh. Just ok. Pretty poor in my opinion. Doesn't hold a candle to final fantasy 6. The story was ok, but very short. I beat te final boss and won the game without even finding half the gear or magic spells.. It would have been nice to actually get to try the stuff i spent hours grinding to unlock alll the license boards.. Most of the game is mindless grinding on hunts and stuff for absolutely nothing worthwhile. Oh and i beat the final boss in like, 3 seconds? i didn't even have time to count. It was like "rargh! i am a beast now!" one punch later "wraor! i am falling to pieces!" .. game over. Incredibly anti-climatic.

If i had known what a lousy, boring, grindy, and cheap game it was gonna turn out to be, i would have never wasted my time or money. Period.

A classic always worth playing

Final Fantasy 12 Is My Top 1 Favorite In The Final Fantasy Series, I Already Finished The Original Game 7th Times on PS2,Still Now This Game Never Gets Old Especially With The New Zodiac Job System Which Make Each Character Unique Depending Of On Their Jobs, it's a bit Easier than the OG but Still Very Fun to Play, I Hope Someday This Will Have A Remake.

Final Fantasy XII was made principally by the team that made Final Fantasy Tactics, and in the sense that this entry in the series was an effort to modernize the franchise with MMO-inspired real time combat, FFXII is a success. The gambit system, which is a bit overwhelming at first, is a very useful tool once you learn how it works. This Zodiac version of the game in particular gives you great flexibility in building your party and your approach to battling tough enemies. The freedom to explore the world, especially compared to FFX, combined with the flexible combat and character progression, makes this a game you can really sink your teeth into. It's a great RPG.

It is not, however, all that great a Final Fantasy game. While I recommend Final Fantasy XII overall, story is where this game falls short, and for a Final Fantasy game this is a major disappointment. The characters are just not very memorable. Vaan is set up as the protagonist, but he and his friend Panelo are really just along for the ride. The plot really centers on Ashe and Basch, and while Bash is interesting, Ashe is just overall a dull character. Fran's sultry appearance makes for attractive character design, but she too is just there. She is a companion of Balthier, and there is a hint of interesting backstory concerning her and her village, but it doesn't amount to much. The plot has potential, but the writing is uninspired, in the end the plot is elementary level political intrigue. FFXII's story is a major disappointment, especially coming off of FFX, which takes place in an enticing setting and has very memorable characters. People make fun of Tidus for being kind of goofy and dumb, but he is certainly an engaging character, and he really helps to draw the player into the story of FFX in a way that none of the characters of XII even come close to doing.

One thing that really drags the game down is that the lead-up to the denouement consists of two bland dungeons that are a slog to get through. The hunting clan, which is basically a series of optional boss fights, really picks up the slack when it comes to FFXII's endgame. In the end, Final Fantasy XII gets a tepid thumbs up.

The best Final Fantasy game out there. Have you ever wanted to play an MMO but hate having to team up with other people?
Well, this is the game for you.

Part of the development team were from FF11 (online), their influence is extremely noticeable, in a good way.
This world feels alive and plays similar MMOs! big open and diverse worlds filled with NPCs, loot and adventure, not to mention that the game does not hold your hand at all.

Choose to do story missions or simply explore the world and grind. You can go almost everywhere and can access areas throw multiple ways. the world is insanely connected with a good map.

6 characters and 12 jobs.

The only side quests are Hunts! you pick up a bounty, you talk to the quest giver, and then you go kill the monster and report back. The hunts increased in difficulty until you reach the End game hunts, and that where the loot and grind comes from.

The battle system is nothing new at this point, you either love it or hate it.

Additionally, there is a tower mode (100 level) where you fight random enemies and bosses (story and end game) with increased difficulty as you progress. You can import your game save data with all of your gear.

It does not matter if you are a story driven or end game player, the game excel at both. I cannot recommend this game enough. Very addictive!

Still a Great Game with awesome sound tracks and Good story.

9/10

Loved the game so much it runs beautifully but they should also add the new game plus option similar to switch where you can keep your equipment on another playthrough

i like suffering when i forget to save and try to brute force the dinosaur 10/10 gameplay and combat feels like an mmo but its challengeing and you feel a sense of accomplishment

This game unfortunately never got the chance it deserved releasing at the tail end of the PS2's lifetime, especially with all the delays and internal struggles it had to deal with. Nonetheless the final product holds a special place in my heart, cut content notwithstanding. The world of Ivalice is such a beautiful place rich with lore, which comes to no surprise since it's appeared in a few games prior (Tactics, Vagrant Story), so we have a world more fleshed out than it's predecessors like FFX. The soundtrack is phenomenal, and while the nostalgic part of me prefers the Original PS2 variants of the OST, the Remaster did it justice. Thankfully you can choose which one suits your fancy. The combat system is a nice hybrid between turn based and active combat (reminds me a bit of FFVI with the queue system), a bit hard to explain. While some people from the earlier days of Final Fantasy may not enjoy the shift from FFX's combat to this, the ability to personally program and tune what your party does under certain circumstances was really cool to me. The art style is probably my favorite in the series, alongside the character designs, the Judges in particular being my favorite designs from the series. One complaint I have is the main cast of characters are just a little more lacking in terms of personality this entry, likely due to content being cut so the game would actually release (Penelo in particular is the biggest victim of this), I can confidently say most characters you'd see such as side characters have a lot more personality to them than you'd expect for NPCs. Definitely feel more like people also living in the world you're exploring than some lifeless NPCs. Lastly, the chef's kiss to this game has to be the voice acting. The localization team did an above and beyond job translating things in a manner that's not too unlike a Shakespearean play. It's music to my ears, from the varied accents of different cultures and races in-game to the sheer poetry of it all. While it may not be everyone's thing, I find myself preferring this over everyone somehow sounding the same despite being from different countries. The story overall aged a lot better than most games would and holds up to today's deteriorating standards of storytelling, so I'd give this game a try if you've been disillusioned with the games we've been getting recently.

Fantastic game. Get some mods, it becomes the best FF game ever made. A lot of extra content too. A little grindy if you want to see super-endgame... but that's FF for you.

I would have liked to see some Brown people, but we don't exist in this universe. Only other playable race is a bunny girl for the fanbois, but she's legit.

The best part is that the first character you play never is the main character. He's more like your voiced avatar from an mmo. You play someone else's story, and their story is awesome. I think this game would have been deeper if you could pick between Vaan and Penelo as your "main" character. Even if all that changed was who you run around towns as, that would have been a nice touch.

My only gripe is that this game is missing some spells (no ground spells, ability to easily group cast some buffs), technicks that aren't about thief and debuffing are useless, and the jobs aren't balanced at all. Whoever is a Black mage, time mage, or gets curaja wins the game. Anyone else, melee isn't bad, but isn't endgame except for niche enemies.

I guess my other gripe which is more of a modern issue is that this game will guide you towards some quests, but there is so much missable content that is required to see endgame. If you want to progress the main story, you don't need a guide. If you want to see everything, you'll be staring at jegged forever.

go play any other final fantasy game before you play this one

The game surprisingly interesting. I mean there are no side quests, side activities all are grind (you just fight different bosses and this is it). The plot is 7/10, characters are stable and never develop. But it's still surprisingly enjoyable

I picked up this game on PS2 back when it was released but never finished it. I'm enjoying the improved graphics options for the PC release. As someone who's played a fair amount of MMOs, I like how the combat system makes the game feel like a solo-MMO.

Love the remastered graphics and sound, but especially like the remastered job system... very awesome work for a game that is hands down a masterpiece

A transitional yet essential entry in the Final Fantasy lineup. Upon it's initial release, XII marked a bold step away from SE's golden era of turn-based RPGs. XII's combat system in my opinion is excellent and marks a high-point in SE's development arc, before they surreptitiously began making their flagship RPGs into action games. Anyone who's played MMORPGs should find XII's gameplay to feel very natural and familiar.

Additionally, this version of the game, "The Zodiac Age", has included a smattering of improvements such as constricting character progression into classes (trust me, it may not sound like it, but it's an improvement), a "Trial mode", several renditions of Hitoshi Sakimoto's excellent soundtrack, etc.

While the story of XII might be a touch formal and the designs a tad overwrought compared to "golden era" Final Fantasy entries, neither of those things remotely detract from my hearty recommendation of this title. XII is an expansive, beautifully rendered world with really satisfying gameplay that should immediately appeal to anyone who remotely enjoy any manner of RPG.