After 100 hours, I finally got fully completed Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age and immensely enjoyed it. Seriously tho, the gameplay was something that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I did because it wasn’t proper turn based (or ATB) like how I was used to at this point. I was genuinely so put off by the fact it was different that I didn’t even try it, but after actually having played it, wow this just be one of my favorite gameplay styles in the series yet. Surprisingly, it’s really no different from ATB, the only difference is that you can now move freely now, adding more layers of strategy.
Oh yeah, I should probably get to the job system which is new to the Zodiac AGE VERSION of this game. Ima be honest, I really don’t care that much for job systems in not just Final Fantasy, but really any RPG that offers them (okay Bravely Default gets a pass, there were many cool combinations you could between two jobs and I just wanted an excuse to talk about bravely default). In this game though, the job system I would say is done pretty well, you combine jobs like how you could in FF5 and those two jobs you assign to a character are the two jobs you’re most likely gonna stick to the entire game. See unlike ff3, ff5, and ffx-2, you’re not encouraged to master multiple jobs per character, since it takes a long time to master a single one, so instead you’re focusing on mastering the two jobs assigned per character. The way you advance the jobs is very much like the Sphere Grid system from FFX, you gain LP (license point) from killing enemies which allows you to advance a “grid” of sorts and work your way up to the best that the job has to offer. Also unlike FFX, this game actually has proper levels, yeah most of your stats are still gonna come from the license board, but at least now you can effectively gain some bonus stats. Best of all, if you don’t like your current job combination on a character, you can totally switch your two jobs with NO punishment, all the LP spend on those two jobs are returned to you, (although you do gotta spend a few minutes spamming the a button to unlock everything which is a little annoying).
Okay now let’s talk more about the games structure, so it kinda plays like an MMO in the sense that you can explore this giant massive world with tons of secret areas to visit, tons of side quests and optional content you can partake in, and it’s rather grindy nature (though if you aren’t personally interested in the side content there isn’t really a need for grinding all that much). To me, this a very much a numbers go up kinda game which I enjoy, grinding was actually kinda fun for me as I could just have Vaan let the other two characters beat the enemies while he steals items from the enemies, which are valuable cause they sell for a lot of Gil (which is hard to come by during a lot of the Main story). I’d often get sidetracked a lot during the main story and spend an extra 30 minutes grinding in an area cause dammit I really need that extra HP for my black mage. Well yeah anyway, since I grinded a lot, the game itself wasn’t really a challenge, but even then I’d still say it’s on the lower side of difficulty thanks to the large amount of broken things in this game (spells, broken job combinations, some very powerful equipment you can obtain etc). Nahh, if you want any sort of challenge from this game, that’s what the optional content is for. The hunts are a big part of this game, you basically go to the board that has different hunts of certain monsters posted then you go to the client to accept. Anyway, you really have to be prepared for some these hunts cause they get REAL nasty very quick, most of the time when they’re low HP they often resort to using cheap strategies like one for example spams the “death” ability killing one of you party members instantly (no way to become immune to death unlike other entries in the series). A few of them also begin to hit like a truck when low HP as well so have heals ready. They also have a lot of HP as well with Yiazmat, the final hunt, having 50 million HP!!!! The Espers (bosses that you can summon upon defeating them) are also kinda like hunts given they are optional bosses that you have to go out of your way to defeat, these guys are arguably harder as they usually have you at a handicap. For example one of the espers, Zeromus, prevents you from using magic spells, meaning you can only hit him with physical attacks. Anyways, every area in this game is large and it’ll take you a while to fully explore every single area in the game. I like this as it’s just another excuse for me to spend even more time grinding while also finding valuable items in chest. That’s nice, but once you start doing everything in this game, backtracking through these large areas can start to feel a slog after a while, thankfully a really cool feature in this game helps remedy that, Speed up. the feature has been in the other rereleases of FF games (namely 7-10, though funnily enough last year it would’ve only been 8–0 cause the version of 7 was the old one released in 2013) but i didn’t use it all too much because the games weren’t as long and you weren’t backtracking all that much (okay I did use it for 8 to speed up drawing magic), in 12, I used this feature more than I’d like to admit, though I only really used when having to backtrack (of which You’ll have to do a lot) and for grinding. Even still, this feature makes the constant going from one area to another so much less time consuming which I can certainly appreciate! There is also a new Trial mode added exclusively for the ZodIAC Age version of this game, and it’s pretty fun! It's basically a gauntlet of trials where you’re stuck in a room with a bunch of enemies and bosses you fought previously, they get harder the more you progress with Trial 100 having an exclusive Superboss (well I guess Bosses) the five judges who are easily the HaRDEsT boss in this game! Now I should’ve probably mentioned the biggest system of the game, the gambit system. Think of this as basically like coding, if a foe or an ally has a certain status effect or is at a certain amount of HP for example, you can make them do a command that responds to that scenario adding a layer of strategy to boss fights and also removes constant menu opening. For the character you’re controlling this doesn’t mean much, but this feature is pretty much crucial for your AI companions that fight alongside you as they won’t do anything unless you give them some gambits to work with.
Ultimately, I’m sad to say that I didn’t care all that much for the story. Don’t get me wrong, the world of Ivalice is very fascinating with tons of interesting lore compiled with different creatures and characters, but I didn’t find said creatures and characters all that interesting. Okay I haven’t played 13-16 yet, but Vaan has to be an easy contender for worst FF protagonist right??? (I hear great things about lightning, noctis, and clive). I mean what does this guy do?? He’s got charisma, I'll give him that and I'll also give him that he has leadership,but he doesn’t really contribute much to the plot at all!?!
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age and I’m really excited to eventually play 13 (as I hear many good and bad things about it). If this game had a better story with more interesting characters it honestly could’ve been my favorite Final fantasy, I’d give it a strong 9/10!! Highly recommend trying it out if you haven't.
