Sit down, everyone. Get a cuppa brew ready, because I am about to write up the most comprehensive review of this game ever conceived by a human. Or rather, that was the plan, but that requires too much unnecessary effort and there are only so many hours in the day and I'm not about to turn my typing fingers into mush.
Ah, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. A shinier, retweaked version of the...well, fairly controversial original game on the PlayStation 2. As this was still the PS2 era and Square-Enix hadn't yet grasped the concept of irony, their "International" versions of mainline entries were confined to Japan. That's right, everyone. If you call something "International", it...is not internationally released at all. Makes sense, y'all!
Though PAL markets were accidentally graced with the Dark Aeons and all those goodies from the "International" version of FFX (because it took that long to localise in FIGS, clearly!), we were all left out in the pouring rain when it came time for FFX-2 International + Last Mission and FFXII: International Zodiac Job Edition. Oh, the humanity.
But hey, fast forward a decade and we finally got our hands on the Zodiac release! Fast forward four more years and Liv finally got her greasy, moisturised mitts on this version of the game for the Nintendo Switch. As such this was to be her first time getting to grips with the plethora of changes, such as an auspicious new jobs system. No longer can I make Penelo a tank, beast attacker and a walking weapon of mass magical destruction. Now I had to assign party members to two jobs each, in hopes of creating a party with enough diversity of roles to at least survive being puked on by a Malboro.
1. Vaan
Oh, sweet, sweet desert abs. With metal rubbing against bare skin under a glaring desert sun and no sunblock in sight. Yeah, good luck running around the endless deserts around Dalmasca all comfortable in that, Vaan.
Vaan is the audience insert, only done nowhere near as elegantly as Tidus, that other young blonde FF hero who...isn't Zidane. Or Cloud. Okay, Square. You can tone down on the blonde male leads. Whereas Tidus is your classic fish out of water who we as an audience learn basic concepts and lore about Spira vicariously through, Vaan is more a grounded perspective of life in occupied Rabanastre. Through his eyes we organically witness events such as Rabanastrans (like Migelo) debasing themselves by acting with such deference towards their Archadian occupiers. In terms of grounded introductions and letting players empathise with street orphans with the trauma of recent war and present occupation very fresh on ordinary townfolks' lives, Vaan as a surrogate for this purpose gets the job done.
That is not to say Vaan isn't a character. He's often derided for being an ineffectual lead protagonist who becomes an observer in his own game, which, while true, undercuts the fact there is a fairly charming boy under the hood who I find rather affable. He's a lad who wants to aspire to be something far greater than some slayer of rats handling odd jobs in Rabanastre. The lad has an actual arc where he aspires to be a sky pirate, and this motivation remains fairly consistent. He's also curious and like a dumb teenager, has as much social grace as one. I'm actually surprised to see how much subtle chemistry he has with Basch. Likewise, it's a pleasant change for once to see a lead who never becomes an overbearing adonis of angst; at most he lashes out viciously at Basch when they first meet, but that is firstly the only instance, and secondly, wouldn't you react the same way if you came across the very figure who your own deceased brother testified as being a traitor to your homeland?
Soooo, that's Vaan. A naïve muffin but a young man of optimism and aspiration. The exact kind of person who the Occuria would have a miserable time attempting to manipulate, because while Ashe constantly looks back and sees a wretched recent history that she seeks to "fix", Vaan looks ahead and skyward. While not a good protagonist for an entire game, he serves his use as a more limited, but grounded audience surrogate, and the lad's alright as a person. Very inoffensive character.
2. Penelo
Who? What?
Oh, her.
She exists, I suppose?
You know it's bad when I squeeze out a few paragraphs for Vaan but have very little to say about this cinnamon roll.
Poor Penelo is so underutilised that she makes Lunafreya in FFXV look like a main protagonist. I'm genuinely curious as to what plans were originally conceived in mind for Penelo only to be dramatically scrapped and scaled back given FFXII's troubled development.
She starts off as a very, very, very brief and minor foil to Vaan. While he's content to steal from the Archadians occupying his homeland, Penelo feels justice should take form in a more altruistic and collective way; the money and property liberated from imperial bosoms should belong to the people and not to enrich Vaan's own selfish desire to go sky cruising. Justice that evidently shouldn't be done by loved ones close to her, because she heavily discourages and pleads with Vaan to give up his harebrained thievery schemes. She's the responsible foil to Vaan's reckless idealism, I suppose.
And umm
She's kidnapped and used as bait to draw out Balthier. Her usefulness in the story is only to give Vaan and crew an excuse to visit Bhujerba the first time.
Then she's under the ward of Larsa and...joins the party because she'd rather not be left behind in some weird foreign country?
Sorry, Penelo. I have very little to say about you. She's so inconsequential that she never ever even has a conversation with Ashe. I swear, those two never once interact in the entire game.
So really her only real role is, along with Vaan, be there to help humanise a conflict that's much larger than they are. The two of them give the conflict a sense of grounding, because rather than some unseen abstract conflict between two empires measuring their phalanxes somewhere else, it's a conflict that actually puts ordinary lives in Rabanastre at a dangerous crossroads.
3. Balthier
FFXII's Han Solo as he is commonly described. His co-pilot is even a furry non-human and being a sky pirate is not too far off from a galactic smuggler. But that's not fair. At least Balthier at no point finds himself frozen in carbonite and later forced to comically shoot wildly at the air around him while still blind from the ordeal.
I love Balthier. The man may be an archetype, but he's a good instance of one who injects so much needed personality to a game that I admit can be fairly drab and bleary. Some of his best moments don't even involve his silver tongue, but rather the subtle facial expressions and body language he projects in reaction to something. He non-verbally responds with mild annoyance when Vaan interrupts him to go wander around a dangerous imperial prison. He turns his head away in abject disgust and exasperation when Al-Cid does his best to hit on Ashe near the close of the story. They actually did a remarkable job of capturing characters' facial expressions given the limited polygons and the hardware at the time. When he's not grimacing, Balthier's dialogue is often gold, full of sharp wit and that beautiful tinge of dry sarcasm that will make any Brit wee themselves with delight.
I enjoy the extra depth they give him that does set him apart from other archetypical charming rogues. While he mostly tags along in hopes of plundering treasure in lieu of Ashe's debt to him, you finally at least know what his deal with when he talks about his father. As far as he knew, his father turned mad six years ago and began creating weapons of mass destruction, and if Balthier were to accept the position of a Judge, his life would have been entirely under the constricting thumb of his father's destructive madness and the brutal machinations of the Solidors. The man has every reason to want to flee from that dangerous nest, pursue freedom on his own terms and sever himself morally and geographically from the crimes his father is doomed to commit.
There's a good reason why Balthier is such a favourite in the whole series and why he's the only representative of the game in World of Final Fantasy even if only as DLC.
4. Fran
Uhh. Sexy Chewbacca?
Like with Penelo, there isn't much to Fran that I consider compelling or interesting. The Eruyt village portion of the game is interesting less so for what it achieves for Fran as a character (because quite honestly, it doesn't do much), but for what insight it gives us about Viera society. Fran from their point of view, turned her back on the Wood by leaving its boughs to see the conflict-ridden world outside. In turn, the Wood turned its back on her.
Like how Vaan and Penelo serve as lenses through which we the player see the world through from a grounded Rabanstran's perspective, Fran is the conduit through whom we truly understand just how willingly insular the Viera community is. It does intrigue me that Fran goes against the conventional trope of challenging this kind of extreme reclusive society; she instead warns her sister not to make such a foolhardy decision as she, because to pursue freedom and abandon the Wood means a life of a very different kind of seclusion. To leave the Wood is to forsake kin, so from the average Viera perspective, there is the ultimate irony that pursuing freedom is to pursue crushing seclusion and loneliness.
And why should Fran seek to challenge Viera society? What right has she to push back against a culture that honestly does no harm to anyone? Anyone who has ever left did so by their own volition, and it's not they were hunted down for doing so. It's not like the Church of Scientology where you can never leave and it's a giant cult.
But yeah, Fran herself is very thin as a character. Good lore, just not a very compelling character. Nevertheless, her stupid design aside, I do like her. I utterly adore the distinct accent they gave her that really helps elevate a sense of authenticity with Ivalice as a world of diverse cultures.
5. Ashe
Also known as the actual story protagonist of FFXII, because it's ultimately her quest, and it's a conflict she is most intimately connected to on a personal level.
I think she's fairly underrated too. I understand players' frustrations with her, because most of the time she's an angry, vengeful spirit who is rude to people (Vaan in particular) and is a fairly one track-minded soul, but that's really not all there is to her. It's similar to how a lot of people opt to put on a façade of what they perceive to be an outward show of strength, to make up for internal insecurity and the pressure of having all this responsibility on their shoulders. Peel back that façade and you do find a character who is far more vulnerable than her outward appearance suggests; the Occuria stringing her along clearly recognise this when they choose to create a vision of Rasler to beckon her. Whereas someone like Vaan has grander aspirations that keep him motivated and able to move on from all that he has lost, Ashe is utterly unable to, because any conceivable future for her intrinsically involves dwelling on the past over and over again. It is a past she must correct.
It's all well and good being driven to correct injustice, but what can you do when you lack power or belief in yourself to do so? Hence why Ashe comes close to being a genuine threat and an antihero. Hence why the Occuria can so easily bait her. Had she not met regular people like Vaan, or idealists like Larsa who demonstrate that another path exists, who knows how Ashe could have turned out. She could just as easily disregard the lives of ordinary Archadians. It's easy to conflate a nation's rulers and its people after all. What would have stopped her conscience otherwise from accepting the Occurias' gift and just nuke Archadia from the map completely? In turn, what would have stopped her from being so drunk on newfound power she's never learnt to handle before that she simply becomes another despot?
Ashe is a badass by the end not because she's angry or tells Vaan to shut up. Her time to shine is when she rejects the power offered to her finally realising that it is alien to what her country stands for. It is precisely because of the people she's journeyed with that she realises the futility of being so driven by the past that the only possible way to course correct and bring justice is to mete out the same. Her idea of justice would not have been the peace and security that her kingdom and her people yearned for. To acquiesce would have been to become yet another designed despot, robbed of her humanity and her agency. Ashe's badass moment is when she finds her own agency at long last.
So when you consider her flaws and her arc, Ashe is one of the most well-realised and human characters in the series.
6. Basch
I like Basch. I'd love to have a beer with him. He's also like a teddy bear in that he's affable and actually has a good sense of humour. Heck, I'd argue he has more of a sense of humour than Balthier. There are moments when another side of Basch subtly emerges that isn't simply MUH DUTY AND HONOUR. He actually has banter with Vaan several times throughout the story, humouring his ambitions to be a sky pirate, and chuckling affectionately like a dad when Penelo tells him she's tougher than she looks. I imagine once you get to know the guy more, Basch is the sort of guy to start cracking dad jokes if you give him long enough.
Let's just say Basch is a much better Angeal (from Crisis Core: FFVII) than Angeal himself. Why Angeal prattles on about honour all the time is beyond me given who he works for. Carrying a massive sword around that he doesn't even use because honour makes no sense either. Nah, get out of here, Angeal. Basch's code of conduct at least makes sense. The man feels he abandoned his previous homeland of Landis, and also failed another nation he swore his blade to the night when Rasler died and Dalmasca effectively fell. Because Basch as a person is tankier than even the most stalwart of warriors with a Protect buff and a Bubble Belt equipped, he's not about to let something like past tragedies and a sense of abject failure keep him down. No, this man is too duty-bound to die.
As there's nothing all that complicated about Basch, I'll probably go against the grain and say he wouldn't make a very compelling alternative protagonist either. What else can I say about Basch? The guy has your back and will sooner go to his grave than discard everything he stands for.
7. Vayne Solidor
I remember when Vayne was revealed as a new DLC fighter for the now-abandoned Dissidia NT game. Most of the internet just collectively groaned, because this wasn't Tifa. Or Aerith. Or hell, even Quina could have been a more popular choice of fighter.
Sure, Vayne is nowhere near as sexy as Tifa, Aerith or Quina, but hear me out here. I do think he's a genuinely decent villain, and a very different kind of terrifying villain than anyone else in the series.
No, he's not "fun" like Kefka. No, he won't have fangirls drawing topless fanart of him like for Sephiroth. There's no sexy midriff to show off or a tail to hide like with Kuja. Thank the lords he is not Seymour. He's no Caius either. Nor is he is a delightful troll like Ardyn.
But he is a fairly scary tyrant.
Vayne's strength is that he isn't a cartoon villain. While Judge Magister Bergan may feel it necessary to give out a rapturous soliloquy before a battle, Vayne saves it for the people he seeks to win over. When he makes a speech in Rabanastre declaring himself champion and protector of the people in memory of their fallen royal family, it very likely is a glorious piece of disingenuous theatre, but it works. It helps pacify verbal discontent amongst the citizenry, because here is a man who though may be the face of a conqueror, is saying the right things. He's claiming to rule with accountability and it's a masterful display of cunning pragmatism. Better to win people over even if reluctantly than to risk permanent rebellion by being a horrendous despot who makes life hell for everyone in the provinces. You also see this when he acts all charming to Migelo. In reality of course he doesn't give a shit about Rabanastrans like Migelo or the stunning external beauty of a cathedral of Galtean architecture. It's all a show to display him as a man of the people.
This is all significant because it makes Vayne a more realistic villain than most. Out of every other main antagonist in the series, Vayne comes closest to a despot you may find in real life history or the present day. His is a firm but fair hand. A viper in one instance and a brave lion the next. He doesn't need to be an outward megalomaniac with designs to destroy the world in a twisted attempt to save it, like Seymour. Vayne aptly justifies his instinct for conquest and hegemony as part of a greater pursuit to let humanity write its own destiny in lieu of the Occuria.
And herein lies Vayne's hypocrisy. To declare himself a new Dynast-King to shepherd all Ivalice under Archadia's rule is functionally no different to that of the Occuria making Ashe their new Dynast-King (Queen?). Is man truly free to be the arbiter of his own destiny when it's under the diktats of the Archadian Empire? In that sense, besides the immortality, is man any different when he seeks to play God? Well, I've clearly thought about this more than Vayne, which is why I would have a sword poking through my chest right now if I were standing in front of him.
8. Larsa Solidor
I stan Larsa!
If Vayne is about cold, hard pragmatism backed with military muscle, Larsa is more the hippie young lad who firmly believes in the virtues of cooperation over coercion. Genuine cooperation that is, not Vayne's fake theatre version of it.
Sure, I'm a little perplexed as to how and why Larsa ended up being so idealistic and worldly when the guy is only supposedly twelve, but he's the principal representation of another side to Archadia. There are Archadians capable of desiring peace even at the very top echelons; they aren't all monolithic militaristic monsters who ought be punished by Ashe for revenge.
Still, I don't have high hopes for his rule. If modern fantasy has taught me anything, it's that Larsa is one easy coup away by an unruly and belligerent faction from having his overtures to lasting peace be quickly upturned.
9. Judge Magister Gabranth
I feel FFXII's lacklustre storytelling also does little service to Gabranth, because contrary to his central position as the Amano logo for the game, Gabranth honestly does not make many appearances in the game, and the party does not actually confront him until near the end of the actual story. It's a shame, because with a bit more showing, there could have been a lot more to say about this character.
While Basch is solemn about his past failures and the fall of at least two nations he fought in defence for, he does not allow his failures to define him. He remains true to his code and continues the fight, knowing full well his duty is not yet done. Though a disgraced man, Basch continues to fight with his head held high. Gabranth by contrast has no idea how to process his joint failure at defending Landis from Archadia. To him, any notion of honour died when his home nation fell, so despite now serving as one of the highest military positions in all Archadia, Gabranth lives his life knowing full well he is already a pathetic failure and little more than a complicit dog serving a more powerful master. He perceives his twin brother's decision to run away and fight for Dalmasca instead as abandoning his family, and so projects his anger toward Basch. Why is Basch able to still fight with dignity while he has to exert all his effort to keep that helmet on to disguise his ruined, shamed self? That inability to process their difference in turn dials up his anger toward Basch even more.
Yeeeeeeah, I just wish the story did more to show this instead of rushing through Gabranth's emotions at the very final parts of the story. This is animosity between brothers like how Liquid Snake isn't exactly Solid Snake's biggest fan, but I wish they did something a bit more with it and had done it sooner. Still, I like Gabranth's story, and it's fitting how they conclude his and Basch's story.
10. Dr Cid
Look, we already have Vayne as a more realistic kind of villain, and we have Gabranth as a sympathetic antivillain. So why not have Dr Cid be this cartoon ready to chew the whole scenery and be hammier than a pork processing plant. He's a very fun and straightforward character, and his voice actor is having so much fun.
He's just a mad scientist drunk on the smell of his own farts and feels he's qualified to be a god amongst men. To a greater degree than Vayne, Dr Cid is a massive hypocrite. Overthrow God to be God despite the whole narrative about how humanity ought to have free rein over its destiny.
At least he isn't the worst father ever. Heck, he's actually not the worst dad there is. He looked out for his son and pulled strings to try and give him a major senior Judge position, but what did his ungrateful son do? Run away. Pfft. What dad would dedicate this much effort if he didn't have high hopes for his son?
11. Marquis Ondore
Don't listen to his lies.
12. The rest of the characters
So all in all, FFXII's characters are an eclectic mix of some surprising and overlooked depth and wasted opportunities. It's compounded by the fact that our six central characters feel like people who have to put up with one another than a genuine group of friends who have gone through a lot together. They never really gel, and as I outlined earlier, you can really see this when you realise that Ashe and Penelo literally never have a conversation as far as I know. I've never seen this with any other Final Fantasy game, and I suspect this too was the product of a difficult, troubled and protracted development.
You really made a pig of yourselves.
It has problems.
It's a story with a lot of promise that wears its many scars of a troubled development. Like how Final Fantasy XV's nightmarish development leading up to release dealt grievous blows to how it told and structured its story, Final Fantasy XII similarly carries the unsightly consequences of its own saga behind closed doors, namely with its narrative and how it is put together.
The beginning of FFXII starts off strong. You see an opening depicting an invasion of Nalbina and a vain battle fought in defence of Dalmasca. The opening prologue mission has a fairly predictable conclusion, but it sets the stage and it more importantly sets the tone. This is to be a story of war, of political intrigue and machinations, and of betrayals. This is Yasumi Matsuno taking Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre and giving them the mainline series treatment.
I can understand the complaints about having to follow Vaan for a good half a dozen hours or so before the Resistance really comes to the forefront. It's difficult to go from a bombastic opening to a very slow beginning portion of the game with a street kid who's also really into thievery and pickpocketing. That said, it's still a crucial introduction, because it introduces the player to Rabanastre - a city still licking the wounds of conquest just two years prior, and through the eyes of Vaan and Penelo do we gain glimpses of living ordinary life as orphaned street kids who have lost parents and loved ones either to war or to plague. It is unfortunately the only time Penelo genuinely has any time to "shine" as it were, though unfortunately her character right now only comes across as a nagging and overly responsible other half.
I would say the story is at its best from Vaan's palace infiltration all the way up to the destruction of the Leviathan following the Tomb of Raithwall. It's during this large chunk of the first half of the game that it becomes apparent this is no longer Vaan's story despite his billing as the marketed main protagonist. We're not necessarily following the story of a lowly blonde kid who goes from nothing to world saviour, so there's one element to FFXII that isn't like Star Wars. Ashe effectively takes over as narrative protagonist and I'll have to admit, she isn't the most endearing character. She's abrasive and mostly one-note, though some of her most interesting moments are when she lets her vulnerability slip out from under the façade temporarily when she sees the phantom Rasler beckoning to her.
Vossler betraying the party is a fairly shocking moment and it hits you because...the man has a point. Some people aren't idealists, but pure pragmatists. Why waste more lives and effort pursuing an idealistic course of action that you feel to be unattainable and unrealistic when you can potentially negotiate peace right now even if one has to swallow their pride and leave some debts unpaid? It's like me when I meet with clients who wish to sue an employer. No one really wants to litigate, but some people persist to the end not necessarily because of money, but for a sense of justice, when they could also come to some kind of agreement with the employer over mediation or arbitration and settle a lot sooner. Oh my god, have I somehow managed to squeeze my line of work into a long FFXII topic?
It is then such a shame that very little happens in the story in the massive chunk of the game stretching from the sinking of the Leviathan up to the Imperial City of Archades. I'm talking the huge section of the game all the way south of Ivalice and all the way up north to Archadia. Don't get me wrong, there are some standout moments. Ashe and Vaan having a talk about their contrasting views of the world and how they handle their pasts is a good character moment for them (I wish there was more...). The Eruyt village side story fleshes out the lore of Ivalice but does little to make Fran a more fleshed out and compelling character. The cutscene of the Emperor's assassination and the aftermath is one of the best in the entire series only ruined by the fact that Drace is a wasted character who had the potential to be so much more. The Mt. Bur-Omisace attack is a sublime show of this particularly cruel side of the Archadian Empire, though on my replay I have to admit that Bergan's dramatic monologue before the boss fight is long and rather silly.
Another element of rather sloppy story retooling during troubled development is the fact the whole time the main characters are just chasing after MacGuffin items. They trek to Jahara to find answers for how to use the drained Dawn Shard. They find no answers there. They decide to trek all the way to Mt. Bur-Omisace instead in hopes that the Gran Kiltias may bestow answers. They arrive and find that the original plan is unworkable because the Emperor is dead and Vayne is now autocrat. So they now go tomb raiding in the Stilshrine of Miriam to find a sword. Then they travel all the way north to Archadia on foot to find the Dusk Shard in Dr Cid's possession and presumably cut it to pieces. Instead Dr Cid makes everyone go to Giruvegan. The party arrives at Giruvegan and the Great Crystal...only for the Occuria to bestow Ashe yet another sword. Why do we even have two swords that functionally do the same thing? And then we go all the way up to the top of Pharos to find the mother of all magical stones.
It's a shame. FFXII's first half has so much good, only for most of the second half to be looooooong stretches of looking for MacGuffin stones or swords to cut the stones with. I still enjoy a lot of what we have of it, don't get me wrong, but after a replay I absolutely don't blame people for thinking this has to be one of the least engaging narratives in the series. When FFXII's story beats go in hard, they're some of the highest heights. When it's just several hours worth of barely anything narratively going on and you're navigating through yet another dreary, boxy dungeon for some kind of stone again or whatever, it can be some of the lowest lows.
That said, the slog to the top of Pharos is absolutely worth it. Some of the best directed cutscenes and acting happen at the top, and it's smooth sailing all the way to the end, even if I feel the confrontation with Gabranth takes place extraordinarily late into the story. The ending is fairly ho hum as far as I'm concerned. It's not winning many awards and nor will it shed many tears, but hey, I like the theme song of Kiss Me Goodbye at least!
So I rate the story a
Oh my God, Matsuno, why couldn't you have stayed?
/10
LIV'S REVIEW OF FFXII: PART ONE
(IT'S PART ONE BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT BEING CONCISE MEANS.
IF YOU THINK I'M WASTING YOUR TIME, THINK HOW MUCH OF MY OWN TIME I MUST BE WASTING!)
(IT'S PART ONE BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT BEING CONCISE MEANS.
IF YOU THINK I'M WASTING YOUR TIME, THINK HOW MUCH OF MY OWN TIME I MUST BE WASTING!)
Ah, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. A shinier, retweaked version of the...well, fairly controversial original game on the PlayStation 2. As this was still the PS2 era and Square-Enix hadn't yet grasped the concept of irony, their "International" versions of mainline entries were confined to Japan. That's right, everyone. If you call something "International", it...is not internationally released at all. Makes sense, y'all!
Though PAL markets were accidentally graced with the Dark Aeons and all those goodies from the "International" version of FFX (because it took that long to localise in FIGS, clearly!), we were all left out in the pouring rain when it came time for FFX-2 International + Last Mission and FFXII: International Zodiac Job Edition. Oh, the humanity.
But hey, fast forward a decade and we finally got our hands on the Zodiac release! Fast forward four more years and Liv finally got her greasy, moisturised mitts on this version of the game for the Nintendo Switch. As such this was to be her first time getting to grips with the plethora of changes, such as an auspicious new jobs system. No longer can I make Penelo a tank, beast attacker and a walking weapon of mass magical destruction. Now I had to assign party members to two jobs each, in hopes of creating a party with enough diversity of roles to at least survive being puked on by a Malboro.
PART 1: CHARACTERS! |
1. Vaan
Oh, sweet, sweet desert abs. With metal rubbing against bare skin under a glaring desert sun and no sunblock in sight. Yeah, good luck running around the endless deserts around Dalmasca all comfortable in that, Vaan.
Vaan is the audience insert, only done nowhere near as elegantly as Tidus, that other young blonde FF hero who...isn't Zidane. Or Cloud. Okay, Square. You can tone down on the blonde male leads. Whereas Tidus is your classic fish out of water who we as an audience learn basic concepts and lore about Spira vicariously through, Vaan is more a grounded perspective of life in occupied Rabanastre. Through his eyes we organically witness events such as Rabanastrans (like Migelo) debasing themselves by acting with such deference towards their Archadian occupiers. In terms of grounded introductions and letting players empathise with street orphans with the trauma of recent war and present occupation very fresh on ordinary townfolks' lives, Vaan as a surrogate for this purpose gets the job done.
That is not to say Vaan isn't a character. He's often derided for being an ineffectual lead protagonist who becomes an observer in his own game, which, while true, undercuts the fact there is a fairly charming boy under the hood who I find rather affable. He's a lad who wants to aspire to be something far greater than some slayer of rats handling odd jobs in Rabanastre. The lad has an actual arc where he aspires to be a sky pirate, and this motivation remains fairly consistent. He's also curious and like a dumb teenager, has as much social grace as one. I'm actually surprised to see how much subtle chemistry he has with Basch. Likewise, it's a pleasant change for once to see a lead who never becomes an overbearing adonis of angst; at most he lashes out viciously at Basch when they first meet, but that is firstly the only instance, and secondly, wouldn't you react the same way if you came across the very figure who your own deceased brother testified as being a traitor to your homeland?
Soooo, that's Vaan. A naïve muffin but a young man of optimism and aspiration. The exact kind of person who the Occuria would have a miserable time attempting to manipulate, because while Ashe constantly looks back and sees a wretched recent history that she seeks to "fix", Vaan looks ahead and skyward. While not a good protagonist for an entire game, he serves his use as a more limited, but grounded audience surrogate, and the lad's alright as a person. Very inoffensive character.
2. Penelo
Who? What?
Oh, her.
She exists, I suppose?
You know it's bad when I squeeze out a few paragraphs for Vaan but have very little to say about this cinnamon roll.
Poor Penelo is so underutilised that she makes Lunafreya in FFXV look like a main protagonist. I'm genuinely curious as to what plans were originally conceived in mind for Penelo only to be dramatically scrapped and scaled back given FFXII's troubled development.
She starts off as a very, very, very brief and minor foil to Vaan. While he's content to steal from the Archadians occupying his homeland, Penelo feels justice should take form in a more altruistic and collective way; the money and property liberated from imperial bosoms should belong to the people and not to enrich Vaan's own selfish desire to go sky cruising. Justice that evidently shouldn't be done by loved ones close to her, because she heavily discourages and pleads with Vaan to give up his harebrained thievery schemes. She's the responsible foil to Vaan's reckless idealism, I suppose.
And umm
She's kidnapped and used as bait to draw out Balthier. Her usefulness in the story is only to give Vaan and crew an excuse to visit Bhujerba the first time.
Then she's under the ward of Larsa and...joins the party because she'd rather not be left behind in some weird foreign country?
Sorry, Penelo. I have very little to say about you. She's so inconsequential that she never ever even has a conversation with Ashe. I swear, those two never once interact in the entire game.
So really her only real role is, along with Vaan, be there to help humanise a conflict that's much larger than they are. The two of them give the conflict a sense of grounding, because rather than some unseen abstract conflict between two empires measuring their phalanxes somewhere else, it's a conflict that actually puts ordinary lives in Rabanastre at a dangerous crossroads.
3. Balthier
FFXII's Han Solo as he is commonly described. His co-pilot is even a furry non-human and being a sky pirate is not too far off from a galactic smuggler. But that's not fair. At least Balthier at no point finds himself frozen in carbonite and later forced to comically shoot wildly at the air around him while still blind from the ordeal.
I love Balthier. The man may be an archetype, but he's a good instance of one who injects so much needed personality to a game that I admit can be fairly drab and bleary. Some of his best moments don't even involve his silver tongue, but rather the subtle facial expressions and body language he projects in reaction to something. He non-verbally responds with mild annoyance when Vaan interrupts him to go wander around a dangerous imperial prison. He turns his head away in abject disgust and exasperation when Al-Cid does his best to hit on Ashe near the close of the story. They actually did a remarkable job of capturing characters' facial expressions given the limited polygons and the hardware at the time. When he's not grimacing, Balthier's dialogue is often gold, full of sharp wit and that beautiful tinge of dry sarcasm that will make any Brit wee themselves with delight.
I enjoy the extra depth they give him that does set him apart from other archetypical charming rogues. While he mostly tags along in hopes of plundering treasure in lieu of Ashe's debt to him, you finally at least know what his deal with when he talks about his father. As far as he knew, his father turned mad six years ago and began creating weapons of mass destruction, and if Balthier were to accept the position of a Judge, his life would have been entirely under the constricting thumb of his father's destructive madness and the brutal machinations of the Solidors. The man has every reason to want to flee from that dangerous nest, pursue freedom on his own terms and sever himself morally and geographically from the crimes his father is doomed to commit.
There's a good reason why Balthier is such a favourite in the whole series and why he's the only representative of the game in World of Final Fantasy even if only as DLC.
4. Fran
Uhh. Sexy Chewbacca?
Like with Penelo, there isn't much to Fran that I consider compelling or interesting. The Eruyt village portion of the game is interesting less so for what it achieves for Fran as a character (because quite honestly, it doesn't do much), but for what insight it gives us about Viera society. Fran from their point of view, turned her back on the Wood by leaving its boughs to see the conflict-ridden world outside. In turn, the Wood turned its back on her.
Like how Vaan and Penelo serve as lenses through which we the player see the world through from a grounded Rabanstran's perspective, Fran is the conduit through whom we truly understand just how willingly insular the Viera community is. It does intrigue me that Fran goes against the conventional trope of challenging this kind of extreme reclusive society; she instead warns her sister not to make such a foolhardy decision as she, because to pursue freedom and abandon the Wood means a life of a very different kind of seclusion. To leave the Wood is to forsake kin, so from the average Viera perspective, there is the ultimate irony that pursuing freedom is to pursue crushing seclusion and loneliness.
And why should Fran seek to challenge Viera society? What right has she to push back against a culture that honestly does no harm to anyone? Anyone who has ever left did so by their own volition, and it's not they were hunted down for doing so. It's not like the Church of Scientology where you can never leave and it's a giant cult.
But yeah, Fran herself is very thin as a character. Good lore, just not a very compelling character. Nevertheless, her stupid design aside, I do like her. I utterly adore the distinct accent they gave her that really helps elevate a sense of authenticity with Ivalice as a world of diverse cultures.
5. Ashe
Also known as the actual story protagonist of FFXII, because it's ultimately her quest, and it's a conflict she is most intimately connected to on a personal level.
I think she's fairly underrated too. I understand players' frustrations with her, because most of the time she's an angry, vengeful spirit who is rude to people (Vaan in particular) and is a fairly one track-minded soul, but that's really not all there is to her. It's similar to how a lot of people opt to put on a façade of what they perceive to be an outward show of strength, to make up for internal insecurity and the pressure of having all this responsibility on their shoulders. Peel back that façade and you do find a character who is far more vulnerable than her outward appearance suggests; the Occuria stringing her along clearly recognise this when they choose to create a vision of Rasler to beckon her. Whereas someone like Vaan has grander aspirations that keep him motivated and able to move on from all that he has lost, Ashe is utterly unable to, because any conceivable future for her intrinsically involves dwelling on the past over and over again. It is a past she must correct.
It's all well and good being driven to correct injustice, but what can you do when you lack power or belief in yourself to do so? Hence why Ashe comes close to being a genuine threat and an antihero. Hence why the Occuria can so easily bait her. Had she not met regular people like Vaan, or idealists like Larsa who demonstrate that another path exists, who knows how Ashe could have turned out. She could just as easily disregard the lives of ordinary Archadians. It's easy to conflate a nation's rulers and its people after all. What would have stopped her conscience otherwise from accepting the Occurias' gift and just nuke Archadia from the map completely? In turn, what would have stopped her from being so drunk on newfound power she's never learnt to handle before that she simply becomes another despot?
Ashe is a badass by the end not because she's angry or tells Vaan to shut up. Her time to shine is when she rejects the power offered to her finally realising that it is alien to what her country stands for. It is precisely because of the people she's journeyed with that she realises the futility of being so driven by the past that the only possible way to course correct and bring justice is to mete out the same. Her idea of justice would not have been the peace and security that her kingdom and her people yearned for. To acquiesce would have been to become yet another designed despot, robbed of her humanity and her agency. Ashe's badass moment is when she finds her own agency at long last.
So when you consider her flaws and her arc, Ashe is one of the most well-realised and human characters in the series.
6. Basch
I like Basch. I'd love to have a beer with him. He's also like a teddy bear in that he's affable and actually has a good sense of humour. Heck, I'd argue he has more of a sense of humour than Balthier. There are moments when another side of Basch subtly emerges that isn't simply MUH DUTY AND HONOUR. He actually has banter with Vaan several times throughout the story, humouring his ambitions to be a sky pirate, and chuckling affectionately like a dad when Penelo tells him she's tougher than she looks. I imagine once you get to know the guy more, Basch is the sort of guy to start cracking dad jokes if you give him long enough.
Let's just say Basch is a much better Angeal (from Crisis Core: FFVII) than Angeal himself. Why Angeal prattles on about honour all the time is beyond me given who he works for. Carrying a massive sword around that he doesn't even use because honour makes no sense either. Nah, get out of here, Angeal. Basch's code of conduct at least makes sense. The man feels he abandoned his previous homeland of Landis, and also failed another nation he swore his blade to the night when Rasler died and Dalmasca effectively fell. Because Basch as a person is tankier than even the most stalwart of warriors with a Protect buff and a Bubble Belt equipped, he's not about to let something like past tragedies and a sense of abject failure keep him down. No, this man is too duty-bound to die.
As there's nothing all that complicated about Basch, I'll probably go against the grain and say he wouldn't make a very compelling alternative protagonist either. What else can I say about Basch? The guy has your back and will sooner go to his grave than discard everything he stands for.
7. Vayne Solidor
I remember when Vayne was revealed as a new DLC fighter for the now-abandoned Dissidia NT game. Most of the internet just collectively groaned, because this wasn't Tifa. Or Aerith. Or hell, even Quina could have been a more popular choice of fighter.
Sure, Vayne is nowhere near as sexy as Tifa, Aerith or Quina, but hear me out here. I do think he's a genuinely decent villain, and a very different kind of terrifying villain than anyone else in the series.
No, he's not "fun" like Kefka. No, he won't have fangirls drawing topless fanart of him like for Sephiroth. There's no sexy midriff to show off or a tail to hide like with Kuja. Thank the lords he is not Seymour. He's no Caius either. Nor is he is a delightful troll like Ardyn.
But he is a fairly scary tyrant.
Vayne's strength is that he isn't a cartoon villain. While Judge Magister Bergan may feel it necessary to give out a rapturous soliloquy before a battle, Vayne saves it for the people he seeks to win over. When he makes a speech in Rabanastre declaring himself champion and protector of the people in memory of their fallen royal family, it very likely is a glorious piece of disingenuous theatre, but it works. It helps pacify verbal discontent amongst the citizenry, because here is a man who though may be the face of a conqueror, is saying the right things. He's claiming to rule with accountability and it's a masterful display of cunning pragmatism. Better to win people over even if reluctantly than to risk permanent rebellion by being a horrendous despot who makes life hell for everyone in the provinces. You also see this when he acts all charming to Migelo. In reality of course he doesn't give a shit about Rabanastrans like Migelo or the stunning external beauty of a cathedral of Galtean architecture. It's all a show to display him as a man of the people.
This is all significant because it makes Vayne a more realistic villain than most. Out of every other main antagonist in the series, Vayne comes closest to a despot you may find in real life history or the present day. His is a firm but fair hand. A viper in one instance and a brave lion the next. He doesn't need to be an outward megalomaniac with designs to destroy the world in a twisted attempt to save it, like Seymour. Vayne aptly justifies his instinct for conquest and hegemony as part of a greater pursuit to let humanity write its own destiny in lieu of the Occuria.
And herein lies Vayne's hypocrisy. To declare himself a new Dynast-King to shepherd all Ivalice under Archadia's rule is functionally no different to that of the Occuria making Ashe their new Dynast-King (Queen?). Is man truly free to be the arbiter of his own destiny when it's under the diktats of the Archadian Empire? In that sense, besides the immortality, is man any different when he seeks to play God? Well, I've clearly thought about this more than Vayne, which is why I would have a sword poking through my chest right now if I were standing in front of him.
8. Larsa Solidor
I stan Larsa!
If Vayne is about cold, hard pragmatism backed with military muscle, Larsa is more the hippie young lad who firmly believes in the virtues of cooperation over coercion. Genuine cooperation that is, not Vayne's fake theatre version of it.
Sure, I'm a little perplexed as to how and why Larsa ended up being so idealistic and worldly when the guy is only supposedly twelve, but he's the principal representation of another side to Archadia. There are Archadians capable of desiring peace even at the very top echelons; they aren't all monolithic militaristic monsters who ought be punished by Ashe for revenge.
Still, I don't have high hopes for his rule. If modern fantasy has taught me anything, it's that Larsa is one easy coup away by an unruly and belligerent faction from having his overtures to lasting peace be quickly upturned.
9. Judge Magister Gabranth
I feel FFXII's lacklustre storytelling also does little service to Gabranth, because contrary to his central position as the Amano logo for the game, Gabranth honestly does not make many appearances in the game, and the party does not actually confront him until near the end of the actual story. It's a shame, because with a bit more showing, there could have been a lot more to say about this character.
While Basch is solemn about his past failures and the fall of at least two nations he fought in defence for, he does not allow his failures to define him. He remains true to his code and continues the fight, knowing full well his duty is not yet done. Though a disgraced man, Basch continues to fight with his head held high. Gabranth by contrast has no idea how to process his joint failure at defending Landis from Archadia. To him, any notion of honour died when his home nation fell, so despite now serving as one of the highest military positions in all Archadia, Gabranth lives his life knowing full well he is already a pathetic failure and little more than a complicit dog serving a more powerful master. He perceives his twin brother's decision to run away and fight for Dalmasca instead as abandoning his family, and so projects his anger toward Basch. Why is Basch able to still fight with dignity while he has to exert all his effort to keep that helmet on to disguise his ruined, shamed self? That inability to process their difference in turn dials up his anger toward Basch even more.
Yeeeeeeah, I just wish the story did more to show this instead of rushing through Gabranth's emotions at the very final parts of the story. This is animosity between brothers like how Liquid Snake isn't exactly Solid Snake's biggest fan, but I wish they did something a bit more with it and had done it sooner. Still, I like Gabranth's story, and it's fitting how they conclude his and Basch's story.
10. Dr Cid
Look, we already have Vayne as a more realistic kind of villain, and we have Gabranth as a sympathetic antivillain. So why not have Dr Cid be this cartoon ready to chew the whole scenery and be hammier than a pork processing plant. He's a very fun and straightforward character, and his voice actor is having so much fun.
He's just a mad scientist drunk on the smell of his own farts and feels he's qualified to be a god amongst men. To a greater degree than Vayne, Dr Cid is a massive hypocrite. Overthrow God to be God despite the whole narrative about how humanity ought to have free rein over its destiny.
At least he isn't the worst father ever. Heck, he's actually not the worst dad there is. He looked out for his son and pulled strings to try and give him a major senior Judge position, but what did his ungrateful son do? Run away. Pfft. What dad would dedicate this much effort if he didn't have high hopes for his son?
11. Marquis Ondore
Don't listen to his lies.
12. The rest of the characters
- Vossler - This guy is cold, hard pragmatism exemplified. He's experienced so much shit that he's sick of it all and it's an understandable position to take. Vossler is quite a decent character to demonstrate that the central conflict in FFXII isn't black and white. Many might argue he wasn't necessary wrong to seek peace negotiations with Archadia to secure quick peace even if this peace would come at the cost of justice.
- Reddas - Other characters too shackled by the past may pursue revenge, but Reddas seeks to correct his. He's also a guy who single-handedly brought order to a lawless pirate town, so mad respect to this guy.
- Migelo - He's a loving father figure who reluctantly realises the kids have the fly from the nest eventually. He's also a smart business owner who knows he has no choice but to butter up the imperials' backsides by being all deferential to them. Migelo is a good example of ordinary Rabanastrans having to grit their teeth and bear it, because at the end of the day, they still have to live and keep their businesses open.
- Venat - it exists? It's Ivalice's Prometheus giving fire to humanity, except if the fire is actually the knowledge to make weapons of mass destruction. Venat is basically an arms dealer.
- Judge Magister Ghis - Dumbass. Managed to sink the unsinkable Titanic.
- Judge Magister Bergan - You know how I said FFXII is fairly good at avoiding black and white characters? Yeah, Bergan is fairly unmistakably evil and a massive fan of dictatorships and military strongmen.
- Judge Magister Drace - A waste of a character and I'm bummed that they gave her so little to do. A Solidor loyalist but to Larsa who sticks to the rule of law she is charged to protect and who is deeply suspicious of Vayne's machinations. And so underutilised. I can't tell which character was more wasted: Drace or Jihl Nabaat from FFXIII.
- Judge Magister Zargabaath - He exists. A doe-eyed puppy who has no choice but to obey his master, no matter how unpalatable the mission.
So all in all, FFXII's characters are an eclectic mix of some surprising and overlooked depth and wasted opportunities. It's compounded by the fact that our six central characters feel like people who have to put up with one another than a genuine group of friends who have gone through a lot together. They never really gel, and as I outlined earlier, you can really see this when you realise that Ashe and Penelo literally never have a conversation as far as I know. I've never seen this with any other Final Fantasy game, and I suspect this too was the product of a difficult, troubled and protracted development.
PART 2: STORY! |
You really made a pig of yourselves.
It has problems.
It's a story with a lot of promise that wears its many scars of a troubled development. Like how Final Fantasy XV's nightmarish development leading up to release dealt grievous blows to how it told and structured its story, Final Fantasy XII similarly carries the unsightly consequences of its own saga behind closed doors, namely with its narrative and how it is put together.
The beginning of FFXII starts off strong. You see an opening depicting an invasion of Nalbina and a vain battle fought in defence of Dalmasca. The opening prologue mission has a fairly predictable conclusion, but it sets the stage and it more importantly sets the tone. This is to be a story of war, of political intrigue and machinations, and of betrayals. This is Yasumi Matsuno taking Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre and giving them the mainline series treatment.
I can understand the complaints about having to follow Vaan for a good half a dozen hours or so before the Resistance really comes to the forefront. It's difficult to go from a bombastic opening to a very slow beginning portion of the game with a street kid who's also really into thievery and pickpocketing. That said, it's still a crucial introduction, because it introduces the player to Rabanastre - a city still licking the wounds of conquest just two years prior, and through the eyes of Vaan and Penelo do we gain glimpses of living ordinary life as orphaned street kids who have lost parents and loved ones either to war or to plague. It is unfortunately the only time Penelo genuinely has any time to "shine" as it were, though unfortunately her character right now only comes across as a nagging and overly responsible other half.
I would say the story is at its best from Vaan's palace infiltration all the way up to the destruction of the Leviathan following the Tomb of Raithwall. It's during this large chunk of the first half of the game that it becomes apparent this is no longer Vaan's story despite his billing as the marketed main protagonist. We're not necessarily following the story of a lowly blonde kid who goes from nothing to world saviour, so there's one element to FFXII that isn't like Star Wars. Ashe effectively takes over as narrative protagonist and I'll have to admit, she isn't the most endearing character. She's abrasive and mostly one-note, though some of her most interesting moments are when she lets her vulnerability slip out from under the façade temporarily when she sees the phantom Rasler beckoning to her.
Vossler betraying the party is a fairly shocking moment and it hits you because...the man has a point. Some people aren't idealists, but pure pragmatists. Why waste more lives and effort pursuing an idealistic course of action that you feel to be unattainable and unrealistic when you can potentially negotiate peace right now even if one has to swallow their pride and leave some debts unpaid? It's like me when I meet with clients who wish to sue an employer. No one really wants to litigate, but some people persist to the end not necessarily because of money, but for a sense of justice, when they could also come to some kind of agreement with the employer over mediation or arbitration and settle a lot sooner. Oh my god, have I somehow managed to squeeze my line of work into a long FFXII topic?
It is then such a shame that very little happens in the story in the massive chunk of the game stretching from the sinking of the Leviathan up to the Imperial City of Archades. I'm talking the huge section of the game all the way south of Ivalice and all the way up north to Archadia. Don't get me wrong, there are some standout moments. Ashe and Vaan having a talk about their contrasting views of the world and how they handle their pasts is a good character moment for them (I wish there was more...). The Eruyt village side story fleshes out the lore of Ivalice but does little to make Fran a more fleshed out and compelling character. The cutscene of the Emperor's assassination and the aftermath is one of the best in the entire series only ruined by the fact that Drace is a wasted character who had the potential to be so much more. The Mt. Bur-Omisace attack is a sublime show of this particularly cruel side of the Archadian Empire, though on my replay I have to admit that Bergan's dramatic monologue before the boss fight is long and rather silly.
Another element of rather sloppy story retooling during troubled development is the fact the whole time the main characters are just chasing after MacGuffin items. They trek to Jahara to find answers for how to use the drained Dawn Shard. They find no answers there. They decide to trek all the way to Mt. Bur-Omisace instead in hopes that the Gran Kiltias may bestow answers. They arrive and find that the original plan is unworkable because the Emperor is dead and Vayne is now autocrat. So they now go tomb raiding in the Stilshrine of Miriam to find a sword. Then they travel all the way north to Archadia on foot to find the Dusk Shard in Dr Cid's possession and presumably cut it to pieces. Instead Dr Cid makes everyone go to Giruvegan. The party arrives at Giruvegan and the Great Crystal...only for the Occuria to bestow Ashe yet another sword. Why do we even have two swords that functionally do the same thing? And then we go all the way up to the top of Pharos to find the mother of all magical stones.
It's a shame. FFXII's first half has so much good, only for most of the second half to be looooooong stretches of looking for MacGuffin stones or swords to cut the stones with. I still enjoy a lot of what we have of it, don't get me wrong, but after a replay I absolutely don't blame people for thinking this has to be one of the least engaging narratives in the series. When FFXII's story beats go in hard, they're some of the highest heights. When it's just several hours worth of barely anything narratively going on and you're navigating through yet another dreary, boxy dungeon for some kind of stone again or whatever, it can be some of the lowest lows.
That said, the slog to the top of Pharos is absolutely worth it. Some of the best directed cutscenes and acting happen at the top, and it's smooth sailing all the way to the end, even if I feel the confrontation with Gabranth takes place extraordinarily late into the story. The ending is fairly ho hum as far as I'm concerned. It's not winning many awards and nor will it shed many tears, but hey, I like the theme song of Kiss Me Goodbye at least!
So I rate the story a
Oh my God, Matsuno, why couldn't you have stayed?
/10NEXT PARTS: THE ACTUAL GAME ITSELF AND ALL THAT. WHENEVER I HAVE TIME TO WRITE THE REST BECAUSE GOOD GRIEF.
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