Final Fantasy 12 -- Final Opinion.

Roughly one-hundred and ten hours later the final credits have rolled on Final Fantasy 12. I went ahead and just ended the game leaving a lot of what I wanted to do undone. The game is all around exceptional. It is without question the best Final Fantasy title since Final Fantasy 6. It pretty much does everything right while avoiding what's been wrong with Final Fantasy seven through ten. The story of Final Fantasy 12 is on the surface a story of politics and the behind the scenes positioning and maneuvering of the key characters involved. But in actuality Final Fantasy 12 is yet another tale of the crystals. There has been a lot of complaints that the story of Final Fantasy 12 doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy by so-called fans of the series. After having played the game I can say that those people are insane. Final Fantasy 12 retains the classic feel of Final Fantasy throughout. In fact, it's the game in the series most aware of itself in that regard. There are countless nods to every single aspect of the series and even other specific games. The characters in Final Fantasy 12 might be the issue here. They're actually great. They are however, not whining teenagers bemoaning the existential why of it all. They're predominantly adults who are entirely sure of who they are and what they have to do. And I couldn't welcome that more. The script is great. It's written in an almost Shakespearean level of flowery English speech. But it's not pretentious in any way. It's a smart script that moves along assured of itself and is always to the point. The only aspect that might take from the story is in that the game is so full of extra stuff for you to do that you can sometimes step away from the story in the game for ten to twenty hours or so. It might not be a constant in the game depending on how you end up playing it. The battle engine and all of the related systems are the best in the series. Everything works perfectly and has depth and remains fun throughout. The graphics are as good as the PlayStation 2 is ever going to produce. The sound is very well done. All of the classic Final Fantasy sounds are in place. The music is very well done and Sakimoto wisely avoided trying to mimic Uematsu's style. The score fits the differences present in this Final Fantasy quite well. A couple of classic Uematsu tracks like the end of battle fanfare work their way into the game of course and he did compose the ending theme. The voice acting is exceptionally well done. Each of the characters are unique and the voices fit. My only complaints with the game are minor at best. There are an awful lot of palette-swapped monsters in the game. Not the RPG standard of three or four, but each of the monsters might show up as ten or more variations. I thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy 12 and even after a hundred and ten hours I still want to go back and finish everything off. That speaks volumes as to how well I liked the game in my opinion. I would have done so, but bad timing and all that. I'm giving Final Fantasy 12 a 9.5.