Final Fantasy XII – an underappreciated classic

GameCentral speaks to the team behind Square Enix’s latest remaster, and asks whether it’s the hidden gem of the Final Fantasy series.

No doubt Square Enix would like to be in a position where all the Final Fantasy games can be remastered to current standards, but alas updating a video game is nowhere near as straightforward as remastering a movie or TV show. Anything before Final Fantasy X requires a complete remake, which is a costly risk for games that are not necessarily in tune with modern sensibilities. But while Final Fantasy XII is now over 10 years old it was always a game well ahead of its time.



So far it’s only been the legendary Final Fantasy VII which has been given the big budget remake treatment, and this is instead a remaster along the same lines as Final Fantasy X|X-2. But while Final Fantasy X came out in the first few years of the PlayStation 2’s life, XII was released right at the end – just a month before the PlayStation 3’s European launch. It reviewed well, but it did seem to get quickly forgotten in the excitement of the new generation.

‘We knew it was received fairly well in the West, but 10 years later, as we were remastering it, we were playing the International Zodiac Job System version and we felt it had really been built very well as a game’, says Takashi Katano – who was the lead programmer on the original version.


‘We wanted to bring it to the current generation gaming platforms, and so we added new elements to it so that the players who have played it before, as well as new players who have never played it before, can enjoy it as a brand new game.’

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age – this does not look like a PS2 game anymore

The International Zodiac Job System version is not what it might sound like, as it was only ever released in Japan. But it took the Western version of the game and added more new features, including increasing the number of license boards (skill tree-like structures which allow characters to learn new abilities) from one to 12, tweaking the battle system, and adding New Game+ options and a Trial Mode where you can fight monsters in up to 100 consecutive battles.

But Final Fantasy XII has never been a game where the praise has been applied equally. Thanks to its unique Gambit battle system, it’s considered by many (including us) to have the best gameplay in the whole series. But its story is a disappointingly dry tale of political machinations, with a nominal lead who is amongst the least popular in Final Fantasy history.

And there’s not much that can really be done about the latter, without completely rewriting the script – even though Vaan was not originally supposed to be the lead character. When we joke that they could at least make him wear a shirt, the developers laugh but there seems little hope that fan favourites Balthier and Fran (sky pirates with a role very similar to Han Solo and Chewbacca – if Chewie was a giant sexy rabbit woman) will see any increase in their screen time.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age – Princess Ashe isn’t as bad as Vaan, but she’s still pretty dull

‘You do have six members in your party that you can control, so our focus is never on one character but the entire party as an entity’, is the only succour Katano can offer. ‘As far as the story goes, there is the story of Princess Ashe, and her taking back her own country that is at the core of the story, but you also have all these sub quests you can take on. So it’s as if we have the user trying to be part of the party, basically, and have their own adventure in the world of Ivalice.’



The Gambit system has been easier to refine though, and to this day remains one of our favourite role-playing battle systems. Gambits themselves are rules that you can program into each character, so that they can fight automatically in battle. So, for example, you might tell them to target one type of monster with a particular attack or to heal an ally when their health drops below 50%. You can also manually issue orders whenever you want, creating a system that feels almost like controlling a whole MMO style team of players at once.

Apparently the International Zodiac Job System already fixed one of our major original complaints, that it took too long to acquire some of the more complex and flexible Gambits, but other tweaks are also promised:

‘We really have taken our time to improve the playability this time around. There might have been some instances in the original version where it wasn’t clear where you’re supposed to head next. There’s better guidance this time around, so you know which way to go. So that’ll probably make you want to take on more sub quests’, says producer Hiroaki Kato.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age – the best fights in Final Fantasy

But it’s clear that, like most remasters, the real focus for The Zodiac Age is simply the graphics and sound. As a late era PlayStation 2 game they were already surprisingly good and what we saw at E3 seemed even more impressive than the work done to improve Final Fantasy X.

‘We’ve taken time to improve the visualisation and you’ll probably notice different things that weren’t in the original version, especially in the cut scenes’, says Katano. ‘There were things we wanted to do on the PS2 but couldn’t because of hardware limitations, that might be possible now with the PS4’.


Making full use of Sony’s current gen home console is the reason given for the lack of a PS Vita version, although we’re offered no coherent reason for why it’s not also coming to PC – although that isn’t being ruled out entirely.

What is also a possibility is that the game may get a brand new sequel or spin-off, with Katano admitting that Square Enix is, ‘Definitely looking at possibilities of maybe coming up with a brand new title that employs the Gambit system.’

We hope so, because Final Fantasy XII’s combat system deserves to be better appreciated than it is, and hopefully this remaster will push one of the most innovative and daring entries in the franchise back into the limelight.

Formats: PlayStation 4

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix

Release Date: 2017

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