Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age, game review, Square Enix

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age Is A Chance To Rediscover An Old Favorite

For an HD Re-release, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age feels a lot more like a new game than an old one. Not because of any major changes to the UI, although there are a few, but because I forgot how much I actually enjoyed playing Final Fantasy XII the first time around.

HD Remasters can always be a bit of a hard sell, as a lot of players feel like they're just being forced to buy a game again, but some are really worth updating. Final Fantasy XII was in need of some updates, because lets be honest, its a bit janky to go back to your old system and boot up FFXII the way it was when you first played it in 2006. Gaming has come a long way, and while a lot of the old game remains, the autosaves, speed mode, and Zodiac job system make it a much smoother experience.

Sure, there's still the clunky old tutorial in the beginning of the game, where NPCs literally explain chat icons to you, but hey. Games were a much different beast back in 2006. So much of a game's UI would be unique to that specific game, or maybe that specific franchise, but chances are, controls changed so much you needed a lengthy tutorial.

Now, we just take things for granted like X or A being interact, and O or B being the back button (unless we're playing a Japanese version, in which case O is interact and X is back, but that's a different story).

And while I tend to despise tutorials, the original FFXII tutorial was actually pretty interesting. So much of the tutorial is woven into the main storyline that you can pretty much breeze through it without noticing. You also get through the obnoxiously simple things like "use the right stick to move forward and the left to look around" within minutes. So, as much as lengthy tutorials are my number one game sin, I'm willing to be nice about this one. If only because Balthier's gambit tutorial makes me laugh every time.

Seriously, the speed mode, as much as it annoys the hell out of me in tight quarters and city centers, is a major blessing in combat. Your downtime between combat actions without the speed multiplier is incredibly sluggish. And sure, it works for game balance reasons, but damn is it an absolute joy to pop on the x2 or x4 multiplier and just fly through combat faster than I can think. Especially if you are good at using gambits.

Micromanaging your characters in Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is a fair choice, and a perfectly valid way to play the game. But personally, I like to throw gambits on, sit back, and hop in just for the game-changing moments. I don't need to hit attack over and over and over, instead I can throw that on a gambit and pop in just to toss out special techniques or spells, especially with Balthier and Fran in the party.

The graphic update is the most obvious change, but it is probably the one I was least concerned with, since the gameplay itself hasn't been updated nearly as much as the cutscenes. And no one plays a game just for the cutscenes, not even me. Although the updated texturing does make the game a bit shiner, it also gives us some weird effects in places that probably weren't intended.

You can see it a bit in the close-up shot of Fran above, but it is perhaps most noticeable on Vaan in the cutscenes that weren't completely re-rendered. Some characters just seem to have eyelashes that take up approximately 90% of their face. That's mostly down to the original art style and rendering techniques, but man is the disconnect between Vaan in gameplay and in-engine cutscenes and the pre-rendered ones completely baffling.

Still, it shouldn't be game-breaking.

Perhaps the best part of HD Remasters is the ability to rediscover old favorites. That's honestly their best selling factor. Secondarily, they give players an opportunity to pick up on a game they may have missed the first time around, and play it with some basic quality of life improvements.

I never thought I'd see the day where I praised the wonders of the autosave, but here we are. Sure, I could go boot up my PS2 and play it on the original game disc I still have, but why would I go through the hassle of finding the one TV in my neighborhood that still has an old school AV hookup? Consoles make playing old games difficult, because unlike on PC, you can't just pop that disc into your new system and expect it to work. Sure, we all want backwards compatibility in our consoles, but that dream was left behind years ago.

So instead we have HD Remasters. And even though it means I'm shelling out a bit more cash to play an old game, I'll happily pay for the auto-saves and speed mode. Because they are entirely worth it.

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