Final Fantasy XII Doesn't Get The Respect It Deserves

What a great freakin' game. I spent all weekend with it since I still don't have any Internets at my new place, haven't hooked up my PC yet, and it's been staring at me from my backlog for, well, since it came out. FF XII fixes just about everything that annoys me about JRPGs (which is no small list, I assure you), and I never truly recognized its brilliance until now.

1. The Gambit System. Setting up a party in an RPG has never been more engaging than it is in FF XII. Once you get full access to your characters and a decent number of Gambits and slots to put them in, fitting together the pieces of the combat puzzle is a blast. Getting your party operating as a finely tunedexperience-grinding machine is a common RPG mechanic, but FF XII takes it far beyond genre standards. Automating buffs is great on its own, but watching your healers react properly to incoming damage while damage-focused party members correctly prioritize targets thanks to good Gambit layout is its own reward.

2. Trivial Encounters Are Truly Trivial. I can't handle standard trivial random encounters any more. I just can't. FF X is one of my favorite games of all time, but last time I started a new game there I didn't make it off of Besaid. (As a sidenote, Rikku's bizarre S/M outfit when you meet her still weirds me out. Isn't she supposed to be like 15 or something? Pervs!) Sitting through a load screen, hitting three buttons to set up attacks, and then waiting for loot to be distributed doesn't cut it any more. In FF XII, all of the garbage is automated (and setting that up is engaging on its own, as mentioned above) and dungeon crawls become a matter of managing magic-usage efficiency and watching the license points and XP accumulate, which is a lot more fun.

3. There Is No Quina. All six of the main characters are pretty awesome (or at least tolerable, sorry Penelo). I can't deal with any more Carths, and FF XII doesn't ask me to. I genuinely enjoy the contributions each character makes to the story. Not being tempted to shut the game down every time a Cait Sith shows up on screen is a huge deal.

4. The Story Is Mature In The True Sense Of The Word. I couldn't care less about Gears of War-style chest-thumping machismo any more unless it's so far into the absurd that it becomes funny (House of the Dead: Overkill), and I don't want to be treated like a child or a moony teenager. FF XII deals with themes of honor, duty, loss, and compassion in a way that feels natural and engaging, never tawdry or manipulative. I would have no problem with my late elementary-school aged nephews playing this, and at the same time it's a story that has relevance to an adult perspective as well.

5. Artistry On Display. Make all the fun you want of Vaan's silly nipple jacket (seriously, does it serve any function besides obscuring his nips?), but the world of FF XII feels alive and cohesive like few others. Countries and cities have distinct cultures, architectures, clothing styles, and more. The streets are filled with people going about their lives. Sure, it's all window dressing with no gameplay effect, but it goes a long way toward selling the setting. Nothing feels wacky for the sake of being wacky, or tacked-on for specific plot purposes. Very few games can boast this level of artistry, and it shines even on the old PS2 hardware.

The game's not perfect (Vaan is unbearable for the first six or so hours of the game, the story goes off the rails a bit in the third act, and the license board is a decidedly mediocre character progression system), but it deserves more props and a higher spot on "best Final Fantasy games ever" lists than it typically gets. If FF XIII regresses to series norms because of fanboy whining, I'll be very annoyed.