Den store Final Fantasy XII tråd

Sephiroth>
Jeg ved, at en del P:R-brugere, inkl mig selv selvfølgelig, vil importere spillet fra USA, så her har vi tråden til at diskutere det første "rigtige" Final Fantasy siden 10'eren.

Naiera>
Så kommer anmeldelserne i USA. De kan også godt lide det.

Bede-x>
Samtidigt vil det næsten være synd at fokusere på en enkelt negativ vurdering, når der er så mange positive.

Naiera>
I øvrigt er jeg ikke et sekund i tvivl om, at det ér Final Fantasy, også selvom det er temmelig anderledes. Det har den der fornemmelse.

Sephiroth>
Som Naiera håber jeg, at FF13 går tilbage til den gamle stil, hvilket det på nuværende tidspunkt også ser ud til.

Okay, I guess you've understood by now how good the gameplay of "Final Fantasy XII" is. But with all due respect, most fans will play a Final Fantasy game for its story and characters, not necessarily for its gameplay. A question many concerned fans asked themselves was: with all those new gameplay elements, will they pay as much attention to story and characters as they did before? Will the decision of making this game more similar to Western RPGs damage the quality of the story?

Well, believe it or not, but in some ways "Final Fantasy XII" even surpasses its predecessors. True, it has perhaps less touching moments and less insight into the characters' souls. So if you were looking for another melodrama, "Final Fantasy XII" might disappoint you. But in a way, the story of this game is actually more mature than those of its predecessors. It opts for a more realistic story-telling, somewhat similar to the style of Suikoden games, touching topics that were never treated by the series before: politics, war, relationship between countries, the nature of patriotism, duty, and so on.

Among the previous Final Fantasies, Final Fantasy IV was the most significant inspiration for this game. It had a darker, more serious, "manly" style of story-telling than its successors. "Final Fantasy XII" has a similar story-telling style, but it goes much farther. Where "Final Fantasy IV" only implied politics and duty-related conflicts, "Final Fantasy XII" presents a full-scale war epic that shouldn't be ashamed of a comparison to a Suikoden plot.

Yes, on the surface it is just the old "evil empire" story. But what matters is not the plot, but its implementation; not the archetype the story belongs to, but story-telling technique that makes it convincing and believable. This is just the case of "Final Fantasy XII". This kinds of story may have been told thousand times before, but "Final Fantasy XII" does it in such a way that it doesn't seem clichéd. It implements some tried-and-true plot twists, but none of them strikes you as unnatural or inappropriate. On the contrary, those twists help to create a great tension in the story. I can't tell you exactly what happens in the story, but there is a fairly complex political intrigue that gradually gets revealed. The story focuses on two countries, one of which was conquered by the other, and gives you a detailed insight into the minds of the leaders of those countries as well as simple people who got caught in the conflict. For the most part, the story-telling displays remarkable maturity that was never achieved in the previous games in the series. There's little melodrama here, but much more realistic portrayals of countries and their lives. This doesn't mean that the story is dry; there are still plenty of emotional moments. But somehow, those moments always have dignity, they never get too soap opera-like. In addition, there are some Star Wars-like plot twists that I really liked. Some of them were really unexpected. You'll know what I was talking about when you play the game yourself.

Final Fantasy VI had a very basic "evil empire" plot, yet everyone loved it. Why? Because the focus of the game was not on the plot itself, but on the characters. It was interesting to see how this story influenced the lives of its heroes. It was much more interesting to follow their personal struggles and relationships with each other than to learn about the Empire's plans and how we must stop them. Even though "Final Fantasy XII" has a much better developed and realistic main story line, it also focuses on characters. Just like the story line itself, the characters are more mature and three-dimensional than the usual "conflicted guys" we were used to meet in Final Fantasy games. Nearly every character is portrayed in a realistic way. You can really relate to those characters, understand them, and identify yourself with them. Every party member has a strong personality that make him/her stand out; your party is not just a bunch of weird or "cute" creatures that happen to come together, but a group united by common interests, to which every character has something to contribute. The only party member that was disappointingly similar to older Final Fantasy prototypes was Fran. All the others were simply fantastic - the strong-willed, passionate princess Ashe, the sweet Penelo, the "eternal soldier" captain Basch, and especially my favorite, the sarcastic, bitter sky pirate Balthier.

Some people complained that the protagonist, Vaan, is much less interesting than the other characters. Some said Balthier should have been the protagonist. But the idea of the game was to show all those grand events from the point of view of a simple, and yes, rather ordinary boy. Vaan is just a normal teenager, he has no special abilities or deep Freudian complexes, and he is just perfect in what he is. Making Balthier the protagonist would be equivalent to telling the story of "Lord of the Rings" from the point of view of, let's say, Aragorn instead of Frodo. I think the story works wonderfully precisely because you experience it from the point of view of somebody who doesn't have a direct involvement in it beside personal revenge, which is less important in the game than the political struggle. This way you can really appreciate the magnitude of the story and of the hero's journey.

The supporting cast is also very strong. It's always great to fight against real people with deep personalities than against some cartoon-like villains. In best Final Fantasy tradition, there are ambiguous good/evil characters. I really liked it that even the biggest villains of the game still had something positive about them. I felt pity after defeating them. This is why the final battles were so intense and climatic. It was one long stretch of spectacular, dramatic battles, and even more spectacular and dramatic cut-scenes. Although the story intensity gets reduced in the middle part of the game, the ending part is simply majestic. The most emotional and powerful scenes come near the end of the game. And of course, there is a long, rewarding movie after you defeat the final boss - something Japanese RPGs do much better than the Western ones.

Final Fantasy games (and Japanese RPGs in general) have often suffered from poor translations. "Final Fantasy XII" puts an end to this. I haven't played a Final Fantasy game in Japanese, so I can't say whether it was the quality of dialogues or just their translation; but the dialogues in "Final Fantasy XII" are much, much better than in any of its predecessors. The English language is rich and colorful, with a nice mixture of archaic expressions and colloquial language. There is also a lot of social differentiation in the dialogues. Rulers sound like rulers, simple people like simple people. Needless to say how much those dialogues enrich the game and make its characters more interesting and believable. Some of the writing is really brilliant; almost every phrase uttered by Balthier deserves to be quoted. And on top of that, the game has excellent voice acting. Balthier steals the show once again, but nearly everyone did a good job, there was not even one voice that was below average.

Amazingly, with all those new topics for the story line, the game manages to stay true to stylistic and story-telling traditions of the series, perhaps more so than any post-SNES Final Fantasy, with the exception of the ninth. I'm not speaking just about the inclusion of chocobos, moogles, and other assorted Final Fantasy creatures, or about the classic Final Fantasy spells and items. In the story line itself there are plenty of intentional references to other Final Fantasy titles. The heroic, "knightly" style of the story line is reminiscent of Final Fantasy IV, a game that has also influenced it story-wise more than any other Final Fantasy. In fact, even-numbered Final Fantasies traditionally feature an "evil empire" plot, and "Final Fantasy XII" acknowledges the tradition, with a conservative theme treated in an interesting, refreshing way. The characters also have their classic prototypes. For example, Vaan stands in a honorable line of thief protagonists, which includes Locke from Final Fantasy VI and Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. Balthier is a descendant of the careless airship captain Setzer, Gabranth has something in common with Kain, etc.

The story is dramatic and complex as long as new party members are being introduced and you are still unable to tell a friend from a foe. But at a certain point most of the questions become answered, the general outlines of the story completed, the goal is clear; from that point on, story gets a backseat in the game, giving place to exploration and combat almost entirely. It's not that the story becomes weak; it's just that there is much less of it. I wish they would maintain the perfect pace of the story they had during the first half of the game. But the story becomes very intense once again near the end.

RJK>
Hvis man synes historierne i FFVI - FFX er for fjollede, konstruerede og højtflyvende, så vil man synes bedre om historien i FFXII. Jeg ved så ikke hvorfor man ville spille FF i første omgang.

Hvis man synes figurerne i FFVI - FFX er for fjollede, melodramatiske og konfliktfyldte, så vil man synes bedre om personerne i FFXII. Men igen, hvorfor så spille FF overhovedet?