Finally, Final Fantasy 12 is getting the respect it deserves. One of the best Final Fantasy games, but that was unfairly judged and underappreciated when it released back in 2006.

This new HD version based on the International Zodiac Job System version is getting a lot of praise from many critics and users. EuroGamer gave it a "Recommended" badge, praising and exalting the battle system:

"Final Fantasy 12's battle system is not only the best in the series, but it's one of the best in the medium: idiosyncratic, endlessly flexible, and elementally rewarding. In the 11 years since its debut it's never been bettered, partly because it's never been copied. It feels as fresh and daring today as ever."

Final Fantasy 12 The Zodiac Age review - An absolute gemini.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-10-final...

On MetaCritic, it has a score of 87 after 38 reviews.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/final...

And on OpenCritic, it has a score of 88, with 37 critic reviews. Of which, 97% of critics recommending the game.

http://opencritic.com/game/4212/final-fantasy-xii-...

I hope this version sells well. This and the Crash Bandicoot N'Sane Trilogy remake are great examples that when done right, plenty of old games are still great even today.

Such an accomplished designed game from visuals to gameplay. Insta-bought.

1440p is a joke for such an old title, even Assassins Creed Ezio Collection was in native 4K

When done right? I think that XII is the best main line FF game no matter what version. Moar pixels or a new job system doesn't change that. It's still good because it was good to begin with.

Also it's funny how it goes from being on every ones shitlist to underappreciated masterpiece as soon as a HD remaster comes along.

they can't keep getting away with it jesse gif

Worst looking FF protagonist? Yeah, worst looking FF protagonist! Fucking hate vaan

I think it's certainly worth pointing out as every butthurt FF-fanboy in the universe complained about how the combat was not strategic, and how the story was boring (ie the combat actually had some semblance of strategy when setting up gambits, and the story had the temerity to try something other than the normal shonen garbage, it just wasn't a carbon copy of FF7).

I'm happy that it's being well received though, it is a good game. By far better than the utter trash that the series has spawned of late.

KORN, yeah Vaan sucks. But he isn't even really the protagonist. The story would work even if he wasn't there. He is just the bumbling idiot that the other people explain the world to, because the player needs to know. I prefer to think of Basch as the actual main character :P

I'm really curious why they remastered XII. For me XII is when stuff started going downhill. The combat was hard to get a hang of, the characters seemed two-dimensional, and the story is pretty much Star Wars (I mean there's a youtube video that pretty much has star wars audio perfectly synced to some of the FFXII FMV footage) aside from gathering the Crystals. Which the Crystal gathering part is when I just started to fall asleep playing it. I mean, usually when I play an RPG the story gets more interesting and things start to pick up, but for me XII had the reverse effect. Stuff got more boring and the action actually seemed to get slower as you progressed. Definitely the final dungeon which is just some giant maze cluster fuck of horrible map design. I mean if you don't know what you're doing in the final dungeon you can spend almost all day trying to get to where you need to be.

My exact quote was: "I hope this version sells well. This and the Crash Bandicoot N'Sane Trilogy remake are great examples that when done right, plenty of old games are still great even today."

If Square Enix had botched this remaster, like Konami did for all the Silent Hill HD collections, then no matter how great the game is, the version to be played - the definitive version - would still be the original one. If the HD remaster was done wrong, it would mean that the game would have become worse, instead of better. Unlike most art medium formats, a game can be either enhanced or worsened depending on how a version of it gets treated - just like the remix or cover of a song can make it better or worse than the original.

Again, the Sillent Hill HD collection is the perfect example, where they are so bad that they make the experience much worse than the original. So much that one could argue that the games go from great to just good. I won't go into details as to why, since there are so many goddamn reasons why it is fucked up to oblivion, and many articles and forums threads explaining it, which I will leave a few links below, but my point is that a HD remaster can make a great game become worse enough that it becomes less than great.

UndergroundReality - Silent Hill HD Collection: One of the Worst Games Ever Made?
http://underground-reality.blogspot.com.br/2014/05...

Silent Hill Wiki - Silent Hill HD Collection:
http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Silent_Hill_HD_Co...

Digital Foundry - What Went Wrong with Silent Hill HD?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-w...This happens mostly because HD remasters allow certain games to have another chance in the spotlight, and where they may have failed critically and/or commercially on the original release, now they might be successful upon a second chance. It also helps that hindsight 20/20 and the years since release make a lot of people more open to what a game is and what it isn't, after it being discussed for many years. So a lot of the hate directed at it for not being what someone wanted or expected it would be, probably disappeared with time. Meaning they can now look more objectively at it, raising the chances that it will be more accepted this time around.

I loved the combat, I was so much in love with it that I ended up filling all the characters' boards' skills in that first desert area of the game, at the very beginning after the prologue. No cheats or anything like that, just kept playing for hours - probably 30-40, but don't remember precisely - because it was very fun. I also liked the story and the characters.Much better than all Final Fantasy 13 games combined, or Final Fantasy 15.Balthier is in a way the main character. The EuroGamer review mentions this heavily:

"Final Fantasy 12 was directed in part by Yasumi Matsuno, lauded creator of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. Matsuno's fingerprints are all over this game, especially in its opening third, which tells a compelling, pseudo-historical story of a case of mistaken identity surrounding the assassination of a king. Matsuno, however, left the project three quarters of the way through its development. His departure was blamed on poor health. Others close to the development team, however, have claimed that Matsuno was pushed out following the departure from the company of his friend and mentor, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy's creator. (Sakaguchi later said that he refused to play Final Fantasy 12 beyond its opening scenes on principle, which all but confirmed the rumour of mistreatment and compromise).

Perhaps for this reason, the latter two thirds of Final Fantasy 12's story falter. What begins as a story filled with vivid characters behaving in logical, memorable ways soon fizzles out to a rather dour tale, filled with expository cutscenes in which rather dry political machinations are discussed at length. Vaan is a weak protagonist (reportedly, Matsuno intended Balthier to front the game and Balthier repeatedly refers to himself as "the leading man"). Understanding this context helps to explain Final Fantasy 12's uneven texture. Huge parts of the game, including, mercifully, its core systems feel carefully authored, and cleave to a clear vision. But many other elements are disjointed, and the game's story suffers from Square Enix's mistaken and damaging belief that every Final Fantasy game must revolve around magical crystals, those ever-present McGuffins of Fantasy lineage that no player has ever, or will ever, care about.

The Zodiac Age is an anomaly in the Final Fantasy lineage, a game made with the kind of singular directorial vision only matched by the Sakaguchi games (and, arguably, Naoki Yoshida's more recent Final Fantasy 14). Quite how close the finished game comes to Matsuno's vision is a question we will likely never know the answer to - especially now he is again working with the company, and obligated to remain tactfully silent. What is clear is that this is the definitive version of Final Fantasy 12, a game that despite its developmental difficulties, still emerged as one of the most fascinating projects to take the series' name."

Why would anyone take Yasumi Matsuno (creator of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story, two absolute epic games) off from an important project is beyond me. And on this point you are right, Megido - as well as EuroGamer, if they had allowed Matsuno to do something more creative instead of removing him and adding a lot of Final Fantasy formula shit like "teen protagonist Vaan" that made the game less better than it should have been, the game would have been much better. Either Basch or Balthier would have been better.

Still, Final Fantasy 12 is one of the best Final Fantasy and RPGs ever made. The foundations that Matsuno build ensured that, even if he wasn't allowed to finish them. The original game on PS2 has a MetaCritic score of 92, by 64 Critics. The game was always great. And this The Zodiac Age HD remaster based on the International version only released in Japan, which was already better than the original version, makes the game even better. For any Final Fantasy or even RPG fan, this is a must-buy!

The combat was great, but you needed to strategize how to use Gambits effectively. If your strategizing was off, the combat would be slow and bad, while if it was good, the combat would be fast and great. Even playing manually you had to take strategy into account, it wasn't a game where you could destroy most enemies just by using the same tactics over and over.

I remember that even at level 65 with all skills unlocked, I was still having to change Gambits or take control of the situation when fighting normal enemies 3/4 of the game. Which I actually liked since it never made the combat stale for me.

Almost everything you've said about the story is explained by Yasumi Matsuno's departure from the game during development. Just imagine taking someone extremely talented off a directorial role on a project and putting someone with less talent in charge midway through it.

The crystals gathering part is an example of this, because it is one of the staples of the Final Fantasy franchise, it kind of had to be put into the game, but a more talented person would have done it in such a way that it wouldnt have been a detriment to the game. On the contrary, it would have added something to make the game better.

Basically, don't take the person who is in charge of the Marvel's Universe's movies and put the one in charge of the DC's Universe's movies in its place. It will never be better with the latter than with the former.

When it's made by the core team behind Tactics Ogre, Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics, it's bound to be special.

the game where final fantasy all went wrong, 6-10 will be the golden years, everything after is trash, 12/13/15 all junk, last decent FF that i played was 10, sucks, and now with the remake and everything they are taking out that game that made it special makes me belive it will be another fail

indeed it sucks. FFX is fuckin trash.

end of the day everyone likes what they like, im glad they maked this for the people that like and wanted remaster, i think that is all that matters