QuickNavigation - FF Odyssey Final Fantasy XII (Last updated on 11/14/2007)

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By: wsim

    In the world of Ivalice, two great empires have been at war for quite some time.  The Arcadian empire decides to invade the kingdom of Dalmasca, which is located at a very important strategic point between the continents of Valencia and Ordalia.  The Arcadian empire is at war with the Rozarian empire.  Dalmasca is taken over by Arcadia and the kingdom reluctantly accepts their defeat.  Princess Ashe, heir to the throne of Dalmasca is not willing to surrender to Arcadia and joins an underground resistance aimed at restoring the kingdom of Dalmasca from the hands of the Arcadian empire.  Along the way, she crosses paths with a variety of people who each have their own reasons to take up the fight against Arcadia.  What begins as the struggle to free Dalmasca evolves into a more emotional story of redemption, corruption and treachery which will test the resolve of those who take up the fight against Arcadia. 

Full Story (Spoilers)    

     The game is set in the world of Ivalice, where magic was commonplace and airships freely roamed the sky.  The use of magicite is important to magic spells and can also be used to power airships, which is a very popular form of transportation in Ivalice.  Divided among three different continents, the world of Ivalice is diverse with many different races co-existing together.  There is a large scale war waging on between the powerful empires of Arcadia and Rozarria. The story begins with Arcadia invading the kingdom of Dalmasca and after a series of events, including the killing of the king and the stabbing of Reks by what appears to be the traitor Basch, Dalmasca falls and surrenders to Arcadia.  Princess Ashe was assumed to have committed suicide after the fall of Dalmasca and her husband Prince Rasler is killed during the battle against the Arcadian forces.  It isn't revealed until much later on in the game about what really happened to the king and Reks, a solider conscripted into the Dalmascan army to stave off the Arcadian threat.  The story shifts and we learn about Vaan, a street orphan who lost his brother Reks during the Arcadian invasion.  Vaan and Penelo are childhood friends who both have lost their parents at a young age and both work under the guidance of the Bangaa merchant Migelo, who is a friend of Penelo's parents.  They both live ordinary and carefree lives, however Vaan seeks revenge against Arcadia for losing his brother Reks.  Dalmasca, being occupied under Arcadia soon prepares for a series of celebrations for the first consul, Vayne Solider.  Vayne is the oldest son of Arcadian emperor Gramis and is the heir to the empire.  He is known to be a careful and conniving tactician who is very manipulative and cunning.  Vaan attempts to steal from the Royal palace of Dalmasca in an attempt to take them back from the Arcadians.  Penelo tags along with Vaan and along the way, they cross paths with the Dalmascan resistance force and sky pirates Fran and Balthier.  They all have differing motives for fighting against the empire.  Vaan meets Ashe, the leader of the resistance movement and is then caught up in the great struggle to free Dalmasca from Arcadian rule.  Beyond this, presents Ashe's drive to stop the Arcadians at all costs and the gods have chosen Ashe as the destined one to restore peace to the land by using ancient relics to destroy the empire.  As the story progresses, Ashe has to deal with doubts along with having the persistence and determination to save her kingdom and keep her own pride as a princess. 

     Other characters have their own impact on the storyline.  Larsa Solider, who is Vayne's younger brother and a future emperor of Arcadia has been a proponent of peace and wants to end to long waging war between Rozarria and Arcadia.  Throughout the adventure, he has constantly went against Vayne and helps out the resistance in their struggle to restore the kingdom of Dalmasca.  Powerful Judge Magistrates rule the land with the bearing of Arcadia on their shoulders and are the key military commanders of the Arcadian forces.  The empire has been developing a secret in their labs regarding nethicite and has been testing it extensively.  Emperor Gramis is eventually killed by Vayne through poisoning and Vayne assumes power of the Archadian empire and dissolves the Senate.  He declares himself dictator and obtains complete command over the nation and empire.  We learn that Vayne is very treacherous and previously has killed several of his brothers once they decided to oppose and go against him.  After one of the Judge Magistrates begin to question Vayne's actions, he orders Judge Gabranth to take her life.  Gabranth hesitates but eventually follows his duty in accordance to the master that he serves and stabs Judge Drace.  The other Judges gradually disappear:  Judge Ghis dies after a failed experiment of nethicite on his airship, the Leviathan and eventually the only remaining Judges are Gabranth and Zargabaath.  We eventually learn from the Occurria gods that Venat rebelled against them and eventually turned to help the empire in developing powerful nethicite and their goal of total domination.  Doctor Cid, head of the Draklor Lab operation has been obsessed with nethicite for many years and the power of the nethicite has caused him to seek out some of the extremely powerful relics that are rumored to possess unimaginable power.  It is later revealed that Doctor Cid is actually the father of Balthier and that Balthier has his own dark past as a former Judge, until he decided to run away from the empire and live the life of a freedom-bearing sky pirate.  Captain Basch von Rosenburg of Dalmasca, branded a traitor by the Dalmascan people was actually captured in the Arcadian invasion and held captive along with Azelas Vossler in their attempt to save the king, once they learned of the Arcadian trap to kill the king once the peace treaty was signed.  It turned out that Basch's twin brother is Judge Gabranth and that Gabranth asssumed Basch's identity and killed both Reks and the Dalmascan king.  Basch is freed by the resistance and struggles with his own personal story of redemption and guilt for his failure to protect Dalmasca.  Gabranth also has an interesting backstory in which led him to join the very empire that occupied his homeland of Landis.  Ashe finds out about other resistance forces led by Marquis Ondore of the neutral kingdom of Bhujerba and other parties from the empire of Rozarria.  Ashe eventually finds the true secret of the nethicite and resists calls to destroy the empire using the very relics she has labored to obtain.  The party meets up with sky pirate Reddas, who later joins their cause to seek out the secret of nethicite in Pharos.  Reddas previously attempted to stop Doctor Cid in Draklor but Cid got away.  After an encounter with Judge Gabranth, we learn that Reddas was previously known as Judge Zecht, who mysteriously disappeared from the Imperial ranks.  Like Balthier, he decided to run away from the empire and live a more honest and carefree life as a sky pirate.

     The party hatches a plan to infiltrate Vayne's airship, the Bahamut to put a stop to him.  In addition, the resistance forces along with Rozarria have engaged in a major battle to halt the Arcadian army.  Just before reaching Vayne, they are stopped by Judge Gabranth who was recently relived of his command as Judge Magister and in a fit of rage vows to defeat Basch and restore his own pride.  Gabranth cites Basch as a main reason for him joining the empire and blames Basch for failing to protect his homeland and Dalmasca.  After defeating Gabranth, Basch tells him that there is still reason to live and that Gabranth should stop blaming himself for everything that has went wrong.  They encounter Vayne, who is convinced that he must destroy Dalmasca first before the people will eventually rise up in opposition against him.  Larsa tries to convince Vayne that is not the case but Vayne does not budge on his stance.  Larsa decides to take arms up against Vayne along with the other party members.  Eventually, Gabranth also decides to go against his former lord and master and reclaims his duty to protect Larsa.  Vayne fuses with manufactured nethicite and then with the Bahamut airship in an attempt to destroy Dalmasca.  Ashe and her friends defeat Vayne and Larsa immediately calls for the end of hostilities and announces a cease-fire between the warring parties.  Larsa takes over as head of the Arcadian empire by default, as a result of Vayne's death.  Ashe agrees to Larsa's call for the kingdom of Dalmasca to be restored and for her to finally take the throne.  A dying Gabranth tells Basch to carry on his duties to protect Larsa and that the young master is the only hope for Arcadia.  He stresses the importance of keeping House Solider intact, in order to prevent civil war in Arcadia from occurring.  Basch agrees and is saddened to see his twin brother die off, but also sees that Gabranth finally realized his ways.  Balthier manages to stop the airship from crashing and destroying Dalmasca.  He entrusts the Strahl to Vaan and has faith that Vaan will be a good sky pirate one day, much to Vaan's delight.  Penelo tags along as Vaan's partner as they are one step closer to fulfilling their dream of becoming sky pirates.  1 year after the end of hostilities, Ashe's coronation ceremony has been planned as she will become Queen of Dalmasca.  Vaan and Penelo are planning on going and the ending updates us on some of the key characters in the game.  Basch takes over as the new Judge Gabranth and continues to serve his role for protecting Larsa.  Dalmasca is at peace and restored to its previous state and it appears that the world of Ivalice is stable and peaceful once again.  Balthier takes the Strahl again from Vaan and continues his sky pirate ways along with his reliable partner Fran.  With Larsa ruling the Arcadian empire, the other existing kingdoms and continents are at peace and Ivalice went on to a very prosperous future.

     The graphics in FFXII are simply outstanding.  Beautiful visuals with very well animated and large environments to explore.  The weather changes in some areas from being clear to rainy seasons and the like.  While there are a few minor issues with the camera angles, they aren't really that bad and can be ignored easily.  The FMV sequences are top-notch and there was very little that I could even complain about.  The in-game cutscenes were presented very well and the character models are unique and detailed.  We don't even have to mention that the battle effects are animated very fluidly and its nice to clearly see differences among weapons and some equipment.

     Lots of variety with the gameplay.  Square-Enix did a nice job with the battle system and presented many improvements that were a nice change of pace over the previous battle systems, which were clearly getting stale over time.  No more annoying random battles and the battles move as seamlessly and as smoothly as you could possibly imagine.  The license grid offers far more customization and freedom, compared to the restricted sphere grid.  Even if gamers didn't like the gambit system or such, they could still revert to the old menu-based systems of past FF games.  There is enough here to please almost everyone.

     Potentially, I thought that FFXII could've been a lot better in terms of storyline.  The themes of the actual plot were pretty good and a nice change of pace from some of the previous FF games.  I did enjoy the more darker and mature storyline.  It was nice to see some realism this time around.  I'd much rather have this than some of the cheesier aspects of games such as FFX.  The pacing of the plot was something that left much to be desired.  Too few storyline developments at certain parts of the game and FFXII could've at least shown a few extra scenes regarding some backstories and implementing them better.  However, I do not think FFXII had a bad storyline.  It was still pretty good but given the high expectations and the very long development of FFXII, it is easily understandable why some people would be quite disappointed.  There are still some very good plot twists but you do actually have to pay more attention to the storyline as some aspects aren't exactly that clear and require a bit of thinking and analysis.  Minus a few questions, I thought that the ending did a good job being short and to the point.

    No Uematsu this time around, though I don't think it was that big of a problem.  The music tracks were nicely done with many tracks being a pretty good complement to the situation or atmosphere at hand.  Though, my only real complaint is that a few tracks were kind of generic and the game could've used a few more epic musical scores within it.  The music was far from being bad though, nor annoying.  The battle sound effects are crystal clear and very crisp sounding.  I'd say that it was still fairly decent.

     If you liked the battle system, then you will have a field day by enjoying the large amount of monster hunts and sidequests that this game has to offer.  Lots of interesting past FF references from a few optional bosses as well.  Including the extra bosses, hunts and sidequests, FFXII can easily take well over 150 hours to complete.  Those who may not enjoy the battle system might still get a kick out of trying to take down some of the super tough optional bosses that we have grown so accustomed to.

     One of the better FF games in recently memory.  Square-Enix managed to overhaul many of the existing gameplay aspects that were apparently getting stale and offered some very good new features in return.  Battles are now actually quite enjoyable and nowhere near as frustrating as random encounters were.  The battle speed and animations are very smooth and the gambit system saves a lot of tedious button pressing for common menu-commands.  The graphics are some of the best to ever grace the PS2, with amazing detail found in many of the diverse lands of Ivalice.  The music, while not a masterpiece by any means, is still solid with a decent arrangement of tracks.  The storyline is not bad, especially if you enjoy political based intrigue, treachery and corruption.  However, it could've been potentially a lot better and if implemented properly, had the makings of a true classic.  The pacing was especially poor in a few parts, which can be viewed as disappointing to some.  FFXII provides a lot of nice previous FF references and plenty of hunts/sidequests with should be able to provide even the most veteran FF gamer with well over 150 hours of playtime to complete everything.  The dungeon designs are excellent and quite large, to say the least.  Even though FFXII took over 5 years to finally see release, it is a pretty decent title and a worthy entry to the Final Fantasy series.

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Lyrics

Kiss Me Goodbye (Lyrics: Angela Aki, Music: Nobuo Uematsu)

You say my love is all you need to see you through
But I know these words are not quite true
Here is the path you're looking for, an open door
Leading to worlds you long to explore

Go, if you must move on alone
I'm gonna make it on my own

Kiss me good-bye, love's memory
Follow your heart and find your destiny
Won't shed a tear for love's mortality
For you put the dream in my reality

As time goes by I know you'll see this of me
I loved you enough to let you go free

Go, I will give you wings to fly
Cast all your fears into the sky

Kiss me good-bye, love's mystery
All of my life I'll hold you close to me
Won't shed a tear for love's mortality
For you put the dream in my reality

Kiss me good-bye, love's memory
You put the dream in my reality