There is no C in Final Fantasy XII

Mood: #$*^$*%&!!!!
Currently suffering from: Gaming ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)

*WARNING: This post may be disturbing to some readers, particularly to Square-ENIX fanboys (C is an ex-fanboy). The Letter C exposes Final Fantasy XII and falsely portrays it to be a crap game (no, seriously, it scales 11/10 on the crap scale). If you are a Square-ENIX fanboy/fangirl, then The Letter C wishes to express our sincere condolences now because this post may make you cry (by "may" we mean "most certainly", and by "cry" we mean "shoot yourself"). If our subliminal messaging has taken effect, please, do what you have to do now and save yourself the pain of finding out the truth, because Square-ENIX is the devil.


Final Fantasy XII: The Review
The Letter C

Final Fantasy XII was prominently released several weeks ago (maybe even months ago) in North America. As copies were being imported from America, I received news that pirates had raided the ship that carried the goods. For this very reason, I, through some semi-reliable sources, was able to obtain a copy of the game and thought it was absolutely necessary for me to share my impressions with the world.

Storyline: 11/10
Basically, Final Fantasy XII's story is a lot like Bravehearts(actually, I am not really quite sure if there are similarities at all). Anyways, the main character is a nobody named Vain who, ironically is some stupid whiny kid who is pretty vain. Throughout the game you will find him beating up anybody who disses his absolutely horrible haircut. I mean, get a grip dude. And then there's your heroine, a Joan of Arc-esque princess named Ash (no relation to Ash Ketchum from Pokemon). I don't wanna spoil anything but basically you can already tell from her name that she dies halfway through the game only to be resurrected as a character called Phoenix.

Quite early on in the game, you will see a lot of cutscenes which look like they were taken from Star Wars, Troy, Laputa (a Miyazaki film) and Nausicaa (another Miyazaki film). And during such a scene, you get to meet the "bad good guy" of the game, Balthazar and his Playboy bunny sidekick Francine. Balthazar wields a gun and also wears shiny dangly earrings of +10 metrosexuality and also speaks with a British accent which gives him around +1000 to his sex appeal stat. Francine uses a bow and talks like Yoda. Her voice is also a bit hard to listen to. My guess is that you will kick her out of the party as soon as possible because nobody I know can stand her.

Vain also has a girlfriend named Penpal who is a bit of teenybopper. The saddest thing is that Penpal has to save Vain's ass all the time and that she's actually stronger than him. The last of our heroes is a guy named Brass. I also thought this was a funny name when I played it. He's the ubertank of the game and it's likely you'll want to send him to the frontlines to die because he doesn't do much otherwise. He has an evil twin who betrayed the whole country and beat their king at a game of chess. Unfortunately the king was drunk on some Brandy and wagered the rights to his kingdom to the invaders from a much larger place called Archerland.

The jist of FFXII's story is that there are two huge kingdoms (bigger than an Xbox), named Archerland and Roseland at war. Unfortunately, the little region called Dalmascus (which where our heroes find themselves) is right inbetween these two big countries. At the start of the game we find Archerland's forces having penetrated Dalmascus' only outpost and it is taken under Archerlandian rule. Dalmascus is only the size of a Nintendo Gameboy Advanced SP (that is pretty darn small) and thus get absolutely WPWNED. The whole story is about how our heroes try to bring peace back to their kingdom while preserving their popcorn harvest, because apparently popcorn is the biggest thing in Dalmascus right now.

Graphics: 4/10
Absolute crap. Final Fantasy XII looks like it was made for the N64. Other than that, I see no difference in the graphics of Final Fantasy XII from something like Dance Dance Revolution. They look pretty darn similar to me.

*NOTE: C may need new glasses.

Sound: 2/10

Sound is where Final Fantasy XII really shines. If you've played Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced before, and got totally sick of that upbeat adventury music, prepare yourself to get sick of it all over again. After examining the tracklist for the FFXII OST and comparing to the FFTA OST, I found out that all they did was rename every song. Square-ENIX must have been suffering from some huge budget cuts.

Gameplay: 5/10

Gameplay in FFXII is nothing like any previous Final Fantasy. For true strategy lovers like myself, FFXII is like heaven. This game also allows you to program AI for the rest of your party, so you don't have to control everyone individually. Think Star Ocean 3. I didn't like SO3's battle system but I sure as hell like FFXII's. Running around is also not such a pain, in certain levels you can totally avoid battle by going through Solid Snake style. I mentioned to my good buddy Benson as I watched him play for 4 hours straight that, "This level reminds me of Metal Gear Solid." He did not respond to me for the next 5 hours after that.

Originality: 1/10
Our adventure with FFXII was extremely shortlived due to our game reviewer's Gaming ADD (ask C for more information on his self-invented geek illness). Yet, when C felt compelled to return to the game, his save file had corrupted overnight and had him kicking over the TV and made 2 holes in the wall. As this post is receiving its finishing touches, C is sitting quietly in the TLC office playing FFXII like a high school kid. He is bound to have a seizure soon, so stay tuned for photos.

To give a nutshell of how "original" Final Fantasy XII really is, let us use elementary mathematics as an illustration:

Final Fantasy XII = Star Wars + Laputa: Castle In The Sky + Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind + Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time + Troy + Final Fantasy X + Final Fantasy XI + Warcraft III

Yes. That is what Final Fantasy XII is. Readers beware. Many thought Final Fantasy IX was unoriginal (because it was like playing FF - FFVI), but Final Fantasy XII absolutely tops that. You may have to play it to believe it, but we would strongly advise against it to spare you the horrific death of your childhood. As we watched the opening movie and the first few FMVs and got a feel for the storyline, we realized that all FFXII was was a overkilled uber-crossover from everything in the equation above. It killed us inside, it really did. Everyone at The Letter C observed a minute of silence for this horrible tragedy, and then we resumed playing Guitar Hero 3 with the subsequent smashing of a guitar controller over C's head. He was so engrossed into FFXII he did not notice his own blood had splattered all over our plasma television.

Overall: -120/10 (give or take 1000)

All up, lets take a look at how we arrived at this score:

-15 for having an annoying hero

-8 for using scenes from Star Wars

-80 for using scenes from Troy

-9 for resembling Dance Dance Revolution

-3 for not resembling Guitar Hero 3

-100 for being more addictive than World of Warcraft

+50 for saving The Letter C $16 a month on World of Warcraft

+2 for beautiful intro

+4 for average looking heroine

+7 for Balthazar's dangly man earrings

-12 for having a teenybopper character

-5 for being singleplayer

-1000 for being a Final Fantasy