Final Fantasy XII

There was a time when I was extremely excited about this game, despite the fact that I didn't like a single thing I heard about it in the umpteen previews I read. "It's Final Fantasy," I told myself. "Everything will be alright." So I preordered the game, which I've never, ever done for any game before (closest I'd come was sneaking away from work for a few during lunch to pick up Halo 2 the day it launched), and I eagerly counted down the days to its release. Nick will tell you it was pretty ridiculous.

And then I actually played it, and it sucked the excitement right out of me. Forty-five hours later, I'm seriously thinking about switching back to the original Shadow Hearts.

I don't care what anybody says; this is not Final Fantasy.

The battle system, first off, is all over the place. It lacks the refinement of the old turn-based system, making fights feel like out-of-control free-for-alls. Strategy against tougher foes seems restricted to this method: get your ass kicked, leave to level up, try again. If your characters simply aren't strong enough, there's no way in fuck you can possibly outsmart the opposition and pull out an upset. None of your moves hit hard enough, and none of your protection abilities protect you well enough. And the lack of any real strategy leads to an almost complete lack of drama. The only time I find the combat exciting is when I've got one or two hits left on a boss and all my characters are about to die, and it's one shot left to determine whether I win or if I have to start over and spend another half hour pounding on this fucker to see if I'm lucky enough to be able to beat it. I guess the drama comes from not wanting to have to go through that whole thing again.

Contrast this, say, to Final Fantasy X, where I'd regularly get lost in the tension of a boss battle and not notice certain important things, like the fact that it got dark outside or that it's time to feed the Best Toaster Ever. And every boss had that one trick that you had to figure out in order to beat him.

But the big problem is the story. I've stuck with the game as long as I have because I figured eventually it was going to go somewhere. We've got a princess trying to reestablish her kingdom amidst a war between two huge empires...and with her, we have a bunch of cardboard cutouts. I genuinely don't give a crap about any of them, and the game doesn't seem to give a crap that I don't give a crap. Take, for example, the scene where the rabbit lady goes back to her village and is universally shunned for leaving. She obviously knew this was going to happen when she made that decision...but we never find out why she did what she did. What, exactly, was her motivation? Here was an opportunity to take one of those cardboard cutouts and give it a little life...and it was completely, utterly wasted. Just piss poor storytelling, and something you'll never see in any of my future best sellers.

This lack of interesting characters is a huge difference from previous entries in the series. In VIII, I really wanted to see what was going to happen to Squall and Rinoa, despite the fact that I absolutely hated the whole "we all knew each other but we forgot because of the magic we use duh." In X, I wanted to see what was going to become of everybody, and I enjoyed seeing these people interact during their travels (I'm convinced that the people in XII never actually talk to each other...ever...about anything, despite the fact that they're spending all this time together). I'll even admit to getting a little misty when Yuna stumbled right through the fading Tidus at the end, and I really wanted to see if she could find a way to bring him back in X-2.

Ok, I'm through whining...the Best Toaster Ever wants chocolate cream pie.