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In lieu of the gross oversimplification of this game provided above or below this definition, I would like to say that Final Fantasy XII, an RPG published by Square-Enix for the Sony Play Station 2, is brilliantly distinguishable from its 11+ predecessors in the Final Fantasy series by its high production values, extravagant voice acting, a plot line easily identifiable as a blatant rip-off of Star Wars yet so intricate that it's more than forgivable if you're a fan of the series.
Essentially, if you liked LucasArts' Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic series for Xbox and PC for its gameplay, then you will have nothing against FFXII's gameplay. If you liked Star Wars Episodes IV-VI for their creepy-cult-forming stories, then you will fall in love with FFXII, because 90% of what made up A New Hope great is there: the princess without a kingdom, the orphaned boy with an above-average destiny from the desert, his slightly less-important side-kick, the knight of an extinct order, the awesome pirate that men envy and women adore, and his tall, dark, and fuzzy sidekick who used to live in a realm of gigantic trees. Hell, S-E even threw in their own Cloud City, complete with a Lando-character! But he's white and has a funny accent.
Since I cannot respectably portray the plot of this game without spoiling it, I will just go to say that you will not finish this game in the time you can finish KotOR, which took approximately 40 hours, and FFXII has already eaten up 55 hours of my time, and I'm not even halfway through it.
If you played Final Fantasy X and thought the Sphere Grid was too linear in terms of character stat development, then you will probably enjoy FFXII's mode of development, the License Board, in which you have total control of your character's spell development, weapons and armor that he or she can equip, and even which 2 of the 12 total Espers in the game that they can summon.
If you played FFX and thought that the Overdrives were over the top, then you haven't mopped the floor with the faces of boss characters until you've made use of the Quickening system. In contrast to the other games in the series, where each character has a few unique, super powerful attacks that they are able to use one at a time after they've charged their gauge, FFXII gives each character 3 fully offensive attacks that can be CHAINED together with the Quickenings from two other party members for a powerful combo capable of felling bosses before they can lay a hand on you. But, there's a couple of caveats: one, the MP gauge, also known as your Mist Gauge, is shared by both your magic AND your Quickenings, and two, it's also your Summoning gauge. So, you can't summon a monster, perform magic powerful magic, and then unload some serious pain with a Mist Chain without using some ethers or elixirs (if you have only one Quickening unlocked, that is). But, on the plus side, each Quickening you acquire on the License board will give you 100% more Mist at your disposal, so technically, you CAN do all three MP related actions if you have acquired all 3 Quickenings for your character.
If you liked being able to set behaviors in the KotOR series for your party members, in FFXII, you can fully automate your characters that you aren't directly controlling through the use of fully customizable instructions for them to follow, called Gambits. Of course, due to the nature of the Gambits, it takes a bit of practice to remember to check and re-customize these gambits for each area you visit or each enemy you fight, because you don't want your characters to be sitting around casting Shell on each other when you're being ravaged by melee fighters, or sitting around casting any magic when you want to save their Mist Charges for Quickenings and Summons.
For full reviews of the game, try a site like GameSpy, or IGN.
Essentially, if you liked LucasArts' Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic series for Xbox and PC for its gameplay, then you will have nothing against FFXII's gameplay. If you liked Star Wars Episodes IV-VI for their creepy-cult-forming stories, then you will fall in love with FFXII, because 90% of what made up A New Hope great is there: the princess without a kingdom, the orphaned boy with an above-average destiny from the desert, his slightly less-important side-kick, the knight of an extinct order, the awesome pirate that men envy and women adore, and his tall, dark, and fuzzy sidekick who used to live in a realm of gigantic trees. Hell, S-E even threw in their own Cloud City, complete with a Lando-character! But he's white and has a funny accent.
Since I cannot respectably portray the plot of this game without spoiling it, I will just go to say that you will not finish this game in the time you can finish KotOR, which took approximately 40 hours, and FFXII has already eaten up 55 hours of my time, and I'm not even halfway through it.
If you played Final Fantasy X and thought the Sphere Grid was too linear in terms of character stat development, then you will probably enjoy FFXII's mode of development, the License Board, in which you have total control of your character's spell development, weapons and armor that he or she can equip, and even which 2 of the 12 total Espers in the game that they can summon.
If you played FFX and thought that the Overdrives were over the top, then you haven't mopped the floor with the faces of boss characters until you've made use of the Quickening system. In contrast to the other games in the series, where each character has a few unique, super powerful attacks that they are able to use one at a time after they've charged their gauge, FFXII gives each character 3 fully offensive attacks that can be CHAINED together with the Quickenings from two other party members for a powerful combo capable of felling bosses before they can lay a hand on you. But, there's a couple of caveats: one, the MP gauge, also known as your Mist Gauge, is shared by both your magic AND your Quickenings, and two, it's also your Summoning gauge. So, you can't summon a monster, perform magic powerful magic, and then unload some serious pain with a Mist Chain without using some ethers or elixirs (if you have only one Quickening unlocked, that is). But, on the plus side, each Quickening you acquire on the License board will give you 100% more Mist at your disposal, so technically, you CAN do all three MP related actions if you have acquired all 3 Quickenings for your character.
If you liked being able to set behaviors in the KotOR series for your party members, in FFXII, you can fully automate your characters that you aren't directly controlling through the use of fully customizable instructions for them to follow, called Gambits. Of course, due to the nature of the Gambits, it takes a bit of practice to remember to check and re-customize these gambits for each area you visit or each enemy you fight, because you don't want your characters to be sitting around casting Shell on each other when you're being ravaged by melee fighters, or sitting around casting any magic when you want to save their Mist Charges for Quickenings and Summons.
For full reviews of the game, try a site like GameSpy, or IGN.
Final Fantasy XII scored well according to many respected reviewers. I like it better than FFX, personally. Square-Enix has outdone themselves in this PS2 classic.
by aka_Pyro November 25, 2007
Get the Final Fantasy XII mug.A bar skag without a bar.
A hideous, nocturnal bar-dwelling groupie/parasite that is at least 2 decades older than its target audience: drunken, desperate young men and middle aged men willing to engage in conversation with any thing they can fuck without it being considered gay.
A hideous, nocturnal bar-dwelling groupie/parasite that is at least 2 decades older than its target audience: drunken, desperate young men and middle aged men willing to engage in conversation with any thing they can fuck without it being considered gay.
by aka_pyro April 8, 2007
Get the skig-skag mug.1. To give one's information "as truthfully as possible." Taken from an old Roman phrase "to swear on one's testicles." Now, think about that, and think about how differently court cases would turn out if that meaning held true to this day...
by aka_Pyro July 28, 2007
Get the testify mug.A famous video game console created by Microsoft. In its heyday, it had copious 1st and 3rd party support, in the form of game such as Halo: Combat Evolved by in-house developer Bungie Studios, and the GTA series by Rockstar Studios. This balance of developing and publishing power has earned the Xbox a reputation synonymous with socialism.
The Xbox, while having received a bad rap for being a product of Microsoft, was not unsuccessful, spawning the next system, the Xbox 360 in 2005.
by aka_Pyro May 13, 2008
Get the Xbox mug.The domain of bandwagon losers, retards, wannabes of all sorts (i.e. wiggers and camera whores), skanks, skig-skags and scalawags, akin to Battle.net, but not nearly as fun.
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by aka_Pyro April 6, 2007
Get the myspace mug.The Phonics Monkey from that one episode of South Park where Cartman misspelled CHAIR in a spelling bee. When Cartman tried to get help from the phonics monkey, it just started beating off behind its drumbset.
A consumer report included the growing number of returns of the infamous reading product, the Phonics Monkey, which just turns out to be a degenerate species of bonobo chimp.
by aka_Pyro April 6, 2007
Get the Phonics Monkey mug.A dude who's a total dick to everyone not like him, and basically the semen used to impregnate his prostitute mother was infected with a sexually transmitted DNA retrovirus that alters the DNA of diploid cells shortly before meiosis begins. Thus, it's perfectly ok to execute him for being a crime against humanity because, technically, he's not a human, and he must be removed from the gene pool ASAP.
-That guy's a total STD.
by aka_Pyro April 6, 2007
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