“Endless Fantasy” – History of the Final Fantasy Series, Part II (FFVIII – FFXII)

Sometimes the paths of fate truly turn out to be inscrutable, when someone who soon intends to overtake the end not only bypasses, but also becomes the starting point on an extremely long and interesting path, pushing people facing the inevitability in their last impulse to create something that could shake the whole world, and at the same time fight back fate, and with the weapon that defeated him, move on, conquering new heights, like a banner.

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And the clearest example of such an outcome in the gaming industry is one of the pillars of the Japanese role-playing games genre – the series Final Fantasy.

We invite you to read the first part for complete understanding and immersion. And now.

Despite the fact that the spiritual leader of the series was busy with a film that had not yet foreshadowed failure, the main line continued to live, and the director of the next game was Yoshinori Kitase, who took part in the work on the 6th and 7th parts of Final Fantasy and another famous role-playing project of the studio – Chrono Trigger – and he worked in cooperation with general producer Cindy Hashimoto. The main concept laid down by Yoshinori was based on combining realism with fantasy, not limited to the plot component, but also extending to the design aspect, when for the first time in the history of the franchise, the characters became proportionally similar to real people and the height of each of them was 8 heads. Thanks to the efforts of artist Yusuke Naora, the universe of the game also turned out to be the most believable of all and elements similar to the real world, like gasoline-powered cars, began to be traced in it, and the three-dimensionality of the space itself outside of battle, where until now, however, the backdrops remained two-dimensional, with the ability to change the camera angle, gave even greater realism.

Gameplay outside of combat

The action took place on an unnamed planet, divided into 5 continents – Esthar, located in the east, which made up the largest part of the land; the second largest continent of Galbadia, which lay in the west and included the most locations; to the north was the Arctic region of Trabia; the south consisted of uninhabited island archipelagos and the continent of Centra; and the middle of the map was occupied by the smallest continent – Balamb. The agreed combination of realism and fiction was manifested in the fact that the world included both elements inherent in Japanese fantasy works and the architecture of the Western world, here often reminiscent of Greek, Egyptian and even incorporating Parisian landscapes, to the point that in one of the locations you can find an analogue of the Arc de Triomphe.

A landmark of the in-game city of Deling is the Gateway, the prototype for which was the Arc de Triomphe

Once every thousand years, a large-scale event occurs on this planet called the “Moon Cry”, during which the monsters living on the planet’s satellite rush to the surface of the earth in a stream, destroying entire nations, and it is on the threshold of the next “cry” that the world finds itself during the beginning of the game events, conducted on behalf of 6 characters, ignoring the still present episodic ones – the main character Squall Leonhart, who is in the service of the Garden – an independent military an academy that trains mercenaries to carry out ordered dangerous operations – a reserved but successful cadet wielding a gunblade – a hybrid of a sword and a pistol; military instructor Quistis Trip, who specializes in combat whip; academy graduate and hand-to-hand combat master Zell Dinch; a cheerful student from another Garden, Selphie Tilimitt, who fights with nunchucks;the emotionally unstable Rion Hartilly, who uses a device that fires explosive projectiles, resembling a crossbow, mounted on his arm; and Irwin Kinneas – a mercenary with a gun, extremely partial to the opposite sex.

Characters from left to right: Squall, Selphie, Irwin, Quistis, Zell and Rinoa

However, like most of the previous parts of the series, the main thread of the narrative is not immediately apparent and is led to by numerous other events that reveal the character of the central characters, such as the defense of the city from the Galbadian empire and the unsuccessful operation to capture the military dictator of the mentioned state, during which the heroes, who learned that he is under the influence of an evil witch, find themselves prisoners within the walls of the prison, and after escaping from it they are divided into 2 groups – stopping the missile strike of the Galbidian Garden on their academy and the second, seeking to evacuate people from the island, but soon activates a protective mechanism that lifts the entire Garden into the air, but at the same time cannot be piloted, due to which the entire academy crashes near a small fishing town, and the empire is looking for a girl named Ellona, who is met by the main character, who learns from her thatthat the strange dreams he had so far were pages of the past, which, according to the girl’s plan, the character could change at his discretion, but in the end he was only able to observe the events that led to the formation of such an aggressive state, however, even this ability of Ellona served as a useful weapon in the hands of the party.

Balamb Garden is the main character’s academy where the game begins

The game’s combat system was again transformed thanks to an extraordinary innovation, which consisted of the introduction of a system based on the summoning of special creatures – guardians – that were tied to each of the characters in order for the latter to receive special skills and increase their characteristics, as well as the ability to summon the creature itself to the battlefield, which increases its level as the game progresses, expanding the range of its capabilities and the bonuses given to it, among which there is also a binding of a spell to the hero’s weapon, thanks to which it became possible to use magic to improve the parameters of the characters and impose a special bonus, like fire damage from a physical attack when binding the corresponding type of spell, the use of which in this part was not constrained by the usual mana bar, and the number of uses in one battle was determined by the amount of magic of the same type available to the hero, obtained from energy sources,drawn from enemies during battle using the special “Draw” command and converted from inventory items.

Final Fantasy VIII Combat System

A significant feature was the updated system of enemy levels, which now depended on leveling up the characters directly under the control of the player, due to which the same types of opponents acquired new skills and abilities as they progressed, and the destruction of endless hordes of enemies on the world map for increasing the level of heroes did not have any particular significance, which gave the overall pace of the game greater uniformity and, in terms of complexity, balance, and also forced the player to rely entirely on the system bindings of the guardians, which even partially replaced the equipment in the new part – if the equipment continued to change, then the weapons of all the heroes were personal and permanent, amenable only to improvement.

Additional activities in the form of mini-games also did not pass over the 8th part, marking itself here in the form of the card game Triple Triad, based on the mechanics of CCG games common in Japan, in which players compete with each other, placing collectible cards depicting various monsters and objects on the field, trying to assemble the most powerful deck and developing their own battle strategy. Triple Triad was so loved by players, for some of whom the card game played a by no means secondary role in this part, that Bandai subsequently released real cards based on those presented in this “Fantasy”, amounting to 110.

Reviews from critics were contradictory, which does not negate the fairly high assessment of the game by the press as a whole, and among the shortcomings of Final Fantasy VIII, released on PlaySatation on February 11, 1999, they mainly pointed out the combat system, replete with an excessive number of abilities and the unhelpful function of calling guardians as party members on the battlefield, however, the few shortcomings were overshadowed by an interesting plot and the flexible and interesting combat system itself, which framed by a well-maintained aesthetic side in the form of pleasant graphics and musical accompaniment.

While working in Hawaii on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Hironobu Sakaguchi already had an idea for a new game part of the franchise, which was initially, however, planned as a branch of the main series, spiritually close to the classic parts, and he entrusted the work on it to two people – Hiroyuki Ito, responsible for developing the combat system of previous games and introducing ATB mechanics into it – real-time battles, professions in the 6th and materias in 7 parts, and this time he took on the role of director, which, however, was not the first time he got, because he had previously taken on such work when working on the 6th part, and the second person, already responsible for the visual aspect, was Hiroyuki Ito, who was the art director of the series and supervisor of the design component of the spin-off called Final Fantasy: Tactics, which was released in 1997m year and was strikingly different from the classic games of the series with different combat mechanics, based on the rules of tactical role-playing games, when the map of the battlefield was divided into sectors, through which characters moved step by step, divided into several classes, according to the strategy conceived by the player.

Final Fantasy: Tactics

The duo was entrusted with a superior team that worked on Final Fantasy VIII, more than half of which were American animators who had previously worked at Industrial Light and Magic – the studio that developed visual and special effects for films by George Lucas – and the other half came from the team of Sakaguchi himself, who worked on the film based on Fantasia.

In a manner unusual for the series, the action of the 9th part took place on several planets, the first of which – Gaia – is divided into 4 continents, and the only one of them that is completely populated – the Mist continent – was covered with a fog that was poisonous to people and animals, turning them into monsters, which is why most races – among which there are moogles familiar from previous games, and gnomes that have not previously appeared in Final Fantasy or people living in the swamp ku-a-large – were forced to settle on high ground, while at the same time using the darkness as fuel for many technical inventions, including airships. The second cosmic body that you will have to visit is ancient Terra, inhabited by peoples superior in development to the inhabitants of Gaia, but being in decline and forced to absorb other worlds, one of which becomes the home planet of the main characters, already torn by internal conflicts.

On the right is one of the representatives of the Ku-a-Large race and the playable character of the 9th part of Quinn Quinn

It is up to the young thief Zidin Tribal, one of the 7 characters in the party, to save the next universe. Under the cover of a theater troupe, he kidnaps the princess of the state of Alexandria, who is celebrating her sixteenth birthday. As it turns out, she was about to run away from home, but on the way to the customer, the “troupe” crashes on an airship, crashing in a hostile place called the “Dark Forest,” which is where the main story begins. a story in which, meeting the numerous inhabitants of Geia, the heroes will strive to stop the war of nations and stop the evil queen who provoked it, who turns out to be only a figure in the hands of more powerful forces. In the process of implementing the plot in a game form, it itself succumbed to repeated adjustments and, although without losing the original structure, it nevertheless acquired scenario moves that were different from those intended by Sakaguchi, modified by Hiroyuki Ito, like the kidnapping of a princess, which in the original version was not arranged by order, but for ransom.

And if the gameplay when exploring locations and the world map has not undergone any changes, with the exception of the absence of the need to constantly buy or catch chocobo riding birds, summoned in the 9th part in specially designated places with traces of their paws, then the combat system, still built on the ATB rules, has become significantly slower than in previous games in the series, despite Ito’s initial desire to make it, on the contrary, the most fleeting when the energy scale in the demo version of the game filled in a second, but such meditativeness allowed players to better calculate moves and build tactics, and also put less load on the processor of the first PlayStatation, which had a tendency to slow down during battles in the 7th part of the series. In addition to the duration of the battles, the changes also affected the characters themselves, unlike the two previous parts, they were again divided into classes predetermined by the developers and possessing unique skills, and the limits familiar from Final Fantasy VII and VIII were henceforth renamed “trances” and, to complicate the gameplay, after the battle they had to be accumulated again, but at the same time, the number of uses of the “ultimate attack” per battle was not limited.

Part 9 combat system

The system for heroes learning skills tied to equipment was also significantly simplified, only while wearing which they could use new techniques and magic, and the learning occurred while accumulating experience points, and when the hero received a sufficient number of them, the ability was considered learned and no longer required equipped equipment for its use. Combat abilities were not limited to, and now passive abilities also appeared – available for use outside of battle and imposing or removing certain effects on party members.

An additional element appeared in the https://slothypecasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ 9th part called Active Time Events, which allowed the player to learn about events occurring with non-playable characters while being at a great distance from them, and it was activated either at the request of the gamer, who chose to view the cut-scene or close the window with the offer, or, if the ATE is important from a plot point of view, then the player was transferred automatically.

Activie Time Event

The CCG was also present in this game called Tetra Master, however, the rules for conducting tabletop battles changed greatly and now they took place on a field measuring 4×4 cells, and when placing monsters, it was also necessary to indicate the direction in which they attacked and, if they looked at each other, entered into battle, and in the event of an attack from the rear, the attacked card became the property of the attacker, but a significant drawback was the fact that the game did not bring significant benefits, Unlike other mini-games, the variety of which this part differed from the previous one – among them there were catching frogs, jumping rope and hunting for treasures on chocobos. Also optional but beneficial were side quests, such as finding "chocograph" stones, which indicated the location of chests with useful items and upgrades for the chocobo – like the ability to fly or run on water – or courier activities, rewarded by reading funny letters and receiving useful items.

The return to the roots in terms of the setting was received very warmly by critics, along with the graphical and gameplay performance of Final Fantasy IX, although sometimes journalists, among the negative aspects, noted the unoriginality of the plot, which, however, was compensated by its emotionality and general detail, the game manual referring to the Internet site and too long battles, aggravated by frequent meetings with enemies on the world map – perhaps these shortcomings were the reason fewer copies of this part were sold compared to the 7th and 8th, which did not prevent it from becoming a favorite among some fans of the franchise.

Still continuing to work on the film, in 1999, Hironobu Sakaguchi entrusted the duties of the screenwriter of the next part of Fantasia, developed on the PlayStation 2, to Kazugise Nojima, who wrote the plot for the 7th and 8th games, working in cooperation with 3 other people from the studio due to the desire of the creators to introduce something new and hitherto unseen in the series into this part, what was the appearance of the voice acting of the characters – which delayed the writing of the plot due to the need to select actors – and the changed style of narration, thanks to which the main character learned new information about the world along with the player, and for the first time the drawing up of the concept of the Final Fantasy storyline took more than three months.

The named “Spira” world this time consisted of one large continent, surrounded by many small islands, and its intelligent population consisted of, in addition to humanity, 4 other new races – Al-Bed, Guado, Ronso and Gipello, who had the only type of transport that appeared in the series, which was, however, inaccessible to the player himself – the Shupafs – elephant-like creatures with a twisted trunk, moving well on water – and the surroundings The action combined South Asian and Pacific features, according to designer Tetsuya Nomura, borrowed from Thai and Hawaiian cultures and distinguished this part with a lighter and brighter palette. A feature of the universe are human souls, which after death remain in the form of clots of energy in the real world, in contact with each other they turn into monsters, and only through special rituals are sent to the abode of the dead – the Far Plains – and the ritual itself is carried out by special summoners, so named due to the ability, with the help of ghosts of faith – voluntarily imprisoned in statues of souls for communication with the described magicians – to materialize Aen, helping in battle.

For over a thousand years, the world has been under the influence of the dark powerful creature Sid, who ravages cities and destroys the lives of many people, and personifies human vanity and appeared after one of the most majestic cities of Spira, Zanarkand, was destroyed during the war. According to widespread religious teachings, only summoners who have made a pilgrimage to all the temples and developed their abilities can destroy the demon, after which they go to the ruins of a city destroyed a thousand years ago to fight with Sid, who is called upon to sacrifice a person close to the hero, usually part of his retinue in the form of “guardians”, and upon victory, the dark spirit leaves the world for several years, and the summoner himself dies – one of these was the father of the main companion hero Yuna, and the protagonist himself, named Tidus, is the captain of a team in the world-wide game of blitzball, but during one match, from which the narrative takes its starting point, his hometown is attacked by Sid, during which the central character is transported back in time and he learns that he himself also has the abilities of a summoner who is able to stop the demon that has ravaged his homeland.

The combat system in the new part was no longer built on the mechanics of Active Time Battle, but proceeded according to the rules of Condiiton Turn-Based Battle, according to which the fighters made moves, as in the very first parts of the series, one by one, depending on the speed characteristic, which was still increased in addition to obtaining a new level also with special accessories and spells, and on the battlefield itself only up to 3 heroes could be simultaneously present, during the battle itself, however, able to change places with those not participating in with members of the party, of which there are 7 in total in the game, which made it possible to use absolutely all characters during the battle. A special critical move is now called Overdriwe and, unlike all games in the main line since the 6th, where this function was introduced, what will be the method of filling the scale – whether by dealing damage, killing opponents, or by receiving damage – was assigned to the player himself, who, as he progressed, unlocked more and more ways to replenish Overdriwe. An important element were the summoned creatures of Aeons, when they appeared on the battlefield they replaced the character who materialized them – Yuna – and in terms of damage power were equal to the characteristics of her magical ability.

Combat in Final Fantasy X

The window for increasing characteristics and skills henceforth was a grid with numerous spheres on it, which, when leveled up, were activated to learn a new ability or improve a hero’s parameter, opening up access to other cells associated with it, which in turn were divided into several sections, which made it possible to make the character stronger in a particular selected category and determine the class most suitable to the player’s preferences, when it is possible to develop several characters in the same direction, taking into account, however, that they begin their path from different ends of the grid.

What distinguished this part from the previous ones was the absence of a global map here, on which the transition between various cities and continents was carried out in previous games in the series, and all locations in the 10th Final Fantasy were interconnected, and the transition to particularly long distances was carried out through ships traveling along a strictly defined route, and the airship that appeared at the personal disposal of the protagonist, with the help of which it was possible to select a destination in a few clicks – in view of this rethinking movement around the map, made for the sake of greater realism, the game became more linear, and optional locations to visit were limited to only two, one of which was secret.

On the first day of sales in Japan – July 19, 2001 – Final Fantasy X sold almost 2 million copies, when 1.5 million discs were pre-ordered even before the official release, which made this game one of the best-selling and considered one of the best for the second PlayStation. The plot and graphics became the main subject of good criticism in this game, but some journalists agreed that the new part did not receive a significant rethinking of the errors that migrated from game to game, since the system of hero development was a little more complicated than before, and some of the game journalists found a separate reason for negative reviews in the unsuccessfully translated and voiced dialogues in English, which radically changed the initially set tone.

This became the first game in the entire history of the series to have a direct sequel – Final Fantasy X-2, the plot of which took place 2 years after the end of the events of the first part and this time told about the companion of Tidus from it – Yuna – trying to stop the war unleashed between two powerful powers and seeking to learn the ancient history of Spira, and the plot itself had several ending options, manifested in additional videos shown after or before the main ending, depending on the achievements of the player himself and the percentage of his disclosure of the events of the game, half of which were now presented through additional, optional quests.

Of the gameplay differences from the previous part, an important one was the ability to choose the class of one of the 3 heroines, the prototype of which was the characters from the films “Charlie’s Angels” and “Tomb Raider” at the very beginning of the game, and which depended on the equipped special spheres that could be pumped up, abilities, thanks to which it was possible to customize a personal fighting style for each of the fighters and, during the fight itself, adjust the strengths of the selected girl to identify the weaknesses of the enemies with which to fight now proceeded again through the Active Time Battle system – in real time.

Combat in Final Fantasy X-2

In general, the game, released on March 13, 2003, was warmly received by critics and players, which was facilitated by a completely different atmosphere and somewhat different gameplay from the prequel, despite the similar location, which, at the same time, became the subject of reproaches from many game journalists for the reuse of many elements found in the original Final Fantasy X. The international version of the game – published only in the country of the manufacturer and supplemented with new content after entering the world market – called Final Fantasy X-2: International + Last Mission included 2 additional spheres, a newly introduced aspect in the form of demons summoned in battle, which were not present in the original, and the number of available fighters mentioned by the protagonists was not limited and could be trained for use in battles and some side heroes, like those present in the previous part, including himself Tidus, who appeared only in this one, and the number of such heroes themselves is 150, among which some had a personal ending when becoming companions. Also a key feature was the “Last Mission” featured in the title, which was an additional mini-story about the exploration of the ancient ruins of an ancient tower by the main heroine and her friends 3 months after the end of the events of the game, during which they shed light in conversations on some facts from their past and the biographies of some minor characters.

Tower from the additional scenario

On March 19, 2013, a graphically improved re-release collection of both the original Final Fantasy X and its sequel was released personally for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita game consoles, and it was called Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, and on May 12, 2016, the set became available on personal computers.

An extraordinary move on Square’s part was the next game in the main Final Fantasy line, which for the first time in the history of the series did not have a straightforward plot with a logical ending and was itself a representative of the still young and not world-famous, especially on consoles, MMORPG genre, the Western representatives of which were so liked by Sakaguchi that he decided, entrusting the project to the hands of the developers of Chrono Cross, to create his own multiplayer game, with ongoing actions in the newly imagined and unique world of Vana’diel, which includes a huge continent with all kinds of climatic zones – from dead and harsh glaciers to no less dangerous sultry deserts, stretching for many miles, and even having celestial locations, and the map itself was divided into numerous regions, divided into zones available for exploration,in addition to the wild landscapes, which also consisted of cities and caves integral to the direction chosen by the game, the joint clearing of which from monsters was one of the fundamental gameplay aspects.

According to the prehistory of Vana’diel, the universe was created as a large platform for creation and creativity, where deities and their children created by a magic crystal could live, but when the latter rushed to the heavens, the gods became angry and cast into the dark bosoms of the sea the creatures who decided to equal them, but the good goddess named Altanta was so upset that she could not hold back her crying, and from the 5th the tears she shed, new 5 intelligent species of creatures appeared, cursed by the ruler of twilight Promatia, who condemned Altanta, who doomed them to eternal enmity among themselves and populated the lands with bloodthirsty creatures, along with wars, which prevented the races, having united again, to begin the construction of another staircase to heaven.

The gameplay began 20 years after the end of the most destructive war in history, called the “Crystal”, where several countries nevertheless, contrary to the will of the dark goddess, cooperated and opposed one of the main threats to the very existence of all five races – the shadow lord and his followers in the face of myriads of intelligent demons, but the hard-won victory led to new outrages, which players will have to cope with, in addition to this in the plot additions, of which only for the 11th part of 5, going back in time to change the outcome of some stages of the military conflict and even visiting a parallel universe, where the lord emerged victorious in bloodshed.

The Dark Lord is the main antagonist of the 11th part

Before plunging into an interesting world, the player was asked to decide which representative of which race, and with it the country, to take control of, and the choice was given from all created beings – the Elvans, shackled by Promatia by the sin of arrogance, the most skilled race in the military craft, at the same time lagging behind others in terms of the level of development of the social system; Humes, who were equally good at the seven crafts, but were given over to eternal apathy; the most tenacious and hardy jackdaws, all of whom had a meager supply of magical power to cast spells and were torn apart by unbridled rage; mitres, predominantly consisting of the only female representatives available for selection, famous for the art of hunting and endowed with the necessary dexterity for this, being the most envious of all creatures; and the most intellectually and spiritually developed Tarutaru,in appearance similar to children and given over to the curse of cowardice. After choosing the race itself, the player could customize the appearance of his hero, on the screen for creating a more detailed character than in the game itself, choosing from pre-prepared options the face, hair color and hairstyle he liked, and then deciding on one of the 22 professions, as in other parts of the series, equivalent in value to the class in most role-playing games, but optionally changed during the adventures, like the 2nd specialty acquired later.

The gameplay was mainly concentrated on the PvE – joint completion of quests – component, and, having united in parties, which did not exclude the possibility of single-player play, the players completed both story and side tasks, in a manner favorable for multiplayer games, mostly performed with a share of creativity and not limited to assignments for the routine destruction of hordes of identical enemies or collecting items, the few present of which were also beaten with enthusiasm, and the battle between other players took place on a strictly designated territory, where representatives of different states converged, crossing blades for the right to own their country in a specific region, and with a favorable outcome of the battle, better equipment at a lower price appeared in the stores of the winning side.

The battles themselves were built in real time and were based on the classical principles of MMMORPG, when each player in the party occupies a certain place, depending on the chosen class and the direction in which he is improving, be it a tank taking all the damage or a healer treating allies during the battle, but the game nevertheless adopted some features of the battle system from its predecessors, including the already called “finishing” technique, when, as damage is dealt to the enemy, the character accumulates an energy bar, eventually used to deliver a strong blow.

Part 12 combat system

In addition to walking, the methods of moving around the vast world were both personal vehicles in the form of chocobo birds familiar from previous parts, like the game character, capable of wearing equipment that increases their characteristics, and public ones – airships, special Lumoria teleports, ferries and 2 types of fishing ships that were constantly attacked by sea monsters and pirates resurrected from the dead. Also, in addition to the specified game elements, in the 11th part there was also trade, which for many represented the main source of income, due to the rather modest amount of money that could be obtained by killing enemies or completing most tasks.

Released in the Japanese market on May 16, 2002 and the American market on March 23, 2004 for the PlayStation, and later ported to PC and Xbox 360, Final Fantasy XI, which required a monthly subscription fee of $5 after purchasing the full version, received favorable reviews, and especially players and journalists were attracted by the friendliness, despite the cumbersome interface, of this MMORPG, and the unconventional control system and the shallow depth of the PVP mode resulted in negative criticism.

A little less than a year later – on April 1, 2003 – a merger took place between the company Square, famous for its Final Fantasy series, and its main competitor, responsible for the development of games such as Dragon Quest and Valkyrie Profile, Enix, which was facilitated by the exchange of shares of the two game studios, as a result of which the latter bought out more of them, actually absorbing the company once created by Masafumi Miyamoto, whose president at the time of the buyout of the shares was Eichi Wada, despite this course of affairs, nevertheless took the corresponding position in the newly formed corporation – Square Enix – like most of the other Square employees who led the internal life of the corporation.

Work on the next part of the main series began in 2001, but the original producer, screenwriter and director of the game all in one – Yasumi Satsuno – was forced to give way to Hiroshi Minagawa due to health problems, in addition to directing, who was also responsible for visual effects and character textures, working on the 12th Final Fantasy in cooperation with executive producer Akitoshi Kawazu. Together with battle designer Hiroshi Tomomatsu, they somewhat rethought one of the key features of the series – random encounters with enemies that occurred spontaneously while exploring locations or the world map, calling the new system "Active Dimension Battle", which now made it possible to see walking opponents outside the battle mode and instantly engage in battle with them without switching to a separate arena screen, which was one of the few hitherto unseen in Final Fantasy, bypassing attention online game, innovations that did not remain an abstract concept of a new project, in contrast to the hiring of special monster hunters or the introduction of a cooperative mode for two players that did not see the light of day.

Map of the Ivalice region

It was also unusual that now the scene of action was not the entire planet called Ivalice and which had previously appeared in Final Fantasy: Tactics and the spin-off of the series in the Rogulike genre of 2000 – Vagrant Story, but only a separate region of the same name, most of which was occupied by 2 powerful powers waging war on each other – the Rosarian and Arcadian empires, and the rest of the lands were the former possessions of the destroyed by the Arcadians 2 years before the start of the main events of the game, the kingdom of Nabradia, the country of Dalmasca, prospering due to trade, and Bhujerba, located in the skies, voluntarily and forcibly sided with the Arcadian Empire in a military matter.

Wedding of Ashe and Rasler

Compared to other universes created over the entire existence of the series, the world of Ivalice was distinguished by a more detailed political aspect and special attention in the games where it serves as the setting was given to the courtly ups and downs, and in the 12th game in particular to the inexorable expansion of the Arcadian Empire, which in the introductory video occupies the kingdom of Dalmasca on the wedding day of Prince Rasler and Princess Ashe, and later the young husband dies in battle for the fortress of Nalbina, which falls into the hands of the enemy, which forces the king of the country to go to sign the capitulation, but upon arrival he is ambushed by the military leader Basch von Ronsenburg, who betrayed him, who also killed all his knights, including Rex, who was assigned to the player during training, before his death he witnessed the murder of the king at the hands of the army commander. Before the end of the prologue, the Marquis of the heavenly city of Bhujerba, who tells the story, sums up the tragic events, according to which the occupation of Dalmasca was completed successfully, Bash was executed for treason, and Princess Ashe, who was also the narrator’s niece, upon learning of her husband’s fate, committed suicide.

After two years, the narrative focuses on the brother of the late knight Rex – seventeen-year-old Vaan, who at the age of 12 was left without parents who died during the plague epidemic, and is now forced to earn a living by carrying out various assignments in the store of the merchant Migelo, in his free time picking pockets, stealing mainly from the soldiers of Arcadia as revenge, and honing in the sewers of the capital of Dalmasca fighting skills on giant rats, receiving the nickname “rat exterminator” for this, by his nature, at the same time being, despite everything that happened to him in his short life, a very cheerful young man, dreaming of one day acquiring his own airship and becoming a pirot.

One night, the main character sneaks into the former royal palace of Dalmasca, now the residence of the Arcadian consul, in order to steal the mineral magicite – a magic crystal necessary for the operation of airships – but after the theft he meets with the real air pirate Balthier and his assistant Phryne, who also came for the consul’s jewelry, running down the drain with them when the building itself is stormed by resistance forces, and meeting under the city with the leader of the rebel group, Princess Ashe, hiding under the name Amalia, who, along with Vaane and the pirates, is captured by the guards, sending the thieves to prison. In the dungeon, they meet another prisoner – the former commander of the Dalmascan troops – Bash, who tells that it was not he who killed the king, but his twin brother Garbant, and after this story, the young thief, his pirate companions and the dishonored commander escape from the dungeon in order to prevent the forces of Arcadia together with Ashe, in which they are also joined by Vaan’s childhood friend – Penelo, whose parents died in the war adopted the orphaned protagonist along with his brother, and now the girl herself considered it her duty to look after the hero, helping him on a difficult journey.

Thanks to a more serious and dramatic plot, in comparison with the previous parts, the game raised questions of a corresponding nature, be it related to revenge, when Vaan and Penelo blame the Arcadia empire for the death of their parents, however, when they meet Lars – a 12-year-old idealistic boy with pacific views, from the dynasty of rulers of the empire – they slowly change their views, or related to the topic of personal freedom of man and his past, from which they are trying many heroes escape, like Ashe, who wants to return the throne that was unjustly taken from her dynasty, or Vaan, who believes that becoming a pirate he will be free to travel the world and do what he considers necessary.

This part marked itself as the first among the single-player games of the main line, where battles no longer took place in a step-by-step mode, not without the ability, however, to pause the battle and pause for adjustments through the old window of action commands of party members, now controlled by artificial intelligence, which, like the player, had the ability to freely move around the perimeter of the battlefield to use tactical maneuvers, be it diverting an attack or coming from the rear, and the characters now delivered the main blows, similar to the implementation of this in MMO games automatically, without spending any points to use them. The very same switching between 3 fighting party members in battle occurred freely, if this was not prevented by the scenario conventions of a particular battle, which made it possible to take the situation in relation to one or another party member into one’s own hands in case of questionable actions of the AI ​​and, if he fell in battle or was ineffective, replace him with another fighter from the inactive ones. In addition to the interface, which was similar to that present in previous parts, every time a player collided with enemies, he was accompanied by a new element – indicators in the form of lines that showed the target chosen by the enemy or hero and, depending on the actions, changed their color palette, allowing the player to be aware of all the events happening around him at any time.

Final Fantasy XII Combat System

However, the modified combat system did not lose the tactical aspect beloved by many fans of the series, manifested in the ability to customize a system of gambits outside of combat, introduced by Hiroyuki Ito so that the experience of battles would be as close as possible to that in the previous part and would resemble an online game, when in a special window it was proposed to program the behavior of heroes in certain situations, giving the character a goal in relation to which he performed this or that action – for example, protection or the use of magic – and after creating several such gambits to determine their priority in relation to each other, on which the order of actions performed by the fighter depended, which, however, does not negate the ability of the player himself during the battle to continue to operate with special commands, which in this case have the highest priority and are executed first. The only allies whose behavior could not be adjusted through this system were summoned espers, which the player received when defeating them as opponents.

One of the summoned espers in the 12th part is Khashmal

The system for increasing the characteristics of the main characters in the 12th game did not undergo any radical changes and, as before, as experience points accumulated when defeating enemies, the party members’ level increased, and with it the supply of magic and health, however, in addition to experience, the player received license points for each of the central characters, spent on a special screen, similar in appearance to a chessboard, to acquire the right to use one or another type of accessory, magic or weapon, as well as the necessary to unlock special techniques called “quickening” – 3 types of strong attacks unique to each hero, which could be combined with each other to cause the greatest damage.

Released on March 16, 2006, Final Fantasy XII received very positive reviews from the press for its excellent script, graphics and voice acting, as well as a whole series of innovative ideas that most players liked regarding combat mechanics and leveling up characters, which, however, were not without criticism, according to which the system for customizing the behavior of party members was overly difficult to master for players not accustomed to strategic mechanics, which did not affect the recognition of the next part of “Fantasy” by many magazines as the best game of the year and, in general, the fact that it became the most highly rated of all parts of the series released on the PlayStation 2.

And this was the second game from the main line, which received a direct plot continuation, this time released on the portable platform Nintendo DS in 2006 under the name Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings and telling the story of Vanna, who nevertheless fulfilled his dream of becoming an air pirate, together with the heroes familiar from the original part and some new characters, heading on his own airship to the shores of the legendary celestial continent of Lemures with the goal, like many pirates who rushed there, was to take possession of the countless riches of the Floating Lands, which consisted of several islands with temples and buildings of the indigenous population scattered across them – the Eguls – a separate race that outwardly resembled people, but, unlike them, had huge wings behind their backs, and one of the natives – Llyud – subsequently even becomes a full-fledged member of the party,being rejected by relatives for communicating with strangers.

Due to the fact that the Nintendo DS audience was largely unfamiliar with the Final Fantasy series, and the 12th game in particular, which was released for the PS2, it was decided to create an absolutely unique and hitherto unseen in the history of the franchise mechanics that would suit and appeal to both the old audience and new players, which gave the world a real-time strategy game where it is necessary to summon one of 3 types of espers to the battlefield – the melee combat, shooters and flyers – and giving them orders using the stylus on the bottom screen of the console to destroy, not without strategic tricks to which the opponent also resorted, hordes of enemies, which was also helped by 5 main characters, who were assigned the role of “leaders”, endowed with a large number of hit points and possessing unique abilities.

Gameplay during battle in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

The main gameplay did not undergo significant changes and still consisted of reading numerous dialogues, exploring the world, in which, due to the lack of mini-games, there were side quests, and purchasing equipment at the ship’s bench in the form of armor, weapons, magic and stones to summon a certain type of espers. In addition, a new element appeared, called “synthesis,” which made it possible, having a special recipe and materials, to create weapons and armor.

Gameplay outside of combat

On average, the game received positive reviews, and the solution with a more simplified and non-trivial gameplay, aimed at an audience unfamiliar with the original series, really appealed to the majority of gamers – even those for whom Final Fantasy was by no means alien. The most negatively criticized aspect was only the highlighting of certain areas on the battlefield with the stylus, when it was necessary to heal or attract a certain unit, because doing this among the many small pixels that are always in motion sometimes became difficult.

Worked on the project:
Author of the text —Sherl
Transferring material to StopGame —
LampyCat
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