Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age Standard Edition - PlayStation 4

It's a good game that even holds up to this day. My only complaint is some of the textures on the environment look dated.

I always give every FF game a chance but rarely finish one of them as they often lose me at some point in their very long campaigns. I didn’t play the original FFXII but I did enjoy this updated version for various reasons. The upgrade system for your squads attritibutes and combat abilities is very flexible and feels rewarding. It reminds me most of the FFX sphere grid but with a bit more options. The combat is different than other FFs as it is not turn based but more of a live action auto attack setup that also relies on you setting up pre determined auto actions for each character called “gambits” and it works surprisingly very well. The story is overall intriguing and good enough to keep you engaged, with a fair amount of beautiful cutscenes and interesting landscapes. My one very major gripe that almost led to me quitting halfway through is the lack of/overall complexity of navigation and direction. It is frustratingly difficult at times to know exactly where you are supposed to be going. The areas are almost all connected to each other which in and of itself is nice but there’s no easily accessible overall world map that would show you which direction to head. On top of that there are sometimes not markers on the minimap to give you an inkling of what general area you should be heading, leading to you sometimes wasting minutes and hours roaming into areas you shouldn’t be in yet and getting slaughtered by high ranking mobs. There are a handful of teleportation areas but they are too few between and also require you to use up one of your teleport stones to access. I just feel like a couple minor quality of life choices could have made this very good RPG a perfect one, while still allowing the player to enjoy exploration of the vast world created here.

I loved the game the first time around, and now that it's on the PS4 I'm getting feels once again. The fast forward feature is AMAZING for grinding, brings the fun back into the game instead of spending an hour or two in one area I can continue with the story (which is what I'm all about with the FF franchise). If you loved it the first time around, or are just a fan of the Final Fantasy series in the first place, it's a must have.

I liked Final Fantasy XII a lot back when it came out on PS2 but I felt the story and the music were not as good as past games and the game was very grind heavy. There isn't enough story between these characters and the story is mostly uninteresting politics which feels distant from you because large parts of the story, your role is basically to be sent from place to place and not much happens during. This remaster has a new job system which basically just limits you. It has you make important job choices early on and doesn't allow you to change them once you have a better grasp of them and it doesn't really add to the game only limits it. You could claim it makes the game harder but I found this remaster overall much easier. What's worse is the game doesn't give you the option for the original system. The game slightly improves on the original games graphics and music and the speed up function improves on the grinding aspect to the game but also make it very easy to over level and become way too easy. I find it extremely pathetic when a developer makes a remaster worse than the original. My mind fails to comprehend such a high level of incompetence. When I play this again, i will be back with the PS2 version as I hate the new job system.

This game recieved a lot of hate when it was released since it was so much different than the previous Final Fantasys and turn based JRPGs. Instead of giving the nod for trying something new, they got bashed for it. The remaster is great but the main character is lame and unappealing where it feels like you are the one witnessing the more interesting story from the other characters.