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When Final Fantasy XII came out for the PlayStation 2 more than a decade ago, it was treated with something close to wariness by fans of the franchise. It was a huge departure from the turn-based JRPG that players have gotten used to, both in mechanics and in the plot. With the remastered version called Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age finally coming to the western market, however, reviewers are having a positively different opinion of the title.
As Ars Technica points out, FFXII has always been the odd one out in the Final Fantasy franchise. It was the first single-player game to adopt an MMO-like combat mechanic, allows players to program companions to follow a certain set of commands, and is focused around political intrigue rather than world-ending Armageddon.
In any case, this made the fans of the series a little confused with regards to what is objectively an excellent JRPG. With the newly remastered version, everything good about the original FFXII has been amplified and the changes have been received quite well.
For the most part, reviewers are praising the game for its revamped Zodiac Job system and for the amazingly improved graphical qualities while still maintaining the core essence of the game. As Polygon writer Whitney Reynolds points out, even the smallest changes to an old classic are enough to make old players feel uncomfortable with the new experience. With FFXII: The Zodiac Age, this is simply not the case.
“Final Fantasy 12 offered a refreshing change from previous Final Fantasys in 2006,” Reynolds writes. “It put aside the modern-futuristic settings of Final Fantasy 7 and 8 and the cartoonish nostalgia of Final Fantasy 9 for a return to something a little more serious, with more swords and shields than motorcycles and machine guns.”
As of writing, the title scores an excellent 87 on Metacritic, which is no easy feat for a remaster of an old game. For anyone still wondering if The Zodiac Age is worth getting, the reviews and this score should prove quite helpful.
