Final Fantasy 12 was released back in 2006 to commercial and critical acclaim, earning several game of the year accolades and receiving particular praise for its innovative combat system, graphics, music, and voice cast. Particular praise was directed at the game for refreshing the franchise and moving away from established JRPG tropes, providing something new and innovative that resonated with players of the franchise. Final Fantasy 12 looked to revolutionize the franchise rather than revamp it - the impact of which is still being felt to this day through its legacy in the games that followed.

No Final Fantasy game is ever created equal in the eyes of fans. There are millions of players who are always either new to the franchise, or those with extreme nostalgia and fandom for each game that comes out. Coming off the heels of Final Fantasy 10, a game that was also well received, Final Fantasy 12 represented a paradigm shift compared to its predecessor. So many changes to the traditional formula were implemented that it divided few, but excited and impressed many - so much so that Square Enix seems to have taken the legacy of Final Fantasy 12 and used it as a baseline for the modern Final Fantasy games that have been released since.

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The World of Ivalice

Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac Age The player attacking a monster for Gil

FF12's impact on the modern Final Fantasy franchise begins with how it developed a sprawling semi-open world, compared to what were typically linear and straightforward storyline paths for the franchise. Coming off the more cinematic yet confined world of Final Fantasy X, the world of Ivalice was a complete change in direction when assessing player agency twinned with world-building and art style. FF12's Ivalice represented an impressive technical achievement at the time, with a variety of unique biomes, cities, pathways, and dungeons to explore and engage with across its many hours of gameplay.

A more medieval art style backed up the world of Ivalice and a story that dabbled in serious topics rather than the more whimsical themes of its predecessors - political intrigue, corruption, and religion all made this a more serious Final Fantasy than previous franchise entries. All of these elements put together played to one of FF12's greatest strengths - the characters in the player's party. Disregarding the complaints about Vaan, the introduction of such a diverse set of characters, all with unique backstories, motivations, and personal quests, made Ivalice that much more lived-in.

With stellar art direction, incredible music and a semi-open world to complement it, FF12 felt lived in - with civilians roaming architecturally different cities, detailed and unique textures for weapons and armor, weather effects, and more. This level of detail saw many enamored with the game and was applied to games developed far after its release. Final Fantasy 15, which featured a sprawling open world praised for its significant attention to detail and art style, offered a massive amount of diversity when players played through the main story - echoing where FF12 took players. Even Final Fantasy 13, originally criticized for its linear approach, opened up into more of an open world in the latter half of the game similar to FF12.

Enemy Encounters in Final Fantasy 12

Yiazmat from Final Fantasy XII

Alongside the open world, FF12 introduced a brand-new enemy encounter system. Excluding the MMO-like Final Fantasy 11, FF12 was the first entry in the main franchise of Final Fantasy games to completely discard random enemy encounters. Players could now see any enemy they were about to face (excluding some boss battles from the main story) on the overworld, and for the first time, players had the agency to engage them or avoid them entirely. Coupled with the sprawling open world, players could see what monsters were patrolling what areas, enabling unique gameplay opportunities. Gamers also knew what they were getting themselves into before combat had started, which lead to a far more interesting combat system that also felt fairer.

Since this introduction in FF12, every game in the franchise has now included nonrandomized encounters. From Final Fantasy 13 to the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, each new game in the franchise has followed the foundations originally built by FF12. Final Fantasy 15 took this to an entirely new level, with players able to see massive monsters over vast distances which impressed players and reviewers alike for its sense of scale and world-building - similar to seeing large optional bosses roam areas in FF12.

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Gambit System in Final Fantasy 12

Characters from Final Fantasy XII

Another innovation was the Gambit system, which enabled the player to program each character in battle to do certain tasks in response to specific conditions. If a character's health went below 30%, you could have a Gambit in place for another to heal that character without inputting a command. If an enemy was at 100% health, another Gambit would instruct a character to use certain magic. While the system was complex to learn, it enabled a massive amount of diversity when approaching encounters in FF12 particularly difficult ones where having the right Gambits could be a win or lose situation.

Once again, this system has buried itself in various forms in the franchise. Final Fantasy 15 utilized the gambit system as its core for the 'Trust System' - a mechanic that would pair story characters and online players together. Combining the open world with an almost MMO-like, modernized approach to combat changed the franchise forever, and even influenced other games such as Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity.

Final Fantasy 12's Legacy

final fantasy xii characters on top of a machine

FF12 was a game well ahead of its time. The open world, real-time combat, gambit system, and non-linear gameplay mimicked that of more western RPGs but still retained its JRPG roots. Final Fantasy 13, FF7 Remake, and FF15 have all utilized many of the systems that FF12 established for the franchise, utilizing everything from the more MMO-type gameplay to its more nuanced and interesting storytelling approaches. The game is still very popular, particularly with the release of the Zodiac Age edition for current-gen consoles, which shows just how much love players have for the game despite so many games coming after it.

At release, some fans thought the inclusion of a sprawling open world was a step too far, with the license board progression too free and the Active Dimension Battle system too complex. Yet now gamers can see the DNA of FF12 in every Final Fantasy game in the franchise, standardizing its systems and building upon them to create even deeper and more interesting approaches to the traditional Final Fantasy formula. But FF12 perhaps should be remembered as having an impact on open-world games in general; it has continued to stand the test of time, with the release of the Zodiac Age remaster proving its impact on the genre to this day.

Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age is available on PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

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