Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age review: Reinforced for reexamination
Enlarge / Hunts for named monsters are one of the only reliable ways to make gold. (credit: Square Enix)
Final Fantasy XII has always been a bit of an oddball within the long-running series. Its real-time combat smacks of an MMO, like FFXI and FFXIV, but it's still a single-player adventure centered around a core party of characters. Throw in a Gambit system that lets players "program" party behavior and a story more about political intrigue than gods or monsters, and XII just might be the weirdest main game in its franchise-at least compared to what passes for normal in Final Fantasy.
None of this changes the fact that FFXII is also a damn good JRPG. That fact might have been overshadowed by its eccentricities since the PlayStation 2 era. So it's nice that publisher Square Enix is releasing a superior version of the game (itself based on a superior version that never came out in North America) in the form of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age.
International at lastIf The Zodiac Age sounds familiar, it's because Square also released Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System in 2007 in Japan (and only Japan; so much "for International"). That's the version this latest remake is based on. It allows Western PlayStation 4 owners to finally enjoy Zodiac's many improvements over the baseline XII experience and a grip of new goodies that makes the game even more enjoyable.
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