Definitive Edition: JRPG
There’s a lot of video games out there. The Playstation 2 alone has 4489 games in it’s library. Approximately 28 new games of variable quality come out on PC through Steam’s online store every day. When you’re ready to buy something new you should take some extra time to reflect and pick a game that respects your time and money. After all we don’t have a lot of time in this world, and our free time is something precious. I’m not going to preach too much about the importance of ethical spending, but at the same time coming from a place where money is in fact tight I do try to make every purchase I make with “fun money” as tactful as I can.
I want to start this series as a way to catalog my personal favorites in a series, genre, or specific theme. Again I can’t stress this enough that these are in fact my own opinions, and if you don’t agree with them then that’s fine! Just know that if you want to be passionate about how wrong you think I am then make a donation to your favorite charity in your name as a sign of protest against my bad, horrible opinion.
For the inaugural entry in my series we’ll dive into one of my favorite genres- the Role Playing Game, or RPG for short. If I were to be literal and say that RPGs are games where you play a role then you’d probably think:
“isn’t that every game?”
Yes. In Super Mario 64 you play the role of Mario, in Spyro the Dragon you play the role of Spyro, in The Legend of Zelda you play the role of…..Link. RPGs however have a certain feel that separates them from other games. Usually in an RPG your character(s) grow in strength throughout the length of the game. RPGs might have a unique way of playing, like through turns like Chess or Dungeons and Dragons. Once you play enough RPGs you can feel them out. We’ll be talking about games that are RPGs at their absolute core. Most people like to split RPGs into two genres. “RPG” and “JRPG”. JRPGs are Japanese Role Playing Games and RPGs are essentially all other RPGs. There’s more to this but for now we’ll just go for the basics. I want to talk about 5 JRPGs. Hopefully by the time we’re done I’ve explained the bigger differences. Here’s hoping.
LET’S BEGIN (行くぞ)
FINAL FANTASY IV
There’s 15 main Final Fantasy games, and dozens upon dozens of spin-offs. I did the mature thing in choosing only one game from the entire franchise for this list. If I wanted to I could’ve names 5 final fantasy games for this whole shabang and called it a day.
That would’ve been VILE.
So we’re going to start with what I think may be the most “Final Fantasy” of the Final Fantasies. Final Fantasy IV. Final Fantasy games usually don’t have anything to do with other games’ stories unless explicitly shown (Final Fantasy X has a sequel that’s literally called Final Fantasy X-2) so no you don’t have to play FFI-III to understand IV’s story.
Final Fantasy IV came out in Japan for the Super Famicom in 1991 to moderate fanfare. It came out later that year in the US for the Super Nintendo (same console with a different name) as Final Fantasy II. This is because at the time the United States only had one numbered Final Fantasy game- the first one. Japan’s Final Fantasy II and III missed a US release because RPGs just didn’t sell well enough in America to warrant a translation. After all RPGs were heavier in story than most other games at the time, and hiring translators cost money that the studio just didn’t have. For Nintendo’s new console however Square (Final Fantasy’s development studio) wanted to try and grab the US market with their newest entry, and to avoid confusion Final Fantasy IV was renamed Final Fantasy II outside of Japan. This has since been rectified now that every numbered entry in the series has been released in the west via remakes or re-releases, so now if you tell someone you like Final Fantasy IV they more than likely know what you’re talking about.
Final Fantasy IV has a turn-based battle system like it’s predecessors, but this particular entry brought about a much needed change to the formula.
Time doesn’t stop.
Instead of safely taking turns between attacking and defending you need to be quick. If you don’t choose something within a hidden amount of time your enemies will take the advantage and smack you around while you twiddle your thumbs. You gotta be fast or you’re dead last.
Final Fantasy IV’s story has you playing with a different cast of costars every few hours so you’ll be experimenting with different characters and abilities throughout. That being said you’ll usually have an attacker, a mage, and a healer on hand. Speaking of story….
It’s good!
like real good. It’s got this Star-Wars feel to it, more so than any other game in the series at the time. Hironobu Sakeguchi sure did love western Sci-Fi tropes of the mid 1970s. The Music is about as stellar as the story is somewhat interstellar- with Nobuo Uematsu jamming out the tunes for the first time on Nintendo’s newest console. FFIV’s main battle theme is still the most notable tracks in the RPG series’ vast musical history, and it’s even been referenced in a major motion picture.
FFIV was Square’s first foray into Nintendo’s 16bit console. The game started as an 8bit game for the Family Computer (Japan’s name for the NES hardware) but took the graphical leap pretty much as soon as Square could get their hands on the tools they needed to make said leap. People will buy whatever new games they can when a new console comes out, and since FF was a pretty popular brand at the time in Japan they knew it would sell well. It’s not their prettiest game on the system, but everyone has to start somewhere.
Years later the original game would be ported to the Sony Playstation, the Bandai Wonderswan, the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, and finally the game would receive a full-blown remake for the Nintendo DS handheld system in 2007. This 3D remake would have the same battle system but would now have 3D character models in lieu of 2D sprites. This particular version is now playable on smartphones and PC.
However, if we were to talk about my personal “definitive” way to play Final Fantasy IV then you’d have to seek out Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection on Sony’s PSP handheld system.
Released in 2011, FFIV on PSP is by far my favorite way to play FFIV. Instead of 3D graphics the game returns to it’s 2D roots and looks stunning in every sense of the word. I’d usually recommend playing PSP games in an emulator but since these are 2D sprites made for a 272p resolution screen they don’t scale up well on modern devices. You can play this game on an emulator on windows with the proper scaling, but you’re best bet is to find a copy online or buy the game digitally on PS3, then transfer to your PSP. You can also play PSVita but seeing that the screen is 540p you’ll still be playing a stretched out version of the game.
I know it’s a lot to play this version but if you’re serious about playing FFIV then this is the best way to play the 2D version. The CG opening from the DS version returns in Complete Collection, and exclusive to this version is the option to switch between the SNES soundtrack and the remade soundtrack that was present in the 3D remake. Personally I prefer the SNES original.
Alongside the crisp visuals you’ll get 3D spell effects that work well with the battle scene and don’t contrast much with the 2D imagery. This version also includes every quality of life change introduced in the Wonderswan and GBA versions, and as an added bonus includes Final Fantasy IV’s direct sequel “The After Years” and a short interlude that bridges both games together. It’s truly the best way to play Final Fantasy IV.
DRAGON QUEST XI S: ECHOES OF AN ELUSIVE AGE: DEFINITIVE EDITION
What a name! I should explain this…..
Dragon Quest XI was announced in 2015 and came out in Japan in 2017 for Playstation 4 and Nintendo 3DS. One year later the PS4 version came out in America and added a few added extras such as a sprint button, full english voice acting, difficulty options, and a bonus costume for the main hero based on Dragon Quest VIII- which was the US’s most popular DQ at the time. One year later the Nintendo Switch got it’s own version of the PS4 release with more costumes, more difficulty options, English and Japanese voices (the original Japanese version had no voice acting at all), orchestrated versions of most of the game’s music, and an entire 2D mode that was originally only present in the Japan-only 3DS version. The 2D version has it’s own unique dungeons to explore and you can switch between modes with moderate ease.
Now…one year after the Switch version-which is going on 3 1/2 years after the first version of the game that came out in Japan, comes yet another re-release of Dragon Quest XI, now for PS4, Xbox, PC, and Google’s gaming service Stadia. This will probably be the final version of the game to come out seeing that the PS5 and Xbox Series X play these new versions right out of the box (now with a higher framerate).
So i’m going to get right down to which version you should play. Get the Switch version if you don’t care about resolution or framerate and want to play the game wherever you want-be it the airport, the bus, or Denny’s. If you have a decent PC and a nice monitor or a 120hz television then play the PC version. You can play at framerates and resolution higher than what even the PS5 and Xbox Series X have to offer. If you want a good experience all around play the PS4 and Xbox versions. As of writing Dragon Quest XI is free with Xbox’s Game Pass subscription. It’s a great way to get into RPGs in general. If by some chance you want to play on your laptop, then on your phone, then on your Chromecast Ultra, then play the Stadia version. I don’t recommend this however because with Stadia you’re buying a game that isn’t on your device but instead on a server that google runs. One day Google will probably shut down these servers, and the games you own will disappear. Don’t buy anything on Stadia.
“But Paul! Dragon Quest takes so long to beat! I don’t want to spend $40 on a game that I might not finish!”
Worry not, for Dragon Quest XI has a free demo that carries over to the full game if you choose to buy it. The demo ends after you get your 4th party member and if you do every side quest, check every nook and cranny, and talk to everyone then you’ll be playing this game for 10–15 hours before you even have to pay for it. What a value!
Alright then, so how does this game play? Well it’s a turn-based RPG much like FFIV, except this time there’s no timer and enemies won’t attack until it’s their turn. You can take your time with this one, and I mean it when I say that if you’ve never played a console video game at all- let alone a JRPG, then Dragon Quest XI is for you. I could sit this game in front of a 6 year old or a 90 year old and both would have a good time.
The game’s story kind of takes a turn on the standard hero’s journey, and without spoiling it takes a few twists and turns and even by the end you’re not 100 percent sure where the game’s narrative is taking you. This game’s characters don’t ever disappoint, and the cute anime visuals are done by none other than Dragon Ball artist Akira Toriyama.
What’s so cool about Dragon Quest? Well it’s been around for 35 years, it’s probably more popular in Japan than Mickey Mouse is in the US, has cute cuddly slimy mascot characters that market themselves with great success, and as a brand has better recognition than most Marvel superheroes do in America. Kids and adults would literally skip school and work in Japan to buy Dragon Quest games. So much so that an old urban myth started flowing around that Japan made it a law to only have Dragon Quest games come out during weekends. The love for Dragon Quest is real in Japan. In the US? Not so much- but we’re getting there.
When the first Dragon Quest (called Dragon Warrior due to copyright issues)came out in the US in 1989- three years after it’s Japanese release- it sold so poorly that copies had to be given away as an incentive for subscribing to Nintendo Power Magazine. However that didn’t stop Dragon Quest publisher Enix from releasing the first 4 games on the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US. Unlike Final Fantasy Dragon Quest only missed it’s 5th and 6th entries when localizing for the west. People in America just didn’t like console RPGs yet. They tried once more with an English version of Dragon Quest VII in 2001- only a little over a year after it’s Japanese release. While not a failure Dragon Quest VII’s English version still couldn’t capture a huge audience.
Meanwhile behind the scenes in Japan Enix and Square (the developers of the Final Fantasy series) were in talks to merge, and in 2003 Square and Enix became one, and we now them as Square Enix. With a little more money Square Enix started putting more effort into their localization efforts, and in 2005 Dragon Quest VIII (first time it wasn’t called Dragon Warrior, by the way) came out in America- only one year after the Japanese version hit shelves. DQ8 sold modest numbers in America, likely because it came with a free demo for Final Fantasy XII. American gamers loved Final Fantasy- but it’s not like they didn’t enjoy Dragon Quest, we just hadn’t really stuck with it like we did with FF. Final Fantasy had attractive characters, great music, and darker themes. Dragon Quest had…..slimes!
We love a good slime now and then, but we loved hot anime characters more, and Final Fantasy had that in droves.
Time flowed like it always does, and Dragon Quest games would come out in America to mild fervor. The people who bought the games loved them, but there just wasn’t enough to make the series profitable in the west. The tenth entry in the main series is still not out in the US, and as early as 5 years ago we had to make whole twitter campaigns to get Square to translate the 3DS remakes of VII and VIII into English. Now things are a little better, and Dragon Quest XI is almost a household name among RPG fans outside of Japan. Not only is it the most accessible game in the series to date, but it’s easily the best for what it is. It’s a classic RPG with a big budget. It’s a warm cup of tea on a rainy day. It’s apple pie at your favorite diner, ice cream and all. It’s the best RPG I have ever played, and it’s probably going to be your new favorite.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI III: NOCTURNE
Here’s a game where you recruit and summon demons to kill God.
WAIT DON’T LEAVE!
Let me explain….this is a game where you recruit and summon demons to kill God…..
Guess there’s no getting out of this huh.
Shin Megami Tensei III is not for the faint of heart. Not for it’s themes or imagery but because of it’s difficulty. I’m recommending this game not as a game beginners should play, but as a game that belongs in the overall JRPG “canon”. Shin Megami Tensei III will tear you up and spit you out if you don’t know what you’re doing and that’s totally cool. Some games respect your time and offer options that help smooth things out but SMT3 respects you on a singular, molecular level. It knows that if you’re playing the game then you already know what you’re getting into. It knows what you’re about, and knows you can handle the pressure. It’s turn based like the last two, and it freezes time when you’re choosing what to do just like Dragon Quest, but in SMT3 we have what the developers over at Atlus like to call the “Press Turn” system. Most demons have a weakness. Exploit that weakness and you get an extra turn. Same goes for the demons as well. If they hit you or your demons’ weakness then buckle up buddy because you’ll be getting smacked for a while.
You’re going to die. A lot. And that’s fine. You learn a little more each time. Maybe you need to go back and fight some weaker enemies to level up more before you try the big boss of the dungeon. Maybe you need to learn some spells that give your party a stronger attack or defense, or perhaps you need to learn spells that weaken your enemies’ attack or defense. It’s all in the cards as you’ll be switching out demons throughout the entire game. Find a stronger monster? Have a chat and they may join you. Sometimes they’ll ask for money and simply leave while you collect your thoughts. Most of the time you’ll be fusing demons together to make stronger demons. I might be tempted to compare this game to Pokemon’s catching mechanics but it would be more appropriate to compare Pokemon to Shin Megami Tensei seeing that SMT had been around for a few years already prior to Pokemon’s initial launch in the late 1990s.
Shin Megami Tensei III came out in Japan in 2003, and one year later in the United States. At the time this was the first in the main series to hit western shores and to this day we’ve only gotten the first game officially through an iphone app that is no longer available to the public. We have never seen SMT2 in the west at all outside of fan translations. I’m honestly surprised that hardcore conservative evangelicals didn’t scream at the tops of their lungs when this game came west. It was rated M for mature- meaning that only people 17 and up could purchase the game, but still the fact that this game didn’t whip around Fox News in 2004 baffles me even today. Instead we as a society embraced the demons and we got fake commercials on gaming TV shows like X-Play.
So the game plays great, but what’s the general motive here? What’s the story like? Well it starts out simple enough. You’re a Japanese highschool student told to go to a hospital in Tokyo to speak to someone close to you. You arrive and they’re prattling on about the end of the world. Sounds crazy right? Well soon after the world does in fact end, or begins depending on who you ask. Humanity is gone. Only demons remain. You’re given demonic powers and become the “Demifiend”. You recruit demons to join you as you seek answers as to why you’re one of the few “humans” left alive. It’s definitely a story worth experiencing, and if you don’t want to feel the sharp blade of the game’s difficulty then the new remaster of the game has an easier “Merciful” mode.
“Pretty convenient to want to talk about a game that just recently got a re-release, isn’t it Paul?”, you say outside my apartment window. I see you out there. I know you jiggle the doorknob at night. I’m not letting you in….unless you want to talk about JRPGs with me.
Nocturne is available on PS4, Switch, and PC and while each version of the game is essentially the same I’d go for the Switch version if you can. It has slight framerate issues but it’s manageable.
So we have a dark, mysterious story and character designs by the infamous Kazuma Kaneko. Let’s talk a little about the music.
Shin Megami Tensei III’s soundtrack is a whole other experience outside of the game that it accompanies. Shoji Meguro made an absolute masterpiece and we don’t get to say this enough but you could enjoy this soundtrack even if you don’t care at all about videogames. The track you’re currently listening to is the game’s main battle theme- the song that plays when you’re fighting monsters, which you’ll be doing a lot.
I could listen to this all day. One of the things that JRPGs need to have is a good battle theme and by God this fits the bill. The articulated, methodical synth, the raw power of the guitar, the primal energy of the drums. It’s all there for you. If Shin Megami Tensei III’s cult status alone doesn’t entice you then the music surely will.
“Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne is the ‘Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs’ of videogames.”- Oni Spumoni
DARK SOULS
Videogames used to be difficult on purpose. Publishers knew that people rented games more than purchasing them outright so they deliberately made games harder to get people to rent them more, which would make them more money. Same goes for arcade games. They didn’t want you to spend 25 cents on a game of Galaga and finish the whole thing in one sitting. They wanted your money.
In February 2009 a little studio called From Software put out a game with Sony Entertainment Japan that would shift the culture of the games industry forever. That game was Demon’s Souls.
Demon’s Souls sold below expectations in Japan. Sony considered it a failure and didn’t make any plans to publish the game in other regions. Soon after it’s release Atlus (you’ll remember them as the developers of Shin Megami Tensei III) wanted to buy the publishing rights and release the game in the West through their North American branch. Sony was reluctant to let Atlus localize the game but knew that publishing on their own was not going to be an option. They already took a big risk publishing in Japan.
Eight months later Atlus USA publishes Demon’s Souls in North America. Bandai Namco (Pac-Man, Klonoa, Tekken) would handle publishing in Europe. Sales were expected to reach 75,000 units in America. Atlus didn’t have a strong marketing campaign for the game but word of mouth and positive reviews made Demon’s Souls a popular topic among hardcore RPG fans. It’s difficulty and dark fantasy aesthetic were it’s biggest lures.
By 2010 Sony announced that the game had sold over half a million copies, and Demon’s Souls became the poster child for cult hits selling well beyond initial expectations. While everyone celebrated the game’s sales developer From Software was already working on their next game in the series.
Enter: Dark Souls.
Due to Sony still owning the trademark to the name “Demon’s Souls” From Software had to make do with a name that would hopefully nudge people into the right direction and basically say “Hey this is essentially Demon’s Souls 2”. FromSoft couldn’t outright say it’s a sequel in it’s marketing phase but they did say that it’s a “spiritual successor” to their last dark fantasy RPG. Combat is the same but this game brought about a new gameplay mechanic that is still used today in games that we now call “Dark Souls clones”.
Let’s talk a little about how Dark Souls starts.
You wake in a dungeon. You’re undead. You make your way out of the prison halls and kill some monsters on your way. You see a bonfire in an open area. You sit at the bonfire to spend currency or “souls” you acquire after killing monsters to level up your character and raise their stats. You can raise your defense to take more damage, your attack to deal more damage, your stamina do run longer, etc. It’s all up to you.
Once you leave the bonfire you notice something. The monsters that you killed are all back to life. Every time you sit at a bonfire in Dark Souls you regain your health and can level up, but the monsters also come back to life. This is the perfect gameplay flow to sit and grind a bit for souls. If by some chance you meet your fate by the hand of some rogue skeleton you lose all of your unspent souls and arrive at the last bonfire you visited. Don’t worry just yet however, for you can trek back to where you died and reclaim those souls. If you die yet again those souls are gone permanently.
That’s Dark Souls in it’s boiled down form.
And I can’t get enough of it.
I almost don’t want to talk about Dark Souls too much because I want whoever is reading this to go in knowing nothing like I did all those years ago. This isn’t a gate keeping thing. It’s not like I want you to fail at the game, I just want you to learn the inner machinations of the game’s many systems and see for yourself what this series brought to the table. If you decide to play I recommend starting with the first Dark Souls. There’s two sequels that don’t really follow the first game’s story (most of the story is subtle as it is) but if you start with the first Dark Souls then you get to experience history. You can play on PC, PS4, and Xbox at 60fps and Switch at 30fps. All versions are great and run well enough but the Switch version has compressed audio. I don’t mind it too much however.
Dark Souls is difficult with purpose.
FINAL FANTASY XII
I lied.
I lied about only including one Final Fantasy game in this list.
I’m not sorry.
Final Fantasy XII may not be the final fantasy, but it is the Japanese RPG.
Let’s begin.
November 2006
I’m 13 years old. I’m sitting outside of our local Walmart while my friend and I wait to pick up the Nintendo Wii. Once the clock struck midnight he gets his precious console and we pack it up in the backseat of his older brother’s vehicle. We get back to his place and he sets it up, and decides that I am not to touch it. I can’t hold the controller. I can’t play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I can’t play Wii Sports.
Needless to say my friend wasn’t much of a friend. I didn’t care. He and I had an unspoken rule. If I spent the night at his house his parents wouldn’t fight, and I got to use their internet to download manga to load up on my trusty 256mb flash drive. It was a mutual agreement. We talked about it years later and he apologized for being a bad friend. I forgave him.
While he was swinging away with his new game console I decided to pore over his game collection. He had a lot of JRPGs. Chrono Trigger on SNES, Final Fantasy VII, Koudelka, the works. His mother was a pretty big geek so she had a little collection of her own. My friend’s tastes were clearly influenced by his mom’s. I asked his mom if I could play her new copy of Final Fantasy XII and she happily obliged. Unlike her son she was sweet and always welcoming.
I wasn’t really into RPGs at this age. I played Pokemon, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy X but I didn’t see the appeal yet of turn based combat. I was more into Zelda and Mario at the time. I popped the disc into my friend’s PS2, swapped his mom’s memory card out for mine, and turned the system on. I didn’t know what I was going to get into. I didn’t know that Final Fantasy XII was going to be the catalyst that changed the way I thought about videogames.
The music. The visuals. The raw energy that poured through this opening cutscene blew my mind. I was hooked into this game like fish. I didn’t care that my friend was having fun with his new console. I was in my own world. I’d end up spending the entire night playing through the opening parts of this massive monster of a game. Months later and I had finally saved enough money cleaning the floors of the local Mexican Restaurant my mother worked at, and made my way to Walmart to grab myself a copy of this wonderful game.
It was sold out.
So I asked my father to drive me 35 miles to Gamestop to pick up a used copy. I saved a little cash. I bought my father and I Wendy’s. I had their new 4 alarm spicy chicken sandwich. It was fine.
I eventually fell out of Final Fantasy XII’s grasp, and found myself getting into other RPGs. Going into my freshman year of highschool my friend lent me her copy of Final Fantasy VII. I had just watched the movie that summer and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The fuss was about the fact that Final Fantasy VII might actually be the most influential RPG of all time.
Even more than Dark Souls.
These formative teen years of my life were filled with lots of games. I got into a whole deluge of RPGs all throughout highschool. I’d go back to Final Fantasy XII every few months or so and completely forget what I was doing or where I was in the story. I would find myself restarting from the beginning and making my way back to where I was at. This would sometimes take dozens of hours across several days or weeks. By then I would be worn out by the game and just stop playing. It was a vicious cycle.
In July of 2011 the unthinkable happened. My Sony Playstation 2- which was given to me by my sister in 2004….died. I gave it a viking burial. I watched as the plastic shell melted and curled, revealing the circuitry that brought so many worlds for me to explore. To this day I still think the PS2 might be the best console of all time. I would’ve simply purchased a used one online but in 2011 right out of highschool I didn’t have any money or a job to make money. It wasn’t until 4 years later that I would procure myself another PS2 to play Final Fantasy XII, and naturally I started over.
June 2021
Nearly 15 years have passed since that fateful day outside that Walmart. Final Fantasy XII is now available on Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PC. The Xbox Series X and PC versions run the game at 60fps, while the other versions run at 30. You don’t miss much playing the game at 30fps because that was the original PS2 release’s framerate. I own the PS4 version now and had a great time playing through the game.
FINAL FANTASY XII IS THE DEFINITIVE JAPANESE RPG.
Final Fantasy XII starts you out as a young soldier named Reks that (spoiler alert) dies within the first ten minutes of the game. You then play the rest of the game as his brother, Vaan.
Not a whole lot of people like Vaan. He’s kinda cocky, kind of annoying, and just a tad overzealous about wanting to be a “Sky Pirate”. He’s pretty much every JRPG protagonist of the 00s. You do start to realize that Vaan isn’t even really the main character of his own game. That belongs to Princess Ashe of the Kingdom of Dalmasca. FFXII is more of a political drama than a tale of wizards and elves, although there are a fair share of exotic creatures and humanoids to interact with. Among these two heroes are the legally dead Basch, the suave thief Balthier, the sexy Fran, the plucky Penelo, and a plethora of guest characters that join and leave your party as you make your way through this epic story.
While it’s not written by Hironobu Sakeguchi this time around on account of him leaving Square in 2004, this game is essentially “Medieval Star Wars” in the best possible way. The mixture of European folklore, Hollywood Science Fiction, Japanese mythology, and steampunk aesthetic make for a wonderful cultural blend. It was fun equipping one character with a maul, another with a magic staff, and another with a katana.
That brings us to my favorite part of FFXII. The game’s myriad of technical systems.
In FFXII you control your character and fight monsters in real time. No more random battles, no transitions to battle scenes. The game is running on a timer much like FFIV’s battles, but you can control your character throughout and you can literally run away from most battles if you so choose. In the beginning hours you manually command Vaan to fight and decide who to to target. Soon after you get your second playable character you get what the game calls “Gambits”
Gambits are the coolest thing to ever appear in a videogame, and as of writing it’s never really been replicated. Gambits are essentially programming that you have to write for your characters. You’re coding in what you want them to do. You start off with a few basic questions and prompts and you buy literal phrases at shops to make new combinations throughout the game. For example you start with a prompt “Enemy is weak to fire” and a reaction “cast fire”. If you combine these two gambits you get a programming where your character will immediately cast fire on an enemy that they know is weak to fire. You don’t have to tell them to do it in battle because you already coded it into their gambits. Another example is “party member has Health Points below 30 percent” and “cast cure”. Combine those and give it to your healer and now they’ll cast cure any time a character’s HP falls below 30%.
Who’s the Healer? Anyone you want.
Final Fantasy XII has a board-like progression system where you acquire licenses to cast magic and wield specific kinds of weapons and armor. You still had to buy the spells and gear but just like in real life you need a license to bring that gun into Dunkin Donuts.
In the original PS2 version of FFXII everyone had the same board to share, and you had to be a little more careful in choosing who got what skills. It would be a waste to give Vaan a license to cure since he had such a low magic stat. Later Japan would get a new version of the game called the “Zodiac Job System” where you would give each character two classes with their own respective boards. Now since Fran has some of the higher magic stats you could make her a healing and attacking mage powerhouse. We wouldn’t get this version of the game in the US until the PS4 version came out. Three years later and we now have the option to reset everyone’s boards and start over thanks to an update for the PS4 game that was originally exclusive to the Switch and Xbox versions. Don’t like Penelo as a big buff Knight? Well now you can give her a dagger and program her gambits to make her steal from enemies. The world is your oyster in Final Fantasy XII.
Music this time around is done by Hitoshi Sakimoto, who was known then as the composer for the hit strategic chess-like RPG “Final Fantasy Tactics”. It makes sense after all because Final Fantasy XII and Tactics share the same world: Ivalice. Games set in Ivalice seem to all share the same composer, from FFT to Vagrant Story to Final Fantasy XII. When production of FFXII began in 2000 Square wanted to create a world that had already been lived in through other games. They decided that the best bet was to set Final Fantasy XII’s story long before any of the other games that they had made before it. FFXII would be the world’s highest point, and if you were to go back to older games you’d see how things went hundreds of years later.
To this day I still find myself playing Final Fantasy XII over any other main game in the series, mostly because of how easy to access it is. Final Fantasy XI is an online game that’s only playable on PC. Final Fantasy IV’s best version is exclusive to a 16 year old console. Final Fantasy XIII is on Xbox and PC, but not on PS4. I can go home, lock my door, change into some comfy sweatpants and have FFXII ready to play within minutes. It’s one of the Japanese Role Playing Games to play in 2021 and it’s aged like fine wine. I’ll always come back to Ivalice.
EPILOGUE
So there you have it. Five JRPGs to start with on your journey to spiritual enlightenment. It may just sound like a top 5 but I just really love Final Fantasy XII and wanted to share how much that game meant to me over the years. I made a tough call including Shin Megami Tensei III on this list instead of SMT IV but that game’s only playable on a discontinued handheld system and prices on ebay are kind of going crazy right now. It’s not worth the time or money. I wanted to initially include Tales of Vesperia but opted out in lieu of Dark Souls. Tales of Vesperia is only an ok JRPG. Dark Souls is a great game in general.
What’s the next genre in this little series? Who knows?
Well I know, and I’m not telling. . . . . .
