Final Fantasy 12

Final Fantasy is bought for the story. Even in the 16 bit days when it wasn't seven of the same character with different looking weapons sharing the same magic and armor, it was still far more about story than it was about any mazing innovations in gameplay, ATB or no.

The story? The story in this game is, well, it's Star Wars. Star Wars, only instead of Luke having everything he knew destroyed and no place to go but into his adventure that he had been unknowingly tied to since birth, Luke just had nothing better to do that day. There's lots of intrigue and assassination, which would be totally sweet were it not for the fact that no one in the story has any reason to hang around. Even Han Solo tried to leave every chance he could till they froze him.

Barring story however, it's the best Final Fantasy since the 16 bit days. The world and specifically the main city feel alive. The art direction--outside of the pig-nosed ladyboy lead character (who fortunately due to the complete interchangeability of the characters you almost never have to use)--is awesome. Against Final Fantasy 7's goth convention, 8's Minnesota teenagers and 10's beach eveningwear, 12's costumes look like they came from an orignal place; a place with culture, art and history all it's own.

The battles are a great improvement. No more "line up across the street and come over one at a time" nonsense, you get an open field full of enemies who'd rather be left alone. If you don't walk into their area of influence enemies will keep to themselves. While you can give commands to all three party members, you can also script different actions, such as "attack the enemy that the leader is attacking" and "if someone's HP go blelow 40% cast cure on them". This takes even more of the bland out of RPG fighting but at the same time is an autopilot. For example, i beat the last guy with the controller on the table in front of me. But that's A-OK with me. RPG battle systems have always been a chore, so the ability to have my team T C of B while I make a sandwich is pretty sweet. I'm still missing the "auto battle" command from Phantasy Star 3.

Small confession: all those collect-a-thon games I talk such shit on? I play the hell out of them. Got all the souls in Aria and Dawn of Sorrow. Have a 200+ hour Disgaea save file. It's like the game doesn't even begin until the last guy is dead (or might as well be in the case of my Final Fantasy 10 save: all my characters can kill it in one hit)

For every guy who's ever thought the worlds most insipid question, this game is the reason girls date assholes. Sitting there killing my hundredth fiery dog, hoping it would drop whatever it's rare item was I could barely remember why it was I was even playing. There was a vague goal of that sword I didn't need, but why wasn't I playing something else? There were other great games out at the time, but here I was in my dark cave doing the same repetitive thing for a goal I knew would not reward my effort.

Worst Story. Best Gameplay.

3 stars