trainsaw.com

Last Update: 01.28.07

Final Fantasy XII

A recent tragedy caused me to lose a number of hours of my life in an unexplained fashion to Final Fantasy XII. For those of you who aren't aware, FF XII is approximately the 16th installment in a series that has "Final" in its very name. On the bright side, though, they did opt to go with Roman numerals, which makes for a much more pleasing 16th episode than a "Final Final Fantasy" naming scheme. Anyway, in true trainsaw style, I decided to write a review of this game that makes no attempt to give any useful information that someone might want in deciding whether to buy or play the game. However, I didn't want to limit the audience for this review too severely, so I'll be making several efforts to broaden its appeal. First, to assist those who aren't familiar with the game, I'll be referring to each character not by name, but by their prevailing facial expression. Second, random paragraphs will not be related to the game at all, but will in fact be scenes from Days of Our Lives.

The game's protagonist is a young orphan named Completely Oblivious. After a complete lack of character development, he and his friend Unreasonably Chipper find themselves caught up in an elaborate heist planned by the dashing sky pirate Questionably Heterosexual and his attractive female partner Mustache. Their subsequent imprisonment and escape leads them to ally themselves with Angry Face, their kingdom's fallen princess, and Game Face, her sworn guardian. Together they embark on a journey that will take them everywhere from the expansive skies to Zargalore Tower Basement 6 B.

As it turns out, Game Face isn't actually gay, he only does it in skin flicks to make money to put his illegitimate children through college. Questionably Heterosexual confronts him and delivers several very stern lines with reasonably large words. Meanwhile, Angry Face's evil robot clone twin, Back To The Camera, plots to steal both of her lovers.

After several more hours of no character or plot development, the group finds itself in the capital city of the Empire, from whence Unmaskedly Sinister relates his evil plans to his five closest advisors, Big Helmet, Big Helmet, Big Helmet, Big Helmet With A Woman's Voice, and Big Helmet. They also meet the heir to the kingdom, the young prince Little Girl. While the party struggles to navigate the aristocratic city, Angry Face replaces herself with a scarecrow with a mean face painted on it so she can go use the toilet. Nobody notices.

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD

Some things explode. Some people die. The others survive. Angry Face returns from her bathroom break.

END SPOILERS

It is soon revealed that Mustache has been having an affair with her pool cleaner. Completely Oblivious reveals to her that the pool cleaner is actually her own son. She insisted that she didn't have any children, but Completely Oblivious showed her the medical records from when she had her memory erased after giving the pool cleaner up for adoption by a poor working-class family who weren't so busy having sex with everyone in the neighborhood to raise their own damn kids. Unreasonably Chipper goes through with her plastic surgery to make her look exactly like Angry Face but with different facial expressions, so that one actress can play both of them to save money.

The party is soon forced to return to Mustache's home village, the Village of Mustached Women. It is here that she reveals that she is actually more than one hundred years old, which explains the mustache. The party also enlists the aid of several powerful summonable beasts. These beasts have arcane power beyond compare, such as the power to spend two and a half minutes completely failing to do any damage to any enemies.

Towards the end, Unmaskedly Sinister reveals that he has the same hopes and goals as your party, and that the two of you are working toward the same ends. You agree with him wholeheartedly, and so you kill him three times.

On a scale of Final Fantasy X-2 to Final Fantasy VI, I'd say that this game overall rates at about a Final Fantasy XII.