Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age Remasters an Oddity—and Gives It New Room to Breathe

When Final Fantasy XII first came out on the PlayStation 2, 11 years ago, no one knew what to do with it. Up until then, each game in the Japanese role-playing series had been like a reenactment of a ritual, one built and added to over years. The saga told personal, often melodramatic stories against background plots that all traveled the same general arc: You are introduced to the world, and via the intimate perspective of someone directly involved, you see that world unravel. Then you save it. Final Fantasy XII kept the franchise’s signature geopolitical conflict, but ditched the intimacy.

When a franchise becomes defined by a set of beloved traditions and repeated ideas, change is always a tricky proposition; FFXII felt like a breakdown of that tradition. Not an easy thing to handle for much of the gaming world. Now, digging into the game’s shiny new re-release—Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, which came to PlayStation 4 last week—it’s easy to remember why so many fans were discomfited.

The characters of FFXII feel out of place, as do their conflicts: more Game of Thrones, less teen anime. This is a game concerned with the rise and fall of empires and royalty, not with whether or not you as the player feel a personal stake in that drama. The viewpoint character, Vaan, is a punky Luke Skywalker type without the Force or a cool evil dad. He’s also all but extraneous to the otherwise high-minded plot, accompanying the exiled princess of his homeland on a quest to prove her right to the throne and fend off the tyranny of the conquering Arkadian Empire.

Said fending involves the game’s other significant departure: “gambits,” a technical and unusual combat system influenced heavily by Western and massively multiplayer role-playing games. Instead of choosing the character’s moves yourself in a turn-based style like in most Final Fantasy games, you program all your behaviors beforehand. As your first priority, Vaan, I want you to use a potion if you drop below 20% health. Then, attack the nearest enemy. If that enemy is weak to lightning, use Thunder magic. From the simple to deviously complex, gambits let you design combat routines that basically allow combat encounters to run without your interference. With care, you can teach Final Fantasy XII to play itself.

These structural deviations still feel a little bizarre, and sometimes unwieldy, in 2017—but it’s easier to see their charm. The vast deserts and elaborate cities of Final Fantasy XII have a flavor that you can’t really find elsewhere. The style mixes the industrial and the neoclassical, the dirty and the elegant, courtiers and armored warriors awash in dirt and burning under the yellow sun. The characters other than Vaan are archetypal and charming: Balthier the pirate looks and behaves at every moment like he just walked out of a dinner party to which he wasn’t invited; disgraced war hero Basch acts as though he’s bound by his own overbearing nobility.