Many years ago, a friend thought he could get me into video games with SimFarm. Three sheep later, a tornado destroyed everything. What kind of fun is that? Since that day, my involvement in video or PC gaming has been strictly as an onlooker. But with this post, I embark on my new path as a video game reviewer. Yes, dear readers, this is the first video game review in the almost five year history of Flooded Lizard Kingdom.
Please note that I have not actually played Final Fantasy XII. This makes me more qualified to review it. I can be more objective because I haven’t spent countless hours getting my ass kicked by a giant turtle.
The Characters in Your Party
Lady Ashe is depressed because most of her skirt was destroyed in a tragic accident, and there’s only a tiny scrap left. Her late husband “Wrassler” would surely have bought her another one, but unfortunately he’s just a ghost now. Ashe’s battle cry is “I must endure.” Scholars believe this is a reference to her wedding day, when she was forced to wear two dead blue birds on her head.
Vaan has an extra vowel in his name in case of emergencies. He was the original blonde half of the 80’s pop duo Wham until that bastard George Michael stabbed him in the back. Here is Vaan in a scene from his next music video, “It Hurts To Be This Pretty.”
The Raver Girl wears her hair in pigtails. Her secret weapon is giving Ecstasy to all of your enemies so they’re too blissed out to fight. When she gets killed, she says “I can’t…” and falls down in a heap. A cute heap, though. With pigtails.
These two guys tried to make a living working at Renaissance Festivals, but couldn’t quite make the rent. They turned to product testing for hair gel companies to survive. The results aren’t pretty.
Next we have the the Bunny Rabbit Drag Queens. They come from a far-away land where everyone is a Bunny Rabbit Drag Queen.
The Bunny Rabbit Drag Queen in your party for Final Fantasy XII is named Fran. Fran looks like this:
Fran is cranky all the time because none of the other Bunny Rabbit Drag Queens like her any more. Or maybe it’s because her butt is cold from hanging out of that outfit.
Then there’s Reddas and his pants. Oh my!
Setting/Atmosphere
The Final Fantasy XII takes place in a land with many wonderful destinations, like Rahamanahamana and Mt. Ong Bak and the Island of Go Vegan! and a few more whose names I can’t remember. The people who live in these places have developed a good system for social interactions. If they are willing to talk to you, a quote bubble appears over their head. This saves a lot of the rejection that can arise when you’re trying to chat up strangers.
The game uses music to set various moods. Early in the game, you hear “Heroically riding horses through the desert, about to crest dramatically at the top of a hill at dawn” and also the hit song “Heroically venturing into a dark cave, surely we’ll be attacked by something nasty.” Later, we hear “Waking up heroically to face a new day” and “Exploring a dark passage heroically.”
If you are not familiar with the game, I’ll tell you that it’s kind of a high fantasy world with big airships. However, the game does not always stick to its milieu. For example, Vaan’s battle cry is “How ’bout summa this?” This is hardly in keeping with this atmosphere of the game. I suspect Vaan is using these moments to brand himself with today’s youth in hopes of rekindling his music career.
Plot
Your party is supposedly trying to liberate the kingdom of Dalmasca from a neighboring kingdom that stomped it like a bug. However, about 12 minutes of effort is spent on this endeavor in the first bazillion hours of game play. Instead, your party runs around tackling different quests so they can steal tons of stuff from various creatures. I can only assume that all the loot is hidden in well-camouflaged supply vehicles because with the amount of shit they steal, they would otherwise need frame packs.
As you go, your entire team is transformed into zombies. They die, you revive them. They die, you revive them. After a while, you can’t even remember how many times they’ve died. Thank goodness these zombies don’t have the usual brain-eating hangup. That would get difficult.
In between all the bouts of fighting and looting, they spend their time in places that look like luxury resorts while selling off the spoils of war. The revolutionary life is a hard one. With all the money they make, one wonders if they couldn’t just buy back the damn kingdom already.
I assume that after the pack of looting zombies has worked their way through all the available quests, eventually you win back the kingdom… but SOMEONE hasn’t gotten that far yet, so I can’t say for sure.
Strengths of Final Fantasy XII
First, the Final Fantasy XII characters are way better than Kratos, the main character in God of War:
Who wants to be covered in the ashes of their dead wife and children? Ew.
Also, none of the characters in Final Fantasy XII seem to have the same inner-ear disorder that afflicts the God of War guy. You see those ropes up there? Those are for safety. For a bad-ass warrior, that guy has no balance at all. The Final Fantasy characters don’t seem to spend all their time falling off things. Even the Bunny Rabbit Drag Queen manages to stay on her 6 inch platforms, which is a gift given only to drag queens.
Final Fantasy also offers many opportunities for players to use real-world knowledge to overcome obstacles in the game. For example, just like in real life, the best way to win a big fight is as follows: get your friend really drunk, beat the crap out of them until they’re really angry, then point them at your enemy. In no time flat, you’ll all be singing kumbaya over the enemy’s charred corpse.
The best part about this game is that other people have already done all the work for you. If you get stuck, you can just ask your wife to google for instructions on winning any given fight.
Weaknesses of Final Fantasy XII
There are only two weaknesses that I can detect.
First, since you don’t ride horses, you run everywhere. It looks fucking exhausting. Except sometimes you ride a giant chicken, but how good could that be?
Second, the music is really annoying, becase it just. won’t. go. away. Although I have mixed feelings about God of War, I was surprised to find out that it actually had background music. This is the preferred behavior to provide protection for innocent bystanders who are trapped in a 625 square foot apartment with the game for days at a time.
Resemblance to Star Wars
There is absolutely none! I don’t know what you’re talking about. STOP SAYING THAT!
Conclusion
I give Final Fantasy XII about 8 stars out of 10.
I hope you have enjoyed this review and that it provides you with some assistance in planning for your future entertainment needs. I promise that when I am rich and famous due to my video game reviews, I won’t forget the little people.
I’m a little person who is tremendously grateful for your review. Please remember to update the plot section when your dedicated tester reaches the conclusion of his quest! Also, if Fran is looking for work, I’ve got some banks that need leaning on up here. Tell her to pack a fur coat.
Oh My! Hee hee this made me laugh. I’ve never played or seen this game before, but I’ve heard of it. Bunny Rabbit Drag Queen for halloween this year anyone? Your review is hilarious :) My husband works for XBOX – so I sit and watch a lot of gameplay while I knit on the couch. I’ll have to see if they have final fantasy so I can see some boobage!!
I couldn’t stand by and let my l33t g4m3r skillz be slandered (or is that libeled? I passed the bar and even I can’t keep that straight). So SOMEONE put aside finishing hunts and took the two hours to finish the game last night ;)
Spoiler: you win the kingdom back. Oh, the surprise!
But only after fighting Transform-A-Fabio ™.
And watching Han Solo and his transvestite Chewbacca do a little jive punching handshake thing. I give it 11 out of 10 stars just for that.
That was wonderful! I hope we get to see more reviews in the future!
I don’t quite get the point. Its not really out there enough to be funny, but its obviously a perversion of the FF series. Satire gone wrong? I dunno, but I really didn’t enjoy the read.
I think the only perversion here is the outfits on those Bunny Rabbit Drag Queens.
wow, i was gonna say how not playing didn’t give you any authority to review since i’m a die hard FF fan, but damn. this is pretty funny and acurate.
Star wars? Final Fantasy has never had a single one that was anything like that gay star wars crap. Never had one that was in space for more than a short bit of the game (8) and never had a death star or any gay concept of the “force”…although Sephiroth was kind of-sort of Clouds father/brother/mother. It all depended on what point in the game you were at.
Awesome! I enjoy this game, but this is still brilliant.
I understand how you feel. My fiance has resorted to calling herself a widow, since I enter a trance like state for hours on end with no food or water while playing this game.
I’m about to go fishing myself…and I hate that turtle…
I’ve never actually used LOL correctly, until now. People at work were asking me what was so funny.I love Final Fantasy, but looking at if from your perspective was hystarical. Thank you for that.
Bloody awesome! I am sure all the Gaming magazines will be beating down your door to publish YOUR reviews!
Ha!
haha, this is probably one of the BEST reviews so far, and yeah, this is very unbiased since it’s not a fanboy or a gamer at that :)
Kupo, That was funny! It totally throws off anyone’s view of Final Fantasy…you should have included the magical feather that let’s you talk to small round chickens. The Bunny Rabbit Drag Queen thing was really funny, plus you got all weaknesses right (I hate the constant running.) However, you failed to mention Save/Teleport crystals, with I would have liked to have seen. Kudos for flat out saying it isn’t like Star Wars.
Haha this was absolutely brilliant, I currently have the game on rental, it’s massive, and perfect, but this is brilliantly done, I was laughing my head off.
Nice one
You’re hilarious. I didn’t think reviews could be so fun.
Please note. If you do not write more video game reviews, i will scream. Yes, i do intend to. -_-
Dude, look, don’t listen to all those haters out there. You told it like it is, skip all those others who think differently. Of course they’re zombies. Of course Fran is a bunny rabbit drag queen. Of course Reddas’s pants are “Oh my!”ish and Ashe has a tiny piece of skirt. That’s the whole embodiement of Final Fantasy!! That’s what it is all about!!
Good job, man. You rock. You deserve cash in bills and dollars for your work.
God, I love Fran’s ass. It is so tight! (and cold?)
This was funny, I thank you for that. I should be mad because I’m a huge FF player/fanatic…. But FF XII sucks anyway so what the heck.
Good job!
uh… wow. I laughed so hard I nearly cried. I am a die-hard ffxii fan and was fully prepared to chew you out for being “liek tohtally disrechpeckful omygawd” but this review kicks serious ass. I give you love.
(Yes, Balthier is a walking hair-gel commercial, but i still want to have his children. nuff said.)
There was someone who said that there’s no resemblance to Star Wars, but heck, there’s even a direct tribute in the earlier games. Characters named Biggs and Wedge. I think they appeared very briefly in XII too… Anywho, I really liked this review. xD Renaissance Festivals, WIN. And I have laughed at Reddas and his pants since I first saw him. Still, my fave FF. (close second, VII, XII graphics win)
I love FF, I really do, but I adore this^^ The screen’s all blurry from tears of joy. I’d quote all the bits that were really funny but there are too many. Thank you :)
It was a humorous review, I did enjoy it quite bit. But the whole Fran’s butt getting cold I have yet to see any cold climate but I don’t know that I have yet to get even half way into the game. Thanks for the review, keep up the good work.
Hey guy! correct this thing of “drag queen”!
Who you think you are to say that to the person (Fran) she’s very important to be called a “drag queen”!
More respect man
I have FF XII Collectors Edition. I didn’t really play FF before I got that one but I was turned onto it by a friend. I love the game. The only thing better? This review. I had to keep stopping to wipe my eyes I was laughing so hard.
PS Lady Ashe. Fran. Balthier’s hair. WIN!
This is hilarious! You’re awesome :D
LOL, loved it. Only, you forgot to mention Basch wearing his grannies homemade over-mitt on his chest. WTF is up with that thing?!
I love your explanation why Fran is upset. lol