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Tomorrow, it should be noted, is the official release date for Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII. Anyone who follows the videogame industry and has a passing interest in the Final Fantasy series should know this; I don't think there's ever been a bigger gap of time between the release of one game in the series and the next. If you don't follow the videogame industry, you might be wondering what the fuss is all about--and you can be forgiven if you frankly don't care.

Unfortunately, there isn't really any review of the game that explains its appeal to non-gamers. Luke Albiges's review over at eurogamer.net almost comes close, but it's more interested in selling the game to people who've already played it than to those who don't even play videogames, let alone RPGs. (I admit to doing something similar in an e-mail I sent to Tycho over at Penny Arcade--it's behind a cut at the end of this entry.)

If videogames don't even appeal to you, you might think me crazy for my plan to stand in line outside my local GameStop at 11:00 tonight so I can get the game at 12:01 and then spend the next eight hours or so playing it. (And then the fugue shall be broken, and life can return to normal.)

The thing is, with a lot of games, the experience surrounding the game is as important as the game itself. Final Fantasy games have a reputation as something special--they're the summer blockbusters, the sci fi and fantasy epics, frowned upon by the intellectual elite while they're adored by the masses. A Final Fantasy game is reason enough to own a console for many gamers. And then there's the release ritual: the anticipation, the build-up of excitement and rumors and media hype and screenshots and trailers and misinformation, a final countdown, the (mostly futile) search for early copies and stores that are breaking the street date, that final glorious moment of retail transacting and then the game's in your hands. Admire the wrapping, the box.

A word about boxes: you can tell whether a game's supposed to be high- or low-profile based on the box. Most low-profile games have to sell themselves on their boxes; they have to have appealing box-art that jumps out, grabs you, gets your attention. With the high-profile games, they already know you're interested. They can be subtler. The box for Final Fantasy X had nothing but the game's name on the front of the box in that classic font; the back had a piece of concept art and, like, three lines of text.

Still, the box isn't as important as the first moment of opening. Tearing through the security plastic--an irreversible act, you know; stores aren't allowed to exchange or refund games once you've taken the wrapping off now--and popping that box open, looking at the manual, seeing if there's anything else in there. Big role-playing games like Final Fantasy used to come with maps in them. They don't do that any more; they're superfluous to the guide they inevitably want you to buy. I did actually get a game with a map in it not too long ago, though: Rockstar's Bully. That was satisfying. Remind me of this again, several weeks from now; I've got more to say about Bully.

Other things you're likely to find in game boxes: advertisements. Mail-in subscription cards or order forms. Warning pamphlets--these have multiplied as game systems get more involved, more moving parts, and more player activity. None of these box contents (well, other than the game itself) are as important as the manual. Some players will ignore the game manual, choosing to dive right in to the game itself; figure out how the game controls by controlling the game. Final Fantasy X's a great game for this; I bet XII will be, too. I'd rather peruse the manual first--I like to sit down at a restaurant, the game's box open on the seat beside me, and read that thing cover to cover while I sip my drink and finish the last of my fries. Sometimes I'll skim a bit, since you tend to figure out how games are likely to work when you play them for twenty years.

And then, in the end, you put the game in.

You turn the console on.

If the game is good, you spend the next several hours in another reality.

I could go into further detail--how I always let the pregame demo run all the way through once before I start the game, how the presence of a guidebook will alter the experience, or the presence of other people--but that's really the gist of it: at their best, games expand the world in directiosn it didn't go before. You can get a similar feeling by immersing yourself in a book or a movie, although it's never as effective. In a videogame, the fourth wall is behind you. You may not be represented in the story in any way; you may not get to make any meaningful choices. But simply by having a hand in making things play out the way they do, you are drawn into the confines of the game world.

If the game is good. Final Fantasy XII is one of the best.

* * *

Penny Arcade has been quite dismissive of Final Fantasy XII. When they did their little parody on September 7, I was compelled to argue in favor of the game--although I probably didn't need to bother, since Jeremy Parish was doing the exact same thing. Anyway, I never got a response, so I thought I might as well post the letter here in honor of the game's impending release.

Tycho--

You get a lot of mail. I'll (try to) make this quick.

To say what you said today, that the gambit system is "the mechanism by which you relinquish control of the game", is to miss two very important points.

The first point is this: the Final Fantasy game you're looking for--the game where you press the "Fight" button sixteen consecutive times for three different characters to kill a series of enraged moppets--is still there, behind the Gambit System. You can turn it off, if you want. They're really trying to promote its novelty, so they don't spend much effort to show how you can ignore Gambits, set the game to Wait Mode, and basically find yourself playing Final Fantasy X-2 with a bit more mobility and a lot less Dress-Changing. Hell, since additional Gambit slots take up space on the License Board, this is quite a viable strategy: by forswearing Gambit use, you can gain a little bit more statistical power for your team. If that's your thing, then go for it!

But that still misses the second point: button presses =/= interactivity. Remember the GF Boosting from FF8? How they tried to make it seem like you weren't just watching the game by making you pound square a whole bunch? Yeah, that was lame. And pressing Fight sixteen times because you're in yet another series of random battles is kind of reminiscent of that, really. For a long time now, the actual gameplay in RPGs has been shifting from the random encounter ("Why are we standing in lines, taking turns, again?") to the menu screen (where your character development choices shape the strategy you will use in the fights to come). If you're just moving from point A to point B or, God help us, GRINDING LEVELS, for the game to ask you for further input when you've made all the important decisions already is kind of insulting. In this case, the Gambit System is just picking up where the Cursor Memory option left off.

It isn't until those unexpected battles with an unusual enemy or challenging environmental conditions that tactical decisions become important. While Final Fantasy XII has more than its fair share of those, it still has a lot of fights with cannon fodder. It's also got a number of situations that fall somewhere in between--I don't want to spoil anything, but there's one dungeon with a faulty power-source and enemies who cast Blind spells. I want to say that traveling in this dungeon, I felt more desperate than I have in any previous RPG, in a way that didn't feel unfair at all. It's because this new Continuous Time Battles or whatever they're calling it puts CHAOS back into fighting. The Gambit System is the tool by which that chaos can be contained, as much or as little as you'd like. Call it a relinquishment of control, if you're inclined; I don't recall it ever hurt Baldur's Gate.

Anyway. I consider Penny Arcade both the measuring cup and the bunsen burner ofthe gaming world (if that makes sense), so I felt inclined to respond to your criticisms.

Abundantly obsequious,

Jason Love

(And, incidentally, I kind of lied in this. But not really. "I WANT to say that traveling in this dungeon, I felt more desperate than I have in any previous RPG, in a way that didn't feel unfair at all. But I can't, because I haven't actually played the game yet, and instead just paraphrased a friend's description of that part of the game. Aren't politics corrupting?)