This is where Gambits come into play, allowing you to utilise a series of if/then logical instructions to dictate how your characters will approach situations. You can still give each character individual commands, but juggling a team of three or four characters in close to real-time is a near impossibility. The MMORPG comparisons go deeper still when you look at how combat actually plays out. There is no separate battle screen and you are free to navigate and avoid counters at your leisure. Rather than randomly entering battles while in combat areas, enemies you encounter share the field with you. Final Fantasy had flirted with the idea of making turn-based combat more ‘active’, specifically through the various iterations of the Active Time Battle system – XII takes this active combat concept and combines it with more MMORPG-style encounter design. It is completely unlike any Final Fantasy title before it, and while different to what would come later it hints at some of the series’ future direction. To me, the defining aspect of Final Fantasy XII is it’s combat system. It turns out I’d really missed out on something special until now.

The Zodiac Age was a chance for me to experience the game for the first time with the expectations of a player in 2017. I never played Final Fantasy XII during its time, and so knew only of its reputation as being a bizarre black sheep of the series. Gone are the traditional turn-based battles and the characters defined by their own personal melodrama – in their place, a character programming combat system and a story concerned with the rise and fall of empires. Most of my Final Fantasy experiences come from the so-called golden age of Final Fantasy, the PlayStation era – so Final Fantasy XII is a bizarre left turn compared to what I’m used to from the series.

Ffxii zodiac age switch review