I spent basically all 2021 playing FFX. I started on the 2nd of January, sent ~lissajous a very innocuous text saying “final fantasy ten seems to have a more interesting story than nine so far”, and then two months later I was fully obsessed with it.
I intended to move on to twelve as a sort of new year’s resolution; it actually took me a while to bring myself to do it. Prior to ten, my big FF obsession was six, and when ten took hold of my brain my obsessiveness about six suddenly waned; and I really didn’t want this to happen again. My concern was that either I’d be disappointed by twelve, or it would consume me to the extent that I forgot about ten – which was a kind of ridiculous thought, because (bangs fists on table) I’m so into it.
Case in point: this post is turning out to be about final fantasy ten when it’s supposed to be about final fantasy twelve, damn it! Wtf, me! Ok, not doing that anymore, I promise.
So! I’ll admit it was a slow start; I’ve been playing this since fairly early in the year and have only just got to the end, but over the last month or so I’ve been really into it. I’m not sure at what point in the game that happened – possibly around Archades. Look, I love how the localisation uses different accents for the different regions (even if I do have some weird instinct to say “blimey, guvnor” every time a member of the Archadian army opens his mouth), I love Cids of all kinds, and I particularly love the weird circle of moogles in Old Archades who sing their rhyme in an extremely creepy way: it gives me a big English folk horror vibe, which is something other FF games sadly lack.
I’m pleased to announce that my favourite character in this game is not a Sad Man but is in fact a Sad Woman, a certain Lady Ashe. Look, I just like people who are hot and grieving, I guess. Basch does a great job of filling the “serious, facially scarred, and ambiguously old” niche, though, and shipping-wise, I’m leaning towards pairing those two together so they can have an extremely miserable time. Ashe/Vaan is also fun to think about! Other characters who are great: Larsa, who talks and acts in no way like a twelve-year-old. I was extremely confused about his age and gender when he first appeared, and I still can’t not headcanon that he’s trans and approximately twenty. “Surprisingly rude” is also the best line in the game and nobody can tell me otherwise.
Something that turned me off FF12 initially was the amount of Sheer Lore in this game. Having not played other Ivalice stuff beyond about the first five minutes of FF Tactics (where, on reflection, I think it was the, er, tactics that turned me off – I just want to hit stuff with my big sword), I was a bit overwhelmed by just how much was going on. I didn’t actually pay a lot of attention to the cutscenes until I got properly invested in the game; what kept my interest was actually the battle system. Never would have seen this coming, but turns out I absolutely love gambits. I did come to appreciate the lore later on, though, especially the way that the various factions have complicated alliances with each other, and also how there are multiple sentient races all coexisting as part of the same society. Especially the seeq, absolute best boys. I just don’t know if I’m yet secure enough lore-wise to write fic for this game, but I’ll read some of what’s out there and see how things go.
Obligatory closing paragraph about the music, as it’s a huge part of the FF games for me, for various reasons (one day when I’m feeling particularly boring I’ll write a very long post about that). From what I’d heard of the twelve stuff before actually playing the game, I’d never found it that amazing. Uematsu’s style is very driven by catchy melodies and exciting rhythms, and the FF12 soundtrack is very much not like that; it’s much more in the standard game OST mould, imo, in that it aims more at “creating an atmosphere” than at “providing everyone with a cool and memorable tune”. I can play a lot of Uematsu stuff by ear after hearing it a couple of times – it’s memorable and the tunes work in the way you’d expect them to – but even after hours of running around the Westersand or wherever, I wouldn’t be able to do that for the stuff in this OST. That said, I think the music fits really well with the game, and I enjoyed spotting what seem to be quotations of various classical things (more, I’m sure, if I was the absolute beast of an expert on the western musical canon that my ninety-year-old grandmother is). Quite apart from that, there are also those two notes in Ashe’s theme that are perfection. Two notes! How is this possible!