In light of Final Fantasy XII's sometimes-tumultuous four-year development cycle, you may have been getting nervous lately about whether or not the game was ever going to come out. Fret no longer; a boxed retail copy of Final Fantasy XII landed in our office this morning straight from Japan, and we've been eagerly plowing through Square Enix's latest role-playing opus to find out what took so long, and more importantly, if it's any good. The game diverges from past entries in the series so much that you might not even recognize it as a Final Fantasy game to begin with. But regardless of any aesthetic or narrative or mechanical differences, there's been no mistaking so far the thick layer of polish that's been so characteristic of the series since its inception.

　　As we've reported previously, FFXII takes place in the world of Ivalice, which veterans of Final Fantasy Tactics will recognize from that series' iterations on the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance. But naturally, you won't reprise any roles introduced by either of those games. This game begins with a lavishly rendered CG intro movie depicting the struggle of the kingdom of Dalmasca to repel an invasion and retain its independence. During this intro we see the wedding of Ashe, one of the main characters, to a noble youth who we can assume is the kingdom's crown prince. Said prince unfortunately takes an arrow directly to the heart during the ensuing battle with Dalmasca's invaders, setting the stage for the political tumult that will presumably follow throughout the game's storyline. (And if our experience with Final Fantasy Tactics is any indication, there will be a lot of that.)

　　After the introduction finishes and you play through a brief tutorial, you're finally given control of Vaan, Final Fantasy XII's foppish main character who roams the streets of the bustling Dalmascan capital, Rabanastre. This teeming urban center is filled with not only humans, but also a number of Ivalice's other races, like the bunny-eared viera, the reptilian bangaa, and the swinelike seeq. The game comprehensively introduces you to its many mechanics through frequent tutorials in this early stage, and one of these tutorials describes the new objective-based mission model, whereby you'll actually have a list of quests with specific parameters for completion. The only one of these we've run across so far has been a bounty quest of sorts that had us tracking down a specific monster (a fanged tomato man, natch) who was roaming around the deserts outside of Rabanastre. Of course, the game introduces new characters and moves the story along in a fashion typical of the series, but we'll be curious to see if these missions give FFXII a more regimented feel as we play some more.

　　This ain't your daddy's Final Fantasy--but it seems just as good, so far.

　　Final Fantasy XII's setting is a big enough departure from the series, but even bigger changes have happened on the back end, with the combat and character-progression systems seeing almost complete overhauls since the last single-player entry, Final Fantasy X. As we reported in our hands-on look at FFXII's recent retail demo, the fighting is more reminiscent of typical MMORPG combat than it is of past Final Fantasy games, since you'll fight enemies directly on the field, and you can literally run away from them if you're getting worked over. Combat has been slowly paced so far, since we've just gained our second party member (an impish girl named Penelo) and we don't have many special abilities just yet. But once more magic spells, summoned monsters, and the gambit system (a method of assigning behaviors to your party members) come into play, we imagine the excitement level of the combat is going to pick up considerably.

　　Speaking of special abilities... That's another area in which this new game has evolved. Final Fantasy X offered an interesting method of customizing your characters' development in the form of the sphere grid, a board-gamelike interface where you could control which abilities and stat bonuses each of your party members received. FFXII offers a similar system called the license board that so far looks to be even more free-form than the sphere grid. The license board basically looks like a chess board, with certain squares showing proficiencies in various weaponry, like staves and daggers; armor, like helmets, bracers, and so on; and various kinds of black and white magic. You'll gain license points by defeating enemies, and you can then unlock specific squares to gain the associated abilities for a given character.

　　Square Enix has clearly put effort into streamlining Final Fantasy XII's interface, as well. Even all in Japanese, the various menus and the license board have been a breeze to navigate so far, and issuing commands even in the midst of the quasi-real-time combat is easy to manage. In fact, the game almost holds your hand in terms of your most pertinent objectives. You can access a full-screen map in any location, and the character you need to talk to or door you need to exit through will always be marked with a big red X (which has been great for steering us along, so far, since the game is all in Japanese). Shops and other points of interest are even marked with little icons showing exactly what they have on offer, so you hardly even have to learn your way around--just pull up the map and you can instantly find what you're looking for.

　　The license board gives you a chance to customize each of your characters' spell sets and weapon proficiencies.

　　Ever since Final Fantasy VII, this series has presented one big multimedia extravaganza after another, and FFXII is no slouch in this department. The CG movies are of the absurdly high quality you'd expect--take a look at our raft of new movies for proof of that. But Square Enix has certainly strengthened its PS2 development chops in the years since FFX shipped, as we've been mightily impressed by the real-time visuals in the game as well. The character models in the frequent dramatic scenes move and emote with a pleasing degree of realism, and the environments we've seen so far have looked diverse and organic. Though we haven't seen a lot of variety yet, simply because we're not that far into it, we've been very impressed by what we've seen so far and can't wait to see this level of quality in the many people and places to come.

　　So far we've been quite impressed by the portentous events of Final Fantasy XII's storyline, the cohesive feel of its new role-playing mechanics, and the considerable heft of its visual presentation. If you've been waiting impatiently all these years for the game to hit stateside, you'll unfortunately have a few more months to wait, as Square Enix is promising only to bring it out in English by Thanksgiving. Just think, late this year you might be playing Final Fantasy XII on your brand-spanking-new PlayStation 3. Stay tuned for more in the coming months, and be sure to check out our pile of new gameplay movies and screenshots in the meantime.