The current generation of gaming may as well be called the “Remastered Generation” as new remasters and remakes popping up every month, with Dead Island and the Batman Arkham games being the newest additions to the trend.
Just like Dead Island: Remastered Edition and Ratchet & Clank HD Collection, it’s often the case that remasters are worse than the originals in one way or another. Remasters are increasingly met with disdain but even in this practice, one that exists largely for lazy cash grabs there are exceptions, there are remasters of good quality. One such exception is Square Enix.
Square Enix’s approach to remasters is worthy of credit, as their work is far more than quick ports with slight resolution boosts. The first remaster set for Kingdom Hearts bundled together the previously Japan-exclusive Final Mix release of Kingdom Hearts 1 (which had bosses, enemies, cutscenes and such that weren’t in the original release) and the PS2 remake of Chain of Memories (previously never released in Europe). Added onto this was a “movie” version of the DS release Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days; as a DS game, it was designed around the system and its limitations, and couldn’t be easily reworked into a console release, so Square Enix instead focused on compiling the game’s major cutscenes and conveying its story (as every game in the franchise, no matter how small, seems to have some important bearing on the series’ overarching plot).
It all comes together to provide plenty of reason to buy a game you have already played again, while serving the additional purpose of neatly assembling multiple games from the series into one place (a well-deserved criticism of the series is how it jumps between platforms too frequently). It is a remaster that justifies its existence very well, and something Square Enix repeated with a second set of Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix and Birth By Sleep (both Japan-exclusive previously).
What’s also deserving of praise is that Square Enix are very restrained in their use of remasters (for their internally developed games, it must be said), with only Final Fantasy X/Final Fantasy X-2 and the Kingdom Hearts series receiving them thus far and the latter wholly benefiting from them. And this is the crux of the article; they’re a little too restrained, in a sense. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD were released in March 2014, and two years on Square Enix have yet to move onto Final Fantasy XII.
Final Fantasy XII is usually regarded as a bit of a black sheep in the franchise. Its combat system is an acquired taste, an odd real-time system based on the series’ Active Time Battle gauges (a system devised to make turn-based gameplay more engaging), with a system called Gambits to allow players to assign sets of rules to their second and third active party members to further complicate matters (however, the player can directly control them if they wish to). Its story is fantastic, a long and twisting tale of politics, betrayals and free will versus destiny, with fantastic voice performances throughout. it’s set in the world of Ivalice, an intricately designed setting that appears in a few games throughout the series (most notably Final Fantasy Tactics, directed and mainly written by the same writer, Yasumi Matsuno), to which FFXII dedicates pages upon pages of lore, world-building and in-universe writing.
Writing and the world are the game’s greatest strengths, backed by the excellent presentation of PS2-era Square Enix at their best, only slightly hamstrung by corporate meddling (early game protagonist Vaan was shoe-horned in to give a young, pretty lead for Square Enix’s usual target audience to “identify with”). It’s a game I’ve longed to revisit for a while now, which has given rise to my desire for a remaster or re-release to make replaying it easier. But, given Square Enix’s approach to the Kingdom Hearts remasters, there’s another reason why they should move on to FFXII: a Japan-only re-release of its very own!
Final Fantasy XII: International Zodiac Job System was released exclusively in Japan in 2007, following Square Enix’s long trend of releasing “international editions” of games in Japan sometime after the initial release as they frequently improved, adjusted and added new content to their games during localisation; Final Fantasy X had a host of bosses unique to the European release before the Japanese international edition, for example.
International Zodiac Job System went one further; the original game let players decide party members’ roles by allowing them to plot progress across a “licence board”. To use weapons or abilities, characters needed to have the corresponding square on the board, and covering the entire board with every character would take far too long, encouraging diversification of the party (every character had their own board, though each was identical).
The Zodiac Job System replaces the original’s single board with twelve unique boards, each based on a job from classic Final Fantasy games, with the licences from the original divided up across them. Once a character joined the party, the player assigns them a board; this must be done carefully, as once chosen a character’s board can never be changed. With each character varying in stats (even in the original, each character had a stat they were the best and worst in, with a hierarchy for each stat), careful planning was crucial.
The game’s combat was tweaked accordingly and is on the whole more difficult, and the International Zodiac Job System release added extra features such as New Game +, “New Game -” (characters gain no experience) and a button to double game speed.
This would be a perfect addition to a remaster of Final Fantasy XII, providing returning players with good reason to come back and try it again outside of nostalgia or ease of use. It changes the game substantially enough to justify playing through it again, and many of those who have played it cite it as the better version of the game. A remaster that included both the original version and the International Zodiac Job System release would easily justify its own existence in a sea of easy, quick cash-ins.
Which makes it odd that Square Enix have yet to move on it. Two years after Final Fantasy X saw a release and we’ve yet to hear a word about any such treatment for Final Fantasy XII; I can’t tell if it’s because their hands are too full (interviews with staff saw some admitting that very few people were assigned to the Kingdom Hearts remasters, at least initially) or if FFXII‘s mixed reception has them wary of picking it up. While a PS2 Classic release on PS4 is possible, Square Enix never did so for its PS2 library on PS3 and don’t seem liable to start now.
Square Enix’s remasters are very impressive, and their approach is commendable when others are so carefree as to release inferior or identical versions for quick and at times undeserved cash. But it must be said that they could stand to be slightly more active in creating them, at least until they get a Final Fantasy XII remaster out the door. It’s a remaster I would really love to see, if only for a localised release of International Zodiac Job System. Hopefully, some others will join me in wishing for an announcement, maybe in a week’s time at E3!
