Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

Older than time itself, the Final Fantasy catalogue has been anything but finite. Lately, Square Enix has been wetting their creative beaks when it comes to their flagship series: They’ve gone the massively-multiplayer route, tried it in first-person view mode, and created an action-shooter spin-off. Final Fantasy XII (PS2/Square Enix, Square Enix), the next in the line of unrelated turn-based role-playing games, beyond the namesake and core gameplay, is a return to form and quite possibly the best chance for non-RPG players to get into the series.

The first Final Fantasy hit the NES nearly 20 years ago (1987), but the gameplay remains largely the same. Final Fantasy is a turn-based role-playing game where players build the levels of their party by fighting a myriad of ghouls and monsters. The turn-based aspect of RPG’s have largely fallen wayside to more real-time action, but Square Enix implements parts of both. No longer are you whisked into fights at random—enemies appear on the screen and you can largely choose to engage them in combat. Once you lock onto an enemy, your character must wait for his action meter to charge before launching an attack, using magick (their spelling, not mine), or using an item to help a party member. The characters move in real-time and the action is sped up, but it’s still turn-based at heart.

What sets the gameplay apart from FF’s of days past is the controversial gambit system, which successfully eliminates some of the more tedious parts of the game, while still keeping the player in control. Gambits are a series of actions you give each party member, such as when to attack and when to heal a comrade. You rank these orders by importance, and when your character engages in combat, they will act on their own based on your gambits. It’s like a coach telling his players what strategy to follow before hitting the ice, and it is possible to turn off gambits, but it’s great not having to use the battle menu for every move.

Square Enix has also been increasingly obsessed with the cinematic side of the series—not surprising since the FF series has always emphasized storyline, even during the 8-bit days. Their desire to make a grandiose artistic statement resulted in the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was such a colossal failure it led to the Square-Enix merger. Naturally, the sheer number of fictional places and people with unusual names can distract from the real world situations the characters face, and the faux-British accents are grating, but this familiar tale of justice and betrayal is deep, with luscious cutscenes. The in-game graphics are as impressive as any current-gen title, and the enourmous bosses have beautiful, full-screen attacks.

Final Fantasy XII is proof the series still has something to contribute. Players who jumped off the bandwagon should get back on, and first-timers shouldn’t be intimidated.

P-Wii-view

I had the opportunity to play the Wii’s Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, for about an hour last week at MIGS. The control scheme obviously takes advantage of the remote’s motion sensor—it controls Link’s sword. Point it forward and he’ll stab, swing it and he’ll swipe horizontally. As a former GameCube-exclusive title, the Wii-functionality isn’t as game-defining as the other Wii titles, and frankly it’s debatable that it will be a wholly more satisfying experience than the upcoming GC version.

That said, it still looks to be a very impressive adventure game worthy of the name Zelda. Twilight Princess for the Wii drops on Nov. 19, and the GC version should be out in December.