Final Fantasy XII

As everyone may know, this manga is based on the RPG Final Fantasy XII, this work helped understand me the story a little better compared to the game, especially the beginning. nonetheless; it was bad after all.

I highly doubt that someone who haven't played the game would enjoy reading this manga, the story was not explicit so it''s hard to follow, and -for some reason that I don't know- it got axed, so it will stop at a very wrong point, if you're thinking of playing the game then maybe this manga will give you a general idea about what you're going to play and you get to know the characters... though I wonder if someone would want to play of the PS2 generation now.

The art was bad in my opinion, in some point the author suddenly decided to draw some really violent scenes that really doesn't suit this series, I mean the game was one which anyone with the age of 12+ could play, yet I won't really recommend anyone below 16 to read this one because of some disturbing scene. that aside; the drawing wasn't really clear and many facial expression of some characters were somehow off.

The only thing that I could give some credit for this manga is the characters, they were well-done I would say, especially Balthier and Basch, here you could get to know them better if you already had played the game.

My overall rate is 4/10, I did enjoy reading it but, like I said before, it ends in a really bad point, so I got really disappointing after all.

Thanks for reading! :)

I would only recommend this manga to people that enjoyed playing Final Fantasy XII, and would like to know even more information about the characters. This manga is not a good supplement for playing the game, which I highly recommend you do first and then read the manga afterward. I absolutely love FFXII and Princess Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca was my favorite character in the game, so that’s the main reason why I enjoyed the first three volumes.

All of the characters for the most part are kept character in this manga adaptation, but I honestly think that this manga was created with people that have already played the game in mind. The only reason this didn’t get a perfect score from me is that the art is a bit lackluster, which is disappointing because FFXII is one of the most gorgeous games on Playstation 2. The buildings and airships look great, but sometimes the character’s expressions and proportions look off and sort of like the artist rushed them or didn’t reference the game’s concept art enough.

Final Thoughts ( Spoilers Below )

In the end several things were off with this manga adaptation and looking back there were a lot of scenes/pages that were wasted on trivial events instead of hitting all of the story in the game. Specifically, Fran gets absolutely no time to be developed even though in the game there is a lot of information imparted about her and Viera’s as well. There really should have been one more volume, and the ending seems much to abrupt, I almost wonder if the manga was canceled because although, the artwork did improve, it still wasn’t as consistent at capturing the more realistic/detailed look of the game. Lastly, Balthier’s past and his meeting with his father are not in this adaptation at all and there is no final scene with Gabranth or even the final boss fight with Vayne! This adaptation could have been much, much better, and I’m still glad that I read , because there were moments in the game that were expanded upon but in the end it just seems incomplete and not as enjoyable as just playing Final Fantasy XII.