One extra thing I came up with is that while FFIV and FFIX where series tribute games, I always felt FFXII was a homage and reimagining of Final Fantasy II. The executive producer, Akitoshi Kawazu, was the Director of FFII on the NES and went on to create the SaGa series. FFXII revolved around a group of orphans in the midst of a revolution, one of whom ended up with the empire (like Gabranth). In FFII, the party fears the completion of the Empire's battle airship the Dreadnought, and in FFXII, a major story sequence takes place on a Judge Magister's personal ship, the Dreadnought-class Leviathan. Both games utilized a Guest Character system where the party is accompanied by a story-related fourth character at key moments of the plot. One such character's involvement (SPOILER)Reddas sacrificing himself at the Pharos so the party can get the Sun Cryst strongly echoes a similar scene in FFII where (SPOILER)Minwu sacrifices himself atop the Mysidian tower so the party can get Ultima. After that scene, the FFII party had to deal with a flying castle inside of a cyclone which threatened to destroy their hometown. After the similar scene in FFXII, you have to stop the Sky Fortress Bahamut from destroying Rabanastre. Much like FFII's Emperor (SPOILER)merged with a devil at the end, FFXII's Autarch Vayne Solidor (SPOILER)merges with Venat, a god-like entity. Overall, both games have a very Star Wars-based motif. FFVI had a little bit of it, too, but the whole Returners arc was a set sequence early on in the game.
I know that's kind of a crackpot theory, so I guess I'm glad I left it out of my original post.
Agreed, and it's something this team always comes through on. Alexander O. Smith and Joseph Reeder have done an incredible job on all of Matsuno's games, and interestingly enough Smith told me at a panel that Matsuno himself actually knows English very well and has a lot to do with how good the localizations come out.Originally Posted by Laddy
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