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Hop off your Chocobo and sit a spell as you soak in some extra effervescent content.

A story about a young man wanting to be a pilot to overthrow an evil empire ... if you think FFXII sounds a bit Star Wars-y, I'll agree. Heck, even Hitoshi Sakimoto's soundtrack occasionally sounds a bit similar to John William's scores. Several of the ships and battle scenes are reminiscent of the newer films in the double trilogy. Of course, George Lucas has admitted that many of his films' stories were influenced by Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, so I'll chalk it up to cross-inspiration with somewhat similar development facilities. With the game industry borrowing more heavily from film talent, the two media will continue to converge until we're given game controllers at the ticket counter. But I digress.

The game's story is pretty standard for FF, featuring a war between empires, various deceptions, mistaken identities, reluctant allies, good guys gone bad, bad guys gone good, space ships, giant monsters, magic and, of course, a l'il bit of love. You'll see a few familiar faces but with new names and plenty of chatty townsfolk who are willing to stop and tell a tale, reveal bits trivia, offer some guidance or just blabber some useless banter.

FFXII has tons of worthwhile side missions and mini games that don't diverge too much from the overall story and, in many cases, actually help it along. A few include shouting silly taunts at guards ("Over here, bucket head!"), hunting for specific monsters (I would love to have some of those creature posters), riding Chocobos, collecting specific items and much, much more. Yep, those oversized, ride-able birds, the Chocobos, are back. This time 'round you rent the more fierce looking Chocobos as transportation for a limited time, so when they tucker out they drop you off and head back to their corral.

Those two points that keep FFXII from being a perfect game go to my single small gripe - the camera. Although you have pretty good control over your camera throughout the game, it resets when you pass between areas and goes a little crazy when you are in a corner. Also, the camera control is flipped - pressing right moves your view left and vice versa - and you can't change it. Of course these don't matter much in terms of overall game since it doesn't take long to get used to it. I also didn't count Vaan's painted on abs (a little lighter with the shadowing next time, Square Enix) against the game. I just pretend it's part of his Manly Muscles shirt.

The new License board is a little similar to FFX's Mana board in that you cash in earned experience to unlock items in relative order. Here they are on a large, broken chess (or Go) board and often include more than one ability. You'll need to get a license before you can use weapons, shields, spells or other special abilities. The system does allow you to create either a generalized character with many abilities or a highly specialized warrior. As you reach the edge of the board, the abilities are more power, such as Quickening, which destroy opponents and suck your magic points dry.

The Gambit system takes a little time to understand and optimize, but once you get it, you'll wish it was in every RPG. it basically lets you set action conditions for your characters so, for example, if anyone is down to less than 50% of their hit points (HP), a character with Cure can have their gambit set to cast the spell and restore the depleted teammate's HPs. You can also se them to attack the nearest creature, which gets them battle ready right away instead of waiting for you to decide when or what to attack. of course this can work to your detriment if they start attacking the dinosaur in the desert when you aren't up to the fight.

One bit of realism they did add is that beasts don't carry Gil - and why would a killer cacti carry cash? - so you'll collect tons of items to sell. Sure, a wolf would not be carrying a flask of potion but it's a little more likely that you could get a weird liquid or a pelt from an animal than money. The items you do collect can be sold, and then unlock more items available in the Bazaar, which are typically less expensive groups of items. Best to buy in bulk, eh?

No matter how long I play, I remain amazed with the environments the squeezed out of the PS2. OK, so some of it goes to the sexy, long-legged ladies with bunny ears and the townsfolk wearing spandex and detailed metal hybrid outfits, but the people, creatures, buildings, foliage and animals all look great.

If you are a FF fan, then you might as well shell out the extra Gil (only $10 more) for the Collector's Edition. It comes in a metal case and includes a bonus disk with developer interviews (in English and subtitled Japanese), concept art slide show, trailers and, the most worthwhile section, a commentated history of the Final Fantasy series.