PAL FFXII in early 2007

By Tom Bramwell Published 22 September, 2006

Bit of a wait, then.

Final Fantasy XII will be released in Europe in early 2007.

The PlayStation 2-exclusive latest game in the epic RPG series has been out in Japan since mid-March, and will be released in the US on 31st October.

Square Enix Europe president and CEO John Yamamoto said the game "looks set to become one of the crowning glories of PlayStation 2".

Set in the world of Ivalice, FFXII follows princess Ashe and Vaan - a young resistance fighter and a young adventurer respectively - who are brought together by the invasion of their home, Dalmasca, by Arcadia.

Unlike the first ten games in the FF series, XII's battles take place in real-time on the exploration screen, and introduce "active dimension battle" (ADB), which involves using a Command Window to specify attacks and then waiting for a Wait Time Gauge to fill up before the action is performed.

Mind you, that simplistic description probably doesn't do it justice. For more on that game, which has proven controversial due to the nature of its battle system, see our review of the Japanese version.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • HiddenAway #1 5 years ago

    Well, plenty of time to finish Kingdom Hearts 2 then :-D

  • toy_brain #2 5 years ago

    A 1-year wait between Japanese and PAL release seems to be pretty much normal these days.
    Not that it makes it right, it just means Square-Enix are no better than any other publisher.
    Oh well........

  • TreeFrog #3 5 years ago

    Looks like it's the US version for me then

  • Schiraman #4 5 years ago

    Useless fecking bastards.

    How can it possibly take an entire year to translate a game?

    Surely Japanese companies can't *still* be surprised that JRPGs sell well internationally? It's been a few years since FF VII now, I think it's about fecking time they got their act together.

  • crazyhorse174 #5 5 years ago

    It probably wont be worth the wait...

    Is it just me, or have they all been pretty crap since VII??

    Or did they just raise the bar so high with VII that it's going to take something almighty to better it?

    Your thoughts please...

  • The12thMonkey #6 5 years ago

    VII weren't all that, really. Or maybe it just seems that way since I played the SNES efforts before VII.

    Don't have the cash to import this, so I guess I'll store it up for next year. And yes, KH2 next week, so that'll need a good going over.

  • lambtron #7 5 years ago

    What's that Mr Square Enix? You don't have any lube? Not to fear we Europeans are quite used to this.

    /assumes position.

  • Steroyd #8 5 years ago

    well at least we got a confirmed date... kinda.

    Times like these i hate the PAL region hopefully next gen Blu-ray will be big enough to have FMV and multi-languages or at least update different language support over the network or something!! :(

    ANYTHING so i don't have to wait so long after Japan.

  • dudefella #9 5 years ago

    haha @ lambtron. so true.

    don't know if I'll bother with this then, unless it's very very good.

  • ProfessorLesser #10 5 years ago

    Wait a minute. Sky pirates? Arcadia?

    Is anyone else starting to get flashbacks here?

  • Fatallyflawed #11 5 years ago

    Skies of Arcadia 2 on 360...Bliss.
    Go on Sega.

    And yes all FF games since VII have been better looking but less enjoyable.
    Story is EVERYTHING, all recent ones have been a bit wet really.

  • EmiliasHorse #12 5 years ago

    The FF brand is still the only thing that will convince me to buy a PS3. However with Square and Sony not caring for the European market it could be many many years until I see a "Next gen" FF.

    Fingers crossed that Blue Dragon is good

  • Darren #13 5 years ago

    ... and that we won't have to wait a year for that as well!

  • kenty #14 5 years ago

    Have had the US version on pre-order for a while now, and my swap magic bits just arrived so all prepared.

    no way i would even consider playing the PAL version, even if it wasn't coming out late

  • lambtron #15 5 years ago

    Whats the betting there is no PAL 60 option. Grrrr.

  • Cougar #16 5 years ago

    Final Fantasy XII got the perfect score of 40/40 in Japan's top magazine Famitsu.
    That makes it the 5th game to join that perfect club and certainly the only Final Fantasy game to ever get into it.
    Famitsu has 4 reviewers for each game which means all for of them gave FFXII the perfect score.

    Maybe the long time is to make sure that they don't screw up one of the only games that can truly claim to be one of the best games ever.

  • Scimarad #17 5 years ago

    "Is it just me, or have they all been pretty crap since VII?? "

    It really is just you...

  • Kazzahdrane #18 5 years ago

    "no way i would even consider playing the PAL version, even if it wasn't coming out late"

    Elitist much? The Kingdom Hearts 2 PAL version is almost-sexually good. Here's hoping they do as nice a job with FFXII, though I too hate the ridiculous waiting.

  • Lex_Luthor #19 5 years ago

    If we were getting the special edition in the UK, I'd wait, but as that's unlikely... guess I'll be playing in just over a month :)

  • HermitArcader #20 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Aretak #21 5 years ago

    Twilight Princess isn't an RPG though, so it's a moot point.

  • admir #22 5 years ago

    EU has many different languages thats why you/us get the games later. people just dont get the hared work that needs to be done. so stop bitchen. we should make Jap language offical EU language so we can play at same time as the japanes

  • CitizenGeek #23 5 years ago

    Sweet Jesus! Actually, it's all that bad. I guess we do get KH2.....

  • tenma #24 5 years ago

    Wow, I keep forgetting this game hasn't come out everywhere else yet.

  • manic_mouse #25 5 years ago

    Is there any reason why publishers like SE seem to only start work on translating games once they've been released in Japan? Couldn't they translate,voice record etc in tandem with the development? The same people, surely, don't work on every translation so what difference does it make?

  • Steroyd #26 5 years ago

    Doesn't bother me, we European rpg fans will just have to *make do* Twilight Princess this Christmas. I know its tough, settling for a rubbish game to past the time but we don't always get what we want *cries*.

    Zelda Twilight Princes hasn't been launched anywhere yet and gets launched worldwide because they don't speak... it's just text, and i so hope to god i misinterpereted that and you think Zelda rocks.

    I think the reason why they don't do multiple languages at the same time is because disc space can't hold all languages (at least i hope) and maybe they re-do the lip synch for said language.

    Plus you have to re-do the whole script as well because the Japaneese to English translations are nowhere near direct.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/06 @ 12:03

  • Les #27 5 years ago

    "I think the reason why they don't do multiple languages at the same time is because disc space can't hold all languages (at least i hope) and maybe they re-do the lip synch for said language."

    I think the biggest reason is a financial one: they want to show a steady revenue during the fiscal year.

  • manic_mouse #28 5 years ago

    I think les is right. You don't have to fit all the languages onto one disc to release it in different languages simultaneously, simply have different discs for different distribution areas/countries.

    And it taking time to re-do the script is also a moot point: The people who will be re-writing/re-recording the script/menus in different languages will not be the same people who are working on Japanese parts of the game so it'll not slow anything down at all!

  • Nikanoru #29 5 years ago

    With that kind of a delay, I fully expect a version with loads of extras. They've done it with FFX and FFX-2, now I hope they'll take it a step further. It's the least we deserve, Squenix.


    Skies of Arcadia 2 on 360...Bliss.
    Go on Sega.

    That would make me buy a 360 right this instant. :(

    Here's to a Wii version though.

  • chupachups #30 5 years ago

    I wish they'd have a Euro-American release of the English-language version of games, then do the french/german/italian/spanish version later. Loads of PC RPGs and adventure games never even got translated out of English but sold well across Europe.

  • Retroid #31 5 years ago

    "Pal 60 isnt really that important in a Final Fantasy Game."

    It is when it literally adds *hours* to the game time O_o