Customer Reviews: Read 77 more reviews...
 Must Have Final Fantasy Guide August 30, 2008
If you want to enjoy your Final Fantasy experience you must get this book. Otherwise you have a long road ahead of you.
Excellent Reading Activity for Child Gamers April 30, 2008
I'm adding a positive review here as a special educator for parents whose children play video games. Buying game guides for your kids is a good way for them to spend time reading and analyzing information. Buying guides is also a way for you to see what your children are playing. This game and the guide have some very educationally advanced concepts that you can take advantage of, if your child happens to want to play this game.
Final Fantasy XII has a nomenclature that is based on many cultures around the world, and many languages. You will find culture and words that are Japanese, Irish, German, Sanskrit, Arabic and English. These can be found in names of characters, the espers (big monsters that help the game characters attack), maps and locations in the game, magic attacks, even weapons. All of these have names and descriptions that are based in many cultures around the world. Explore these with your child!
Have your child describe to you what is happening in the game and explore the guide to get more depth. When your child revisits a location in the game, have them go around and talk to the people in that location. What are the people saying? For example, as the empire begins to amass for the war against Dalmasca, what are different townspeople saying? What are their interests?
Doing the reading of the speech in the game and interpreting it by speaking aloud to you are ways to improve language use, expressive language skills. Reading improves receptive language. This guide has a lot of world history in it that can lead to many kinds of discussions, without you needing to actually play the game.
There is nothing offensive in this game, and everything to be gained by reading the guide and discussing the languages and cultural historical details the game developers have written in.
One good activity to explore with the help of the guide is the Bestiary, which is a list of the monsters in the game. The list actually contains pages of stories and myths. So, as your child captures various monsters, they will get a page about that monster, but also more pages that contain unrelated mythical stories. These stories are worth collecting and reading. You won't find these in the guide, just the list of the monsters. You have to catch the monsters to get the pages of stories. One of the best stories is the one you get by defeating the Garif hunter in the Greensnake area of the Ozmone Plain.
On top of this, your child will likely play the game longer and get more time in, making the game purchase a good money buy. Eventually you can resell the game along with the guide, which adds value to a game resale.
Everything to recommend! I have a child with a speech and language disorder and games with their guides have really improved his ability to process language. He is an honor student now, and good play like this has added to his reading.
Final Fantasy Masterpiece April 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book clearly and accurately guides the player through the games main storyline and through the many aspects of the this fun game. From tips on setting up gambits, side quests, hidden espers, bestiary, navigating the license board to full detailed maps of every area, this book has it all.
It's about time April 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've been playing final fantasty games for a long time and I was getting a little worried - because each release was getting worse and worse after FF7.
FF12 is freakin' beatiful. Great battle play, great graphics, and great acting. You can play this over and over again and not get tired of it.
 Spoiler Alerts! March 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought the guide to go with my other guides (collect them with every FF). This is one of the guides that are so incredibly horrible that I wish I hadn't looked at a single page. Final Fantasy XII has an amazing story. Too bad you can read the whole thing on page one.
Every time you look up a boss strategy, the next page has the description of what happens afterward in big, bold text.
If you want to experience the game, don't buy this, or if you do, save it for the second run through the game.
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