But one Persona 5 and one Pokemon Violet later, and finally I'm starting this game. And one of the bigger appeals of FFXII is the fact that this is a game that's apparently a bit more lore-heavy in terms of the politics and setting. As well as a bestiary that's probably one of the few times in Final Fantasy that we actually get to learn a lot more about the monsters beyond enemies to fight!
And I could go on a bit about FFXII's story so far and how I find it and how annoying Vaan is, but we're here talking about the monsters, so let's talk about the monsters!
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Imperial Swordsman
- Classification: Archadian Empire
- Genus: Imperial
The game starts off with a bit of a extended prologue/prequel/tutorial starring a couple of decoy protagonists just to show us what the state of the political wars in the world are like before throwing us to into the shoes of a more typical JRPG fantasy protagonist, and we get to fight these Imperial Swordsmen, representing the kingdom of Archadia. They have nice helmets, but I really don't have much to say about them. Presumably, we'll meet actual characters as enemies and bosses? I never have much to say about humanoid characters if they don't do something interesting with them.
Air Cutter Remora
- Classification: Archadian Empire
- Genus: Imperial Armament
And I'm going to assume this is a tradition for all Final Fantasy games, but we have a huge, visually impressive boss that dies rather quickly in the tutorial segment. for FFVII we had the Guard Scorpion, and FFXIII had the Manasvin War-Mech. FFXII throws Air Cutter Remora at us, one of the Star Wars-esque gunships that take part in the badass cutscene right before the gameplay, and... it sure is a sci-fi spaceship! It's kind of interesting that this gunship is supposed to be like, some kind of an object to take part in more close-quarters combat compared to modern fighter jets and bomber planes? It's hovering vertically and shoots things down like a floating tower.
I actually don't have much to say here either. It sure is a floating thing that shoots missiles at my party!
Dire Rat
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Rat
And after we gain control of the (supposed) main character, generic adventurer peasant youth living in the slums of a city oppressed by an empire, Vaan Ratsbane, we see him immediately fighting rats. Interestingly, these Dire Rats are actually called "Wererats" in the original Japanese version of Final Fantasy XII. While visually they do look like just big rats, I do like the sinister implication that these rats that Vaan casually murders are actually transformed humans.
The Dire Rat is described as being a vile creature that lives in the sewers, and while the humans have been trying to eradicate them, their rate of reproduction always causes the population to boom back up.
Oh, yes. Unlike the other two Final Fantasy games I've played and reviewed on this site, Final Fantasy XII actually has a bestiary. Each monster gets two pages, with the second page (usually being more flavour-related; the Dire Rat's talks about rat tails being used for nasty-tasting potions) only being unlocked when you kill a certain amount of that enemy. Lovely! Each monster also has a 'genus' and 'classification' listed among them, and if you can tell from my Pikmin reviews, I love fantasy settings with a working taxonomical system!
Wolf
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Wolf
Oh yeah, that's... that's not a 'wolf'. Where the rat does still look like a regular human-world rat (albeit with glowing eyes), the Wolf here only has the silhouette and body layout in common with wolves from our world. What a head it has. It looks more like a cross between a dinosaur and a bat, with a jagged, grnning mouth; a chunky lower jaw; what seems to be hardened upper part of their heads; unnaturally small beady eyes; and weird fin-like ears.
Interestingly, from the lore, the Wolves of Ivalice are recorded to have once lived in close harmony with mankind... but eventually were driven out into the wilderness, at which point they began preying on monsters and this act caused the 'arising' of diverse strains of wolves, transforming them from just regular wolves to wolf-like monsters. It's like a reverse domestication, only instead of breeding wolves into adorable pet breeds like chihuahuas and bulldogs, these wolves are independent and transform into Greymon-headed violent bastards.
Cactite
- Classification: Plant
- Genus: Cactus
The setting that the first parts of the game takes place in, Rabanastre, is in a desert town. And in addition to the wolves, these Cactites are extremely common weak enemies. I do like how they look, it's just a giant cactus stem with stubby legs and long arms, and Cactites just sort of walk around and wave their hands and mostly minding their business. While I enjoy my more 'monstrous natural anatomy' plant monsters, I do also enjoy plant creatures like these that just have a cartoon face.
Cactites are described as 'mean-spirited' (though their in-game behaviour is more cowardly) and lacking of intelligence to do actual damage to humans. These Cactites are the smallest 'sproutlings', however. The lore then proceeds to describe about how some rare strains can sprout a valuable scarlet flower that's a highly vaunted for being a sign of good fortune to "young lovers with a tolerance of needles". Haha!
Cockatrice
- Classification: Avion
- Genus: Cockatrice
Oh, okay! The Cockatrice in this game is an early enemy and it's just... a mean-ass looking chicken. A fat, mean-ass looking chicken without a neck. No snake parts, no stone-petrification eye beams. Okay! As an early fat bird-themed enemy, I actually do find the Cockatrice to be absolutely charming, particularly since they move around by rolling on the ground. Ha! I like how this thing still looks like a chicken but with all the parts mutated somewhat grotesquely. They did a great job at making that face look mean, and I like the tiny dinosaur claw-fingers.
The Cockatrice's profile describes some of its biology, which is fun. They didn't need to put any of these in, but I just love it. The Cockatrice feed on smaller animals, spitting out a sticky saliva and keeping these trapped prey until they are hungry enough to feed on them. Sort of like how certain spiders keep around coccooned-up prey in their web. Also, while the Cockatrice obviously can't fly with those tiny wings, apparently they have swollen air-sacs that allow them to float into the air when there are drafts to spy for prey. Okay?
Interestingly, later on as we go to small villages in the desert regions, there are a couple of villages where they rear Cockatrices just like regular chickens!
Rogue Tomato
- Classification: Rank I Mark
- Genus: Deadly Nightshade
Our first 'mark', or bounty, is the Rogue Tomato here that has been menacing some local merchant. Apparently this is a member of the 'Deadly Nightshade' family, and the lore book describes that because it's an outcast of its people, it has lost certain 'powers' it wielded with impunity, which I'm going to assume refers to some kind of more powerful variant of the Nightshade genus/family that exist in the game?
The Rogue Tomato is a very cute design! Its head is just a tomato with a giant maw stretching like a hideous, demonic smile. Its body is some kind of straitjacket puppet, and its legs look like either bird-feet or twigs. It's a very fun plant monster, a simple and memorable design!
Wild Saurian
- Classification: Dragon
- Genus: Tyrant
Each overworld area has a particularly powerful monster that outclasses your current level, and basically is unbeatable until you grind up a lot and come back. For the first area, it's pretty simple -- a giant blue T-rex looms and stalks the area, far more powerful than the fat chickens or mutant wolves around. And it gets the point across! A giant, roaring dinosaur generally does. In addition to just having a buttload of stats, the Wild Saurian is able to eat wolves to buff itself.
The Wild Saurian is considered a dragon, and it's noted that the dragons used to rule the land until a 'war with the gods' dwindled these dragons' numbers down to a number of their former glory. The lore description talks a bit about the anatomy of the T-rex, but also the fact that apparently their bones are really hard to get rid of, which is sometimes a problem in expanding into the wilderness.
There are a couple more 'giant' enemies in the desert areas I've explored, but I've only 'spoiled' myself in the wiki for the Wild Saurian and I'll wait until I actually meet and unlock the bestiary entries for the other big enemies before I review them.
Hyena
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Wolf
Oh yeah, this definitely isn't a 'hyena'. The mottled spots and shaggy hair on the Ivalician Hyena's body certainly fits with those in our world, but the Hyena has gigantic tusks that point downwards from the back end of their jaws... and most interestingly two giant bone-horns that sprout out from its head. The end result makes it kind of look like a Hercules Beetle with how they are curved.
The Hyena is the next version 'up' in the Wolf family, which I'm going to assume shares skeletons and movement animations. They are fierce hunters, though they also scavenge just like our-world hyenas. The horns are used in particular to fight against larger opponents. Rather wacky for the generic animals you see at this part of the world. I like it.
Also, in addition to the regular version of the enemies found in the wild, there are also apparently more powerful variations like the Alpha Hyena that hang out with their lesser brethren. These slightly differently-named variants aren't registered in the bestiary as a separate entry, but me being me, I'll acknowledge them here.
Happy Bunny (a.k.a. Giza Rabbit)
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Dreamhare
Known as 'Giza Rabbits' in the overworld and 'Happy Bunny' in the lore book are these... interesting creatures. From a distance and from the back, they look like a cartoony rabbit -- see those giant ears attached to a big fluffy body? The actual appearance is a bit more different, with the main body of the Giza Rabbit being an impish humanoid thing. The rabbit body is a giant ball of fur sprouting from the back of his neck, and the ears look more like antennae or horns the way they are attached to this guy's head.
The lore gives us a rather surprisingly disquieting backstory. The Giza Bunny is a 'fiendish creature taking the form of an adorable bunny'. And for that, it is all the more fiendish. We don't actually learn what else makes them fiendish other than this, although since they're technically as powerful as the rabid cockatrices and dinosaur-horned hyenas, it could simply mean that people thinking that they're about to hunt an easy bunny to make soup for dinner get a nasty surprise.
The 'Happy Bunny' is apparently called Giza Rabbits or Ozmone Hares depending on where they are found, even though they are the exact same species and can even migrate from one place to the next. A lot of animals, particularly insects and fish, have so many different names and are thought to be different animals entirely when they migrate, and I thought this was a cute little detail (while also presumably allowing the designers to do a two-in-one enemy).
Urstrix
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Urstrix
Urstrix here is... literally called "Owlbear" in the original Japanese version. In just a transcribed English word. I keep forgetting that the original Final Fantasy is literally just borrowing the Dungeons & Dragons bestiary, and I actually do like that FFXII's interpretation of the Owlbear (or 'Urstrix') is so... lanky looking! It looks less like an owlbear and more like a wretched owl-man, with that torso and upper legs looking rather humanoid. I like how nasty the owl face looks, particularly with those giant eyebrows, and the way those raggedy wings are splayed out does give the impression of a creature that's been sweltering in the desert heat for a while.
The lore gives us an actual backstory for the Urstrix. They are originally the equivalent of the 'canary in a mine', where they are taken into 'magicite mines' to look for the presence of toxic fumes. But because these are magic toxic fumes called the Mist (which presumably will show up in the game story later) instead of killing the canaries, it mutates their children into the Urstrix, which are so monstrous that even their parent birds panic and abandon them.
Thextera
- Classification: Rank I Mark
- Genus: Mutant Wolf
And our second Mark is Thextera, a giant mutant repaint of the Wolf. And a giant wolf alone wouldn't be too special, but look at the colours of this motherfucker! Stand him up on two legs and he could hang out with superheroes! The leopard-coloured fur on the front and the zebra-like back is fun, but I think it's the fact that the tips of all four of his legs look like he's wearing socks. Neon green socks, which I think brings the design together. This looks so unnatural and bizarre. I like it.
The Thextera is explicitly noted in the lore book as a 'Mutant Wolf' genus, because a larger size and rainbow colours counts as being mutated but those dinosaur dragon horns on the Hyena's heads aren't. Apparently, the mutation is caused by that monster-creating Mist.
Sleipnir
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Sleipnir
Oh, mutant horse! From a distance, the Sleipnir (named after Odin's iconic horse from Norse mythology, natch) has the silhouette of an armoured horse. Sure, one with a particularly spiky armour that would look more at home on the fences of a grand gothic castle as opposed to armour on a horse... but take a closer look and the Sleipnir looks a bit more nasty. Just... just look at that mouth! That doesn't look like anything a healthy horse should have. The mouth also terminates around halfway through where the armour ends, making it look like the armour is crafted for a much bigger horse than this thing. Very monstrous, it looks like a mutant pillbug or some such.
And there's the question as to how the Sleipnirs got their armour anyway, and it's implied that it's actually a natural growth from its body? The lore for the Sleipnirs is that they were once the result of a program to create a powerful breed of war-charger horses. However, over time, the kingdoms that created these powerful cavalries are gone, with only the feral remnants of their horses running rampant in the wild.
Steeling
- Classification: Avion
- Genus: Steeling
Just called "Steel" in Japanese, we get our obligatory 'bat' enemy... but what a fun creature this is! Identified as part of the 'avion' genus, the Steeling is technically a bird if we take that classification seriously. But while it does have giant bat-wings (or dinosaur wings, I suppose, if its anatomy is more bird than mammal) its body isn't like the shape of any bird in existence. In fact, it's more like a flattened snake, or a mutant manta ray, with a long, wide mouth at the end of a flat body. It actually kind of reminds me of 'Minazuki' from Bleach, a giant manta ray monster.
The Steelings are noted to feed on 'life-humours' of other monsters, but the lore page actually talks about just how much the in-universe literature overhypes and demonizes these animals as if they were 'guided through the black by the devil's hand'. Which is true to a lot of creaturse in our world, too.
Ichthon
- Classification: Ichthian
- Genus: Piranha
The Dire Rats and Steelings hang out in the massive sewers underneath the city, and among those are the flying fish called the Ichthon. Or 'Killer Fish', in the original Japanese. These guys, despite their fearsome appearance and look, are actually docile and aren't aggressive unless you attack them first.
Their anatomy is a bit hard to follow in this official render, but it's basically a long fish with wing-like fins, and one gigantic underbite with some orc tusks. The long downwards-pointing hairy spike is perhaps one detail too many, but it definitely adds to the savage-looking monster fish. Ichthons feed in shoals and the game notes that they are part of the 'piranha' class... except these are fantasy piranha that can hover above the water, and apparently hordes of Ichthons can devour beasts as large as the Wild Saurian above.
Gigantoad
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Toad
Oh, I like the Gigantoads. They're an annoyingly bulky enemy in-game, but I do like the design. It's supposed to be a 'toad' monster, but other than the raggedy brown colours, the neck-sack and the general shape, it's as much of a toad as the 'Hyena' monster above is a hyena. It looks almost dinosaurian or even demonic, with tiny beady eyes that look unexpectedly intelligent, giant bull-horns that curve upwarsd, almost reptilian-looking claws and a mouth that looks like it's sneering at you.
The end result is surprisingly threatening-looking for a monster that's meant to just be a common enemy, but I do like the effect. The clan primer (our 'bestiary' book) describes how the giant sac in the Gigantoad's neck is meant for males to create sounds to attract females. The horns are also unsuitable for combat, and are insetad used to mark territory with gouges on trees. It's actually kinda cute -- the horns aren't really pointed the right way to pierce enemies anyawy, and a toad's body isn't meant to facilitate headbutts the way a deer or a bull would.
Wait, are the demonic-looking horns supposed to be a riff on how some toads have horn-like protrusions above their eyes? I just got that.
Flan
- Classification: Amorph
- Genus: Flan
One of the minibosses in the 'sewer' dungeon is the Flan (or 'Pudding' in Japanese), a recurring enemy in the Final Fantasy series after the first game used the four classic Dungeons and Dragons slime names for their slime enemies. Obviously, out of the four, 'Black Pudding' was the one that caught the fandom's attention, eventually mutating into a recurring 'Pudding' monster coloured rather deliciously like Japanese pudding. I love this origin story, and I love how the original intention of homaging a different source material ends up mutating into an endearing little critter here.
I much prefer the name 'Pudding' because it's what this thing is supposed to be, but 'Flan' is also an endearingly dorky name. FF12's Flan is just an adorable blob monster with a charming slime monster mouth. It's got lumpy protrusions around halfway down its body that it uses in its attack animation, spinning around like a buzzsaw. The lore notes that the Flan is self-reproducing, absorbing prey and increasing its mass until they reproduce by what's essentially mitosis, and research notes that they are strikingly similar to the enigmatic Mist, meaning that these are probably more 'pure' monsters that aren't just a funny mutated animal.
The second lore page notes that Ivalice's flan/pudding-the-dessert is actually designed in homage of this monster in this universe, which became extremely popular. But... considering the colours of Flan-the-monster, and the fact that we fought them in the sewers, the brown bits on top of the Flan's head is very likely not caramel syrup and just amalgamated poopie. Not quite as appetizing now, yeh?
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