Roland Emmerich is no stranger to the RPG genre. His career started off with a more western influence to game design with titles like "Stargate" and "Independence Day" having more in common with BioWare titles such as "KotOR" and "Mass Effect". Today his design philosophy skews more toward the eastern market. "Godzilla," "The Day After Tomorrow," and "10,000 BC" all had a larger focus on mother nature and random battles. This year, with the release of "2012," Mr. Emmerich may have a masterpiece on his hands.

2012 begins simply with a 15 minute cutscene to set up the story. We follow scientist Adrian Helmsley as he uncovers evidence that Gaia (the soul of the earth to you Americans) is going to attack all living things on the planet. Now I don't think I have to stress here how unique this is for a JRPG to have Gaia as the enemy, as most often a villain is destroying Gaia, which results in other problems. 2012 is essentially a sequel to all RPGs ranging from Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Mother Nature is pissed off at everyone fighting over it, on it, and at it. Now it is time for judgment.

The voice talent for this title is superb. I was used to Roland Emmerich titles featuring a cast of, well, voice actors, but this time they have John Cusack in a role equivalent to Cloud Strife. He does his job superbly, reminding us why he's so great as he accepts payment from the game to buy three more butlers. You may be used to Cusack playing an individual someone else has broken up with on the silver screen, but here he plays it all digitally with motion capture technology in between random battles. But striking a more bleak tone is the fact that Cusack's character, novelist Jackson Curtis, is not fighting to save the world, but rather to save his family. Because the truth is, this time there is nothing that can be done to save the world so much as save a part of yourselves. The hopeless theme of this story is unlike anything else I've ever played. Jackson, who I renamed as Boris in my playthrough, soldiers on with less hope than any game character has ever had and throughout the game you are soldiering on with him. You are unsure of whether or not he, or anyone else, will actually live, which made for a powerful narrative.


The game plays out in two distinct halves. One half you are with Jackson Curtis and his party in an intense fight against Gaia. On the other half you are the aforementioned scientist Adrian Helmsley fighting a different fight of diplomacy. Jackson's story is a more typical JRPG adventure with a large amount of party members, battles, and airship flight with an annoying pilot who insists that he is not a pilot despite having just flown you somewhere. Adrian's story is about the government, acting as an evil corporation, taking money to save people with arks they have built. All of Adrian's gameplay consists of dialogue trees and walking around government buildings. It's kind of a breather from the action and just a step above being a cutscene itself, but it proves intriguing not because of the story you receive from people more aware of what is going on than Jackson but also because you have conversations with individuals who later turn out to be boss fights for Jackson. So when that fight later occurs it has more weight. It was a clever idea and one I wish more JRPGs will rip off in the future.

If I had to complain about 2012, though, it would be about the battle system. Neither Jackson, nor any of his party members, pick up a weapon. Now while that doesn't change the core mechanics of the game, it makes the loot game particularly barren, which has previously been a worthwhile distraction to help the gamer cope with endless grinding. At a later point Jackson does gain a flashlight in a particularly cool scenario where he navigates a partially submerged ark, but the flashlight cannot even be upgraded. Furthermore, the enemy variety is a bit mundane. Most of the game has you dealing with mankind as a sort of secondary enemy while everyone is trying to save themselves, but the rest of the time you are fighting off the hordes of Gaia such as brushes and pitfalls. I understand that Emmerich was shooting for a more real tone in how mother nature would harm you, but a battle against a cliff face is just hard to work your head around. In a turn based battle system it doesn't ultimately matter because your character just jabs into the air and suddenly damage is done, but when you're fighting humanoids in this fashion your imagination has the ability to envision a much larger battle. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to imagine fighting a cliff. Additionally, the game can get quite repetitive as there are no less than three different scenes where you narrowly escape an exploding land mass with an airship, at one point going so far as to run to the airship as it's taking off.


With an overworld encompassing the entire earth, the ability to backtrack even though you thought the whole world was exploding, a large consistent party peppered by some temporary members with unique abilities, side stories, epic quests, and lengthy but engaging cutscenes.... 2012 may be the best JRPG I've had the privilege of playing.