The Final Fantasy XII Bestiary is one of the best I've seen

[AlanOC91]

I usually only glance at the Bestiary for 5 minutes in Final Fantasy games. They usually have some information I'm not too interested in like stats, items drops, locations found and so on.

I happened to open the XII one yesterday as I was playing it on my Switch and oh my God I've already spent over an hour in it.

It's absolutely full of world building, funny remarks and monster history. It really is fantastic and definitely the best Bestiary I've found in a Final Fantasy game. I highly recommend you guys check it out if you are playing it!

One of my favorite examples is the early game Slaven monster. I always remember thinking this thing looked weird and out of place with it's buckles but it all makes sense now after reading it's Bestiary profile!

Some more examples:

These are just a few examples of the many available!

 

[Kaivan]

The Witcher 3 is better as it doesn't only give you lore, but also means to defeat each beast.

 

[Deleted member 15428]

Click to shrink...

Don't just post a picture without a title/context

 

[Blade24070]

It's incredible. Unmatched in anything I've seen. It's not on the same level, but I also liked Tales of Zestiria's where the characters would remark about the monsters.

 

[Valcrist]

Don't just post a picture without a title/context

Click to shrink...

That would be The Witcher 3.

 

[Kaivan]

Don't just post a picture without a title/context

Click to shrink...

Sure, I edited the post.

 

[Coffee]

I agree, a good bestiary like that one (and the one in witcher 3) is alwasy appreciated. Though prefer the way it looked in the original game, it had these really nice art of each enemy instead of the 3d models.

 

[Kain]

I liked the story of the creation of the Urutan-Yensa. Or was it a myth? Who cares, it was awesome

 

[Kanann]

Play FFXII for sixth time but never read em all.

Gonna read this time.

 

[AncientReptileBrain]

"Lo, the mighty cockatrice, proud feathered sphere" is top tier work and honestly, I hope that the person who localised it knows their work is flawless.

 

[Dark_Castle]

"Lo, the mighty cockatrice, proud feathered sphere" is top tier work and honestly, I hope that the person who localised it knows their work is flawless.

Click to shrink...

FFXII has a brilliant localization in general. I don't know if these beastiary writeup are handled by same people, but yeah.

 

[ryushe]

I'm so happy more people are finally understanding XIIs greatness.

 

[KushalaDaora]

Play FFXII for sixth time but never read em all.

Gonna read this time.

Click to shrink...

You should read it, they also typically have secondary/alternate tab "lore" for Ivalice itself, from history to location.

Thinking about it, the the amount of worldbuilding in the Ivalice games actually kinda comparable with something like The Witcher, Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls.

 

[aett]

After you complete the Sandseas, read all six pages that unlock in the Urutan-Yensa entry. It blew my mind once I realized what the story was about.

Spoiler

It tells of the creation of Omega and all the other Mimics.

 

[Deleted member 56266]

I love how a second page of the entry unlocks if you kill enough of an enemy which can be anything from a random merchant talking about a town to actual lore bits. Def a top tier bestiary.

 

[Lumination]

FFXII's bestiary is excellent. I love the whimsical, light-hearted nature doc presentation. I try reading The Witcher ones too, but they're always about how this grisly monster slaughters people and how to kill it back.

 

[TheJollyCorner]

Random question, but does XII Remaster have the auto-regen/speed up/etc. features like VII/IX/X re-releases?

 

[Y2Kev]

Random question, but does XII Remaster have the auto-regen/speed up/etc. features like VII/IX/X re-releases?

Click to shrink...

Speed yes. Regen no.

 

[Zerokingx]

World of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy XV have better bestiary tbh

 

[Yabberwocky]

FFXII, The Witcher 3, and World of Final Fantasy have my favorite bestiaries, the attention to detail is fantastic. (WoFF's is genuinely hilarious, with some quality fourth wall breaking.) There's a fascinating in-depth article on FFXII's localization process here, but Alexander O. Smith also recently talked about writing the bestiary here. Smith reading Victorian-era medical textbooks to set the tone of FFXII's bestiary was a clever idea.

 

[Ordinary Rock]

"Naturalist Merlose" was a fun callback.

 

[Pendas]

I'm so happy more people are finally understanding XIIs greatness.

Click to shrink...

I've recently been replaying some of the old FF Games. 12 is still fucking top tier Gameplay wise. It finds the perfect mix of gameplay / story that a lot of other FF games drop the ball on (looking at you X).

 

[MegaSackman]

I agree with the games mentioned.

The new God of War also have a sick beatiary with lore and comments from Atreus, it also gives you strategies to kill the monsters.

Sadly there aren't that many enemies but what it's there it's presented in a very cool way.

 

[Dreamboum]

The bestiary is so cool. Tons of lore and tons of funny quips with a lot of references thrown around. There is even helpful tips in there

 

[Arulan]

To name a recent example, I like the bestiary in Pillars of Eternity I & II.

Information fills up as you defeat more of said creature. The illustrations look really nice, and if you scroll down you get lore information about the creature.

 

[No Depth]

To name a recent example, I like the bestiary in Pillars of Eternity I & II.

Information fills up as you defeat more of said creature. The illustrations look really nice, and if you scroll down you get lore information about the creature.

Click to shrink...

Surprisingly, Devil May Cry 1 also did something similar. Each entry was filled with ??? that were added as enemies used certain abilities and it gave insight on how those skills worked and how best Dante could try to counter them.

Since the game added new skills and abilities on the Hard difficulties on NG+, some entries remained empty until you played far enough to see them in action. Even the bog-standard puppet fodder foes had like 5 entries to uncover.

It was such a fantastic feature and it was such a shame that later games did not include it.

 

[NerevaRising]

The only thing I don't like about the zodiac age is that they replaced the bestiary illustrations from the ps2 version with 3D models of the monsters.

 

[Salarians]

FFXII has a brilliant localization in general. I don't know if these beastiary writeup are handled by same people, but yeah.

Click to shrink...

it was!
How games like Final Fantasy XII and Phoenix Wright are translated into English

This stop-and-start process did come with some benefits. The moments of downtime gave Smith a chance to think of ideas he wouldn't have otherwise come up with. For instance, he felt that the bestiary in the original Japanese version of FFXII would be a bit too dry for an English audience. "Japanese gamers have very different expectations when it comes to their in-game text," he says. But since he had a bit of extra time, he was able to use it to pore over Victorian-era medical textbooks, which he then emulated when describing Final Fantasy creatures in the bestiary. "I think it gave it this nice flavor that still felt very much a part of the world," Smith explains.

Click to shrink...

another excellent article on FFXII's localization: A translator's tale: Inside the building of Final Fantasy 12's Ivalice

 

[ASaiyan]

FFXII, The Witcher 3, and World of Final Fantasy have my favorite bestiaries, the attention to detail is fantastic. (WoFF's is genuinely hilarious, with some quality fourth wall breaking.)

Click to shrink...

Omg, those are great, lol. Is WoFF worth playing?

 

[HK-47]

The bestiary along with the evolving responses of the various town folk as you play the game make FFXII's world richer than any other Final Fantasy

 

[SirNinja]

Yeah, XII's bestiary is immense and I feel like I'm one of the few who's ever read through most of it. I like that additional information about the world (or even just some fun gossip) is unlocked after defeating a certain number of each creature. There's a lot of stuff to go through there, and some of it can even provide tips on what to sell in shops in order for certain bazaar goods to show up.

 

[MEGrika]

Some good ones already mentioned in here. I love the one in Soul Sacrifice. They are twisted fairy tales that tell the origins of each monster which are humans that gave into their sins and lost their minds. They can get pretty dark. Also has good art work.

Just a snip of three entries.

Click to shrink...

 

[Disclaimer]

Omg, those are great, lol. Is WoFF worth playing?

Click to shrink...

Very much yes, if you're a Final Fantasy fan, and especially so if you're also a fan of Pokemon-style monster catching.

 

[Vault]

World of Final fantasy

 

[StraySheep]

Some good ones already mentioned in here. I love the one in Soul Sacrifice. They are twisted fairy tales that tell the origins of each monster which are humans that gave into their sins and lost their minds. They can get pretty dark. Also has good art work.

Just a snip of three entries.

Click to shrink...

Ooh Soul Sacrifice was great in this regard. Well in most regards.

 

[julia crawford]

That remaster font though.... it's such a bad choice :/

 

[leder]

Not nearly as large as FFXII, but I love Pikmin 2's Piklopedia.

 

[lobdale]

Yet another reason XII is one of the best FF games of all time.

 

[Stryder]

Nino Kuni 1 and Witcher 3's bestiary are much better. It's not bad though.

 

[Antagon]

"Lo, the mighty cockatrice, proud feathered sphere" is top tier work and honestly, I hope that the person who localised it knows their work is flawless.

Click to shrink...

They do. I read a story about how they spend tons of time reading up myths and all to give the beauty more flavor. Supposedly the Japanese version is very matter of fact and lacks all of the extra flavor.

 

[AzureFlame]

I agree, perfection.

 

[UraMallas]

World of Final fantasy

Click to shrink...

WoFF's is amazing. I almost liked it more than the game!

 

[Dlanor A. Knox]

FFXV's bestiary is also cool, everything in the bestiary is filled with some lore. Too bad it was added way later with an update lol

 

[Stronginthearm]

I remember working to unlock more of the entries just because I was curious when I was playing the PS2 version.

 

[Dogui]

I love the actual content about lore and stuff in FFXII's bestiary but i hate that you need to kill every enemy x times to fill them. Would make more sense if the player got the pages as items or just getting info with npcs/libraries, something like that.

 

[Deleted member 33533]

The bestiary is one of the reasons the game has such great world building. Don't forget to kill multiple of the same enemy as each one has an amount you need to kill to unlock an additional bestiary page that often go into general lore, tips for making certain items and writings made by people in Ivalice.

 

[Nif]

I find the menus in Matsuno games to be the best RPG menus. Not sure why, but they're just always so clean and pack so much information in a small space.