Final Fantasy XII was both a critical and commercial success, earning several Game of the Year awards and selling over six million copies on the PlayStation 2 by November 2009.

[10] In Final Fantasy XII, a mysterious phenomenon known as "Mist" is the key energy which allows characters to cast summoning magic and perform "Quickenings".

[16] Final Fantasy XII is set within the land of Ivalice during an age when "magic was commonplace" and "airships plied the skies, crowding out the heavens".

The Rozarrian Empire makes its home in the vast inland plains of this continent as the eastern portion of it is largely desert and "jagd"—lawless regions so rich in Mist, the ethereal manifestation of magicite, that airships cannot function.

The six main playable characters in Final Fantasy XII are Vaan (Bobby Edner/Kouhei Takeda), an energetic orphan of Rabanastre who dreams of becoming a sky pirate; Ashe (Kari Wahlgren/Mie Sonozaki), a determined princess of Dalmasca who lost her father and her husband in the Archadian invasion; Basch (Keith Ferguson/Rikiya Koyama), a disgraced knight of Dalmasca charged with treason for slaying the king; Balthier (Gideon Emery/Hiroaki Hirata), a gentlemanly sky pirate who pilots his airship, the Strahl; Fran (Nicole Fantl/Rika Fukami), Balthier's partner and a Viera exile whose knowledge extends to legends and myths; and Penelo (Catherine Taber/Marina Kozawa), Vaan's childhood friend who accompanies him on journeys to "keep an eye on him".

[24] The emperor's sons are Vayne (Elijah Alexander/Nobuo Tobita) and Larsa (Johnny McKeown/Yuka Imai), the former a military genius and the game's main antagonist, and the latter a charismatic seeker of peace.

The technological marvels of airships and synthetic nethicite—a form of magicite that absorbs Mist—are thanks to Doctor Cid (John Rafter Lee/Chikao Ōtsuka), a prominent researcher from Archadia.

[24] The Resistance against Archadia includes Dalmascan knight Vossler (Nolan North/Masaki Terasoma), an ally of Basch; Marquis Halim Ondore IV (Tom Kane/Akio Nojima), the game's narrator and ruler of the skycity Bhujerba; Reddas (Phil LaMarr/Takayuki Sugo), a sky pirate based in the port at Balfonheim; and the Rozarrian Empire, of which Al-Cid Margrace (David Rasner/Norio Wakamoto) is a prince of the ruling family.

[24] The mythos of Final Fantasy XII revolves around a character known as Dynast-King Raithwall, a man who once united Ivalice to create the Galtean Alliance in ages past.

Rasler is killed in the war, the city of Nabudis is destroyed in a single explosion, and the Dalmascan King Raminas is assassinated moments after signing a treaty of surrender.

[25] Two years later, Vaan, a Rabanastre street urchin, ignores his friend Penelo's objections and infiltrates the palace during a dinner celebrating the appointment of Archadian prince Vayne Solidor as consul.

[26] After they rescue Penelo, Basch confronts the Marquis over his lies, but the party is captured and detained aboard the Archadian airship Leviathan, headed by Judge Ghis.

[29] They are again captured by Ghis; when he tries to use the Dawn Shard in the Leviathan rather than the "manufacted" (artificially made) magicite it normally uses, his entire airship fleet is destroyed in a mirror of the destruction of Nabudis, and the party flees again.

[40] Al-Cid tells them that the Dalmascan Resistance, led by Ondore, is about to fight Archadia in Rabanastre, but the Archadian forces now include the Sky Fortress Bahamut.

[47] The team was restructured as a consequence: the new directorial duo consisted of Ito and Hiroshi Minagawa, while Akitoshi Kawazu of SaGa series fame became the game's executive producer.

[51] Battle system designer Hiroshi Tomomatsu said that it gradually moved away from a complex and rigid formula to the more flexible form seen in the final version of the game.

[52] Ito drew inspiration for gambits from plays in American football where each team member has a specific job to do based on the conditions and desired outcome.

Due to the technical limitations of the console and multiple number of characters joining the fray, the development phase took longer than expected, causing delays.

[66] In terms of general changes, the localization team introduced widescreen 16:9 ratio support and reinserted scenes that were left out of the original Japanese version for political reasons and to preserve an "All Ages" CERO rating.

Each person was asked to show Square Enix three photos of his or her costume for a chance to win a trip to New York and participate in the Final Fantasy XII Gamer's Day event.

[71] Final Fantasy XII once held the Guinness World Record for longest development period in a video game production, with a total of five years, spanning from 2001 until its release in 2006.

[72] At a Final Fantasy XII "postmortem" at MIT in March 2009, Hiroshi Minagawa mentioned that several years of production were devoted to the creation of custom tools used for the development of the game.

[88] Game peripheral maker Logicool (Logitech's Japanese branch) released a special edition Final Fantasy XII controller on the same day.

[89] Suntory produced "Final Fantasy XII Potion"—a drink containing such ingredients as royal jelly, chamomile, sage, thyme, and marjoram.

[110] It was praised for its seamless transitions between full motion video segments and the in-game engine,[123] and was voted number one for Best Art Style on IGN's weekly Top Ten.

[124] Newtype USA named Final Fantasy XII its "Game of the Month" for November 2006, praised the gameplay, graphics, and story, and called it "the best RPG to have been released for any Sony platform".

[116] Executive producer Akitoshi Kawazu was pleased by Famitsu's rating but admitted that he thought the game was not perfect; he felt that the storyline did not meet some fans' expectations.

[126] Kawazu expressed his frustration and regrets regarding the storyline, citing creative differences between the PlayOnline and Final Fantasy Tactics members of the development team.

[139] A Square Enix conference report stated that Final Fantasy XII sold more than 2.38 million copies in Japan in the two weeks since its March 16, 2006, release.

The port included support for higher display resolutions and 60 frames-per-second rendering, options to switch between three different versions of the soundtrack, and immediate access to the post-game modes.