In 2006, I ignored the rest of the world for two months because a JRPG showed up on my birthday. That was Final Fantasy 12, and it’s about to turn 20.
So are a lot of other things. The PlayStation 2 remains the best-selling console ever made, and during the 2000s it was the ruling platform in games, with a library that still holds up against anything since. That year alone gave us Kingdom Hearts 2, Okami, Bully and Guitar Hero 2. I owned most of them. I eventually played all of them.
Three of them are still worth your time right now, at a full 10/10.
The RPG that made everyone argue about menus
Final Fantasy 12 was one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful games of 2006. The Gambits system split people, and it still does. But this sprawling epic became one of the most beloved entries in the whole Final Fantasy franchise, and the argument about its combat has aged into a compliment.
Square Enix is selling merch for the game’s 20th anniversary this year, if you want to mark the occasion with something on a shelf.
And getting to it is easy. Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age is the remaster to grab, with extra content and a job system that smooths out the gameplay a bit.
A paintbrush, a wolf and the year’s best-reviewed game
Okami hit PS2 in North America in September 2006 and became the highest-rated video game of that entire year.
Nothing else looked like it. The paintbrush mechanic wasn’t like anything I’d seen in a game before, and the action-adventure loop underneath it kept me playing long past the novelty. The world is beautifully animated. The soundtrack is astounding.
Ports and remasters since then have grown the cult around it, and a sequel is in production now. All of it traces back to this version. An HD remaster means you can play it on modern systems without hunting down old hardware.
Rockstar went to boarding school and it worked
Bully arrived in October 2006, right on the heels of Final Fantasy 12, which is why I didn’t get to it for a few months. People weren’t sure how Rockstar’s GTA instincts would translate to a prep school. They translated fine.
Some of the mini-games are meh. Doesn’t matter. If you’ve seen Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, or the video for My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” you’ll recognize the wavelength immediately.
It attracted controversy at launch and may not have sold especially well at first. Its legacy has outlasted all of that, and fans keep hoping Rockstar gets around to a sequel.
The writing, the characters, the soundtrack. Bully is still one of the best PlayStation 2 games ever made, and not just from its own year.
