Maybe slightly OT, but why all the hate for FFXII? I personally loved it, it was unconventional and innovative in several ways:
An open world with no artificial distinction between battle arenas and "world map"
The overall story arc sounded more mature and less of the mish-mash of "ultimate evil vs coming-of-age hero discovering his hidden power" that plagues so many games. Plus after a while you could just follow the story at your own pace or indulge in grinding at leisure
The battle system was really new, and moved the strategy from micro-management to setting up global party tactics in the amount the player wanted. Or if you wanted to keep manually choosing each skill and spell, you could. I found it extremely entertaining.
The characters were interesting, as soon as you understood as someone else said, that Vaan (and Penelo) are _not_ the heroes, but little more than plot devices. They do their job of offering the point of view of small people fallen in a story much bigger than them. On the other hand Ashe, Bash, Balthier and even Fran were greater-than-life, with complex backstories and distinct personalities. And even the "villains" were more human, with more interesting motivation than teenage angst and parental issues.
To top it off most of the dialogue was written leagues better than any other FF and the english dubbing was excellent.
