Frankly, whatever happens to XIII, I would just like to see S-E get around to porting/remaking the PS1-era games, as the 8and 16-bit era games got plenty of it already.

Ports on the DS, and enhanced remakes on the PSP, would be a good start.

 FFXII may have had those things but it failed miserably in one key catagory:keeping the players interest.

For all of those things it had it just didn't have enough mystery or tense to make me want to stick with the story, the characters were boring and some even had no reason to really be there, the gambit system was cool but didn't allow for a lot of play, and the license system was terrible.

I won't flame you for liking the game, to each his own, but the game did nothing to hold a players interest except for the people that just got really into the story for whatever reason, loved the fan service, or kept telling themselves it must get good eventually.

This thread is a hot mess...and I love it.

Moar, I want to see moar FF screaming!

.....Final Fantasy 8 is my favorite. *walks out*

FF12 looked fantastic. The voice acting was also good. No questions on either of those fronts. Now, if we were judging the game on a still frame, or quality of voice acting, my score would be different.

Music? I loved Sakimoto's work on BoF V, and can still hear the haunting melodies that fit perfectly with the mood of that game. I cannot recall a single song in Final Fantasy XII that was not used in another game.

Female leads? Let's examine:
Penelo - Childhood friend, along for NO REASON. RPG Cliche quota: 10/10
Fran - Outcast from her race for interacting with Humes... cept you meet about 569 other Viera outside who are pretty interactive with humes. Also, she doesn't like bondage. Nonsensical Quota 10/10.
Ashe - I'm a princess who's seeing the ghost of my dead husband and forget about him at random intervals, and I'm from a destined bloodline! Umm, amazing. Deep. Awesome. Sarcastic. At least she's not an embarassment like the other two. No 10/10 for her.

The story is as deep as the Sea of Tranquility is wet. And yes, I did expect a Final Fantasy experience, only to recieve an emptiness that only matches the most emo of emos, the most goth of goths.

FF VI > almost every other game ever :)

 I'm hit with the 'first love' syndrome. Final Fantasy 8 was my first Final Fantasy game and is probably the one that finds the most of my interest (except for maybe FFX). After that, I couldn't stand looking at FFVII because of it's graphics (and because I recieved it as a gift on PC, which caused massive strain on the eyes and sickness by having to be close to the monitor). 

The concept of 12 was cool with the open world, but the story and characters threw me for a little loop. Compared to 10, there was very little interest in the characters and the story and nothing that really had me feeling concerned. That, and the dialog quality was odd not only with having to think about each line of dialog because of how they worded it, but also the quality of the voice recording (through compression or whatever?) that made the voices sound a bit fuzzy. 

Sony needs all the exclusives they can get!