I didn't care for XII, but I'd rather play it than XIII. For all of my issues with XII, I could see myself playing it again. I don't ever want to play XIII again.

My first playthrough of XII was ok.  But I enjoyed it a lot more on my second playthrough.  Knowing what to expect, I had a lot more fun tweaking my gambits and wandering around its world in search of every single piece of equipment and beating all the Marks.

First time I play a FF game is almost always to discover its story.  Although the story of FF XII is a bit more mature than the other games, it still lacked something I think.  Mostly character interactions.  The game failed to give me any sort of emotional attachment to any of its characters.  Balthier was cool and all, but that's it.

But its gameplay grew on me the more I played it.  The way you keep on optiming your gambits and adjusting your strategy on the fly, as well as the constant free-roam, made the game a good departure from the usual turned-based titles, and I was actually curious to see how this kind of battle system could evolve from there.

XIII tried to make compromises between XII and older turned-based titles, but they did so to the detriment of actual player controls, which I don't think is ever the best of choice.

XII lacked actual button presses, something more active for the player, yet you still had complete control over your characters by fully "programming" their battle behavior from scratch.  XIII made the battles much more fast paced and you actually pressed buttons (even if most of the time it would me the Auto option), but you barely had control over your party members since you could only ever control one character.  They should have allowed the player to configure the behaviors of each characters depending on its Paradigm, making something similar to the Gambits in XII.

I salute their will to make things fresh.  I understand you can't always get it right the first time.

If I was them, I would try going further the road that XII went.

At my own risk I will be blunt: no, I am not insane, FFXII's dialogue was downright BORING to sit through. There's a difference between being intelligent and elegant (Matsuno's OTHER games, Valkyrie Profile, and Assassin's Creed 2 for instance) and then there's being flowery and pretentious to make an ILLUSION of grace or depth (Metal Gear Solid 4, Xenosaga, and most of Nomura's resume). XII is the latter by a wide margin as it read like someone who thinks if they put enough faux-Shakespeare flourishes in there that it'll be automatically intelligent or "high brow"

Assassin's Creed II has terrible dialog. Why is half of it in varying stages of Italian and fake Italian, for example? We may never know.

XII's dialog is faux-nothing. It's written by people who actually know how to write in the style of the time they're aiming for. The following line, for example, is written in perfect iambs and still sounds great:

The treaty held with Kings of old is but a mem'ry, cold and still. With you we now shall treat anew, to cut a run for his'try's flow.

You try doing that. Even better, find me a line in Assassin's Creed II that's half as well written. As for liking the translation of Matsuno's other games - which ones? Vagrant Story was translated by the same guy.

Alexander O. Smith is like one of the best translators in the industry.  Get a grip. O_o 

Depends really, i really enjoyed the dialogue in FF12, it was very well written imo, and very mature and voiced really well. but i suppose each to their own. but imo, the other option is FF13, where we have stuff like "its our focus, Serah said so". imo i would take FF12's any day of the week!!

I didn't like Gambit system. It took the fun out of the game. I rarely had to intervene at all. The games basically on auto pilot for me except for the boss battles. I also thought the license board was too small. My characters became more and more a like as the game wore on.

Don't give me any of that strawman "well you try doing better!" CRAP; if I have a problem with it, I'll state it, end of story. Even I wonder what the hell bothers me so much as XII's dialogue. I've played a LOT of games with Smith as the translator (heck, I've even read books by the guy; Guin Saga and The Twelve Kingdoms for instance) but for some reason this one BUGGED me. It just seems overdone and cheesy; Odin Sphere was another game that used anachronism but never got stuck up its ass with trying to emulate ye olde dialects and godawful theater dialogue. People did NOT talk like that back in the Middle Ages or even the Renaissance, only theater actors talked like that in plays. My only guess is I have to place the blame on Reeder who was the OTHER translator on the game.

Oh and i've heard people mention that the story of FF13 is better than 12. imo the best part of FF13 was the Analects, they develop the Fabula Nova Crystalis mythology. however looking closely at FF12's first Sage Knowlege and FF13's first Analect:

Sage Knowledge: "Many thousand years ago, all-powerful beings looked down upon the land, and their rule was absolute. They commanded all things on the earth. All was done according to their will. Then one day they withdrew behind the walls of a great city of their own making, disappearing from history's stage. In the vacuum left behind, Ivalice fell into chaos, until the march towards a new age finally began."

Analect: "Luminous lamented, for creation spiraled unto doom. Stout fashioned earth, that future might take root. Sage turned mind's eye inward, seeking truth profound. Fool desired naught, and soon was made one with it. Maker forged fal'Cie, from fragments Maker's own. Maker forged Man, from traces once Divine. In time the gods departed, leaving all by their hands wrought. Fal'Cie were as Man forsaken, orphans of Maker absconded." –Author unknown

Imo, Matsuno's Ivalice is phenominal, hes invested so much depth and mystery into the rich history of the world. Clearly Nojima has tried to do the same thing with Pulse and Cocoon, however, it just dosent work so well. Why??, because the material just seems like its been lifted from Ivalice, obviously they now have the gift of heinsight so they can make it even better. but considering how bad FF13's story was i doubt they could come with something that good if FF12 didnt come first.

Nojima didn't write 13 though he was part of the scenerio concept. Matsuno didn't write 12 though he was also part of the concept. Maybe that's what you meant. And none of these people wrote the English Localization which when dealing with subtlties is very important. You can't translate word for word it doesn't work. Which was the amazing thing that was done with FFXII it had the best localization, out of basically any game I've ever seen.

the people that wrote 12 were
Daisuke Watanabe
Miwa Shoda

The people that wrote 13 were
Motomu Toriyama
Daisuke Watanabe
Yukie Hirano
Harunori Sakemi

Taken from wikipedia. If I'm wrong show me a better source

Also, you keep saying it wouldn't have been better if Matsuno let his full vision come together. How do you know that Hiroyuki Ito didn't improve the game from where Matsuno had it at? I mean Ito certainly is qualified enough he did co-direct or direct, 6 9.

You can't say either whether matsuno leaving hurt or improved the game.