Dust to Dust/sunleth waterscape/arctylle steppe >>>> any music piece from FF12

Lightning/Fang/Sazh >>>>> anyone from FF12

Chapter 7/8/9 >>>>> any story part from FF12

Paradigm > Gambits

Cocoon/Pulse > Ivalive

Final Fantasy XIII >>>>>>. Final Fantasy XII

Yeah those are really good tunes, i would add Will to Fight on there as well darth.

imo, the soundtracks are difficult to compare, both are excellent, so i wouldnt choose 1 over the other. but imo the best FF12 tracks are: Clash on the Big Bridge, the Salikawood, An Hour of Rest, Ground of Recollection, The Forgotten Capital, To the Place of the Gods & The Sochen Cave Palace being my personal faviourite.

yeah fair enough Paradigms are better than Gamits, your more in control of the action.

but as for Cocoon & Pluse better than Ivalice, well we can agree to disagree on that.

this is a great cutscene showing the dark and mature tone of FF12's cast and dialogue. the interaction between Balthier, Basch and Judge Gabranth is very well directed. the other reason i chose this scene is because of Vaan's outbust. @ thelifatree, there is no doubt this character has degraded the scene and consquenetly the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufOdx4PwAGQ

and this is FF13: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O43r91KbWzM

Sazh: time to give the people what they want. Fang: lady luck sure anit on his side.

imo its just unrealistic and well too cheesey, maybe even too childish.

i think Hiroyuki Ito did actully mention at one point that he was pleased with the Famitsu score, but he cites creative differences between the FF tactics and the Playonline team leading to conflicts in the story. and thus it was not as good as it shouldve been. 

In FF12's opening and ending scenes, Matsuno is cited for the story and concept, the world of Ivalice is Matsuno's creation since its inception in FF tactics. and the other reason is because he originally wanted Basch to be the main character, the story actully dosent have much to do with Vaan and Penelo, so to me focusing on the core characters wouldve led to a better story. although theres probabily over a hundred other things he wouldve improved.

and i know Ito is an adept director, but do you think Inception wouldve been the same film had someone else had taken over from Nolan half way through production, or whether Lord of the Rings would've been the same story had someone else written the 2nd and 3rd books. the other reason is because Sakaguchi didnt play FF12 beyond its opening because he didnt think it would be the same game had Matsuno had finished it. that is how i know, had Matsuno completed his full vision of the game it would've been so much more than it was.

There's no way to know if Matsuno's "Vision" was the better one.

Pointing out flaws and saying Matsuno would've fixed them is from a completely one-sided viewpoint, as some of the flaws could have been originally caused by matsuno and Ito fixed some of them.

People Have great artistic vision at some points... and then without restraints nearly fail or fail depending on your point of view. Such as with the Matrix or Star Wars sequals/prequels

Again Especially for me. The story was not the issue I had for the game. My issues were in my opinion ofcourse.

It looked like Star Wars especially in Archades to Coroscant. And Even sounded like it. It didn't feel like the ivalice in vagrant story to me.
The music, was not as good as 1-11, or 13 imo.
The Pacing. Yes I like cutscenes. And that godawful tower. XIII had a tower too but wasn't near as annoying.Maybe the tower would have been fixed if matsuno was more involved maybe not. But those were my issues with it.
The Characters and their development with eachother. Pretty much all but Balthier, and Basche I did not like. And that includes the villains as well.

Still I'm glad they made twelve. But they made 1 game that's not like XII in the main series after it and all of a sudden  to you he series is going one direction. When FFXIV is obviosly not the same direction as XIII either.

I don't care how well-written FFXII's diologue was.  The characters were bland and under-developed, the story was horribly predictable, and when it wasn't predictable, it didn't make sense (big ship blows up? uh, why?...probably because the developers said "hey we haven't had any big explosions yet").

The battle system was, well...Okay.  I probably could have enjoyed it, if the story hadn't bored me to tears.

When i say 1 direction, i'm reffering to the decisions production team 1 has taken. so i'm refferring to the way in FF13 we have characters who have unrealistic dialogue. i'm also reffering to the focus of production team 1 on melodrama, instead of mature storytelling. i am also reffering to the way production team 1 has focused increasingly on cutscenes.

so lets have a look, FF8 - Squall & Rinoa - imo they're not written in relation to realism, same goes for FF10 and 10-2. the amount of melodrama in these games has increased from FF8 - FF10. where we have scenes that regurgitate the same story points in an over theatrical fashion; Yuna will die if she uses the final summoning, Squall cant stand Rinoa, and of course 'its our focus, Serah says so'. the characters in these games and the tone is similar, in terms of style (Nomura) and script writing (Nojima) these games have moved in the same style and direction. this is true for the FF7 compliation, where we have games like Dirge of Cerberus, or Advent Children that adopt a similar style. of course its easy to understand why these games (or movie) in the series move in that particular direction - because they are helmed by the same production team.

FF9 is a different game, but the series hasnt gone in that direction. i wasnt reffering to FF11 & FF14 because they are online, havent even played em. i am reffering to FF12. when the director tried to make the main character different and go in a different direction with the story, he was forced to put Vaan and Penelo in the script to accomdate the tone that production team 1 has taken. my point is that produciton team 4 headed by Matsuno tried to do something darker, more mature and focus more on realism, and he was forced to take the game into the direction of production team 1 headed by Kitase. and eventully he left.

that is what i'm reffering to when i say that the series is moving in 1 direction. and like i said Ivalice is Matusno's creation, he knew where he was taking the story and characters in FF12. Ito said that because of creative differences between the Tactics and Playonline teams the story of FF12 was not what it shouldve been. theres no doubt the man who created that story knew what he was doing with it. there is no doubt that FF12 wouldve been a better game without Vaan & Penelo. FF12 wouldve been better had the direction of production team 1 not been forced into it, and instead allowed the true vision to have been realised.

do you think Metal Gear Solid would be same game if Hideo Kojima only directed half of it??

IMO Final Fantasy 9 is the best in the series, I just like the story and the characters. Though I hate turn based gameplay. If they were to make a game like Final Fantasy 9 with Final fantasy 12 gameplay( which is the best in my oppinion) they'd have a good game. Though I got to say final fantasy is overrated a little bit.

I support your notion, I mean you can actually tell when Matsuo left development in the game.

Edit: I'm not justifying SE actions or Matsuno's as no one here knows what actually happen. Though I'd guess it was SE fault. No one know for sure.

I mean. Vaan And Penelo weren't even the main characters of the game. They probably had the least amount of story out of any of themThey were used to market the game.

For metal gear solid 1 or 2, or Zone of the Enders II no. For any game after that... they could have been improved.

There's no proof that Matsuno's Vision was better than was presented. Was George Lucas's Vision better than  Irvin Kershner?
Everyone capable of making mistakes. Sakaguchi has. Kitase has. Uemastsu Has Kojima has, Nomura etc.

Matsuno hasn't.