Obviously  he's not been perfect unless every single one of his games top every other game out there for you. Are his games your favorites out of any games? with no exceptions.

IMO no games of his has been perfect. and no game has ever been perfect period
none of his games were perfect Though Tactics Ogre, and Vagrant story were close.

FF: Tactics was quite a flawed game in my opinion on various levels.

but obviously Matsuno is god and we should all knees before his knees.

What a sorry excuse.  There's no proof pointing to the opposite either. 

One thing is sure, if you start doing something, and give the work to someone else to finish, midway through the process, there IS going to be an apparent shift in consistence.

Start a drawing and give it to me to finish once you're half-way through it, explaining to me what was your idea and concept.  I can assure you it won't be the same as you had first imagined when I'm done with it.

Um that's what implied previously. You're trying to make it seem like I said Matsuno's version would have been worse. Which I did not say. Plus either side is a flimsy argument. That's my point.

"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."

my point is the game is what the game is. Yes, the game was not exactly matsuno's vision, but there's no way to prove matsuno's vision was better or worse. Just because someone has a vision doesn't make it good.

My argument has always been there's no way to know what would have been better. which is a fact.
Even if they released matsuno's vision. If it was better than Ito/Matsuno version is an opinion

Im fine with 6 hrs of cut-scenes, as long as they have great stories to tell, but 6 hrs of teenage angst (Lighting included, she is always so angry), hero will save the day kind of 3rd grad dialogues just kills the game for me. Everybody seems to look perfect on the outside with zero intelligence in their brain.

FFXII on the other hand has a much richer political background story, each character is interesting and mature, even Vaan has an interesting cheerful chracter, he never whine like Hope, Penelo also never screech like Vanille who seems to be ableto break any glass windows with her 'oooh' and 'aaaah' when she see something excited.

FFXII my best FF, XIII the worst, I even prefer X-2 over XIII because it got girls changing imgaginative clothes, hehe.

This is exactly what i've been trying to say. its team 1 that has spent 5 years, developing a new engine, etc so we can watch 6 hours of cutscenes with cartoonish type dialogue, unrealistic characters and regurgitation of the same melodramtic plot points.

fair enough FF12 was not perfect by any standard but i prefer the attention to realism in the character development, and the more mature tone of the script writing.

i can see the logic in your argument, but when you start to consider the regrets of the Hiroyuki Ito over the final story, and the refusal of Sakaguchi to play the game past the opening because of the departure of Matusno. fair enough its your opinion that Matsuno would not have necessarily improved the game. but i think that the man who created the world of Ivalice, who had a philosophy behind the design of the game, and who was forced to comprimise that vision would have created something a lot better. thats my personal opinion because we know he wanted Basch to be the main character, and i showed you with that cutscene (of when Basch is in prision), Vaan's intrusion isnt consistant with the tone of the game.

i'm not saying i hated Vaan, but imo he just didnt work, and after playing the game for 180 hours (on 1 save alone) i think it would've been better with more focus on the core characters like Basch, Fran and Balthier rather than Vaan and Penelo. thats the most we really know. so fair enough if you dont think that, but i strongly believe that it was Matsuno's game and had he not of left, the final product imo wouldve been a lot better. maybe your right and it wouldve been awful, but having played his other games i have faith that it would not have been.

and i'm not saying he's god, lol. he's made mistakes, imo his games are a bit too hard core, but either way, he wouldnt make the same mistake as say: inspiring FF from Call of Duty, using Leonia Lewis to try and improve sales of the game, focusing on 6 hours of cutscenes instead of gameplay. so yes he makes mistakes, but they not like mistakes production team 1 have made.

Troubled development cycles have never, ever lead to anything good especially from Square; switching directors halfway through NEVER works in videogaming especially when said director created the entire world the game was set in and when he was appointed by Sakaguchi himself. The second when the PlayOnline had their little hissy fit is when we knew things were going to turn out iffy at best. You NEED cohesion of direction especially in a story-heavy game. Say what you will about how the GAMEPLAY in his titles have been (even his best, Vagrant Story, had balance issues, though none of his titles have ever been less than very good) his narratives have been some of the most engaging, complex affairs ever to grace the medium and have been matched by a handful of people at best. It's pretty obvious that Matsuno's vision would have been better due to coherence; I may sound hyberbolic here but there isn't a man at SE who can do Matsuno's narratives BUT him

Now I agree with what you said for the most part.  I did not agree before mainly because, I do not like it when people deal with absolutes.

Though I wills say, playing 12. I never felt vaan was the main character... other than you had to play as him when you walked around the towns. I always felt ashe was the main character. Just my opinion though. I just thought Vaan was marketed as the main character though he wasn't really. And LIghtning wasn't the main character either. Though she was marketed as it.

On a different note. I will agree, i never understood what the hell he meant by it being inspired by Call of Duty. Though I remember him saying they were also inspired by the "Lost" TV show which I like... and never really understood how it was similar to it either.

I mean... the cutscenes wasn't really the much related to the series. the FMV scenes was only 47 minutes in 13. Which is less than FF7 60 minutes, and FF8 90 minutes. Though obviously it had in game scenes to take it to 6 hours... but I didn't really feel there was that much more than 12... though if you don't like them, it's like watching a movie you don't like so it seems longer.

I will be honest and try to explain why I like the less realistic, mature or whatever you want to call them FF's less. For videogames I prefer fantastical plots, with more cartoon/cyberpunk like characters and. In KOTOR, ME, and the other Final Fantasy's. Because in my opinion it's what I enjoy in the videogame medium.

Whereas Movies, I enjoy everything including political dramas such as Lust Caution, Good NIght and Good Luck.

I however will completely disagree with you on the Leonna Lewis Song. Because in my opinion it's a better song, and even fits the game better musically, like the when the crystal shatters over the song. DAMN that's a nice sound (ok sorry XD)... though the lyrics I don't really like on either song,. I love Hamauzu's soundtrack. But I don't like his pop song's Kimi ga iru kara, I don't like at ll, the other one I forgot the title to. Not near imo Uematsu's Pop song's, Eyes on Me, Melodies of Life, Suteki Da Ne. (neither is my hands by the way... i just like it more than kimi ga iru kara)

they should have put this song at the end http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4t3hom4lX4

jk that wouldn't fit :P

You've nailed it. said what i couldnt say, and i absolutly agree.

Lol i saw your link, its actully a pretty good song, but you are correct it wouldnt have worked. the problem wasnt the use of Leonia Lewis, the problem was thinking that it would improve the western reception of the game, which imo tells me that they didnt understand what gamers look for in games. its not a bad song, i just dont care for it much.

Yeah i felt for a fair part of the game Ashe was focused on because her actions are relevant to the plot. however imo because of the time wasted with Vaan and Penelo, i felt they never had enough time to flesh out the other characters and Fran and Basch especially were marginalised.

i'm not sure about the Call of Duty stuff, but i think they were reffering to the atmosphere of the battles, however the reptition of FPS dosent seem to translate well onto the parafigm shift system imo. as for Lost, if you remember all the flashbacks at the beginning half of the game, where are characters unknowingly meet each other in Bodhem. (yeah it didnt work imo).

i too enjoy the fantastical and surreal settings. what i'm saying is the way that material was delivered in FF13. in FF12, the setting was more fantasy than FF13, with different races, a rich history etc. but it was delivered maturely. if you remember the cutscenes i linked to i was reffering to the way the characters interact with each other and how the cutscenes focus on melodrama and then regurgitating those plot points with more cutscenes focusing on more melodrama. in FF12 the characters talk to each other realistically, the direction has been more mature from the outset, and i can enjoy the story a lot more if the direction is more serious. i dont need lines like "its our focus Serah said so" every 5 mins.

by the way aiddon has made a good point about FF12, although as you said that is based on perosnal opinion.