I did like that system, but I honestly never finished the game.  I stopped about halfway through disk 3 when I just got so bored with the story and bought Vagrant Story and Xenogears.  Needless to say FF8 fell by the wayside once I had those two games in my hands.  I kept meaning to go back and finish but....

   As to the arrogant/confident thing it IS true that most people are not like that, but on the flip side most genuinely heroic types ARE like that.   How much time do you think Patton spent alone in his tent crying about being a lone wolf like Squall?  How many great heros have you heard of that are 14 like most of the Square heroes I dislike?  I appreciated Tidus for his confidence and levity, he was more or less exactly what a RPG hero should be.

   And to Khuutra I'm not just talking about stats.  Ever since FF 6 introduced espers where everyone could learn any ability there has been less and less importance placed on what a character starts as.  What I'm talking about is how they act in the game, what archetype they represent (even if you change their stats through clever use of the license board).  In the respect of what kind of character he represents Vahn is most certainly not a heroic figure and should only be a supporting character like Cait Sith or other non heroic characters.

You're serious about that, then.

Grandia, Star Ocean, Front Mission, Act Raiser, The 7th Saga, Ogre Battle, Illusion of Gaia, Valkyrie Profile, Dragon Quest are all excellent games/series.

The real problem was once Square and Enix merged all the popular sequels got big budgets for graphics but crap writing teams while promising new titles were underfunded, under promoted and released in desperate need of polish. It's almost like all the qualities workers jumped ship during the merger.

 I'm also looking to Atlus for all my RPG needs ;)

Vaan is not the hero of FFXII to begin with.

I would argue that Ashe fulfills that role. Vaan is important for his perspective and how he affects the hero, not for his own acts.

The funny thing is the people who bother to post here are still looking forward to SE games. Most of you cant wait for any KH game or FF game. You guys can argue here all you want but in the end youre still gonna buy their games and most will still defend this/these companies in the end.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are over-rated beyond belief.

Im playing Chrono Trigger I like it maybe not far enough to understand the "best RPG ever!!!!" but its a good game so far. Im nee to RPGs I dont see the epicness here. Just another fun game not amazing.

Note - I prefer SRPG to RPG.
No bias I swear. I wanted to like FF Tactics but it is terrible. Fire Emblem and Yggdra Union run circles around it.

Erm.. i hope not.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but Lightning looks pretty much like a female, so i should hope she doesn't have any in the physical sense!

That said, SE has mdae a bunch of rather effeminate looking characters before who might or might not be hermaphrodites.

Unfortunately I have to disagree with you on your main character breakdowns though. FFIX and XII were my absolute favorite Playstation FF's.

It´s not up to you to say if Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are overrated, but overhyped instead because so many people still play them. Playing Chrono Trigger now is not the same as playing it chronologically correctly. If you at least had played it in the mid 90´s you would have grasped its epicness. But in the end it´s  just a personal opinion. I love FFT and hate Disgaea, see what I did here?