This is neither illustrative nor helpful.

That doesn't change the fact that it is absolutely 100 percent true.

Yes, actually, yes it does. We can't pretend to objectivity in something like htis, an I'm not goign to begin a discussion with the fallacious assumption that my opposition "just doesn't get it".

Ah, but I have a leg up my friend. See, I was a FFXII hater once. I shared the experience of every one of you. I played the game for 20-40 hours, hated it, and flamed it everytime the subject came up.

Then, a wiser man than I, told me that I should give it a second chance, and that I simply wasn't approaching the game with an open mind. I had expectations about the game that it had never even attempted to rotate towards, and I was judging it by a very distinctive and inappropriate scale.

So, upon reflection, I played the game again, and found that indeed there was a lot that I had missed, which was excellent, and I found an experience deeper than I had ever expected in the first place.

I don't think you don't get it. I know you don't. I have been directly in your shoes and I have walked that road to its end my friend, and found I was wrong.

You already know this. You might have tried to justify it in your mind, and claim that, "no, the game has nothing for me" when in reality you just feel more comfortable relying on your old biases and opinions, instead of taking the word of someone who might be wiser than you on this one particular subject.

You always knew there was fun to be had. You just didn't want to work to get it. The game wasn't what you expected, and too much time has passed for you to return to it.

You should, you know. FFVII is waiting to be rediscovered for you. You just have to reach for it.

Jesus Christ Zen I'm the most vocal supporter of Final Fantasy XII on this website, who do you think you're talking to?

That doesn't change the fact that your assumption that the opposition doesn't get it, even if you yourself didn't the first time, doesn't hold any water! Even if it turns out to be true it's faulty as an operative assumption until it's proven to have some basis in reality!

Lol, easily VII...

On a side note, something that turned me off on my initial hateplay was that I felt overwhelmed, with no particular goal. Everything was needless complex, but also seemed hopelessly shallow. I call this the FFVIII syndrome. It's simply a mis-direction though. Playing the game like it was userfriendly, when it is hard-core as a console game gets. Its one of the few franchises that ranges from very userfriendly(VII, X) to unbelievably hardcore(VIII, XII).

For instance, did you know that you should never case a summons in FFVIII, and that you shouldn't level your character at all, till end game, and that you should keep your health in yellow for limit breaks on every turn? Did you know that you should go outside and draw 300 of every available spell before you even go fight Infrit?

In FFXII, on my real playthrough, I was almost level 30 by the time I finished the first tomato hunt. However, even at end game, I found beasts that constantly upped the challenge, and never let me get complacent in my strategy.

Now, no doubt, the two best FF battle systems are in the games with the poorest narratives. VIII and XII(though Balthir and to a lesser extent Squall, are great characters). However, this is the price that I will be glad to pay. Give me a game, not a goddamn book on disc.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

I know its wrong to assume such things, in theory. However, in practice, it's always held true for me in the past. I'm a realist at heart my friend. I've walked these dried up streams before. Sharing my knowledge is my God give duty!

You are doing it wrong. Christ Jesus, I cannot imagine doing it more wrong than you were doing it. What did you do, kill wolves until you got a Quickening and then used that to level up with werewolves? Why would you do that? Don't you realize how unimportant levels are in this game?

Zen just preached to the guy deffending FFXII since the beggining of time.

Don't mind him Khuutra, he just realy likes to preach, even if it is to the choir.