First, Vaan and Penelo are an essential part of the narration: we are drawn into the great history of kingdoms and gods from the point of view of two street brats. Not someone with mystical hidden heritages, not someone with archenemies, just someone forced to grow up quickly being dragged in a much bigger picture. When they are not the engines of the development, they are at least our eyes.

Second, I think you some missed some great dialogues between Vaan and Ashe about vengeance and loss, and in particular one when Ashe has to take one of two roads. More character depth and development transpired in those few lines than in whole games, including some Final Fantasy ones.

Oh, and btw I agree with Khuutra on the excellence of Vayne and especially Gabranth.

FFX was dull, dull, dull. Ivalice is the probably the most interesting of the FF worlds and yet I feel that they wanted to milk it more with other games, like the DS one and others that were never made.

In truth FFX-2 was awful and FFXI was a decent MMO at best. So SE are not looking good in my eyes.

Im looking forward to FFXIII and Verses but Im worried the same mistakes will be made.

have to say the guys complaining about the battle system

its a real time strategy battle, kind of like kotor

to guys like me whod rather shoot themselves then do a menu battle, this fills in nicely

plus all the boring collecting xp and shit fighting is made a lot easier to handle.

since i loved Final Fantasy tactics alot, i felt this game was alot "omg look what happened to this town after 100 years" kind of thought, and i knew all about the backstory and everything about the gods origins and all.

FFXII was focusing more about the backstory and history more than characters, but i think this fits VERY well with what the game is about.

you don't feel connected to the characters (espicially vaan) but if you play Revenant wings you will know the characters more.

@hatmoza, well thats what you think, different strokes i guess, im not going to say you are wrong, but i found the battle system to be okay, not crap.
there is actually control over the party, you can play it that way or the other way, i personally choosen gambits, since if you master them they can get you by easy. (even without leveling up AT ALL ) -check youtube alot of people did it-

@pallus

revenant wings is the only reason i tried ff12
i was a total ff hater forever
but with 12 they actually made a cool new rpg, and not some menu driven melodrama

also thats true about the place being the character not the people so much

it doesnt always have to be mountains of melodrama and poorly written love stories

I hated FF XII.

FF X is my #1 game of all time, FF XI was an MMO (meh), and FF XII sucked...

FF XIII better be greatness.

Well, to answer everyone's question, specifically Khutra's, I do like those kind of theme historically, however, coming from a video game, its meh..

Out of curiosity, how many games have you played with those themes, exactly?

first my name is not Pallus (LMAO i hope you don't know what that means....) , second i hate you but its okay i don't usually judge people cause they don't like what i like  still i hate you forever for hating FF

nah Jk

im just going to say you should give it another try.

I liked this game a lot, I though the story was good and I found it interesting to show political themes and how a small country was under the pressure of two empires.

I also liked that for once, the characters where not like "awesome" and where made more as normal people, I like when characters are awesome like Cloud in VII, but it was good to have a change.

Also, the graphics were great, the VA was one of the best in videogames and the music was awesome too.

Ive heard some complains about the gameplay, but it seems it only bothers you when you play the game extensively to a point where the main storyline could have been easily finished way before the problem starts.

Overall its an awesome game for me, over 9.0 if I had to be a reviewer, a good Final Fantasy game too.