http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=1673656

These are always the easiest replies to make.

Edit:

They never infiltrated an enemy ship to save Ashe. Did you play the game?

No

he small band of rebels saved the princess who was in prison whilst in an enemy compound ship or not.

Either way you can defend it all you want it will always be seen as a Star Wars ripoff.

Ashe was never imprisoned except when the rest of the party was, too. She was running guerilla tactics the entire time.

You.... you never played, did you.

Anyone else fight Yiazmat for over ten hours and finally beat him? I did. Wouldn't have done it if you weren't able to save during the fight.

What level were you? My wife beat him after like four hours but she was level 90+

FF12 best console RPG until Mass Effect came out :)

FF4,6 and 12 are the best of the series. 12 was well blending of story and game play. Though I only played 10 hours before losing my mem card. Lent out the game for the last few years. I keep on wanting to start again to play again, but theres so many new gamest to play :(

I need to replay FFXII. I only got around 20 hours into it before losing my save file, but I enjoyed it immensely up until that point.

I enjoyed it far more than X (the only main FF I've beaten), because the story seemed fairly deep, yet not unnecessarily convoluted, and it didn't have your typical FF "We can do this if we believe in ourselves!" coming of age cast. The characters seemed calm, intelligent, and rather sly in the case of Balthier and Fran, and were all round quite likable. Had Basch actually been positioned as the main character, as Matsuno had originally intended, the game would've been even better, but it was still very enjoyable despite the focus on little ol' Vaan.

I'm finding it hard to accurately describe how I feel about XII compared to other JRPGs (I'm certainly no English major), but I think the reason I liked XII is because most JRPGs (particularly 3D FF) tend to have a bunch of incredibly naive teenagers who somehow manage to save the world after several inevitable plot twists that make you go WTF (oh, by the way, you don't exist - thanks FFX -_-). On the whole, FFXII seemed far more down to earth, yet it still retained a rather fantastical atmosphere.

From what I hear, Vaan's character was brought to the forefront rather late in the development cycle (I believe after Matsuno's departure), once SE realized they were aiming a bit above their usual teen demographic. It was then that they de-emphasized Basch's character, in favor of a character they felt would resonate better with their target audience. It's a shame they didn't stick with Matsuno's original vision (and it's more of a shame Matsuno left Square).