Wow, here I was getting ready to lay the smackdown and Nominus Experse beats me to it. So I guess I'll lay down my two cents. I love this game, it's not my favorite but I walked away from it pretty satisfied. It offered me everything I've wanted from the series for awhile.

First off, this game has a ton of sidequests and optional areas. Something that has been lacking in the series for awhile. The game actually encourages you to explore (except not in the obnoxious DQ way of doing it.) The world is incredible and detailed. Their is more backstory to this world than any other FF I know of except for maybe FFT. The cities are huge and filled with people making them feel alive. Hell, the NPC's usually have something relevant to say for once.

The characters are more realistic, in the sense that their is a level of mistrust with each other. Vaan can be annoying but at least the party is aware of this and tend to put him in his place. As for Penelo, I give her props for not being perky like Rikku or Selphie or Yuffie (evil little #@$%) basically the same damn template that's been used in every FF since FFV. For that, I like her cause she never spoke and never tried to "cheer me up". It gets old people...

I feel all the cast is given enough backstory to justify who they are and where they stand in the world. Honestly, I don't really want to know more about Vaan and Penelo, especially since talking to the NPC's gave me a pretty good idea of what they were like as children. Also, their is no officail main character to FFXII.

The gameplay is wonderful and I never felt like I was being dragged down by countless hordes of monsters. When I didn't feel like fighting I found that I could easily avoid combat. The gambits are fun to use cause I love building strategies. The Liscience Board is a pretty interesting take on the Job Class system. I loved the weapons and how much they really changed a character in combat. Buying them was a pain but it brought back memories of playing FFI and FFIV. You know where you had to take time to earn money to buy new stuff so the next dungeon doesn't hand you your ass.

I love the huge areas to explore and the fact that a good number of them are completely optional. You see, I played these games back in the day when exploration was everything to an RPG. So it was a welcomed sights, especially since the series has become increasingly linear since FFVII.

The story, was pretty good. Simple. But good. I'm just grateful it wasn't hounded with plot holes or terrible writing choices which has been occuring more often since the PS1 generation. It had one major plot twist I didn't see coming and I found the political intrigue to be satisfying. I especailly loved Lady Ashe's relationship to the whole story. I loved how human it was. Her internal conflict was one of the strong points of the story. I did wish the Judges got more airtime though.

My only complaints are just the random treasure chest contents (I know it's not something new in RPGs but I still hate it.) the final boss battle could have been a bit challenging (what is up with FF games making their final bosses losers? Stop building uber optioanl bosses and let me have a damn good final boss fight for once. ) I also wish the music could have been more memorable. I liked the soundtrack but there were very few memorable tracks. Other than that, I think it's a really good game, I feel it has truly set the bar on world and game design in RPGs.