The story arguably "borrows" from Star Wars and the history of the Roman empire etc., but it's unfair to compare it to Shakespeare, Lucas, etc. on the grounds that it does an "evil empire with political intrigue" story, while exempting the other FF storylines from similar comparisons on the grounds that they're marginally more original. Every one of them fails miserably when compared to literary classics. I've found that so far (I'm up to Giruvegan) FF12's plot is easily superior to the plot of every other FF in the main series with the exception of FF7 and FF10. The pacing is not uniformly bad IMO, just uneven. I agree that
(SPOILER) the trip to Archades drags, but I haven't had major problems other than that. I don't think the dialog sucks, though I agree that there's not enough of it. So let's not try to pass off opinions as "facts".