First, let me say that while I will be quoting the first post these replies aren't directed at the poster, per se. This is for the general audience, if you will. He just happened to bring up things I've seen a lot of.

Is it just me, or does the Archades/judge theme sound like a rip off of the Empire's theme in Star Wars? This brings me to my next point.
Sure, it sounds similar. But so what? It's a badass theme.

It completely makes no sense, but this game is too much like Star Wars. I remember when I first played the demo that came with Dragon Quest VIII, I thought the game looked like a mix between FFT and Star Wars. I didn't know I was going to be right.

An empire against a rebellion. Large starcruisers with smaller ships having their dog fights. They wanted to be so cool that they made not 1, not 2, but 5 DARTH VADERS!!! (judges). Ashe is princess Leia, Balthier is Han Solo, Fran is a sexy Chewbacca (she's the non-human co-pilot!!!!), The Strahl is the Milennium Falcon, Vaan is Luke Skywalker (poor kid that just wants to fly), Basch is Vaan's Obie Wan Kinobe (except he fought with his brother instead of his father) and Penelo is R2-D2. Anastis is Yoda, the Bahamut is the Death Star, you get the idea.
Can you say "Reading too much into it"? Yes? Good. Star Wars was far from the first to do... well, anything it did. Evil Empire? Old. Rebellions? Old. Princesses? Old. Sauve not-quite-a-hero? Old. Hero related to villain? Old. Knowledgable master teaches hero what he knows? Old. Star Wars is a fairy tale given a Sci-fi locale. You can draw connections between any two things if you really want to. And in a lot of cases, it's not that hard. Of course that's not to say that a lot of the connections in XII weren't intentional. FF has *always* made conections with Star Wars, starting with Biggs and Wedge. FFVIII is CRAMMED with them.

Oh, and by the way.... Where the F*** is the storyline? In the beginning they bombard you with a load of movies and Omdore talking, but soon after that you're plunged into the hours of senseless dungeon wandering. Without even getting a Game Over, it takes a long time to make it through the mazes that are the dungeons in this game. If you want to go mark-hunting, one of the biggest aspects of this game, you might as well kiss any hope of a decent story goodbye. Halfway through the game, I asked myself "Where am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Where am I headed? Why am I here? What is the point of this game?"
So now we're complaining about being able to do a lot of things? Gee, I can remember when everyone was complaining that FFX was too linear and didn't offer enough sidequests and non-storyline elements during the course of the game... and now XII is getting complaints for doing the opposite? Oi.

I've also seen a lot of complaints about the high gameplay over cutscene ratio in XII. I never thought I'd see people complain that there was too much gameplay and not enough story (in a videogame no less!) after all the complaints about FFX being an 'interactive movie'.

The only area that I think was made too big was the Sandsea. If they'd limited it to just the one area instead of two it would have been perfect sized. But that's it, just the one area that's too large. (The Pharos can seem big if you don't know what you're doing but it's not really that bad).

Like I said, the ratio of time you spend mindlessly wandering to the amount of time you spend advancing a story is not good. What else? Well the mini-map is rediculous, although it was necessary for the labyrinthical dungeons.. With a mini-map, we might as well go back to 2D gaming. The music was not up to par, the License system was a poor re-hash of the Sphere Grid (by the time you get everything, everyone can do everything), none of the traditional summons are there, no crystals, no theme of life & death, no 1,000 year legend, no threat to the planet, the higher power controlling the dark warriors (vanaar) had no clear motives, Cid was just some douchebag, i'd hardly call the strahl an "airship", the list can go on and on.
First of all, what's wrong with the mini-map?

Anyway, it's no 'mindlessly wandering' it's called "playing". I know, it's a novel concept, playing a game. But that's what you do. Yes, the cutscenes are spread out further in this one than in previous, but guess what? It's in response the fact that people were complaining about how often they occured in previous games. Make up your minds, folks.

The license board was fun and a good. The complaint of 'everyone's the same' is utter garbage. They are only what you make them. If they're all the same that's your fault, not the game's.

No world saving plot? What? Removing the tyranical rule of evil gods doesn't count as saving the world? Stoping Vayne conquering Rozaria and then moving on to the rest of the world isn't saving the world? Sure, there was no ancient legends or prophecies or world threats or over-the-top 'OMGWTF' problems, but that's the tone of the game. XII is based on a more realistic footing than previous games.

Venat had no clear motives? His motives were the same as Vayne's, really. Free humanity from the rule of the other Ocuria. The reasoning wasn't entirely given, but it's not particularly needed. Cid (both of them!) was cool. And the Strahl is an airship because they say so. It could be powered by baloons and it'd still be an airship. XP

Anyway, I also want to touch on something else. People say the story is weak, but that's not true. It's just presented differently than the previous FF games have been. VII through to X-2 (the ones I've played all the way through so know more about) are all the same when it comes down to story-telling. The characters are the story. They are the driving force behing the entire plot, they make the story.

In FFXII it's different. Instead of focusing on the characters and making the plot secondary it focused on the plot and made the characters secondary. They were developed in a different fashion from previous games and the story was presented in a different fashion. This, mixed with the increased ammounts of gameplay between cutscenes (I played for nearly 20 hours, if not more, between leaving for and reaching Archades) makes the story seem thinner, but there's as much or more in it than previous games.