alot of good points are being brought up here. I agree with Cap'n Basch that the player doesn't need much to understand the story - the motivations are definately present, and there's many for each character. I look at Vaan and Penelo as used as Tidus was in X - they're essentially an every-day-person's point of view on what is going on, a perspective for the player to observe the storyline with. That's probably why they didn't go through as many changes as Ashe, Fran, Balthier and Basch.

At the same time, I've always been with Renmiri when it comes to the storyline. They really should have put as much effort into that as they did with world detail and gameplay. The fact that the last two one-player games in the series were IX and X, should make it obvious why so many of us have complaints with its storyline. It took a backseat, metaphorically, far back in the vehicle, and because of that, this game almost isn't an RPG, much less a Final Fantasy.

Probably my main reason for this is because XII had such a great backstory. I would have liked to learn more about it and what was going on, as that's what really hooked me in in the beginning parts of the game. Overall, I think the story-to-gameplay ratio was way off, but just adequate enough for me to have a positive opinion on this game.