I think both games were pretty easy, and both have stunning cutscenes. However, I thought FFXII was a disaster, especially in comparison to FFIX.

The terrible pacing in XII meant that half the time I had no idea what was going on and after a while I kinda stopped caring, whereas IX always lead you back to the matter at hand, even if it occasionally deviated.

I also felt that XII had boring, undeveloped characters which meant that there was no respite from the terribly thought out pacing of the story, which is a shame as there where a couple characters such as Balthier who could've been brilliant. And I don't just mean good, cos I know there's a lot of people that like his character and i'm in agreement to a certain degree, I mean really great. Of course, this isn't the case in IX where we meet some of the most loved and memorable characters in the entire series, namely Vivi, Quina etc.

Also, the array of seemingly endless 'areas' that look exactly the same screen after screen reminded me of a game I played years ago called Dark Cloud. Anyone else who has played this will understand the horrific bordom caused by that game. The environment in IX seems to have been much more thought out, no two screens look the same and I feel this made for an on the whole more visually spectacular game.