Another interesting tidbit about XII. Matsuno apparently loved Balthier so much he gave him a larger role than originally planned, he was even thinking about having the entire story rewritten to make him the lead but was thwarted due to the development delays.
I don't hate Vaan, hell the series has made worse whiny boring paper thin characters so he's hardly on mylist. I felt his coming of age story was handled quite nicely due to its realism. I don't blame people for hating him but from a story standpoint and from what the team has mentioned in interviews, Vaan is not the main character. XII follows in the footsteps of other FF titles by having the story switch between the cast. Vaan's story ends less than a third of the way into the plot. So I wish people would stop assuming he's the lead cause he's the only character model available in the bigger cities.
