I'm Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg of Dalmasca!

[WhiteStorm]

Definitely this game would have been better is Bash had been the leading man. Vaan could die halfway through the game and no one would even notice because he doesn't do anything relevant!

[magemasher]

I liked Basch he was a strong charecter like Auron or Snow (battlewise) and they don't really make good leading characters so I can see why vaan was put in late on, it would have bothered me more if Vaan was the lead in the previous ps1 titles which were more reliant on charecter developement.

I would of liked to of seen Balthier as the leading man. I sky pirate mini-game would of been good where you got to go treasure hunts -the chocobos.

[TrollHunter]

That reminded me of the most annoying part of XII, on topic I agree with you completely. though baltheir is the (self-proclaimed) leading man already

[Hollycat]

I'm sick to death of young plucky heroes with obnoxious voices. I would have loved that game so much more if Basch was the protagonist, he's already one of my favorite characters. It would have added a lot of depth to the game, imo.

YESH

[Dr. Acula]

I would have preferred Basch as a main character. They could have easily brought Vaan and Penelo in some other way if they were that desperate for younger characters.

[LunaRaven]

I am one of the few that actually liked at least the idea of Vaan's character: here's a kid who had let his circumstances act as an excuse for not doing anything productive with his life. He gets caught up in the plot to restore Dalmasca and in so doing is given the opportunity to develop talents that he would not have had he remained a street rat in Rabanastre. It is a coming of age story of sorts, though far more subtle than the heroic characters we are used to seeing.

That said, he is arguably worse-developed than most of the party (except perhaps Fran). And yes, he does become an irrelevant character from the standpoint of the game's primary plot.

His dialogue is also often cringeworthy, even more than usual IMO because of the intended seriousness (as opposed to many FF characters who are almost portrayed as caricatures of themselves).

I'm inclined to agree. In theory, the need for a character like Vann is understandable. His lighthearted, loveable raggamuffin character type should have lent some humor to an otherwise dark story and helped to develop the characters who were more withdrawn--all the while maturing his character. In theory, Vann's character type is necessary. In practice however, the game's creators undershot by a mile and produced a poorly written character whose role wasn't as significant as it should have been.

I love this game(in my mind, it earns an 8.5/10), but I can easily see how it could have improved with casting Basch as the lead---or not making a main character at all, but rather having the whole cast represent the protagonist element of the story and divide time amongst all of them to validate their roles in the story. Sometimes i've thought about doing a fan novelization of this game for fun, and if I were to I would opt for the latter choice of shared importance amongst the cast(and also try to develop the characters that were neglected during the series). The game practically screams to be made into a book---but that's just a book nerd's opinion.