Final Fantasy XII sucks. Period. Fact.

[Deuce Traveler]

I just didn't like the fact that the other characters were way cooler than the main one that I was supposed to relate to.

 

[drothgery]

I just didn't like the fact that the other characters were way cooler than the main one that I was supposed to relate to.

Since this has been true of pretty much every FF game (except possibly the NES games and 3US/6J, where there wasn't a clear main character), and you weren't ever forced to use Vaan after you had 4+ PCs available (I kept expecting a classic FF forced party split, which was the main reason I kept my PCs at relativley equal levels for most of the game, but it never happened), not seeing this as a problem.

 

[Mallus]

I just didn't like the fact that the other characters were way cooler than the main one that I was supposed to relate to.

So it is Star Wars!

 

[Amellia]

WHAT. Are you kidding? FF12 was amazing. The gameplay was fantastic, the graphics were breathtaking, and there were subtleties involved in the characters and storyline that, apparently, escaped people expecting things to hit you over the head like they did in 8 or 10. (I won't say 7, because I may be tracked down and murdered -- and besides, I liked 7.)

Balthier remains one of my favorite game characters ever. Right up there with Vincent, and Roxas.

This makes me sad -- in my opinion, FF12 is one of the best.

 

[Grog]

I, too, really enjoyed FF 12. Probably my favorite since 6 (3 US). I could have used some more variety in the combat (offensive spells were almost never worth the trouble to use, in my opinion, except for on a couple of bosses), but overall it was a highly enjoyable game. I loved the huge number of optional dungeons to explore and quests to complete - it was almost like getting a complete second game under the surface of the first.

 

[Vigilance]

I just didn't like the fact that the other characters were way cooler than the main one that I was supposed to relate to.

See, I liked this.

Vaan is a peasant kid caught up in the affairs of state. Of course the story wasn't about him.

I liked that they didn't feel compelled to give him some enormous power mysterious power to save the day, or discover that he was a noble's illegitimate son or something cheap like that.

They didn't try and force Vaan into being the MAIN character because he was the character you had in your party through the entire game.

And as others have said, other FF games were like this. In FF X for example, Auron, Lulu and Wakka are all WAY cooler (like, by several orders of magnitude) than the "main" characters of Yuna and Tidus.

 

[Arnwyn]

Since this has been true of pretty much every FF game

Totally agree.

Lulu? Hell yeah.
Quistis? That's what I'm talking about.
Tifa & Aerith? Hoo-boy.
Rydia/Yang/Kain/pick one? For sure.

I expect nothing less from FFXII.

 

[Amellia]

See, I liked this.

Vaan is a peasant kid caught up in the affairs of state. Of course the story wasn't about him.

I liked that they didn't feel compelled to give him some enormous power mysterious power to save the day, or discover that he was a noble's illegitimate son or something cheap like that.

They didn't try and force Vaan into being the MAIN character because he was the character you had in your party through the entire game.

I really liked this too. It's like they stepped back and said "We -always- have some ordinary guy turning out to have some specific purpose to save the day, or have all the spunk/etc. needed to turn into the hero." And they decided they would change their formula. I loooved that. He was just an ordinary guy that gets caught up in something bigger than he is -- and honestly, who isn't, in that situation?

 

[TwinBahamut]

See, I liked this.

Vaan is a peasant kid caught up in the affairs of state. Of course the story wasn't about him.

I liked that they didn't feel compelled to give him some enormous power mysterious power to save the day, or discover that he was a noble's illegitimate son or something cheap like that.

They didn't try and force Vaan into being the MAIN character because he was the character you had in your party through the entire game.

And as others have said, other FF games were like this. In FF X for example, Auron, Lulu and Wakka are all WAY cooler (like, by several orders of magnitude) than the "main" characters of Yuna and Tidus.

I don't agree with this reasoning at all.

The problem with Vaan (and Panelo) is that they don't even really have a reason to be there. There was absolutely no reason they couldn't have just made Ashe, Balthier, or Basch the main character. In fact, the young imperial prince, Larsa, would have been a pretty good main character. FF12 is the story of those characters, and Vaan is completely insignificant.

If FF12 actually did something interesting like tell the story from Vaan's perspective and have him be a witness to the events (like Tidus in FF10), or maybe just a "voice of the common man" for the other characters, then he might be tolerable, but nothing like that happened. Vaan was completely ignored by what little plot even existed, and in most of the game's cut-scenes he is just left off-screen. If even the game designers don't care about Vaan's existence, why should I?

All the good characters of past FF games, or even the bad ones, at least had some justification for being the main hero.

FF4: Cecil is one of the great characters. The story is about his inner conflict, redemption, and brave battle to try to save the world. FF4 is Cecil's story, and can not be described any other way. Every other character is only there because he brought them together.

FF1, FF3, FF5: The heros are the chosen ones. it is simplistic, but it works for games that are based on battles against such clear-cut forces of evil. FF5 worked well to give additional motivation to each character. Ultimately, these are stories about people who chose to step up and fight evil, which works.

FF6: There is no central character, just a central quest. If FF12 ditched Vaan and told its story this way (maybe with a revival of the scenario system), then it would have worked at least a little better.

FF7: Cloud is unquestionably central to the story, and it would not be the same without Cloud's conflicted identity and personal battle against Sephiroth.

FF8: This one has the opposite problem of FF12, actually. Here, Squall is undoubtedly central to the game and is an interesting character, and a lot of the best stuff in the game deals with his romance with Rinoa and rivalry with Seifer. The problem with the game is that they forced an arbitrary and terrible "save the world/evil sorceress" plot on top of that.

FF9: Meh, I admit to having trouble defending this one. I thought Zidane was fairly uninspiring from the beginning. Still, at least he put some energy into the quest and the game designers tried to shine a spotlight on him and make him interesting. Still got outshone by Vivi (who should have been the main character) and Garnet, though.

FF10: As I said, they made Tidus into a "witness", and built a lot of the game around his specific perspective and made him the narrator. Tidus himself was even more horribly generic than Zidane, but at least he was central to the story. And Yuna was the very centerpiece of the story, though they could have made her more interesting...

FF12: Vaan serves the story in no useful manner whatsoever, he shows no interest in the main quest in the slightest, and the team members around him consider him more of a bother than a true member of the team. At this point, the game designers have put him in just to fulfill some "generic youthful male hero" quota. He has all the flaws of Zidane and Tidus with none of their redeeming worth.

Ultimately, as you say, FF12 is a story about affairs of state. Why then is the main hero some kid who dreams about being a sky pirate, when sky piracy has nothing to do with the plot? They should have made the main hero at least mildly interested in the main subject of the plot.

Ugh... Even Vaan's brother would have made a lot more interesting of a main character... He at least had a direct connection to central events of the game.

 

[Orius]

Vaan is a peasant kid caught up in the affairs of state. Of course the story wasn't about him.

I liked that they didn't feel compelled to give him some enormous power mysterious power to save the day, or discover that he was a noble's illegitimate son or something cheap like that.

They didn't try and force Vaan into being the MAIN character because he was the character you had in your party through the entire game.

This sounds like a good thing to me. At least SE looks like they're trying to move past some of the conventions of the genre; too many console RPGs have the same exact main character: An adolescent or young adult male who's father is dead or who is an orphan, who wields a sword expertly, even though he's only been using one since 5 minutes into the game, and whose hometown is destroyed at the beginning of the game.