IMO, FFXII was the best FF since FFVI.

FF12 is the most fun I've had in a FF game. All of the sidequests keep you busy for MONTHS! While I haven't played the game recently because my PS2 is broken, it certainly is up there with FF6 and FF8, my absolute favorites.

My summary:

The Good:

- Really nice gameplay
- Wonderful massive world
- Gambits made me feel like I'm using C++ all over again

The Bad:

- Sucky ass characters
- Fucken pathetic story
- Really uninteresting cutscenes
- Summons that actually die IN ONE HIT
- Quickening = FAIL (Should have stuck with Limit Breaks)

FFXII is definitely one of the better FF games. I used to play FFXI (which has an almost identical battle system) and FFXII's felt like a faster version of XI's, which I liked. The summons and quickenings were crap, but the rest of it was really cool. The cast was pretty shitty and uninteresting but I liked the atmosphere and world a lot. Plus the game had a ton of side quests and other stuff to keep you interested. The story was kind of slow, but it was bearable.

Overall, it's easily one of my favorite Final Fantasy games.

I played FF12 as a Hunter. I looked at the plot as just an excuse to open up new locations so I could hunt things there. I would forget where exactly I was supposed to be going, or why I was supposed to be going a lot. But it was ok, because I was having fun genociding all the monsters!

I loved the idea of the storyline, where your party is sort of in the background of world events rather than being the focus of them, like in FFT, I guess. I also liked how Ashe was the protagonist, despite Vaan being the player's character. On the other hand: I can pretty much hear the script writer/scenario designer saying, "Star Wars, what is this Star Wars you speak of? I've never heard of such a thing!" The execution of the storyline leaves much to be desired though.

The art direction was amazing for the most part, the characters all managed to be dressed utterly ridiculously but somehow managed to still fit into the world. I mean, Ashe's pink miniskirt, Fran's battle bikini and Basch's board shorts + sandals didn't bother me nearly as much as they should have. What did bother me was Vaan's freaky carapace abs. The new summon beast designs were great (and its unfortunate that they sucked so hard in actual gameplay).

There were a few places where it slipped up. The jungle looked, which is adjacent to a snow field, and felt more like a cavern.

I liked a lot of the weapon options, but was disappointed to find out that so many of them were so utterly useless.

The cast was fairly hit-or-miss, but Ashe got points for having a backbone. I was sad that Fran turned out to be your standard issue "Elf living among humans."

I had fun tinkering with my characters. I went the route of customizing each party member into a certain job (Ashe was a Paladin, Vaan was a Black Mage, Penelo was a Gunner-Cleric, Fran was a Warrior, Balthier was a Support Magician, and Basch was a Monk, although he had to start taking up the use of weaponry because he wasn't doing so well without it)...

Actually later in the game magic becomes a huge disadvantage because of a technical aspect; while a magic animation is taking place, all ally actions STOP. This is especially apparent with longer animations for certain magics, and when you consider the fact that this doesn't apply to enemies, you find that offensive magic is almost worthless later in the game.

You can actually take advantage of that. For example, I usually have someone with the Masamune+Genji Glove+Beserk+Bravery+Haste combo let loose while I have someone else dish out a long animation spell (preferably Scathe or Holy) and the enemy (if they are casting or using skills) along with any other character I have using a spell will freeze during the animation, meanwhile my Beserked character will let loose and do some serious damage. Its probly the only way I managed to defeat the Hell Wyrm, except I used Curaja instead of Scathe or Holy. Which would also slow down the Hell Wyrm from using Darkga or Blizzaga or whatever during the animation load. But my beserked character still get going. Its actually a pretty useful thing, if used right. But you are right in it can be a disadvantage at times. I've had a few KO's do to that situation. The key I figured out is to not have every single one of your characters cast something at once. Thats why I usually just designate a magic user while the other two characters just hack away at the enemy.

I learned that a lot of people like seeing characters with 5,000 hp doing 100 points of damage even though a character with 500 hp that does 10 points of damage is the exact same thing.

So is a character with 50 HP doing 1 damage, but I think most players nowadays don't like seeing low numbers.
Hell, I'm guilty of this myself. Although I think that a damage cap of 9999 is high enough. As for the magic issue. I think it definitely had its place. Mainly because of its area ability. I'm not going to argue the speed issue, normal attacks are way faster than magics, but they have there place. They do not become useless, as the matter of fact, Magic is ridiculously helpful in many situations. I.E (Firaga against Pyralaster, Darkga pot shots against Yaizmat, etc.)

EDIT: I mean, look at games like Final Fantasy Tactics, the damage cap is 999, but the damage system there is still pretty well balanced.