Citrus Insanity said:
Critics rated the game very high because it is Final Fantasy - a big game from a big franchise, and you'll find that many reviewers are almost afraid not to give a high-profile game like that a high rating. Sometimes game reviews can be more political than genuine, unfortunately.
Except this is not true, otherwise the same critics would have rated Final Fantasy 13 highly, rather than the contraversies involving its rating.
And they'd have lauded Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles My Life as a King as the best game ever, only to be outdone by Final Fantasy Dissidia.
You need to read critical reviews past the score.
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Those that rated Final Fantasy 12 highly did so because of the more subtle story elements, the more mature storyline of a woman's revenge and her eventual abandonment of it for the sake of her kingdom, and as well the vast amount of exploration within the game. The battle system itself was compared favorably to such classics as Knights of the Old Republic, lauding its customizability, and the ability of the player to have as much control as they like.
It was seen as an experimental marriage of Japanese and American roleplaying game design philosophies.
Kinichie said:
I didn't like the characters or the story. They were boring as Hell. Actually made me lose interest because the characters were that bad. Vaan was the focus... but he wasn't even related to the main story in any way. He seemed to just be the guy that tagged along. Seemed to cater more to Ashe and Balthier and Basch (sp?) then Vaan. And I had such high hope for this game after how good Final Fantasy X was.
People who rated it poorly usually did so because they couldn't understand Vaan is not the main character, or that a story doesn't have to have more backs stabbed than a G.R.R. Martin novel (or FFTactics for that matter) to actually be mature and good.
Vaan's purpose is to go through the same conflict Ashe (the main character) does, to contain within him a need for revenge and hatred that must be expressed... but to find out in the end that it is futile, and that to do so would be fighting for the wrong cause. Vaan figures it out really early in the story, not long after he meets Basch, who he thought was responsible for the death of his brother. As it turns out, Basch was the victim of his brother, Gabranth, and by that point, Vaan has come to terms with his brother's death, and has decided to instead serve the greater good.
Ashe, on the other hand, is a widow who wants to avenge her husband, and her kingdom itself, who is being manipulated by the 'gods' to that extent, and has a lot more to lose. The stakes are higher, so the conflict burns for the entire story, until she rejects the Occuria's plan at the Suncryst.
Vaan is not the protagonist of the story, he's the point of view, being not knowledged of anything past Rabanastre's streets and underground, he's the perfect role to play the ignorant boy, so that we can be told the things going on in a less contrived fashion than, say, how information of the world is portrayed in Final Fantasy 7.
If the worst complaint you have of the story is that you figure the story was about Ashe and Basch and not Vaan, that's not the product of bad storytelling, that's the good storytelling trying to get past your own paradigm that the player's avatar must be the most important protagonist.
