Dude, calm down, its a game.
No, Vaan wasn't important, yes, you could do turn by turn tactics with each character, no, they're not stupid. Blah...
I think I'm getting a good idea of why people didn't like it. Yes, the pacing was about par with the tutorial section of Kingdom Hearts 2.
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I liked the liscense board by the way. It wasn't hard to figure out where the various types of liscences were, and the quickenings were marked, so I thought it was kinda cool...
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I also liked the new summons...
Zeromus, Adremmalech, and Zodiark were pretty awesome...
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Thats just me though.
Vaan was probably my biggest amusement with the game because the whole adventure seems to be the karma wrought by Gabranth killing his brother. -Your brother died so you can hang out with Balthier, Ashe, and Basch (the main characters of the game)-
I never used Fran 'cuz I didn't care about Fran. She was an extra really.
(My party was Vaan (for his stats), Basch, Ashe/Balthier (I switched them out))
The music was so-so.
Honestly though, I've never spent more time on a Final Fantasy. Dark Cloud 2 and Pokemon are the only games that beat it in JRPG time.
On a side note I can't seem to beat Omega Mark XII. How can a mimic be that strong?