It was worth the wait. You won't be disappointed with this one.
If you're a Final Fantasy fan like me, then you should definitely get this one. The quality has been well improved, while the game contains some small problems, they can easily be avoided. I'll explain why FF12 is the third best FF title I've played (With FF7 as first and FF10 as second).
The good:
- New combat system is a good start for a new age of RPGs. You no longer fight random encounters, instead, as you're exploring the world, you can find an enemy walking or flying from the distance. If you come too close, they will see you and combat starts, but if you don't wish to fight them, you can easily stay away from them. The new free form combat was really impressive. Keep in mind that some boss fights need specific strategy to beat them, not just attack and heal. This is another good feature of the new combat system.
- The new license board allows you to customize your characters the way that you want them to be. You can even put Vaan (main character) as the healer and Penelo as the tank if you want. You get to choose who is the party healer, tank, spell caster or even hybrid. You can also choose what weapon each character can carry. For example, you may have seen Balthier carrying a gun in some pictures, but that doesn't mean that you can't give him a bow, staff or even giant swords! The new license board makes all these possible.
- The story is very well done. It's the traditional story like other FF games where the story looks simple at first and you have one fixed mission, but as you progress through the game, the story gets bigger, more twisted and complex, and you end up realizing that you have many other goals to achieve. The game itself is long when you compare it to Final Fantasy X. You will be impressed with how the story isn't ending yet and you have much more fun stuffs to experience as you progress through the story.
- New gambit system allows you to set specific AI (Artificial Intelligence) to your party members. You can decide when will they heal, when will they steal from your enemy, when will they use an item.....etc. It might seem complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will enjoy how your party members are automatically fighting the way that you want them to fight without even giving them an order!
- Hugh world with plenty of cities, zones, villages and dungeons to explore. The new dungeon system, where you need to adventure into large scaled dungeons and thus fight a boss at the end or even in the middle, plus some dungeons contain light puzzles to be solved before progressing. All these are very good additions to the gameplay. Some Espers (The new summoned monsters of FF12) have their own dungeon to be ran through should you wish to obtain them, which is another cool experience.
The bad:
- At the price of a free-form combat system, many stuffs seem to have scaled down. There are many enemies which used to look big (and cool) in other FF games but you might notice them to have been shrunken in this one and (less cool). Don't get me wrong, you WILL fight some large enemies, but not so large as you have seen in other FF games. I think that size sometimes matters when it comes to gameplay enjoyment.
- The cinematics and music wasn't as impressive as it was in FFX (In my opinion). There is less action within the story and more verbal cut-scenes. While verbal cutscenes isn't something bad since it's one of the best ways to progress through the story and make the player understand what's going on, but I feel that there isn't a balance between action scenes and verbal scenes.
- Not enough mini games. While mini games are not THAT important to progress through the story, they still offer good variety to the gameplay. FF12 does have some mini games, but not as much as you have seen in other FF games. While I understand that too much of mini games can ruin the gameplay experience like it did to FF X-2, but having a "Just right" amount of mini games, like it was in FF7 or FF10 is a worth-while pleasure.
- The "Quickening" system, also known as the new "Limit Break" of FF12, seems too expensive and not so rewarding. Sometimes you end up reducing the mana of all your characters to 0 and spend time and focus trying to power up the quickening to its highest limit, but you might end up saying "I could have damaged the enemy more with simple physical attacks from the party members without wasting a single mana".
- The new "Espers", which are considered as the new summoned monsters in the game, are really cool. As of you need to fight the esper before making him/her join you, it gives you the feel that every esper needs a specific challenge to be worthy to obtain them. The effects are also nice. For example, the battle music changes as you summon the esper to a music which indicates that you have summoned something "Big and Dangerous!", plus how the environment changes color and the ambient makes the Esper summon really worth-while. After all these cool stuffs, believe it or not, Espers aren't THAT useful later through the game. They get killed easily even by normal enemies, forcing you to constantly heal them. You will sometimes end up preferring to never summon an Esper!
The ugly:
- It could have been better if all characters had good (or atleast a fair) role in the story. I don't need to spoil much of the story, but to keep it clean, some of the party members have very little role in the story. Making them look useless or "His/her existence is just to increase your party size". While six characters in total are enough for a whole nice experience with the combat system, you might feel that some of your party members have a small background.
- The gambit system, while it's a very good addition and a nice start to the game, you can't guarantee that it can make your party members fight the exact way that you want them. Sometimes you find yourself forced to shift control over them and give them orders which you naturally can't program them with the gambit system. Since this is the first time they have created a player-created AI, I'm sure that they can improve it in future titles.
- It could have been better if they kept the traditions the same or atleast had a small change, not big change as they did with FF12. Some traditions have been broken in FF12. Some enemies which you used to see them in most Final Fantasy are not seen in this one. Also many traditional enemies don't look the same anymore and don't have the cool feeling of their encounter as it was in the past FF titles.
- It could have been better if Espers had more "Usefulness in the battle". As I have mentioned above that they seem useful only at lower level areas, but as the zones get harder, they become less useful. Leveling up your Esper won't make a big difference in the harder zones either. Same goes with the use of "Quickening" Which is another nearly-useless skill in my opinion.
- It could have been better if they made a balance between action and verbal scenes. As it seems like FF12 is more aimed at explaining the story than keeping the cinematics cool by implinting cool action scenes to them.
Overall, FF12 is a great game. You might agree with me that the points in "The bad" can easily be avoided; also, the points in "The ugly" are what I believe that the game could have been better with these.
You won't be disappointed with this game, go for it!