Brilliant Gamplay and Art, awkward storytelling.
Another thing is, always hated the PS2 for being such a marketing tool with low graphic capabilities, and this games really shows how lame it is. The game looks insanely gorgeous but that doesn't matter because all you see is millions of pixels of annoying alliasing and dark-toned brownish colours. Commercial reasons made this a PS exclusive, but no game designer would want to release such a beauty on such a crappy system. Just compare Resident Evil 4 with the Gamecube version or play GTA San Andreas on XBOX to understand how lame the PS2 really was. Hell, even the dreamcast looked better.
Anyway, if any game deserves a "HD" port, it's this one.
Now, enough rants, because this game has a lot to offer that all these debates sometime tend to overshadow.
The game is a real-time JRPG with a totally new and quite revolutionnary combat system where you set up automatic predefined actions but can still input manual commands when things go wrong. This looked boring at first but the game has a very well designed learning curve, you only start with a few actions possible and over time you get more and more, but never in an overwhelming fashion. In fact, despite the fact that the characters move on their own, you're very much in charge of all that's happening, and customizing your characters, actions and skills, although time consuming, gets really addictive and grows on you, even with impatient people like me. To me the best battle mechanics since FFVII.
The graphic design of the game is top notch and instantly feels right to anyone who's familiar with FF tactics of Vagrant Story (or more recently the last story). The character design is mostly good, although i really need to point out how lame and useless the main character is. I've been playing the game for 55 hours and i still wonder what he's doing here. He looks stupid, everything he has to say is stupid, he has no charisma and everything about him screams "generic high-schookl gay japanese RPG character". Balthier and Fran look insanely good, Ashe is fine although a little generic too, and let's face it what warrior princess goes to battle in a pink ultra-short skirt. Penelo feels completely useless and offbeat and yet for some reason she's in my team, go figure. She's the Yuffie or Riku of the game. Bash could have been really cool but they had to make him wear clown clothes. The bad guys are really cool and the judges look like Goblez in FF4.
The environments are lush and varied, really good looking and definitely make the game worth playing when grinding up for hours. The towns and landscapes don't feel generic although you of course get your usual snow / desert / beach and caves, but in a very "Ivalice" kind of style, which is definitely a plus. Dungeons managed to not look or feel too repetitive, which is a very rare achievement in a JRPG.
The Music is anther strong point of the game : it's epic and definitely reminds me Final Fantsy Tactics which is good. It sure doesn't sound like Uematsu, but definitely fits with the Ivalice mood.
The story is derived from star wars, except that chewbacca became a hot girl wearing a swimsuit that could have been designed by Givenchy and Luke an uninteresting asian guy traped in the body of an australian surfer. To be honest i didn't care the slightest about the story and didn't feel any connexio to any of the characters. I am two dungeons away from beating the game and i still don't have a clue what he hell is going on or who most of the characters are, i think that speak volumes about the story telling...
So yeah, some things about FFXII are not that great, especially if you're used to the classic old school JRPG epic story and awesome character design. But still, believe me, when you start playing none of that matters because the battle system is so good that you quickly get caught and find yoursel playing at 6 in the morning when you know you should wake up at 8 to go to work (or school for many of you).
Any RPG or JRPG enthusiast should give the game a chance because it's really good. I would definitely wait for an HD port, but right now the game is easy to find and cheap, plus most of you own a PS2 so go for it if you need a RPG for the holidays ! Truth is in the last 10 years, very few JRPGs have been that good.