This IS the new Final Fantasy.
From the start of the game I did have very high expectations and felt I was let down as the story was not making much sense and the characters seem to disconnect from me the more I progressed, but the biggest surprise was the Battle System. It seemed to me that FF had changed too much to be a new sequel to the greatest RPG series ever with the random encounter system dead and berried.
However after realizing that I felt the same every time I played a new FF game the new battle system started making sense once again and seemed a much needed improvement to the dated random encounter system, and has now given FF a more rapid seamless feel with loading time reduced between battles. This cannot be said for the loading time between zones.
The story complicated at first eventually makes sense and becomes epic. With characters which also seem distant in the beginning grow with you as your levels rise.
The world is very large and seems less linear than previous titles, seems you are not bound to as many borders. This I found out when I was a low level and ended up wondering into an area with monsters much much higher that myself.
Another interesting improvement is the gambit system, which enables you to set specific command to take place automatically before, during and after battles. This has defiantly eliminated the unnecessary X mashing which plagues most other FF releases.
The new Licence system which has taken over from the FFX slightly complicated sphere grid, gives the characters potential from the start of the game and lets you choose to make any character what you want, weather it a warrior or mage but as the game progresses you can give the characters all the same abilities. Probably the most annoying part of this system is that for every weapon you find or purchase you have to unlock it on the licence grid if you can find it before it can be equipped.
Summons seem to be in abundance in this game in the form of Espers, the principal is the same as the previous game, you find, fight and beat the Esper you can then delegate it to any character. After you summon the creature you then fight next to it however you have no control over it, after a designated time it leaves, but not before delivering its final attack. Also Mist attracts are introduced which enable you to chain together attacks from members of your party at the cost of your MP. During my journey through the game I did not find myself to use any of these tactics and found them weak.
The graphics are very good but I feel that the PS2 is starting to show its age with slightly grainy images.
The voice acting is also excellent a vast improvement on the FFX imposed sometimes corny dialog, it is very interesting to hear an English accent.
Overall FFXII is an exceptional game with a lot of changes some necessary some not, to all FF fans do not miss this game and don’t dismiss it straight away it may take some time to grow on you but it will, and FFXIII will have a lot to live up to.