It's so hard for me to see how can people knowing series consider FF12 good, let alone the best. What's so good about presentation exactly? You can't even talk with your characters, they have no development whatsoever, Balthier being only exception, well, may be Larsa too, if we consider him playable character. All lore was presented in the database in most dry and boring way possible. And don't get me wrong, I don't hate FF12, it's just really really bad FF. Gameplay diversity is close to 0, interesting sidequests and secrets non existent and I can go on and on about what's wrong with this game for hours.
edited: what I tried to say but forgot halfway, I don't see how FF13 is so different from FF12, to the point that when one loves one, hates other. They have exactly the same problems mostly, only FF12 has more open world and it is more open in general. Other than that, they are very similar in being bad FF games and lacking diversity, not being bad games as such, just not very good either.
That you're kind of wrong on several of these things also helps.
Every character gets good development. Look at Fran, remember the Eruyt village? Lots of development for Fran there, for instance. Basch has, you know, the entire game what with his relationship with one of the principle villains. Ashe has her relationship with the other villains. Balthier has his. Penelo doesn't need character development because she's perfect already. Vaan's weak, yes, but I think most people who do like Vaan will point out that he improves in the next few games.
Presentation usually means visuals and music, and while I am no fan of XII's score, it does what it wants to do, and XII is far and away one of the best looking games on PS2. Areas are detailed, cities are populated with characters that are detailed, there's a variety of enemies of different shapes and sizes and colors to fight, every weapon has its own unique model, nevermind the vast number of in-game movie sequences. XII is the definition of a well presented model, even if it isn't colorful and its music is not catchy.
The "lore" in the "database" was all secondary information to the plot of the game. It consisted of shout-outs to the rest of the Ivalice Alliance, but you didn't NEED to read it to get what was happening. Which was fairly standard ops for Square before they handed the series over to a jackass who can't write. "The most boring way possible" doesn't make a lot of sense, either. What, you had to read it? OH NO.
Gameplay diversity meaning what? That there were no minigames? Well there goes like, the first six games in the series right out the window.
And no interesting sidequests? The hunts alone were great. You could fight Gilgamesh, Ultros, the King Behemoth, Yiazmat, Phoenix, a Summoner, and more. That game had so many sidequests I spent a whole month doing them before fighting the final boss.
And this is without going into how HUGE the game is. Seriously the maps in that game are only small compared to fucking Xenoblade. You can go all over the place in FFXII, and you can even turn left and right to do it! If you want to wander your way into the Necrohol twenty levels too soon, go ahead and do it! The Pharos at Ridorana is positively mammoth in size.
XII was a great game, and I am surprised at how little I appreciated it when it came out.
