Hello everyone, I'm new here. Here's my 0.03$ on the topic.
I'm almost 30, for a few years now I've been bored with jrpgs. I passionately hate everything moe and japanese over-melodramatisation. I'm all in for a good tear jerker, but it has to be done in style, not like every low-budget harem anime out there. That said, earlier FFs have had their share of this. Maybe it's just that it was only a part of the games, it was shown lightheartedly, using simple sprites and kind of like in a puppet theatre... and it wasn't dubbed, but I still like every FF up to IX (and XII).
It kinda saddens me that S-E projects a good story for adolescents, but can't make it appeal to other groups. I've seen a lot of Japanese series for adolescents made with such style and written so well, that it didn't matter I wasn't part of the target group. I understand Japanese culture, I get that they like when the characters act like whiny little brats, I just don't get why FF has to be a vessel for this. They can afford to hire writers that could write dialogue that appeals to both groups, so why don't they do that?
Let's leave the stories aside, stories are a personal matter and no one expects a jrpg to be really mature, so if you want a great story, I suggest a book. For me, what matters the most, are the characters, the dialogues and good atmosphere. FFXII's story is polarising (I liked it), but I think no one can deny that the dialogues are well-written. FFXIII on the other hand is written very simplistically, the characters repeat themselves, they use simple grunts and fail at expressing themselves. It's FFX all over again.
I hear FFXII wasn't a big hit in Japan, so maybe that's part of the problem, I assume the political games that were the heart of FFXII weren't liked by the core audience, so they went back to god-slaying melodrama. Too bad they threw out the baby with the bath water.
Also, FFXII's English dubbing is light years ahead of FFXIII's. What was S-E USA thinking...
I finished FFXIII only because of the fantastic battle system. I didn't feel anything when the credits rolled. For example, the idea of Fang and Vanille and their final deeds is really good, but the way it's shown, the dialogues that accompany it and the behaviour of other characters take everything from it, making it an empty shell of a good idea. Maybe younger people and those really obsessed with Japanese culture like these kinds of dramatisation, but for me it's just bad direction.
All that aside, I've been playing Radiant Historia lately. It has the melodrama, weird character choices, all that jrpg mumbo-jumbo, but it's also very well written, which makes it a great game in my opinion. That, and a good battle system. For me, it's one of the best jrpgs in recent years, if not the best. Why can't S-E make a FF game with this kind of writing? It's just beyond me. I guess I'm simply in the minority, judging from FFXIII's sales.
Also, on topic of FFXII, I agree - Vaan should be cut out. But he's not the real hero, cutscenes focusing on him are few and far between and they are eclipsed by everything related to other characters and the overall story, so I didn't feel he was much of an issue. He just tagged along for the ride.
And on the topic of the Return of the Jedi - FF games are all a blatant rip off of other pop culture ideas. None of them really come with fresh ideas and I don't care about that as long as the execution is good. If you're bothered with that I suggest time-traveling, because most of everything that comes out today is in one way or another based on past ideas.
Also, Star Wars was just Frank Herbert's Dune.
