My own opinions in short:
I haven't really had a chance to explore the battle system yet, and I haven't really played much of the demo yet. Either way, the battle system is not what I have ever been very interested in with RPGs: though this one gets rid of random encounters which in my opinion is a BIG plus. I would actually prefer it if RPG's had very limited numbers of battles, going through a cave and fighting 87 battles against the EXACT same enemies using the EXACT same strategy every time is not my idea of a good time in an RPG (that's probably why I prefer more strategic style battles such as those in FFT/Lunar/Skies of Arcadia/Chrono Trigger even if a few of those games are limited). I only have limited experience with the FF12 battle system (playing the two year old demo that came with Dragon Quest Cool, but from the further descriptions I have read on IGN PS2, I do see the FF12 battle system as finally having something to offer me.
What I am really looking forward to in Final Fantasy 12 is the vast and beautiful world that there is to explore. The story is another thing I have very high expectations from considering the development team. I see this as Matsuno's first real big shot, and he took his sweet time in the making of this game, so I am expecting something highly excellent. As far as the dungeon design goes, if Vagrant Story is any example of what these guys are capable of, we should be seeing something special; Vagrant Story FAR surpasses anything ever done in a Final Fantasy in my opinion.
I have no basis to really know what the towns will be like, but I do think that even I could design great towns. I enjoyed the towns in a lot of the Final Fantasy games. FF10 really offered me nothing interesting in that field which I felt dragged that game down in my eyes; the towns were graphically pretty, but as bare and simplistic as the early SNES and NES FF titles. The late SNES and PSX titles had much better towns; Final Fantasy 9 is a bit of a question because it really only has two towns that I particularly liked, Lindblum and Alexandria; and even those I did not find as interesting as town locations in the previous three Final Fantasies.
With Famitsu's 40/40 score, I have some faith that this will be an RPG that I liked. It's the first RPG to ever get a 40/40 score. Adventure titles such as Ocarina of Time and Vagrant Story are still games that I play once every year or two simply because I can't get enough of them for too long.
At the very least, I totally expect to enjoy this game as much as I do Final Fantasy 8; which is my current favourite RPG by Square.
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