Quote Originally Posted by Lost Sol View Post
Character depth:
I'm not even going to get too far into this, as most of you should be able to tell there's a huge difference between the two. VII's characters all had a story, and at some point in the game, you get to experience their past which explains their feelings for the present situation at any point in the game. This helped to understand them better, and made them more diverse in both personality design and entertainment. If you want an intelligent character who likes to think himself more mature than the rest, take a look at Red XIII. But if gun-ho do it yourself characters with sailor mouths are more your liking, give Cid a try. XII didn't deliver nearly as well in that aspect being that, as already mentioned before, you only really saw the "tip of the iceberg" when they could've gotten much deeper. As far as I'm concerned, everyone but Vaan and Penelo had an actual story for themselves. There wasn't a main character focus either, but if I had to choose who would fit that title it would've been Ashe or Basch.

I think you summed it up best. Playing a final fantasy game to me is about going on an adventure, accomplishing tasks(like saving the world). It is the the people you're with that really makes a difference(in this case, characters in a story). The characters have to be good, believable and solid. FFVII's characters had good solid believeable motivations and peronalities, XII's sure their motivations and character personalties were there, but they seemed a bit unbelieveable or unreal.