Look, Square-Enix tried something new, and they suceeded in in my point of view. I love FFXII. What's wrong with trying something outside the usual box.
As much as I love FF, it wouldn't be good to see them all the same. FFXII is a refreshing twist on a genre that was starting to become a bit routine.

The battle system seemed like a test run, but it came out great. It is nice to see your prey for once. The characters were good, although OK, some got annoying (Larsa kind of annoyed me). Most of the NPC characters were great. Vayne was awesome, and is possibly in contention for my favourite FF villains.

The story was good. Not amazing, but it kept me playing to find out what happens next.

The best part of the game was the environments. All of them were magnificent, especially the Rift. They really pushed the graphical capabilities of the PS2 to its limits. Although graphics aren't always everything, I think it added a lot to this game.

And as for the language used by some of the characters:

Quote Originally Posted by Xanatos View Post
Characters with such vocabulary are few and rare, often those of noble heritage, Ashe and Larsa for instance, and even they speak what you call modern English majority of time. If you have hard time understanding what they're saying than you may actually need English-to-retard dictionary, I would certainly like to see you reading "The Sun".
I couldn't have said it better myself. It's easy enough to understand.

I think the only reason people didn't like it is because it is different from the others. Which, in my eyes, is not a bad thing what so ever.