Now that I've finaly beaten Final Fantasy XII I can leave an objective post regarding the subject. First of all I enjoyed playing both games, both have their pros and cons, though overall, I find XII to be better in many aspects. Like story for instance, while many complain about it I find it to be one of the best and by far the most original in the series. As for the characters, that round goes to VII, now, that doesn't mean XII had bad characters just not developed enough. XII battle system is superior in almost every aspect, battles are more dynamic, challenging and most importanly epic, the license board and gambit system were also nice, I love games where you're alowed to customize your characters the way you want.

One thing I'm really fond of are non random battles, even though I don't really hate random battles, still, you gotta admit, they can be annoying sometimes. That's one of the huge advantages to previous tittles, as are huge open spaces and enormous world to explore. One thing Final Fantasy VII can't compete with, not just VII but the others games in the series are huge amount of content XII has. All those items, magic, equipment, technics, creatures, monsters, summons, sidequests and many more, not to mention how much effort was put into Ivalice, and I don't mean visually, but history of Ivalice, races, people, important events etc. etc....The only thing left if is music, and we have a tie, both games have an excellent music, I simply can't favor one over the other. One thing I also need to mention, XII was way more challenging, I consider that a plus as VII was way too easy, though both games can't really brag with difficulty of their final boss...

With all that said, both games are not nearly good as Final Fantasy IX (jk. or am I?)