I'm currently playing through FFXII and loving it. The localization has done wonders for it, especially the accents linked to location (Icelandic pop-star bunny people, Errol Flynn-esque sky pirate, etc...)
After wanting to blow my brains out over the almost offensively stupid story in Valkyria chronicles, The stupid fucking kid with the axe that killed tales of Vesperia in seconds, The annoying kids and constant boob windows in Lost Odyssey, and the absolutely creepy doll design of Star Ocean, I thought that jrpg's were dead to me.
The one thing I cannot stand is stupid fucking little kids in rpgs. At least in FFXII the stupid fucking little kids are teenagers surprisingly not retch inducing. As soon as vaan tries to be emo, he gets smacked by the adults.
I never got through ffx because I couldn't stand any of the characters, so I skipped xii until now. Some how, square got away with the bared-midriff fashion emergence character design in this one, but that might just be because of the english accents.
The little I saw of FFXIII, made me mildly excited, mainly due to the fact that it actually looks like the characters have emotions and are active.
I don't mind a midgar retread as long as the main character has a little more personality than a dead rat. FFVII was long time ago.
