I'm Cuckoo for Kupo Nuts

I've been replaying Final Fantasy XII lately. That's 12, mind you, not 13. Frankly I'm scared to play 13 because it looks so bad, but that's another story. I Haven't so much as given 12 a second glance since my initial playthrough in 2006, but now that I get a better look at it I'm not entirely sure why I didn't like it. I'd still rather be playing VII, IX, and VI in that order, but it's not a terrible game. The story takes itself too seriously, the characters are allergic to emotion, a lot of the outfits are cluttered and nonsensical and it does that thing all games do nowadays where they release you from a cutscene, let you take two steps, then drag you kicking and screaming into another cutscene, but it has it's moments.

The music's atmospheric, the world is pretty and ridiculously large for a PS2 game (first time I played it I thought it was an MMORPG until I noticed the NPCs repetitive pathing AI), and there are moogles. Enough said. I only wish I'd had one of those little guys on my team. I also wish that Vaan and Ashe had personalities. And that Balthier was a gay handlebar-mustache wearing sex addict who has to be reigned in by Fran, the apparently 50+-year-old Vierra. When I learned her age, I just wanted her to act like a cynical, world-weary old woman. You know, like Wilhelmina Packard? The elderly woman from Disney's Atlantis. I want to see her smoking whatever that world's equivalent of a cigarette is while laying down the hard facts of life to a clueless Penelo. Preferably while Balthier talks a Bangaa down from a fight after some unwelcome questions on the flamboyant sky pirate's part regarding his sexuality and work schedule.

And while we're busy messing with the canon, let's give them all asthma. Seriously, why do Japanese characters always gasp when someone asks them a super cereal question? I feel like I'm playing Off.

...Just realized that background is an infinite scheiss-storm of swastikas, and for once it wasn't intentional.