OK, so Yuffie is annoying, useless, and clearly evil, not that any of those things would stop me from hitting it raw. But I'd disagree that Tifa and Aeris served no purpose. They're both very strong individuals with a lot of heart; Tifa actually somehow manages to avoid being a sex object in-universe. Aeris was actually rather Zelda-like, and I'm attracted to that entire archetype of woman. I still shed a tear when she died in spite of knowing about it well in advance, because she was just that sweet and cuddly. I know that my friends are all going to die eventually, but that's not going to stop me from missing them terribly.
The thing about FFXII to me is that while its story is attempting to be serious, its art direction really isn't. When you have airships toting machine guns in the air doing battle with knights on chocobos using spears on the ground, and when only one major character in the game uses a firearm despite them apparently being fairly widely available, I have a hard time taking the story seriously, because the setting doesn't make sense.
I like the anachronism of guns and swords, which really isn't all that bad, historically speaking. After all, men were still armouring themselves after the intruduction of firearms (of the sort that Balthier uses.) We still used swords well into the 1800s, when even machine guns were beginning of being introduced.
The airships are anachronistic in some sense, but they work not by technology, per say, but more through magic. More than that, it's said to be a Moogle invention - as such, it's only a lent skill, and the continuing use of swords is understandable. Personally, I liked the stylistic setup of the story. Of course, it was rather cliche in many aspects, and that I didn't quite like. But certain ideas and styles I took an extreme liking to. The entire Archadian empire was set up rather like Rome - the power struggles between the powerful leaders, the senate, and the Praetorian-like Judges. The mood that set struck me immediately... as did the struggles within the leadership. That the Judges themselves show division in their ranks over what to do, rather than just being a set of enemy leaders was quite entertaining.
Furthermore, I was greatly in favour of the dialogue at times, and this above and beyond all probably struck me, and carried over to the voice actors. Now, let me first say that I am in no manner in favour of Vaan or Penelo. Those exited my party at first chance, and never re-entered - I think the rest were near to level 40 by the time I gave the game back to Blockbuster, whereas Vaan was still level 16. But these few aside, the others had admirable traits. Balthier is quite amusing, and the British tendencies in his dialogue, though they stereotype his character, do well with the cliche. I also found myself impressed with the way they formulated a lot of his dialogue, the sentence structure and what not, little turns of phrase I had never expected nor seen in a video game, and actually which in my mind set it way above any game save Knights (this comment goes beyond Balthier, and apply to several of the characters. I seem to remember a bit of dialogue like that the creatures 'ever and always' wander around in this one tomb, or some such structure to the line... when I heard that, I thought to myself 'hey, that's how I'D write!', so I at once had an affinity to it.) Basch was... here and there. He had an interesting voice, and good dialogue (again, cliche, but I'll not say that's a bad thing in an RPG like this) more or less, though there are a few things I have an aversion to. Sometimes his formality becomes unneccessarially antique, and one thing I simply cannot abide is putting a negation after the verb, ie. 'I know not'... bloody hell, it's 'I do not know', or most often 'I don't know.' But that aside, he was pretty good. Ashe was also varied, but her character was far better than I'd expected, and since I at once connected her with Celes, she was mandatory to my party. She is the typical 'strong female', but unlike some games which make them annoying (because they are only 'acting' strong) she comes across as actually strong. And then there's Fran. I liked her. A lot. Not for her bunny stuff or what not, but for her voice. I could not place her weird accent, whatever it was. Her trilled r's, and softness here and there, confounded me every time I heard it, to the point that I always wanted to hear it again because comprehending it was just out of reach. And since she spoke only so rarely... I liked her. Plus she was one of the better fighters in my party.
Beyond this, the pronunciation blew me away. Sound like a silly comment? You have to remember, I'm a student of antique languages at the moment. I"m learning Greek and Latin (and for modern languages I know German.) That means I have four different pronunciations in my head. More than that, I have an affinity to pronunciation, and particularly with feeling. I tend to pronounce names of Greek gods or anything like that from antiquity a bit differently, a bit less English, than most (if not going fully into the antique forms.) That said, it really jars me when they pronounce things as they do in games so often. Like in Xenosaga... Nephilim being said 'Neph-eh-lim'... what?! That has no emotion to it, and sounds like a bloody American saying it. It really doesn't lend well to the suspension of disbelief. That's why I was so impressed that Ivalice wasn't 'Eye-vah-liss' but 'Ee-vah-lees'; Jagd wasn't something half American like 'Dgagd' or whatever it'd be, but they said it like the German word (hunt) that it is 'Yahgd.' So it might seem like a minor thing, but for me, who is really sensitive to this sort of stylistic thing, it's immense. (Indeed, if, say, CT were ever made into a movie, I would abhor if the people of Zeal were to say 'Jay-nuss' as if they were bloody Americans. It should be 'Yah-nuss'. Melchior should have a trilled 'r'. Belthesar... okay, I'm not even going to try, because half of it can't even be brought across in writing. It requires a very subtle shift in the way someone says something.)
As for FFVII... nope, still got no connection to those characters. Aeris was bleh for me, a non-entity. Since I knew what was to happen, I didn't ever use her, and there was never any connection there whatsoever. I mean, Kid in CC, sure. Lucca in CT (then when she is found to be dead in CC), most definitely. But Aeris? Never. She seems rather too simple. Kid has a bit of energy to her character which makes her sudden fall disconcerting. Lucca... well, I always liked her. But Aeris isn't... interesting at all. She's too nice. Tifa I far preferred, but even she didn't have much connection for me. In comparison, characters like Knights' Visas Marr, and Bastila, were far more enthralling. I'm not actually connected to either Aeris' or Tifa's archetype - one the simple gentle princess, the other the strong fighter. I'm prefer the Lucca-type, which doesn't exist in FFVII. Or, as I've said, the sort in Knights, who have power beyond physical prowess - both Visas and Bastila are of this sort. Bastila is a Jedi princess of extreme skill and power, physical AND mental; Visas is just... interesting. A seer, once a Sith, a bit broken but regains her strength through the course of the game. These beat Aeris and Tifa.
