A lot of reviews about final Fantasy XII say that it's slow to get rolling, but gets picks up the pace after a while. So, the game suffers from pacing issues in general, and the game is weak during the first hours. Yes, I invested 18+ hours in to the game, but most of that time was wasted on exploring and trying to get the hang of the Gambit System and the battle system itself. I was about to meet the first Esper, but the area(s) between that particular dungeon and my starting point featured some really difficult monsters. Sure, I could have just ran from them, but I figured it would serve me better if I'd just start over and really put some though into my strategies Not to mention that many monsters start chasing you if you get too close and very easy and very hard monsters prowl the same areas. Overall, I'm very pleased with FFXII, it just takes a lot of work to get accustomed to all the new things it has to offer. I sank ~$67 into my copy.