Final Fantasy XII: Started it. A boy and a girl are getting married. Then the boy runs of to war. A lot of fighting is going on between armored guys wearing armor that apparently are made of hardened toilet paper as they seem to offer no protection whatsoever. Two important guys, the earlier mentioned boy and an older, but still young, man, are however not wearing helmets. The enemies correctly identifies that as an "important target here, shoot" sign and does exactly that, ending the boy's life.
Eventually the scene shifts over to Reks, who seems to be the main character and I get to play the game. Actually, first Basch, the surviving helmet less guy, has to teach Reks some important lessons such as "to look left and right, turns your head left and right respectively." In any case, Reks turns out to be rather cool. He's in a war situation and it's apparent that it's taxing him, but he manages to maintain control over himself and act properly in face of the situation. It's amazing how Square suddenly decided to make such a cool main.
Wait, he gets killed by Basch and the main is actually Vaan, Reks' brother. Let's see what kind of guy this Vaan fellow is then.
His goal in life is to steal from people, from the sky none the less. He has a temper problem when it comes the soldiers occupying the city and seem dead set on smashing his head against their fists (hasn't happened yet, but he sure tries.) He also likes to melodrama about how his life sucks.
Damn, I hope Basch hangs his head in shame when he finds out he killed the wrong brother!
Anyway, pretty soon Vaan gets a job. He is supposed to kill a certain monster near the city and he gets a pass that allows him to leave the city. Vaan is smart enough to preempt the question of where he got that pass by first fabricating a reason and then show the pass. Unfortunately, he decides to be an ass towards the soldier and in his attempt to scare the soldier, he suddenly turns a simple lie much less believable. Fortunately however, the soldier is a moron and swallows it all instead of just punching Vaan.
Once the job's done, Vaan again tries to pick a fight with the soldiers. This time a merchant guy and Penelo, a friend of Vaan intervenes.
As I understood it, it has been two years since Vaan's country was occupied. He still hasn't calmed down. Penelo must be a very patient girl.
Anyway, one high up from the occupying forces, Vayne, is holding a speech. He seems to be a decent fellow and even get the citicens from the occupied city to applause. Vaan is of course not applauding. Penelo doesn't seem to happy either, maybe she realizes that impressive speech or not, Vayne is hardly going to be the rainbows and butterflies kind of guy.
Once I get back the control of Vaan, I have him pick another hunting job. That seems like a dangerous way of making a living, but he already seems dead set picking the most dangerous route and may just as well make some honest coin if he's going to risk his life anyway.