Whoa its over already?

(tags game, PlayStation 2, Final Fantasy, spoiler)

I accidently finished the story part of Final Fantasy XII yesterday. That says a lot about my comprehension skills, but I suppose 100 hours in I would have reached the end by now. Yes I did hear the Angela Aki song "Kiss Me Goodbye", but it was in English and there was voice over so it was cheapened. Actually the end isn't saved to memory card so you're stuck with further adventuring in the world before the final boss. I forgot, did they do this in Final Fantasy X? In fact, didn't they do this in Chrono Trigger? Anyway, it wasn't hard to finish at all. That's the story part final boss for you. I'm sure the other "creatures" to collect require the full expertise of magic, items, techniques, etc.

Is that Final Fantasy XII controller purchase pulling me to play some more with the game? Is that Clan quest game pulling to play? Actually I was at a loss at what to do after I beat it, though there are many parts of the game that aren't complete for me. There are areas with suspicious entryways that require keys I've never heard of. The auto-map reveals areas I've never seen. Heck, I don't even have all the spells yet! I remember there was this one time I was attacked by a bat-like creature for 80% hit points in an area that I readily cleared tens of in-game hours back. Obviously the game is dropping hints that there is a lot more than just the story part.

So I'll put in some time collecting more things, filling out the skills board with license points, figuring out Clan quests, figuring out how to actually use the Gunbit system. Or do I resign to the fact that boss fights require constant tweaking with the Gunbit system on? I suppose its no worse than previous Final Fantasy boss fights, since you have to manually decide actions anyway.

Oh yeah, btw, I did the game with "active time battle" off. I tried turning it on once but I was frightened that the bosses could continue to make attacks while I spent an eternity making my orders. How can you play the game with ATB on? I'm sure there's a way like having enough hit points to buffer the damage. Sorry I'm not macho enough here.

Okay this is has been lingering in the back of my mind but, does this Gunbit system come from any online gaming or MMORPG system? Is this unique? How did Square-Enix conceive of this system? It's pretty good. It's very good. Well, it's not bad since you have to tweak it all the time. But it's not dumb. Two characters with the same rule to heal will not blindly heal without consulting each other, it seems. I feel like I would never want to play a non-Gunbit console RPG anymore, and I suppose this post echos that again.