Final Fantasy actually gets me excited

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

I don't want to give away too much, but I just finished a Final Fantasy XII side-quest boss battle that took about 1 hour, wall-clock time. Whoa.

At the beginning I though hey, well, let's see if we can steal something before we die. Hey isn't that nice, the boss life bar is shown. What is that second line doing there? No that couldn't be a life bar?

At 90% boss health I think yeah maybe I can last this battle, if I can just anticipate the casted spells. Equipment changes occur with more frequency.

At 50% boss health, I've got the adjustments to the Gambit (not Gunbit) system down pat, these are dynamic rules not static. I now change equipment to regnerate magic from fighting hits and rejuggle the curer and fighter roles. I'm sure glad I got those Genji Gloves.

At 10% boss health, I pray that there isn't going to be a major change to the boss' fighting style that my Gambit rules can't anticipate.

At about 1% I get frantic about checking the boss' health and active status. No Haste, right? No Barrier (Protect, Shell), right?

After finishing the battle (with no classic FF fanfare, WTF?) I pray that there's no power outage. I swat the regenerated exit-dungeon monsters off like flies, though.

Wow, that boss was long (and it's not even the final one!), but since I'm on FAQ-support now some off the tension and excitement is gone. But so is the dread and misery from not knowing.