Honestly, I don’t remember the story of XII very well. It’s been almost twenty years since I played it, and I’m only ~15 hours in, now. The best thing I can say about it is that it’s not the pandering nonsense of the XIII games. Which is a huge relief. Really though, the plots of FF have always been a bit nonsense, but at least adhered to some kind of internal logic. FFXIII and its sequels just didn’t even try to be coherent.

The combat in all of them is fantastic, though. Particularly Lightning Returns. Such a unique, challenging, and fun combat system in the most incomprehensibly insane story of any FF.

Final Fantasy XII. It runs and looks great at 720p, 60Hz. It’s the last Final Fantasy I really enjoyed. I finished all three XIII games out of some misguided loyalty to the franchise, but I hated almost everything about them, and I haven’t played an FF game since.

XII is about as good as I remember so far. The plot isn’t the utter nonsense of the XIII games, and the combat is really deep. I’ve never played the Zodiac Age version, either, so at least part of the game is new to me. Not that I remember much since the last time I played it was a month before its initial release in 2006 when it leaked and got torrented. Wild times.

Haha! Highly recommended! This is the version I bought when it first came out, and it’s still going strong. Battery life is pretty bunk, though.

I recently sucked it up and upgraded Windows 10 to 11. Music production is getting better in Linux, but there is still a whole lot of existing music software with no Linux support. Cakewalk for example has no Linux support, and I imagine getting it working in WINE with VSTs and whatever else would be an immense chore. Same story with Ableton.

That said, if you don’t mind migrating to a DAW with Linux support like Reaper, Bitwig, or even Ardour - which is open source and free - producing music with Linux is the easiest it’s ever been. Just don’t count on Linux support from a lot of VST makers who often require you use their software to install their VSTs. You can usually still install those VSTs, but it sometimes requires less than legal methods, and may be a hassle.

If you’re a producer who mostly just uses a DAW as a recorder for hardware, it would barely be a change to your workflow at all. If you are reliant on Cakewalk and Ableton specific processes and VSTs, it would be much more difficult

Mint Cinnamon. All my hardware works, and it can do the few things I require my work PC to do. It even remembers things like my default audio device - something Ubuntu refused to do for years.