I completed the game around the same time it was released. I thought it was good in some ways, but the story was boring. I like political stories, but you can make more out of them than FFXII did.

But most importantly, the gambit system made the battling horrible. Using gambits mostly meant having a fully automated battle movie, and it NEVER, despite how many different gambit combinations you used, fully suited the situation you were in. This is not so in past battle systems where you had full control.
So It comes back down to powerlevelling instead of complex thinking. Because if you overlevelled for your current boss, it really doesnt matter what you do in battle, you could just attack. I am not one who really likes to sit down for 6 hours a day and just level. I want to get on with the story and be able to keep up with the battles with my brain and not my patience.
You can, to a certain extent, forget the gambit system and do everything manually, but the battle menus are obviously just so designed that it makes it extremely annoying to do so. Having to press X to bring up the menu and skip through the characters is just one example.
Ive liked every Final Fantasy from IV to XI, Tactics and also Vagrant Story, so I am not usually picky, but this game was sort of dissapointing for me. It was still worth completing in my opinion, but I wasnt captivated.

What does everyone else think? And specifically about the gameplay?