Okay I finished the game: all four character scenarios (Olifen, Thage, Ashley, and Rondemian), the unlockable fifth character scenario, and the final boss. Everybody was in their second or third runthrough except the fifth character.

Final verdict:

Character designs are gorgeous. The monsters are interesting and fun to fight and more fun to play as allies, although the game only forces you to fight with them a couple of times.

Music varies from good to great. Not as uneven as FFX-2, but doesn't approach the epicness of Xenogears or FFVIII.

Storyline is interesting and the characters usually compelling, although the interpersonal conflicts get annoying at times. Voice acting ranges from good to annoying. I mainly skip through the dialogue once I've finished reading the text.

Battle system is problematic. You can't check status by selecting a unit, you have to open up a status screen and toggle through the entire list, every time you want to check ally health or enemy weakness. Very annoying. Odd that this follows FFT by so many years but the earlier game handled these issues much better.

Game seems to have random bugs. My first copy froze about 1/20 battles or so, I traded it for a new copy, this also has random moments where screens don't load or the action freezes. It's manageable, but saving a lot is mandatory.

All in all, not a bad game, but could have been much better.