That was one of the issues.

Masterpiece ?

rotlf...
The game felt unfinished to me.Probably because again..I felt Matsuno left it unfinished...

epic scale ?

rotfl...
The landscape felt large and Dalmasca looked good because of the graphics which were good for a PS2. The cutscene where Vayne visted the city gave the impression of magnificence but that was about it.

As far as Balthier.....he 's overrated....Basch was the faithful soldier wrongfully accused but still loyal..and while I respected that I didn't feel it was compelling...Fran while she had her good points we didn't know enough about why she left her home.I didn't relate to her doing so in any way.
Vaan and Penelo just didn't do anything or say anything to make me root for them.
The characters for me just didn't make me feel drawn to them.

So while the game could have been/should have been a masterpiece it simply wasn't/isn't imo.
It was just largely booring. convoluted, incomplete and underdeveloped.

oh well....and I had been a big Matsuno fan.I feel Tactics is the best FF game of all the FFs.Better than the much vaunted numbered FF games.
What happened to Matsuno I don't know.But I am not buying this..well Square wanted the games made more like an MMO or an FPS and that why is the game doesn't feel right.That's the usual excuse defenders of the game have made.
It does seem like an MMO but is that what Square really wanted ?

Why would they want that ? To appeal to World of Warcraft type fans ? Or FFXI fans ? Why should they devolve a game that had such high expectations..an Ivalice game that had a ready made fanbase who wanted an epic along the lines of Tactics ?
I'm not convinced that was the case.

shrugs.

anyway...disagreeing is the spice of life or so it seems...