Another go...

[Wolf Kanno]

If you were playing Tactics with your own party build, you wouldn't necessarily have every unit capable of being efficient healers with magic and item commands would you?

Would if I could. It is up to me to make the strongest party possible, it is up to the developer to make the quest to find the strongest party possible fun.

You forget we live in an era where games are built for the lowest common denominator. Though honestly, I would argue that the best party set-up in XII is debatable. An adequate story beating team would be simple to surmise, but an actual "best party" configuration would be a bit more difficult to determine. It would really come down to play-style and whether you feel it's better to rely on Reverse spells and Bubble spells or simply rely on the inefficiency of shields and Bubble Belts can give to a party trying to deal with stronger marks and the games end bosses. Not to mention debating about the best set-up for maximum damage. I seriously end up having to switch from a mob killing party and a boss killing party, cause neither set-up is efficient enough to do both jobs well for me.

This should be left up to you because the game makes Gambits completely optional, which is why I'll never understand why people hate on them.

I don't know about everyone else but I hated the fact that the game was so simple that you could make the gambits play it. It wasn't that the gambits themselves were at fault but that they exposed otherwise weak combat. But I will save that for the many hate threads I will make once I start playing.

I would argued it simply exposed the weak game mechanics of RPGs in general. We often joke about simply needing to mash X to win, but to have an A.I. system show it to us is another thing. Personally I felt XIII was far worse about this, mostly because I am literally switching between an Offense A.I. set and a Healing A.I. set for 99% of all the battles, not to mention a huge chunk of player control was removed from that game compared to XII.