The battle system alone ruins it for me. It's so slow and tedious and plods along like nobody's business. It would have been more tolerable if the locales weren't so big, but they're so big and drawn out on top of the battle system being mind-numbing.

The license boards were really limiting and ensured that for like the first 30 hours of the game, you wouldn't have any fun experimenting with weapons. You had to walk around fighting the same crappy monsters over and over again for hours to get any worthwhile loot. The Gambit system and the fact that running from battle doesn't work basically just threw more wrenches into the works.

The International Job version was like 5 times better, especially with the new streamlined, specialized license boards and fast-forward button. But Squenix, in its infinite stupidity, didn't release that version here.

To tell the truth I couldn't even care about the story and characters. I play RPGs for the battle systems most of the time.