I have had the ROM for this game on my computer for a few years now however I've never got past the first half hour until recently, when I finally decided i want to finish the only one I haven't beaten yet. The gameplay is, to say the least, atrocious.
1) By the end of the game my caster Maria with max soul and int inflicted a mighty 600dmg max with ultima16, compared to the constant 1000-3000dmg by each of my melee chars.
2) Not only are the spells broken themselves, the system used to advance them is as well. Take Esuna for example, which only cures poison and dark at level 1, I don't know about you but I rarely get poisoned in any game more than 80-100 times total which would place it at level 2, maybe 3 with dark and the lvl 2 inflictions included. Elemental spells are useless as well except against key enemies which take roughly equal damage from their appropriate weakness than from a melee attack. Perhaps this was a coding mistake, I don't know, it still makes the entire magic system reprehensible.
3) The fact that heavy armors impede casters is not displayed in the game itself and is seemingly arbitrary from the perspective of the player. How is one to know that a certain armor is worse than another?
4) The difficulty/easyness of the game is entirely decided on whether you wish to spend time whacking your own characters and canceling your actions. Without using these features, which they most certainly are considering that Square in all its wisdom left them in the game for the remakes, you can spend Dragon Warrioresqe amounts of time leveling against stupid mobs, which leads me to my next point.
5) Where are the goblins and floating eyes and other cool mobs? Am I supposed to believe that the mighty foes invading the realm are bloody hornets and vines with faces? I DONT THINK SO. These monsters were noob and had very little imagination put into them.
Positive Aspects:
1) Boss music was awesome
2) The leveling system was conceptually hopeful yet was implemented with far too many bugs to make it seem reasonable. As much as it might balance an imagined and arbitrary mechanic that working out makes you dumber and studying makes you less buff, it does not accurately mirror reality. You cannot lose intelligence from anything short of raw brain damage or slowly with aging and strength comes from using those muscles often, which can be for something as simple as lifting heavy books at the library.