The Final Fantasy series gets into the SRPG business with a game that also adds a large amount of frustrtion to the mix.
You play in the role of Ramza, the half-breed in a family of nobles. As events unfold around you, you discover a plot to capture "Zodiac Stones" to bring absolute power to those who would use it malevolently. Through cut scenes, you'll see constant back-stabbing and betrayal, and it actually gets very tough to tell who is really on your side and who's not. Battles often have something to do with the plot, and dialogue with important enemies in between battle turns fleshes out the story.
The biggest positive is that everything is so familiar to players of Final Fantasy, especially spells. Esuna still cures status, the fire spell is still called Fire, and so on. Even though the gameplay style is different from other FF games, it still "feels" like an FF game. The grid system works well, and many common sense "real-life" rules enhance the realism, such as getting an archer to the highest elevation to extend the vertical range of his bow. Battles are challenging, and throughout the game you'll be taking 35-45% damage on each hit, but most are defeatable with only one or two tries as long as you're smart about when to attack and when to heal. Terrain and elevation are also handled well, as they affect movement, combat, and spell use.
There are some big negatives. Some boss battles are tremendously difficult, and if you're not alternating between saves, you could find yourself hopelessly stuck with no way to get out and "level up". The timing of saving when you're forced into consecutive battles is also handled poorly. Rather than you making changes to equipment and abilities and then saving, the game does it in reverse, so if you die and have to restart, you need to redo all of the changes you made. When you take 5 times to do a battle, that grows old really quickly. While the game also implements a "zodiac system" to determine how well you interact with allies and affect enemies based on characters' birth signs, you will likely just ignore/forget it.
Both the graphics and sound are about what you'd expect from a game of this type. With everything taking place on a fixed grid, there's little use to jazz up either to any great degree. The gameplay is very smooth, and it's easy to see who's acting when and to get them to do what you want, though making it easier to see what your attack options would be after you move, rather than moving and seeing you can't do what you thought you could, would have made some parts less irritating. You should be able to get a nice chunk of time out of this game, especially if you stumble on to some of the optional, "hidden" side quests. This game is a double threat, as Final Fantasy fans who've never played an SRPG, and SRPG veterans who've never played an FF game, should definitely go find a copy of this game while they still can.