Overall it's a decent game, but the little things are what bring it down.
Graphics
The pure graphical power and presentation of the game is really good, but the problem that I have is that it seems like the least amount of time was spent making the dungeons look interesting, which is disappointing and annoying because the dungeons are the places that you'll be spending most of your time. An excellent job was done making the towns look really cool and polished and original, but there's very little to do besides buy stuff and talk to people in them so I don't see why they spent so much time making the graphics look good in the towns and made the graphics in the dungeons so repetitive and boring. It's really confusing when EVERY FLOOR looks the same.
Gameplay
This is what annoys me extremely about this game. I actually like the concept of the battle system -- each character has 5 Action Points, and each action costs a certain number of those points; Attack costs one, while Cure costs 2, and so on. But the fact that you can't choose your target makes it extremely annoying. That's right. It's a turn-based RPG, but you can't choose your target. The AI has extremely basic, unchangeable rules about which targets are chosen, too. It's not so bad in the first few hours of gameplay, but once you get further in the game battles could be ended literally twice as fast if targets were able to be chosen. You might have two magic-users and physical attacker, and if the mages both use Attack on one enemy and the fighter uses Attack on one they can kill two enemies in one turn. But since it's seemingly totally random who goes when (there's no speed stat or anything), it's extremely probable that your mage will Attack an enemy, bringing its HP down partially, and then your fighter will attack that same enemy and kill it, but the fighter could have killed it in one hit anyway, so it was a waste. And those extra turns it takes to kill the enemy just let the foes use more attacks and inflict more status ailments before the battle ends. It's just an unnecessary nuisance that's really frustrating.
There's a job system, which, for those of you of don't know, is a system that allows a character to fulfill a certain, specific role, but only that role, in battle. Some of the jobs are White Mage, Black Mage, Bandit, Bard, etc. This game was probably a throwback to the older FFs, because it has that "old renaissance" feel that most of the older ones had. But I think it's time for a change and a little spice, because the jobs are getting a little dated and boring. In X-2 the jobs were exciting and different, and they actually had a large set of abilities that CLEARLY separated them from all the rest. But the jobs in this game, called Crowns, just have a few useful abilities. You could equip the White Mage Crown for the benefit of all White Magic costing one less AP, but then equip a really powerful weapon or armor and not even have to conform to any other aspects of the job. Yes, every character can equip anything, while using ANY job. Some jobs give benefits to certain equipment, and some equipment is suited towards specific jobs, but this lack of structure in the job system just diminishes its quality. The jobs are barely even jobs, and it doesn't matter very much which one you are in this game, unlike it X-2 where the jobs were really unique and fun to use. They should have just made an interesting leveling up system like in FFX because that would have been better than the mediocre job system in this game.
The dungeons are a major aspect of the game. They're large, and confusing. And because it all looks the same in the dungeons it's extremely easy to get lost. And the high encounter rate of random battles makes it all the more annoying. I'm the kind of person who likes to explore every nook and cranny of a video game's areas, but this game makes it really hard to do that. There aren't many save points, so you need to reserve large chunks of time for this game because it's impossible to just play for 30 minutes and actually get something done besides grinding. The lack of item space – 15 items per person – also makes it hard and discouraging to collect all of the items in the dungeon. Once you give your characters their armor, their magic books, and their other items (potions and stuff) they'll have 11 or so spaces out of 15 filled. So that doesn't leave for much item collecting. For the first few dungeons you'll have a non-permanent party member that accompanies you, but when they leave they take ALL of the items they were carrying, and it can be without warning. So, if you want to keep all of your good weapons you can't let the guests equip during boss battles (after which they often leave). It doesn't make it any easier, that's for sure.
Music
This is a really big disappointment as well. You can really tell that this game was a tribute to the older FFs because the music sounds like it's coming out of a SNES. It sounds extremely dated and low quality, and not like it was done on purpose. After Pokemon Diamond it's completely clear that the DS can output high quality sound with various instruments, but the sound in this game is really poor. Some tracks are entertaining, but the dungeon track is really boring and unappealing. And you'll be hearing that one A LOT because of how confusing the dungeons are.
Story/Characters
The story is pretty lame, but so were most of the stories of the first few FFs. It's basically the generic "4 heroes get chosen by a crystal to save the world or whatever," and yeah, stuff happens. I hate the crystals and the light and all the ambiguous, unexplained importance of all of them. If you want me to care then EXPLAIN to me why a crystal is the best thing in the whole world. That's why I didn't like the Kingdom Hearts series' stories. The kept saying all this stuff about how the light is the darkness and your heart is full of light or darkness and it just made no sense at all and I didn't care. But the story in this game is better than that. And the characters are cute and have personality, which is nice. It kind of goes with the cute visuals.
Other
There were a lot of things that activated many of my pet peeves in this game. For example, you cannot see all of the stats in the menu. Equipment can affect stats like Magic Attack, Accuracy, Evasion, etc., but there's no way to see them on the characters' status screens. And why do they show Attack, but not Magic Attack? And they show both defenses. It just annoys me and seems like the designers were lazy. Another one of my pet peeves is when two seemingly identical stats are on the screen, yet there's no distinction between them; a character has Strength AND Attack, for example. It's understood that Strength is the innate ability of a character to do physical damage and Attack is a weapon's, but it's annoying to not know which one has more effect on physical strength, and why they could have just had one stat for both. The other 2 innate stats are Spirit (which magic power) and Intelligence (black magic power), but what does Magic Attack effect? I'm assuming it just affects Black Magic. But then why isn't there a weapon stat for White Magic? All this stuff just gets on my nerves because, once again, it seems lazy of the designers, and everything just seems messy and not neatly put together.
Overall
Well, this game is okay. It's frustrating. Unnecessarily frustrating, which is the kind I complain about; if the designers changed a few simple things then it would make the game exponentially more fun. I'm a detail oriented guy, so the little things in games bug me or make me like it the most. The little things in this game are extremely annoying, but if you're not looking for the next innovative, pretty good game out there and just want something to pass the time then you might like this game. It's pretty old-feeling, but the things that make it feel old aren't good or nostalgic. They're annoying and unnecessary. I'm all for a good turn-based RPG, but this one just makes it too difficult to have fun with the few options is presents to you. Anyway, if you really liked the old FFs and want one that's almost a replica but with better graphics then get this game. If you want a game that's not frustratingly difficult but challenging, and that is fun to play then don't get this game.