A great, but flawed, attempt at pushing the genre
No matter how good the story, how flashy the cut scenes, most of your time spent in an RPG, even the most modern and cinematic, is spent on gameplay. And RPGs, when they're done right, often have a deeper, more technical, and more rewarding game system than any other hardcore genre. However, unlike FPSs, where bad entries can still be somewhat entertaining, a bad RPG is, well, bad--broken, frustrating, and infuriating. This has a lot to do with the fact that RPGs ask so much of their players. When you're putting in 60-80 hours on a campaign, you want to know damn well that the payoff is going to be good, that you didn't just spend 45 minutes re-managing your party's gear to get wiped out by a cheap boss, or, as is the case here, that the battle system isn't going to be so convoluted and unbalanced, that it renders your time invested into it a waste. It's like they were so desperate to innovate and change the formula, they spent all their time on a sexy design, then forgot to bolt down the engine mounts. Yes, the impeccable production values you've come to expect from SquareEnix are here, but I found the gameplay to be dull and unsatisfying, a real letdown after being blown away so many times by such a great series.
First off, Sakaguchi et al decided to dispense with a traditional equipment/xp based level structure and replace it with static-level enemies and predictable xp rewards. They also, inexplicably, left behind standard equipment shops in favor of nearly static weapon and armor types. These changes erased one of the most rewarding aspects of RPG strategy: experimenting with new armor and weapons to gain the edge over the toughest enemies of the game. Yes, it's a formula beaten to death, and while I appreciate the attempt to innovate here, innovation is ultimately rewarded only if you create something new and good, not just new. I felt like the incentive to manage my party was gone, and I was just drifting along a predetermined path.
This feeling was only made worse, however, by the granddaddy of blunders in this game: the Guardian System. Instead of one or two characters being able to summon gigantic, all powerful aeons or eidolons, everyone does, and what's more, these aeons are so overwhelmingly strong, they render all other attacks and spells useless for the majority of the game, all but wiping out the whole purpose of the rest of the battle system. And what's more, you can't skip the unnecessary cutscenes that ensue when they're summoned. 10 hours into the game, I felt like a bored prince, slumped in my throne, sick to death of flipping the switch to drop the jester through the trap door. Why not just replace the whole system with a button that, when pressed, displays lots of crazy flashing colors, and then skips to the end of the battle? Because that's pretty much what you've got here. Granted, the Junction System and Guardian Systems can be endlessly tweaked, and that depth is appreciated, but I found no motivation to do so. Why am I going to brandish a pistol when I have a shotgun at my disposal?
It may seem if you've read this far that I really hate this game. Not at all. In fact, overall, I think it's very good. But it's Final Fantasy, and so fair or not, I can't help but judge it by a higher standard than your run-of-the-mill, hack 'n slash RPG, and in the end, this one just didn't grab me like other entries in the series have--notably IV, VI, VII, IX, and X. It has its highlights--the story is great, and the graphics and sound are amazing--but no amount of polish can overcome the severe faults in game design here. I think people who love this one are either focusing entirely on the story, or just aren't very picky about the battle system in an RPG. To me, the story suffers when the battle suffers, because I'm not motivated to get to the next juicy plot point when I have to endure 3 hours of tedium to get there.
It wasn't surprising that the Final Fantasy team went back to basics for the next entry in the series, delivering a more classic, gold-plated experience. VIII was a nice try, but when it comes to battle in an RPG, I'll take tried and true over new and sh***ty.