The series is getting worse...
Ever since Squaresoft joined up with Enix to form SquareEnix, the Final Fantasy series got worse. Final Fantasy XII is actually a little better than Final Fantasy X-2 and a lot better than Final Fantasy XI, but the hype was higher than the quality of this game.
Gameplay - Damn, RPGs created for Sony's systems just keep getting worse because they're starting to deviate from full RPGs to a mix of different genres. Final Fantasy XII is a lot like an MMORPG, killing monsters in real time and picking up the items they drop. Honestly, the fact that FFXII's battles became a lot like an MMO's is what almost murdered the gameplay for me. However, there's a nifty addition to the gameplay, and that's the Gambit system. Using this system, you set specific orders, or gambits, on characters so that the AI controlling them will follow those orders! For example, there's a gambit called "Heal Ally < 30%", or something like that. This means that an AI-controlled character will heal any ally whose HP falls below 30% of its max. That's one example out of many gambits you can choose from.
The other major part of the gameplay is the License Board. After each enemy defeated, all party members will gain a certain amount of "License Points". Using these License Points, you move around the License Board, teaching magic and abilities to the party members and allowing them to equip weapons and armor. Parts on the board are dedicated to these kinds of things. Customization of your characters is high with the License Board, so go nuts using it! The downside...it's a lot easier just to learn techniques through level-up. All the characters will be exactly the same once you finish the License Board with every characetr, anyways, but it's still nice from the beginning when your characters are different. =D
Graphics - Awesome. That's all there is to say, because Final Fantasy delivers another graphically fabulous game into the market.
Sound - The music for all the cities and towns is pretty decent. All the battle music is amazing, though, and is my favorite kind of music in the whole game.
Story - The story is alright. I'm not going to say anything about it, since you, the readers, would be spoiled too much if I did. However, I'm just going to say one thing: the characters have virtually no growth throughout the game, only three of the characters have any growth at all. This is sad because the characters in this game won't grow on you because it seems like they're on the journey for no reason.
There's more to say, but I'm going to stop where I am now and let you figure out the rest. :) I got this game mere days after it came out, but I only got about halfway through before stopping. This game just wasn't interesting enough. I'm just dreading what Final Fantasy XIII is going to be like. It seems like, in my opinion, Final Fantasy is finally starting its unfortunate downfall.