Its not the best Final Fantasy experience, but it could have turned out worse.
The sound for the game is also up to par with all other FF games. The sound always sets the mood just right including some classic sounds after defeating bosses. There's no let down when it comes to visual or audio of this game.
FFXII also brought to the table a new battle system. All battles take place on the regular field, there's no switching to a battle screen in this game. All enemies are wandering around the field and when you get within range you can target them and they will start targeting you. Also, if there are a group of enemies around they will all start targeting you and to help each other out. On the flip side there are also enemies that will fight other enemies alongside with you.
The battle system itself works like a regular active time battle with time meters, however if you set it to "wait" mode then while you are making action selections the game will pause and "wait" for you. If you keep it in active mode then everything will continue going all the time. Another nice touch is that once you select a command it will continue carrying out the command until you tell it to do something else.
There is also something called "gambits" in this game. I didn't personally use them much because my fighting style of "brute force" worked me through the game no problem. But if your into it the gambit system allows you to basically program your partys AI by giving them conditional statements. You get a list of hundreds of different situations in which you can say "(if this situation)....(do this action)". For example, if ally health < 50% cast curaga. This game also introduces a leveling up system called the license board. You still gain EXP from fights to increase your level which will boost your stats, but you'll use the license board to gain technicks, magic, augments (HP increases, MP increases, etc), and the ability to wear armor and wield weapons by spending LP points which are earned from each enemy defeated. The license board was a really cool idea, however, I ended up with a whole party of equally powerful characters because the license board offers no definitive direction for each character. You end up with so many points that there is no reason to not take everyone everywhere on the board. In comparison to the sphere grid in which characters almost ended up with "jobs" because of the paths you had to take to get anywhere.
My big complaint with this game is the story. Its either just not there, or it doesn't make much sense. I've talked this over with a few of my friends playing the game and we are all equally lost. Its too bad really because there are some interesting characters here and a really cool world. The real bulk of the story comes right at the end of the game, before the final area and right after. If the whole game could have been like that it would have been really interesting.
Still, its another great installment in the Final Fantasy series. It's got tons of sidequests to do, great gameplay, fantastic graphics and sound, and it was a fairly enjoyable experience. I'd recommend it to any fan of the Final Fantasy games if even just to see how beautiful it can be. But if you really want to play for the story I say go back for FFX.