Firstly let me start by saying this game was well worth the money I payed for the most part. The story is well crafting the dialogue is nice, the music good but not overbearing.
There is also plenty to do in the game besides the main story which you can and will undoubtedly want to take a break from now and then in order to gather components for weapon improvement and earning other rewards for side quests like making new leaders available for hire or unlocking new formations etc..
For those who like RPG's but dont like Class or Level based structures you will be happy to know that this game does not use levels and classes although present tend to be more about what abilities and weapons you use than anything else and can change at any time should you start using different weapons/abilities than what you were doing previously.
soon into the game you will start to be able to form unions with other leaders and soldiers and eventually uyou will be able to have multiple unions, which is where a lt of the strategic planning of this games combat comes into play not just with weapons the members of the unions have but thier other abilities also as well as the formation the union is using all of which can have a dramatic impact on a unions combat effectiveness and role.
However the game does have some negatives, there are some frame rate isues in combat once you get 2 or 3 unions on screen or more, but as this is an offline game these are only annoying not crippling. Also some of the textures are a little slow to load at time so detail doesnt appear until after the character has been onscreen for a few seconds.
Another issue for me was that despite combat being turn based which I liked and despite thier being absolutely masses of moves to learn throuhg use and experimentation as well as reward your actual ability to choose specifically what ability you use in a turn is fairly limited.. I can say use mystic arts (spells) where one or more members of a union if they have spell abilities "May" use them (the only one garunteed to do what they were told to a point is each unions leader) though some may choose to use thier melee weapon instead. Likewise I can say use combat arts (mele special abilities) but again only some members of a union "may" use on or just make a no special abilitiy melee attack as they choose, not us". This can be crippling at times as sometimes you need them to use a heal ability but the option to do so doesnt always appear when they are injured. Other abilities like potions (buffs) and Area of effect spells over direct fire you could really benefit from having specific control over instead of just hoping the option may or may not appear.. especially when the improvement of these abilities is tied to thier use.. if you cant choose to use it it will never improve and other abilities within its ability tree will never be gained. Obviously they figured with so many characters being under control on the screen that if actions for each individual was chosen for everyone that turns would take inordinately long.. but being able to choose exactly what abilitiy a unions leader uses even if not the rest of the unions members should have been something they included in my opinion.
At any rate this game is awesomely good fun and addictive and every combat is so different its hard to get bored of watching them especially when you are involved in some of the major battles of the main storyline.
Well worth buying in my opinion and hopefully Square Enix will resolve some of the other issues with some downloadable updates/content.