This game has the worst balancing and level design ever.
You basically have to grind Job Points all the time to have good enough abilities, to finish the fights (on top of that most enemies regularly out-level you, if you don't do excessive grinding in-between story missions)

But is has soooo much going for it. The Job System ist unparalleled to any other FF game, to only one to rival it maybe is the Bravely series.
The story - while with a much darker time than most other ffs - is really interestingly told, the conflict complex... A lot of places, organizations etc are only mentioned briefly so it can get pretty confusing though. And the world seems a little boring - fantasywise- compared to other FF games
The gameplay variety is also not so deep...
Talking about this...
Confusing terminology, pretty linear gameplay consisting only of run and fight... That's exactly the kind of criticism usually reserved for FFXIII, but somehow this one is hailed as a classic, the other as one of the worst FF games... Even though this one necessitates you to grind all the god-damn time