I liked Final Fantasy 12 quite a lot early on. The combat and character development systems were just different enough from what I was used to to pique my interest. The story had a fairly strong start, and I liked all of the characters (even Vaan and Penelo). The presentation of Ivalice was excellent, and I actually liked trudging around the deserts.
However, as the game progressed, I found myself losing interest and becoming more frustrated. Once I had decent gambits set up, combat largely became a matter of just letting the game play itself. I don't think this is actually a bad thing in and of itself. Being able to operate at such a strategic level has its charms. Unfortunately, the combat animations were just flat out boring. This was further worsened by the lack of interesting abilities. Technicks just weren't cool or useful, and the magic system was quite standard. The martial classes felt far too similar to one another to feel like there was much more diversity in the party than "casts spells" or "doesn't cast spells".
Unfortunately, my growing dissatisfaction wasn't limited to the combat and character building. The main party interactions felt very limited -- I really wanted to see the characters play off each other more. I may have had this feeling in part due to the extraordinarily large amount of dungeon crawling that separated each tidbit of story. Even on x2 or x4 speed, it ended up feeling like an eternity between story elements. Now, this is partially my fault. I don't think I should have hit as many of the hunts early on as I did. I think the story also hit a pretty hard lull about halfway in, which didn't really resolve itself until the very final portion of the game. On top of that, there were several story elements that just felt like they came out of left field or were cool but didn't end up playing into the storyline nearly enough for my liking.
In the end, I don't think it's a bad game, and I think the people who love it are justified. It just didn't really click with me the way I would have wanted. I lost my motivation to keep slogging through the dungeons in the penultimate dungeon. It was just too damn long for me. I ended up reading a synopsis of that dungeon's story elements and then watching a lets play of the final boss and ending FMV. I have no regrets about making that decision-- I actually ended up enjoying the ending of the game, but don't think I would have if I'd spent another 5 hours slogging through dungeons to get there.
However, as the game progressed, I found myself losing interest and becoming more frustrated. Once I had decent gambits set up, combat largely became a matter of just letting the game play itself. I don't think this is actually a bad thing in and of itself. Being able to operate at such a strategic level has its charms. Unfortunately, the combat animations were just flat out boring. This was further worsened by the lack of interesting abilities. Technicks just weren't cool or useful, and the magic system was quite standard. The martial classes felt far too similar to one another to feel like there was much more diversity in the party than "casts spells" or "doesn't cast spells".
Unfortunately, my growing dissatisfaction wasn't limited to the combat and character building. The main party interactions felt very limited -- I really wanted to see the characters play off each other more. I may have had this feeling in part due to the extraordinarily large amount of dungeon crawling that separated each tidbit of story. Even on x2 or x4 speed, it ended up feeling like an eternity between story elements. Now, this is partially my fault. I don't think I should have hit as many of the hunts early on as I did. I think the story also hit a pretty hard lull about halfway in, which didn't really resolve itself until the very final portion of the game. On top of that, there were several story elements that just felt like they came out of left field or were cool but didn't end up playing into the storyline nearly enough for my liking.
In the end, I don't think it's a bad game, and I think the people who love it are justified. It just didn't really click with me the way I would have wanted. I lost my motivation to keep slogging through the dungeons in the penultimate dungeon. It was just too damn long for me. I ended up reading a synopsis of that dungeon's story elements and then watching a lets play of the final boss and ending FMV. I have no regrets about making that decision-- I actually ended up enjoying the ending of the game, but don't think I would have if I'd spent another 5 hours slogging through dungeons to get there.