I haven't seen cutscences in the youtube either
I just played some of it to know how it was, and what I said was just a impression I had.
Really? The gameplay seemed really nice to me. Some people even consider it as a bridge or precursor of FFXIII gameplay, since its gameplay changed from the tradicional JRPG-like gameplay from the main FFs before it and came up with a more dinamic battle system.
Besides, it was the first FF in wich you controles just one character at a time (I'm not conting with FFXI, it was totally different from all the other FFs, since it was a MMORPG), and not three of four at the same time. Actually, it also introduced a system
in wich you could control the actions of the character you were not controlling, like the paradigms system.
But it sure seemed tricky. Unlike FFXIII, where you control the role of your characters, you had to specify the actions your characters should do, the target of the action, and their priority, like, if you want a character focused on healing, you went to a menu, and "programed" it like that, for example:
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| PRIORITY | ACTION | TARGET |
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| 1st | Cast cure in ally | when allie's HP<25% |
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| 2nd | Use potion | to allie with lowest HP |
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| 3rd | Use esuna to cure character's status ailments | x |
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| 4th | Boost ally's attack | on Vaan (character of the game) |
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| 5th | Attack enemy | enemy being targeted by leader |
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You can add as many as you want, and you get more targets as you progress in the game. And I saw in the internet that there are LOTS of them, like "ally" with MP< 75%", "petrified ally", "ally who can't battle", "weak to water enemy/ally", "enemy closest to you", etc. I think there's more than a hundred.
You just controled the leader of the group, and the others acted as you "programed" them to act.
It's really complex.
Well, I'm in the middle of chapter 6 in FFXIII. And I'm just LOVING it! I think it could even be my favorite FF.