Sadly, I have to agree. While I did enjoy the story a lot (played it on a different character), the gameplay aspect was severely lacking. So what, I had to sit down for hours on end to read or hear people talk, and then maybe I get a dungeon after half a day of lore education?
Why is the game so afraid of letting players actually play something? It feels like Square Enix really wants to make movies, not games. Or they are way too afraid to allow people to make mistakes, or even fail at an instance, having to try again. The protagonist feels more like a tacked on feature sometimes.
DT moments spoilers follow:
Why could we not shoot things when on the train? Why could we not try to pilot the Hanu festival thing through the village, trying to pick up as many Hanu as possible?[
ETA: why do we do no damage when defending solution 9, but my NPC allies easily eat up over 20% of enemy HP with an attack? Am I not supposed to be the hero everyone looks up to?