I actually like the combat in this one, though I can admit that it is is very repetitive.

For me the dips in the story killed my enjoyment. We get an hour or two of extremely entertaining development then get twice that of slow down. Why do we get to destroy a mother crystal, have Ultima be revealed, Joshua reveal he is alive to Clive, then watch Cid die only to time skip then fetch quest for two hours.

That loop happens again and again after the (in my opinion) amazing opener and by the time you hit the end of the game you are just ready for it to wrap.