Honestly I think it’s true Final Fantasy Tactics is a sluggish and mechanically verbose game. Overcomplicated and bloated in a lot of unnecesary and unhelpful ways (the thing with the zodiac signs is something that I have yet to understand to this day, doesn’t make any sense and also doesn’t seem to be super impactful on the experience????).
But it’s also a game with a lot of “shortcuts” so to speak, small tricks and interactions that once you know them and take advantage of them alleviate a lot of the density and leaden nature of the game. Stuff like realizing that archers generally suck and magicians with teleport are a lot better as ranged units, or that knights and thieves can break or steal equipment mid-battle and immediately negate the whole existence of certain enemies during a encounter (they can’t attack without weapons!). Of course, there is the argument to be made that while these make the game more enjoyable, they are not certainly symptoms of good game design.
Regarding the soundtrack, I’m afraid I’m not the biggest fan of Hitoshi Sakimoto. My enjoyment of his music ranges from considering it generic orchestral stuff to cacophonic and annoying to listen tracks. In fact, one thing that definitely made me enjoy 13 Sentinels more was the fact that it didn’t sound like Hitoshi Sakimoto, and that he was generally less involved in the soundtrack of that game as opposed to Odin Sphere and Muramasa…