The playing system takes a bit of getting used to, so it's not quite instant-hitting-things like KH is, and not quite turn-based fighting like the other FFs are. Basically, you have to give your party leader an action (to attack something, magic it, steal from it, etc.) and they will keep doing that action unless a) they're not able to anymore, or b) you tell them to do something else. The little bar by their name is a "timer" on how long they take to perform that action, and however long that takes can be affected by how fast or slow you are, or what kind of status ailments you may have. Once you get lots of people in your party you start ordering their gambits, which is basically your way of telling the characters how to behave without you having to manually give them commands all the time. The gambits are also like directing your party members' priorities. For example, you can have a person who's a primary healer to list their first priority as casting heal if a person's health is below %30, their second priority to cast esuna or some other spell if they're poisoned, and their third priority to attack the monster. That way, you can concentrate on killing the monster yourself while knowing that your healer will jump in if your health gets too low.

As for a rating? Err, I haven't finished the game yet, but I'd probably give it a 7-8 out of 10. XD It's a long game full of bazillions of sidequests, but I actually enjoy playing it, so it's not as if the sidequests are a major annoyance. It does mean there's long spaces of time between the bits of plot, though.