i thought it was a solid battle system. it had variety in use with flying, swimming and grounded.
the way you got moves differed depending on how you chose the items in the beginning so it's somewhat different play on replay
the characters they put back in from final fantasy were improved in looks (ie squall, cloud, and seph)
i've loved nightmare before xmas since it came out and it resurfaced that love again.
it had good difficulty, not enough to make me break something, but enough for me to have died a few times
thankfully they allowed control of how the AI of donald and goofy used their abilities and items, though they did act stupidly still
plenty of secrets with the trinities and dalmations.
pretty good graphically and i thought controls were solid. the ability to cast magic quickly with the shortcut was handy, without it, it would've made the game lacking. the summons were pretty cool too. magic and items were done well, etc
it gave me more respect for disney.
at least, that is in my opinion why i thought it was an outstanding game. i just placed it over ffX because i know ffX would have been a good game, but this i had many doubts of it before i played it. i can understand disagreement, but that's why i chose it as a top 5