To make matters worse, the game's characterization far from shines, and the plot, while starting out rather strong, quickly descends into a pastiche of events ripped off from countless Square games. The gameplay system, while starting out equally promising, has some fatal flaws: while it's really cool to be able to create what seems like hundreds of different kinds of food items, accessories, etc., a) most of them are useless, b) the success rate of Item Creation is too low, c) half the time you don't even know what you created and need to identify it, d) a good deal of the skills have no relevance to anything. Admittedly, the battle system is inspired - it's in pseudo-real-time, and the combat skills you can learn actually do make a difference, as do the various ways of creating weapons and armor. And for the hardcore gamerzzz among us, there's an enormous, ridiculously difficult 13-floor secret dungeon (complete with ridiculously difficult final boss) that will tack on hours to your playing time with minimal rewards.

Where the game really does shine is the technical department: locales are more colorful and memorable than the ones in, say, Final Fantasy VIII - Enix has, after all, been quite the contender in this regard (as anyone who remembers Terranigma's awesome visuals can attest). The music is a surprising winner - one of the dungeon themes, for instance, boasts a rockin' guitar lick that any aspiring musician would do well to steal. But these things, as most of us are no doubt aware, do not make a masterpiece in and of themselves. As a result, the game is quite playable, even quite enjoyable, but ultimately unsatisfying.