I had been hoping to play this game for a long time, and I recently made it. I didn't have any expectation for the game, but I can say that I was very pleasantly surprised. The story is based around time travel, and it engages the player in a manner that I don't think I've seen any game do - you, the player, need to think and reason about how certain events influence others and fit together in order to progress - in this you are aided by the ability to travel through time at save points. Nowhere this is more evident than in the branching choices you have - they are very basic binary choices, one of them leads to a fake ending and the other lets you progress, but they still manage to be engaging by virtue of the fact that they call on the player's ability to use their critical thinking and plan ahead in order to obtain the correct outcome, which is done by observing the characters' demeanor and reading through the dialogue. It is a very good instance of taking a well-established video game trope/feature (binary choices that really only allow you one correct answer)  and twisting it into something interesting and engaging.

This also extends to sidequests, which often have the player have to make a decision that can leave a tangible impact on the world, as shown in the many variations on the game's ending montage based on which sidequests were completed and which ones weren't. It is a very good thing that there is the ability to travel back in time to critical story points in order to explore and investigate for sidequests, as it is the fact that after beating the game, you can return to the final save point and go back in time to tie up any loose ends (there is no limit to doing so, either - thus creating a very open setting similar to games like Fallout or Dragon Age). Aside from changing the ending, the sidequests also offer very worthwhile rewards (which is particularly useful early on, considering that money and resources are scarce), thus giving the player a good reason for going off the beaten path, a staple of many RPGs.

The combat is based around positioning and moving, similar to the old Chrono Trigger. Enemies are dislocated on a 3x3 grid and can be knocked around with the player's attacks. There are no restrictions to doing so, in fact the combat mechanics encourage the player to stack enemies on the same tile to hurt more of them at once. The game has a combo system where repeated attacks on enemies stacked together will raise your combo count, and in turn the rewards obtained from battles. While at first the ability to do so is limited, later on you can gain access to AoE attacks that can move around large groups of enemies, making for some pretty interesting fights. Boss battles are a bit more limited in this, especially later on, as many bosses occupy the entire battle area, but there are attacks that ignore enemy positioning, which are an option.

Overall, this game was very enjoyable and fun to play, and the new content added in the 3DS reprint adds replayability into the mix, through the addition of New Game + and a new game mode that allows you to experience a lot of the extra content. It is very difficult to find this game, but if you can, make sure to play it, because it is very, very good.

I held a lot of excitement for this game in the past, and once I got it, I played it a lot and walked away very satisfied. The game is a return to the roots for the JRPG genre, and while this means that it doesn't set the world on fire in terms of innovative and unique storytelling (though I did enjoy the story for what it was, as it had a clear goal in sight and focused on it), the gameplay, which is the main focus of the game, is very well polished. The combat mechanics are as basic as they can get, but they are done very well, especially in terms of character progression thanks to the Character Builder system, where each characters can specialize in using different weapons and unlock related skills. This has the potential to give each playthrough a different feeling, as there's always the itch of trying a new build and trading something off for something else. The replayability is further amped up by the Draconian Quest system, where the player can add limitations to their playthrough for more challenge (these go from restricting level grinding, to increasing the power of enemies and restricting what the player has access to), and even past that, there is a sizeable amount of content (especially in the Definitive Edition, which introduces a lot of new stuff). The world is fun to explore, and the towns all feel unique, not least thanks to the vibrant colour palette and the art style, resembling a mix of Japanese anime and a modern 3D animated movie. While the characters are mostly static, I did end up caring for their friendship and their quest by the end of the game, thanks to their simple yet effective characterization.

There were some flaws with the game, primarily the fact that the story slows down near the end of the first half of the game, but it picks right back up afterwards; the sidequests are also fairly simplistic, but they are easy to unlock and are completed rather quickly, so they don't slow down the pacing of the story too much (in addition, it is possible to continue playing after beating the main game - a whole lot of new content is unlocked in the postgame), and the world is not an actual open world like it may seem at first glance, but rather an array of interconnected areas connected by a linear story, which can be offputting to some who would prefer an overworld map like in the days of old, or those who would rather have a full-fledged open world experience. Overall, though, I couldn't help but enjoy the game and look forward to a second playthrough in the future when I have the time.