For 1992 it was... Acceptable. A generic jrpg, no big deal, also released on a failed Sega console, forget it and that's it. But it was re-released on another failed Sega console 4 years later on a new generation of consoles. And there's no way around it. Breath of Fire 3, which I scolded for archaic - a mastadon of innovation in the genre compared to "this" (No wonder, because it was made with the technology of the current generation of consoles). A lot of things in this game are done quite poorly. For example, the graphical component, and not even the graphon itself, but the visual style. Characters look worse than in Romancing SaGa 2, which came out a year later on a weaker hardware. Chibi characters look like each other except for the main antagonist, even the first partner of the main character(Not grandfather)looks like a regular NPS. Cities look even more generic than in Dragon Quest, which is a peak to say.
Gameplay-wise, the game is both satisfying and very frustrating. I was glad to see the abandonment of random battles, although for 1992 it was not quite new, but it was a bold and interesting move. However, did it reduce the number of battles? Not at all. The pluses of the battles are that they are not easy, even at the beginning you can die if you beat enemies mindlessly. Poison does a lot of damage(finally)and even the battlefield is more strategic(Moving from enemy to enemy, luring the enemy into a "trap" and so on), but in battles a lot of things are annoying. Often appear the same groups of enemies and you apply to them the same tactics, because of what dies possible variability in battles, moreover, the characters have a very narrow list of phrases for skills, good thing it can be turned off in the settings.
More minuses can be called the emptiness of the cities, NPS in them do not move (Could at least put them to do some work / insert them in urban situations, etc.), to find chests, to break barrels, this is not there including. Depressing, I'm probably asking too much, but going through Dragon Quest 4 that came out on NES - I wasn't in the same frustration.
The anime scenes dilute the gameplay, for 1992 they are on a pretty high level, you can see they worked the budget.
And yes, the dungeons are too long and very monotonous, the same Earthbound solved this problem either by making them unique (like the swamp) or by inserting small moments with finding the right path.
Do not play, it is not worth it
Gameplay-wise, the game is both satisfying and very frustrating. I was glad to see the abandonment of random battles, although for 1992 it was not quite new, but it was a bold and interesting move. However, did it reduce the number of battles? Not at all. The pluses of the battles are that they are not easy, even at the beginning you can die if you beat enemies mindlessly. Poison does a lot of damage(finally)and even the battlefield is more strategic(Moving from enemy to enemy, luring the enemy into a "trap" and so on), but in battles a lot of things are annoying. Often appear the same groups of enemies and you apply to them the same tactics, because of what dies possible variability in battles, moreover, the characters have a very narrow list of phrases for skills, good thing it can be turned off in the settings.
More minuses can be called the emptiness of the cities, NPS in them do not move (Could at least put them to do some work / insert them in urban situations, etc.), to find chests, to break barrels, this is not there including. Depressing, I'm probably asking too much, but going through Dragon Quest 4 that came out on NES - I wasn't in the same frustration.
The anime scenes dilute the gameplay, for 1992 they are on a pretty high level, you can see they worked the budget.
And yes, the dungeons are too long and very monotonous, the same Earthbound solved this problem either by making them unique (like the swamp) or by inserting small moments with finding the right path.
Do not play, it is not worth it