Been sitting on this one for years, but finally played it. I'm glad I did, because while I don't have fond memories of the original, I really enjoyed my time with Zodiac Age. The secret to enjoying this game is removing Vaan from your party and pretending that nearly anyone else is the main character.

Joking aside, this game has a strong cast of characters, both heroes and villains. Sometimes the story falls a little flat and does a disservice to these characters, but overall it's a solid piece of storytelling.

The music is incredible with a good number of memorable themes. I feel the imperial theme is one of the strongest reasons people compare this game to Star Wars.

Combat is excellent and you're rewarded for how much work you put in. You can completely ignore the gambit system if you want, but I found it fun tweaking the system to get the best performance out of it. I did have a problem with the sheer amount of status effects the enemies loved to throw at the party, and the final area was more frustrating than enjoyable, but they made some great improvements over the original and this is well worth playing.

A good RPG that has aged remarkably well. There are a few hiccups I had, with some quests being failed because I talked to the wrong person or entered the wrong room. Also, sometimes you're separated from your group for a bit and those areas can be really punishing depending on the class you picked.

Combat was really fun, especially against the large monsters, and I really liked each class I played. There were times where combat took an absurd difficulty spike. There was a group of bandits right outside a wooded area that drove me insane with how they just seemed to ignore damage at times. I liked most of the NPCs. I did find it frustrating that there were times I had to look up in a wiki where to continue certain NPC quests, but that wasn't too bad.

This was a solid game and I'm excited to see what changes they've added for the sequel.