My biggest mistake was probably playing this game last. Just about everything felt underdeveloped and underwritten. The positives I read about this game feel like a product of Stockholm Syndrome. The appriser exposition dump towards the last quarter of the game is some of the worst writing I've seen in a jrpg. I felt like I was reading a CliffNotes synopsis of a different game the entire time I was playing. Turns out that game came out 17 years later.