This was my favorite childhood game. I played it many times in the 1990s, and I even used my cassette deck to record music from the game onto tapes so that I could listen to it on my walkman. The story is simple but also has some feeling to it. There are bits that make me laugh out loud and feel sad.

This particular replay was the "Restored" version that can be found on romhacking.net, although the item descriptions never showed for me. It was nice to be able to move faster on the world map and in dungeons, and the reduced encounter rate was also nice. It had probably been 30 years since I played this, so I can't say how much different it is, but very enjoyable changes to what was a fairly easy game to start with.

I tried the demo for this game when it was new, and I liked it but didn't want to pay full price. I bought it recently for the Switch when it was on sale, and in general I enjoyed the game. It's fun and simple but still a little bit of a challenge. I liked being able to take my time to collect everything and uncover every card.

At times the game can feel a little bit sluggish, opening menus and moving back and forth. It's also a bit strange that you cannot return to the title screen without exiting to the Switch menu and closing the game and restarting it. I still recommend it; the story is fun and can surprise you.

I spent over two years playing this game, taking long breaks in between chapters. I played on many different devices--my Japanese New 3DS where I purchased the game from the online shop before it closed, sometimes on my CRT via my Nintendo Wii, and some of the final chapters on my PC.

It was interesting playing this immediately after finishing Genealogy of the Holy War, since I got to know some of the characters there as well as the SNES battle system and graphics. The whole capture system took some getting used to, but after getting about halfway through I found my stride. There are a lot of little gimmicks and ways to complete chapters, especially with all the different staves, so that was interesting to test out different strategies to see what could work best for me.

Ultimately, I didn't like it as much as Genealogy, just because the scope of that game and the epic story were top notch. This was a nice interlude, though, and I would like to see them remake both games in a way that makes sense for the game play and overall Jugdral story. I'd also love to see a prequel with ancestors.