Note: This is only shelved because I've had so many emulator troubles up to this point, and the one set up I could figure out to have the gameplay actually functional freezes in just about every cutscene. I desperately want to come back to this once Saturn emulation stabilizes, this game sees a proper rerelease, or I get the patience to just power through even more troubleshooting. But for now with how story-focused this game is, it feels pretty untenable to just not have the cutscenes along with it.

Preamble aside, this game feels like some sort of forbidden relic, and the crunchiness of the Saturn's renderer only adds to that feeling. The game is oozing with artistry that had me kind of floored, with a deceptively deep combat system that sounds like a terrible idea until you really experience even a sliver of what it has to offer. The music is stellar, which makes my need to temporarily shelve this one all the more heartbreaking.

I honestly wish we got more RPGs like this: alien worlds, lean but varied gameplay, and production values that take advantage of their limitations to really push the envelope in terms of presentation and storytelling. Really antsy to figure out a way to finish this one because I can tell it'd easily smash into my top 10 or 20 favorite games ever.