I'm kind of mad at myself for skipping over this game. It's easily one of the best games on PS1. If you like puzzles, platforming, and magic than this is the game for you.

Music 10/10

Really catchy tunes that made use of the CD quality audio available on the system. I could listen to the Inoa Village loop for hours.

Graphics 10/10

Some of the best 2D sprite work of the era. Vibrant and well animated. Big bosses that take up the whole screen. Beautiful backgrounds. What's not to love? Also has some cool animated cut scenes.

Gameplay 9/10

It's classified as an action RPG, but I would classify it more as a puzzle/strategy game than anything. None of the action sequences are very difficult. You are given tons of items to keep you alive and obtaining replacements is easy. The dungeons are full of treasure chests with life restoring items and most of the time I couldn't pick them up because I already had too many of them. The primary game loop is: go to dungeon, solve puzzles room to room, pickup keys to get to other rooms, fight boss, swing sword above head like a helicopter. I died a total of 2 times, but if you die more, there are items that the game gives you to adjust and make things easier.

I decided to play through without any strategy guide or external hints other than reading the manual. There were some puzzles and areas I was ready give up on and look up the solution, but each time, just as I was about to give up, I would end up figuring it out. Not as hard as some of the puzzles in Baba is You, but definitely more difficult than anything in Zelda.

My only complaint about the gameplay, are some of the platforming parts are difficult solely because of the 2D nature of the game. Sometimes you can't figure out where the platform is and where your character is supposed to be to land on it. There's one platforming sequence towards the end of the game where you must quickly jump on a bunch of platforms in a row that took me ~50 tries to complete. Besides that section, everything else was fun. Took me around 40 hours to complete.

Story 10/10

Great fantasy story telling. Much darker than other games of that time. I don't want to spoil anything but prepare for NPCs to die. It also doesn't take itself too seriously, as little bits of humor pop up from time to time.

Overall score 97.5%

I really wish I would have picked this up in my younger days. I've always loved action RPGs and puzzle games but at the time, everything was moving to 3D and this game looks like it could have been on SNES(maybe), so I probably brushed it off for that reason. If this game has been on your radar for a while, go play it, you won't be disappointed.