First off, I want to be clear that if I could re-do getting this, I'd grab it on Steam. All of the horrors you've heard about this release have been slightly exaggerated, but it is amazing how absolutely they phoned in what could have received a far better level of polish.

Returning to this failed masterpiece was surprisingly more fun than I had expected, for all different reasons than when I had originally played (and played a lot) on release. At that time, the tenuous connections to Chrono Trigger and the music is what drew me in, and while the music is still beautiful (top three soundtracks for a game, without question), I found myself finding the breezy tropical setting and oddball side characters charming. The game has showed its age a bit, but it's hardly hard (the Shaker Brothers got to me) to get through, especially since the game allows you to quicken the pace, which goes a long way to making this a bearable slog.

Regarding the "failed masterpiece" bit - this game obviously reached for the stars and failed to hit them, but it's exactly that which we're missing in today's jaded market of yearly releases and microtransactions. I am still not entirely sure what message they thought they were conveying, but at its heart it wanted to get something across. If I can get ridiculous for a second, it was as if I was connecting over time and space to talk to some developers for Squaresoft in the late 90s and I found that sort of beautiful, in a mundane way.

Highly recommend to JRPG fans as a canon, required play.