I played this back in the day on my playstation but I could not get into it. I only played for 3hrs to level 7, and I think I found the game boring and too kiddie. Fast forward 20 years, I decided to play it on my PSP, and I can see why younger me could not get into it. I really liked the beginning of waking up as a baby dragon knowing nothing about the world. This was one of the best starts of all time. But the rest of the story was fairly slow and low stakes, and the kid section lasted a very long time. The game pissed me off early on with the master Mygas who wanted a donation of all my money. So being the scrooge I am I decided to wait until I got to the next town to blow all my money on gear upgrades, only to find that there was a huge section where backtracking to the beginning was cut off. The only saving grace was I realized I could not put Nina under that master anyway until backtracking opened up again after beating the arena. I used defense stance for the beginning, then attack stance once I got Nina so more attacks went towards Ryu. I solved most of the tomb puzzle on my own, but used a walkthrough to make the last bit easier; I kind of wanted to minimize Nina's level ups without having a master. Then was the annoying timed Jewel puzzle. I figured there were 3 rewards but did not see how, so again checked a walkthrough. The rewards were worth it but this puzzle emphasized how awkward the movement controls were; I never really got used to them. The ice ring in particular on Nina allowed her to fully heal herself with ice blast. Then I got Momo and Peco and was able to finally settle down after putting them under Yggdrasil. Peco was such a stupid character design that I never bothered to use him other than to learn some master skills.

I both hated and loved the master system. I loved how it allowed me to customize the characters, and I looked forward to seeing the sweet stat increases each level up. However it was not implemented well. Frequent backtracking through nearly the entire game to change masters, sitting though their ponderous time wasting dialogue every time, and the stat penalties. During my time on GameFAQs checking for puzzle solutions I noticed a guide for optimized stat growth, and I opened that Pandora's box. After looking through it I decided not to bother with optimization, but soon it called to me and I spent hours pouring over the level up charts for each character to plan their builds up to level 70, giving the best possible stat growths for my builds, and fitting in learning the skills. In retrospect, you should have been able to instantly assign masters in the camp menu (like the ones in bof2), and there should not have been penalties that encouraged such min max metagaming.

So Ryu was a paladin hero Jack of all type that needed every stat. I wanted him to be more of a warrior so I put him under Bunyan early on until he learned the skills. This stunted his int and mana, which limited the effectiveness of dragon form and white magic. It was somewhere near the end of the child phase that I switched him to Giotto and had to learn the fishing minigame. It actually wasn't that bad, even though I hate fishing minigames. Ryu stayed with him until all skills were learned, which was not too long after getting back to that area during the adult phase. On one hand this gave him the most hp and offset the mana loss from Bunyan, but on the other the skills were useless. Maybe he would have been better off with a different master since Giotto's penalties sucked. For the rest of the game Ryu switched back and forth between Bunyan and Fahl, to maximize warrior stats while minimizing loss of mana and agility. He did 3 under the kid to unlock chain formation, and even a level each under Deis and Emitai when he gained little or none of the stats they penalized. High levels added in Hachio and Ladon.

Garr was the warrior of the group, and I stuck him with the midas stone that I blew most of my money on upon reaching Windia. I wanted him to be a fighter barbarian type with incredible basic attacks so I had him switch between Bunyan, Hachio and Fahl, again to maximize warrior stats while preserving what little mana and agility he did gain. At one point he did a level under Meryl but I can't remember exactly why; possibly because he gained both mana and agility that level and there was no other way to keep both. He learned the skills from Hachio and was planned to learn Fahl's around level 50 (which I changed to Peco as I realized Garr would not reach those levels) and Ladon in level 60s.

Momo was my other preferred party member because she was essentially a cleric with white magic, some offensive magic, and good regular attack. She kind of had the same problem as Ryu in that she needed every stat. I wanted her to focus on being a magic user without sacrificing power for attacking. I had her go with Mygas until learning his skills, then I benched her until I got Deis, who gave the 2nd best int and mana growth, boosted power and agility, but gave heavy penalties to hp and defense. So Momo would be a bit of glass cannon. High levels would have included Emitai and Ladon. She needed 2 Artemis caps to offset her poor accuracy, unless she was mainly using magic.

Nina was the black mage so I wanted her to focus all on int and mana while dumping power. So she went with all the mage masters who had big power penalties: Yggdrasil, Honduras and Emitai, learning all those skills. I planned in some Deis and Ladon at high levels. She was consistently the least used character until late game. She had powerful magic but was less versatile than Momo, and even more of a glass cannon.

Rei was the thief and I decided I wanted his agility as high as possible to abuse chain formation. He went with Dlonzo just to learn the skills, then Meryl for the rest of the game, with some Ladon planned for high levels. Peco was very low level and only used to learn the skills for Durandal, Fahl and magic formation. I looked up his abilities and stat gains but never bothered to plan him out. I guess mostly Fahl to focus on hp since his breath attacks go off that.

One thing that annoyed me about this game was the lack of save points before bosses, so there was a very real chance of losing significant progress by stumbling into a boss fight unprepared. Many bosses and regular enemies had status effects, so I often kept status protection accessories on. Some of the boss fights were close calls and I did have the occasional game over. I did not realize until very late game that equipment could be freely changed during combat; an amazing feature that should be in every rpg. I could have used that during some boss fights to put on status protections! I did not like having to camp just to save because it took longer than necessary. I found the huge amount of options for dragon transformation overwhelming and did not feel like experimenting with it. I was using the walkthrough to make sure I did not miss anything, though I did forget to pick up Garr's strongest weapon. I was not happy and my last backup save was over 10hrs prior. Until I looked at the weapon list and seen it reduced max hp with each attack. That is not an ultimate weapon, that is cursed shit. Around this time I started reading the boss strategy sections before fighting the bosses so I could equip the proper accessories and use the best dragon form. Most times I didn't even use the strategy and characters in the walkthrough, rather forming my own strategy around elemental and status protections. Ryu did a lot of damage with both melee and breath attacks, so my main concern was managing mana. Kaiser was the ultimate for end game, while the various warriors were good for bosses and I used simple elemental forms on occasion for area breath attacks. I did some level grinding so that I could start sequences or dungeon delves at fresh levels so that I did not risk leveling up under the wrong masters. I got all the items in the desert of death, but the first time I forgot to bring water and was scumming through battles with my characters dying in 1 hit. Good thing Momo and Nina could 1 shot the entire field with 1 spell (except those tough volcano enemies). I even made it 6 or 7 days out and nearly got the item, so technically it would be possible to get everything in the desert without any water. Even though the desert was tedious I liked how it taught something about navigation using stars. Then I made many forays into the final dungeon with just as many backtracking trips to change masters. By this time I was using Garr and Rei in chain formation to explore, then switch Rei for Momo in magic formation for bosses. Nina was used quite a bit too.

I beat the game with Ryu at level 47. The bosses were not difficult at all. I was expecting the final boss to be an AI that went rogue, possibly even causing the apocalypse that happened long ago. I was not expecting it to be an actual good entity that only wished the best for her children. It made the ending bittersweet and tragic, and I applaud the game for having the villain not really be a villain; a refreshing change from every other jrpg. I did not like the silly minigames. The game felt too small with not enough story and content to explore. They should have spent development resources on rpg content like more of the world to explore, more dungeons bosses and loot, and more character interactions, instead of minigames. I did like the faerie town though that was because I like construction management games. I had fun building it up and assigning jobs, and was dismayed when I took 1 hunter off food to go exploring, only to come back to find half my faeries starved to death; including the gift one that I had been saving for a very long time, and several copiers that I had copying stat boosting items. I figured I would get some free stats each visit, but they seemed to only have about 20% chance of success, which was not even worth the effort. I used a guide to scum a spirit ring and ivory charm from exploring, and copy the thunder ring. Then I spent time grinding on my cleared save file. I tried to get rare drops from the final enemies, but they would not drop anything good for me. I beat the optional super enemies using Rei and Garr in chain formation. Ryu used the spirit ring and ivory talisman while the others used thunder or fire rings. The archmage died in 2 rounds and would be amazing to grind levels if they were not so rare. The entire 1st round and extra round were spent buffing damage and transforming into Kaiser and were tiger. Ryu hit with shadow walk for about 1500, so the mage was dead before he could regen at the end of round 2. If he hit for slightly less then the other 2 easily made up the damage. The berserker was a long tedious fight that did not seem better than regular enemies for xp grinding. Kaiser breath did better damage than shadow walk for no mana cost (about 1k), while the other 2 could barely contribute. Garr could hit for 360+ with timed blow, and could do it again after being healed by the fire attack. Otherwise he had to use last resort and triple blows or normal attacks to do any decent damage. Or use focus before each attack. Rei used resist each turn, then either stole ares gloves, revived Garr, healed Ryu, or nuked with myolnir. While I would have liked to grind everyone to level 70, it would be pointless and there are plenty of other games to play.

Final stats:

Ryu: level 51, 377 hp, 196 mp, 379 power, 311 defense, 90 int, 36 agility. Equipped with royal sword, ares gloves, dragon helm and armor, ivory charm and bell collar (change to spirit ring during tough battles).

Skills: shadow walk, charm, steal, air raid (good low cost attack that can cancel enemy turn), benediction (he is most likely to be the lone survivor), double blow, charge (sucks), gloom (not sure this is worth keeping on him or even using at all), 2 open slots for learning new stuff.

Garr: level 47, 374 hp, 22 mp, 390 power, 325 defense, 32 int, 25 agility. Equipped with dragon spear, ares gloves, tigers cap, life armor, titan belt, elemental ring. I swap in other elemental gear and status protections as needed.

Skills: triple blow (was double blow for most of the game), demonbane, mindflay, focus, snap, timed blow, last resort, berserk, disembowel, rest. Some of his skills were rarely if ever used because normal attacks were often better. He got a lot of the 0 mp skills due to his low mp.

Rei: level 47, 203 hp, 70 mp, 259 power, 212 defense, 106 int, 136 agility. Equipped with holy avenger, ares gloves, tigers cap, burglars garb, speed boots and elemental ring. I swap in protections, another speed boots, or titan belts as needed.

Skills: resist, super combo, bone dart, frost strike, blind, evil eye, barrier, transfer, douse, flying kick. Since he did not do great damage, his skills were more for support. I have not experimented with flying kick enough to know if it is always better than normal attack. He would likely get Ladon's aura attack, or switch with Ryu for shadow walk.

Momo: level 38, 140 hp, 194 mp. 315 power, 143 defense, 241 int, 47 agility. Equipped with atomic bomb, ares gloves, UV glasses, force armor, 2 Artemis caps or protections as needed.

Skills: sirocco, inferno, blizzard, myollnir, typhoon, magic ball, meditation, war shout, shield, celerity. Her skills were designed for both buffing during boss fights and being an effective black mage.

Nina: level 41, 147 hp, 282 mp, 124 power, 161 defense, 292 int, 50 agility. Equipped with ouroboros, protectors, silver tiara, sage frock, 2 wisdom rings.

Skills: influence, intimidate, wall of fire, lavaburst, mind sword, enlighten, kyrie, sanctuary, chill, cure. Her natural attack spells were great, but I used those fire skills a lot. Mind sword was the best overall single target spell, especially for magic resistant enemies like armies and volcanoes. I used influence and intimidate in places of her normal attack if there was no need to spend mp. She was the obvious choice for the best healing spell in the game so she can double as a white mage.

Peco: level 14. Nothing to see here.

This game had a lot of good aspects but was a little underwhelming compared to its predecessors and other jrpgs of the time. It spent too much time wasting the player's time and not enough on the things that really matter for rpgs.

7.8/10