An action RPG with really excellent writing and strong atmosphere, like that of a memorable short story or novel. It is very much the RPG cousin of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, and has a similar vibe, but with a dash of Vagrant Story (mazelike dungeon crawling, box puzzles, focus on weapons and gear, spellsword combat).

The protagonists must unravel the mysteries of a homely island village and its surroundings, by exploring ruins and deciphering accounts of the lost history of the isle. As your power increases by mastering new weapon skills and spells, so does the sense that something sinister is afoot and that time is short. I found the pacing to be just about perfect.

The dialogue is concise and well-spaced between long stretches of combat. The tomes and manuscripts you discover can be read at will (after your ally Char translates them), and I think it was a good decision to tie exposition to item discovery rather than dumping it on you arbitrarily. It is satisfying to build your character and work towards the next major gear upgrade, which often sees you smashing once-difficult enemies with impunity. Build variety comes mostly from skill selection (they are flexible and can be swapped at any time) rather than stat choices, which are somewhat constrained if you want to meet gear requirements - but this is not really a problem. The designers seemed to know just where to put each unlockable shortcut to keep backtracking from becoming tedious. Swapping items becomes a bit of a nuisance once you acquire many key items, because you can only have four equipped at a time, and you will want to dedicate two or three slots to combat items like potions or status-effect armlets.

Villagers have new dialogue after every major event. Keeping the story in one place lets you get to know the personality and problems of each resident - a strength I am happy to see was not reserved for the Trails games, which pay a steep bloating cost for somewhat more character development than we get from the empty vessel Adol or the silent protagonist of Xanadu.

I wish Falcom had continued to iterate on this style of game alongside the others, because the writing, music and gameplay stand up favourably against them, especially as a first entry. Going multiplayer would provide a replacement for the likes of Gauntlet, or expanding the combat with more weapon types would have placed it closer to the PS2 Shining Force games. With a more appealing title and perhaps a speaking protagonist (or at least diary entires to solidify the character's personality), who knows what might have happened? This is a very promising start that unfortunately was never followed.