I liked that during battle you could choose to have your partner operate automatically or you could choose to forgo that for a more manual approach, I love that you can jump and leap over gaps and people if need be (it’s a very nice touch and I kinda wish more turn-based RPG with square-pattern character movements had those), Benjamin’s shrug animation is memorable and funny, it’s got charm, Ted Woolsey’s translation–based on the story by Chihiro Fujioka and Yoshihiko Maekawa (both of whom would go on to direct Super Mario RPG)–is well-written with rarely a grammatical error and his translation work is great anyway, I like that you can toggle between weapons on the fly whenever the situation called for it (like the axe to cut down the trees and the grappling hook to hook on to the other end of the gap), the soundtrack by Ryuji Sasai (who also did music for Micro Cabin’s Xak: The Art of Visual Stage, Xak II: The Rising of the Red Moon, and spin-off Fray in Magical Adventure, as well as SquareSoft’s Final Fantasy Legend III) and Yasuhiro Kawakami is excellent and does a good job setting the tone (the battle themes rock, literally, and when you get out of battle the overworld or dungeon theme picks up where it left off instead of starting from the beginning, YAY) and is very engaging to listen to, the bright pastel-toned visuals are appealing and like that each area is diverse in terms of design and décor, and I also like how the enemies and bosses slowly deteriorate externally depending on how much health they’ve got remaining which is a good touch.

It’s nice that you can save during any time of the game a la Nihon Falcom’s Ys franchise, and yeah, it’s true that it lacks the depth and longevity and sense of challenge like other games from the genre and can for the most part be rather easy, but overall I think it’s pleasantly decent while it lasts and I think the hatred it gets in some circles is blown way out of proportion and highly undeserved =)

To each their own