The flaws are obvious: 108 characters is just too many for one game to handle without feeling overstuffed, though I appreciate the efforts to make them all distinct, even if some end up as one-dimensional comic relief. I wasn't convinced by the best friend's betrayal, with the subsequent parallel narrative only glimpsed in occasional, underwritten cutscenes. The endings are curiously unsatisfying, too - perhaps all a result of a clumsy translation. And yet the game's appeal still shines through. It's uncommonly direct about politics and the devastation of war, and constantly ties it into the gameplay - hearing e.g. a village you regularly visit for items has been destroyed lends the story an extra degree of weight. The evolving home castle is a marvellous location, too. It's full of asides that deepen our relationship to the characters and the ideology of the main mission, culminating in the moving moment where "reinforcements" in a major battle are simply the vendors and NPCs coming to your aid. Not exactly a challenging game, and not quite as emotionally magnificent as something like Final Fantasy VI, but it shares with that one a precision in its 16-bit cutscene direction, revealing all manner of human detail with the smallest changes to its sprites.