For every cool aspect of this game, there's something that takes it away. The djinn and the combinations of spells can be cool in theory, but it seems it's optimal to just have one element tied to a corresponding character.

The set up for the narrative and the world is cool in theory, but then there's a lot of events that don't seem to tie in to the overall story and are just there to pad out the game.

Even with the virtual console rewind feature, random encounters are such a pain to work around. I hit walls multiple times and I was just losing my enjoyment of it as I tried to press on. I knew recently I wouldn't do the sequel because I feel that aside from the story, the gameplay experience seems to be relatively the same. I wanted to like this, and I think if I had played this when I was younger, I would have loved it and I totally get why this is a beloved and underrated game in the GBA's library for some, but ultimately it shows its age.