Fun old school, but the magic system is kinda busted. What started as a fun idea doesn't devolves into rather silly book keeping by the end as you manage all the spell sheets and have to check your notes on prefix and suffix. Still, it did something really cool and unique in the space (especially at the time) and I appreciate the game for it. I'm also a sucker for environmentally conscious stories.

I'd wish it would get the live a live hd treatment where they tune up a couple of those rough edges and the game would really shine.

It's actually really fun but ran into 2 hiccups I didn't expect:

First, there's the fact that despite me not playing Pokemon with any real fanaticism, I found it's hard to replace my love of the dumb creatures. Some of these are quite cute, but just can't cut it.

Even stranger still though is my second knock - this game is hard, and I like challenging games, but something in my brain is hardwired to want Pokemon and Pokemon adjacent games to offer little challenge. I like them because they're a relaxing time. The challenge makes my brain need to work a lot and honestly I think I'd rather play an smt or persona game if I wanted challenging turn-based combat.

I realize both these problems are hugely subjective but it really kept the game from "clicking" for me.