Just finished this for a second time in preparation for Ragnarok. When deciding to do this playthrough I suspected I would be overly critical of this games flaws I was more willing to ignore on the first run. While that ended up being a bit correct, the flaws were more minor then I thought and I appreciated its strongest points so much more as well.

Regarding the flaws that stood out, firstly I think the amount of optional content ends up padding the game too much. It's good stuff but if you do it you can double the length of the playthrough making the main story feel drawn out. Minor issue overall, especially since you can always ignore it and focus on the main story. The other one that stands out is the lack of unique/memorable bosses. There's a couple that are awesome but there's one particular boss that's reused way too much that it's hard not to notice. A new boss is way less exciting when you know it moveset already since you already beat it a few times.

As for what was so great about this game, the visuals are still top notch. It's been four years and a new gen of consoles is out but I'd say only a handful of games can be held up as examples of being clearly better looking. Story wise I actually appreciated it more on the second playthrough picking up more hints for things that will play into Ragnarok and noticing clues to some of this games twists.

Other stuff like combat and puzzles remains good, though not quite at the level of it visuals and story. I really look forward to what improvements Ragnarok can make.