This game's highs are really really high. The soundtrack is full of bangers, the characters are memorable and beautifully-designed, and the shamanization system is fantastic, essentially doubling your character roster by giving them alternate forms. The plot seems cliche now but was surprisingly dark especially considering it was made during an era pretty heavy on censorship.

It is hurt by the translation (the plot deserved a better script that could have given its poignant moments more gravitas), and its underuse of the shaman system. By that I mean that you can only bond with shamans at one location in the entire game, and going into low HP (or getting KO'ed) would knock you out of your alternate form which meant a lot of backtracking if you wanted to transform again.

There is a romhack which revises the translation and another which allows you to keep your shaman transformation at low HP (you still lose it if you get KOed). Applying both is probably the best way to experience the game and would probably bump its score up to 4 or even 4.5 stars.