a game you don't play so much as observe with a certain detachment; you don't control a hero, per se, but more a vessel into which NPCs pour their needs, doubts, and anxieties. battle is entirely perfunctory, something only performed to fill negative space between story beats, yet there are mind-bogglingly intricate crafting and farming systems to improve your performance in these battles. literally every aspect of this game is needlessly byzantine. you can miss so much and never have the faintest idea how you missed it, and the game will taunt you with wide gaps in lists. not since king's quest v has a game been both so gorgeous and so infuriatingly inane. feels more bold and refreshing today than it did at release, when it was completely inscrutable. the watercolor-on-parchment aesthetic and strictly supplemental use of 3D aged it better visually than 99 percent of ps1 games. it's easy to see why it reigns as the dominant aesthetic of the world of mana; always has me gazing in awe right up until it starts talking.