The Gamecube is currently in a RPG drought, or was, I should say, until this game showed up. As far as traditional RPG's go, this is one of the best ones ever, outside of the 16-bit era. With lovable characters, interesting battles, and a huge world to explore, this marks a highpoint for Sega.
Graphics: I didn't expect really pretty graphics from this game, but they hold up nicely. The battle and character animations show their age, but the environments and menu's are very pretty. Nothing in the game looks downright horrendeous, but you can tell this was a Dreamcast (rest in peace) game.
Gameplay: The regular battle system is quite ordinary. Nothing to wild or spectacular, but it doesn't suffer from being stale, strangely, it doesn't get old. The second battle system in the game is quite nice, it being the ship battle system. In a series of rock-paper-scissors events, you decide what you want to do on the next 4 turns, and carry them out. The way they present it, it makes every move you make feel very risky, but ultimately rewarding. Later on, you'll be looking for fights, as the ship battles are so much fun.
Plot: The plot line isn't spectacular, but it holds up nicely and is never boring. There's no deep pschyological twist or stunning betrayal, just some plucky teens out to stop an evil empire. While that may sound boring and over-used, it really isn't in this game.
Overall: A solid buy that any RPG fan must experience once in his life-time. It's the peak of traditional RPG's and is about as good as you can get without branching off into new and exciting territory, plot and gameplay-wise.
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