An excellent RPG and one of the best games of all time.
The art design is incredible. It is bar-none my favorite part of the game, tied with the soundtrack. The colors are extremely vibrant and gorgeous. It is, without doubt, the best looking playstation one game. The game has a very tropical theme to it, which I love. Every area on the map is on an island.
As for the sound? Let's just say Yasunori Mitsuda went all out on this one. Everyone I have known, including myself, has loved the soundtrack despite whether they love the game or not. The only controversial track is "Hurricane" which is the battle theme. I think it fits, even though it is a bit strange. Some of the tracks can get me near tears since they sound so beautiful, especially for the end of the PS1 era.
Gameplay is entertaining. You can only use one ability slot per battle. You gain a slot or two each time you level. You can put the abilities you earned in them for each character, even auto-allocate it. Normal attacks can hit as much as 6 times a round. Each attack slightly increases your chance to hit% on the next attack. Though, if you choose to go slow your enemy can be faster. So it's not always wise to just use the highest hit % attack, since it's also the lowest damage usually.
What about the story? Your main character is a somewhat silent protagonist, only talking when you "choose" options. Such as saying "yes" or "no" to Leena in the beginning. Yes that's Serge saying something to answer. The game world has INCREDIBLE depth and each character in each dimension has a story for them. You can literally spend hours trying to figure out secrets behind characters in the story, which reap rewards and more back-story.
Though this was a short review, I simply don't have the time to cover the entire game. It's too large. Starting out, it should take 30-40 hours to complete. I can beat it now with around 12 hours on my played time just because I'm experienced and know most secrets. But then again, I love to do side-quests and explore so I take more time than usual.
You like RPGs? Can stand anime-esque themes? Own a PSX or PSX emulator? Try this game, now.