A decent game for fans of the genre.
The story does a great job.....of following almost every JRPG archetype imaginable. A young boy from a small town meets a mysterious person and must save the world. While falling in love of course and risking his life for the girl. It's not that the story is really bad, it's just too familiar, and the whole airplane/pilot thing is kind of stupid in my opinion.
The gameplay is the best part of the game. If you are familiar with the grandia series then you know how the battle system works. You move around a wheel, as do your enemies and you have to use some strategy to survive. I still think the grandia series has the best battle system of any RPG. The actual dungeon crawling and towns are pretty standard with nothing to praise or haze. junctioning of magic and skills adds some elementary strategy to the game as well.
The sound and graphics are also done quite well. For a PS2 game I cannot complain about the in-game graphics, and some of the cut-scenes look great. The music and sound effects are also pretty good. Nothing to write home about, but still good. The voice-acting however, is a problem. The voice actors themselves do a pretty decent job, but the dialogue is atrocious at times. I guess there is just a difference between hearing a conversation and reading it. And the annoying in-battle cries of your character will also get on your nerves very quickly.
Overall, I did enjoy playing this game, but I was expecting more out of a series that I loved so much. If you like JRPGs and the other games in the series then this is worth playing. If not, skip it.