A microcosm of mid-2000's game design

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

This game appeared on my account and I have literally no memory of buying it or where it came from. So what the heck, one more item off my backlog, I thought

 

Despite the charm and care and effort clearly put into this game, it has not aged well! Long and winding dungeons of the same dozen textures over and over? Check. Overly complicated and pointless minigames that offer no meaningful rewards? Check. Nonsensical plot about mythical bloodlines? I'm only on chapter 8 but it looks like check!

 

Why are there hundreds of different weapon fusions?

Why is there a puzzle game about factories?

Why is there an entire insect battling game with the only reward being outfits, when the outfits don't actually have any impact on gameplay?

Why do I only have 240 inventory slots in total?

Why did this come out almost a year after Final Fantasy XII, which has better versions of nearly every single game mechanic?

 

There are so many details and numbers to play with here, and nearly all of them are completely ignorable, as by the time you're in chapter 6 you'll have a strong enough weapon on Jaster to make combat trivial. What a waste.