What year did you play it? Because this might just be a case of "I played this game ten years after it came out and I think it sucks." See, for instance, Ulti with Super Metroid (his first playthrough) or me with HL2.
I played it when it was making its run in that contest back in 2009, to see what all the love for it was about. I played the GBA version too since thats the one people recommended to me. I just couldn't "get" it, and this is as a big JRPG fan. The battles were shallow, the characters were shallow, there was little story to care about, and everything just seemed so happy and colorful. Even the "Villains" weren't really bad guys. It felt like it was some kids Saturday morning cartoon kinda story. I do play RPGs mainly for the story, so that might be my issue with it.
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