LogFAQs > #979334905

It's a bit of a tricky one to deal with in the context of "best game ever." When it came out, it was indeed amazing, and since then it's had a pretty huge influence on JRPGs in general. 29 years is a long time, though, and because of the influence it's had a lot of what set it apart from the crowd in 1995 has now become fairly common and unremarkable. To that end, it deserves recognition for how good it was back in the day, but that doesn't necessarily translate to thinking it's a more enjoyable game to play compared to anything else available today.

That's part of why I tend to shy away from picking "favourite" games: It pretty much never actually means that my favourite games are ones I'd rather be playing over anything else in a given moment (given how variable tastes can be moment to moment), and if I'm instead basing it on what impact it's had on my life, that doesn't necessarily translate into a useful recommendation because a huge part of that depends on when I first experienced it.

In this particular case, I'm speaking as somebody who didn't play the game until it came out on the DS, nearly 15 years after it came out. At that point, I found it to be a great game, but nothing really outstanding compared to anything else I could play at the time. I had a good time, but I wouldn't even consider calling it one of my favourite games ever.