SquareSoft, the OG Square Enix, has been a company I have always praised. They gave me some of my favorite games and were pioneers in a lot of different aspects of gaming. This led me to believe that ultimately, they could do no wrong. As I have gotten older and replayed a lot of older games, I have come to realize they don’t always hold up regardless of what the voice of my ten year old self says. No matter how spectacular they might have been at one point in time. That is why I am pleasantly surprised that this underrated game actually held up incredibly well. 

     First, I would like to start off by prefacing this with, I did very little research about the game before I played it. I decided to just turn it on, not even use a walkthrough and just go for the ride. I am very glad I did since the game starts off with a bang! Personally, I love when games don’t give us 2-hour setups in order to get something entertaining. (Looking at you Persona…) The story pretty much never slows down from the start and that is something I greatly appreciate in a game. I will give more details on my opinion of the story, later on. 

     There is no down time, no repetition of stages, no need to farm, hell you can skip half of the chests and still be okay item-wise thanks to the drops from enemies not being so stingy like other Rpgs. Even the dungeon-like stages are done in a way that makes them feel fresh and not just copy pasted labyrinths but instead cool interactive stages. 

     The combat in this game is the thing that engaged me the most about it. It’s truly unique AND entertaining. This combat, as far as games I have played, is truly one of a kind. You get to shoot, use Final Fantasy-styled moves, and move around dodging enemies attacks? This leads to incredible boss fights and although some of the moves are a little useless as the game progresses, I am glad you have a variety of tactics to use. Not to mention the editing of your guns is actually quite interesting. You can combine traits of a shotgun, while taking the range of a rifle, and add it to a pistol that happens to have acid bullets. Or, a player can make a grenade launcher that shoots 7 times in a row with frost. The amount of options is quite impressive. I also love that for a Square game, the random battles are not overbearing. In fact, they’re perfectly placed. 

     Are there areas it could improve in this aspect? Sure. Like the fact that you can upgrade a gun quite a bit and then find a really good gun right after. So instead of wasting all of your upgrades, you have to wait until you find one of the VERY few “super tools” in the game. However, this only happened to me once and since the game is so short, it’s really not game changing. At a nice 9-11 hours of gameplay, you never feel like it’s getting repetitive. 

     Being a Square game, it’s no surprise the music absolutely crushes. The battle theme, which you hear every single battle, is such a certified BOP that it never bothered me to hear it again over and over. Every single location has a great ominous synthy soundtrack mixed with score-like acid trips that adds so much to the ambiance. Even the sounds in the game are extremely satisfying. The magic and menus have those early final fantasy sounds that offer so much nostalgia. Footsteps in empty hallways echo perfectly, even when stepping over broken glass the sound of your footsteps change. Quite impressive for such an early PSX game. Not a single critique of the sound in the entire game. After doing light research, I see it’s from the composer of Kingdom Hearts and Super Mario RPG, Yoko Shimomura. Two of my favorite OSTs of all time.  

     Not just saying this to kiss Square’s ass but I honestly prefer this style of graphics. The gorgeous backgrounds and interesting camera angles also make for more interactive stages. FMVS are top-notch not only because of the retro vibes but because they’re trippy and pretty gruesome. I remember my first playthroughs of FFVII and VIII were always so exciting because of the anticipation built up for eventually getting to a moment in the game that required an FMV. That’s why  I love how many of them are in the game. They happen all the time! 

     The plot is where unfortunately this great game loses some points. Honestly, I was prepared to give this game a solid 9 or 9.25. However, the story is so convoluted that you would have to have been taking notes to follow it and not because it’s complicated, but because it literally takes you to a science class for a hot minute. There is no way you can convince me that the story is cohesive even with a diagram and a handwritten letter from the guy who invented the microscope. 

     I personally am not a fan of little ghost girls, running around locations, that turn out to be someone from your past a long time ago; but I also don’t like when the big reveal is… essentially nothing. It turns out something you predicted in the second hour of the game is in fact, correct, and the rest really makes no sense. EVE, the villain, is also shown throughout the entire game which makes little to no build up in the final battle, as you have already fought her like three times beforehand. Then… that ambiguous cliffhanger ending. 

    A major highlight for me, is that it takes place during the winter time, specifically around Christmas. Horror and Christmas  are one of my favorite combinations in media. Shout out to the creators for including real locations in New York City.(I.e Chinatown, Subway Station, Brooklyn Bridge, National Museum of History, and Central Park!) A simple, bad ass, and effective protagonist. Some other positive aspects of the story include supporting cast that isn’t annoying, but comic relief instead. Aya, the main character, is one of my new favorite females in gaming. She doesn’t have some sad tragic backstory that’s been done a hundred times. She’s just a dope chick who wants to save the world because she wants to. That’s it. 

     This game oozes with charisma and has a unique aura that I still, days after beating it, can not put my finger on. It’s truly one of a kind. Short and straight to the point with no filler content at all. It would have been a phenomenal game with a cleaner storyline, but nonetheless it is one of the rare PSX gems that plays perfectly well in 2025. No need to add mods to it, a complicated walkthrough to avoid any missables, and even graphically it still looks cool. Very few games from this era can say the same. Once again, looking at you Persona…

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     Pros: 

• Short and Sweet
• Unique Battle System
• N.Y Locations / Level Design
• Music is Top Tier
• FMVS are sick
• Weapon Modifying
• Reasonable difficulty
• Can be played without a guide
• Cool Bosses
• Protagonist
• Sci-Fi. + Horror combined with RPG elements
• New Game+ Mode

     Cons: 

• Hot mess of a plot
• By the time the weapons get good, the game ends
• Villain gets stale about halfway through 
• Aya walks very slow in certain areas (minor)