The game is quite fun and entertaining in its way, but the game goes by chapters where some are really good and some not so good. None are particularly long, but some are downright minuscule! That being said, they do tie it all together nicely at the end, though I am not sure I got the best ending possible because I did not find all the people during the last portion of the game. The good news is, things vary, the bad news is that this was a SNES game and so it really is not as long as it could have been had it been made today. Today, you could probably do a full 30 hours of play in each chapter.
The story depends on the chapter. One revolves around a caveman trying to save a girl, another has a man wishing to teach a new group of students his techniques, another has a ninja having to infiltrate and kill an emperor, another has a cowboy defending a town from bad guys, then you have a man trying to accumulate martial arts techniques so he can be the best, then an orphan must use a mech to save the day and then a robot must uncover the deaths of those on the space ship he is on. The shortest is the one featuring the guy fighting people to learn stuff and the longest in this bunch is probably the orphan one. Which was also my fave. The cowboy one I was a bit disappointed in as it was short and did not really feature all that much to it. It was the most disappointing mainly due to it being the one featured in a magazine that made me want this game. Finally you go to the middle ages where we have a tragic tale and I honestly totally sympathized with the guy.
The game play is turn based for the most part, but some levels have a bit of a unique flair to them. The distant future is like a horror story with very little combat while present day is only combat. The game will probably have good replay value as there are some things you can do differently so I will probably try it again one day. I was surprised to find out that any of the three students can be end up being the one who gains the knowledge and I would like to play the last stage as the guy from the middle ages to see what that entails.
So it is a good game, I would give it a higher score, but a couple of levels were pains (I am looking at you, Twilight of Edo stage!) I like the battling as it is nice to start every fight with full health and you can use your powers as much as possible; granted, that may be a downside for some people. Surprised this one never came to the United States back in the day as it is good, not quite as good as another game with time, Chrono Trigger, but it was a lot better than say, Mystic Quest.
