Booted up my PS2 with save files from 2001, and went through New Game+. The fastforward feature was very handy.

I think this game suffered towards the end when you were presented with walls of text and exposition, kind of like Xenogears (same writer), though not as bad as that. Even so, the journey to the true ending was a memorable one, and some of the scenes were quite emotional.

The graphics still look nice thanks to the art style, and the soundtrack by Mitsuda is pretty much flawless. Radical Dreamers makes me wanna tear up every time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBE3c9X0BoA

I think it's important not to compare this to Trigger too much, and just enjoy it for what it is: a true PS1 classic.