2nd time I've played through it. I found it much better the second time, so much so that it became one of my favorite Final Fantasies. I didn't abuse the system, and I ended up with about the same stats as my first playthrough when I did abuse the system.
If the spell animations on the NES version (which I've never played) are much shorter than the PSX version, I could easily imagine developing a pure magic caster. But, with many of the spells taking over 10 seconds to get through the animation, and the number of battles that you'll get into, the pretty animations pretty much eliminate any possibility on the PSX version.
I didn't use a walkthrough, so it took me about 35 hrs to beat.
Overall 8/10
