I was never a fan of that early 2000s Japanese gaming trend where card game mechanics were added into a whole bunch of games (or other series got card game spinoffs), but the setting and the gorgeous prerendered backgrounds intrigued me.
Unfortunately, while there is a lot of cool stuff about the first game, I found it to be extremely sluggish with design decisions that further hinder the speed. Battles took forever as you went through both the attack and defense phases, some boss battles lasted upwards of 30 minutes. The environmental puzzles which required collecting magus cards to progress was frustrating due to the limited inventory and lots of backtracking, then there were a few areas where you were slooooowly walking through snow or mud or what have you.
Mizuti was a charming character, the rest of the party was kinda 'there', though I did like the lead character's plot twist.
The environments were so supernatural and otherworldly, Mira the World of Illusion having some of the most original environments I've ever seen in an rpg. This has always been Monolith's strong point, ever since the Chrono Cross days.
Even though I wasn't big on the original, Dragona from the old site convinced me to try Origins and I'm glad I did. IMO the first truly great Monolith game (at a time when Nintendo purchased them and people were like "what... why THEM?"). Much faster and fluid combat, fantastic story that builds on the first game, and more UX enhancements.
