I'm not the world's biggest Square fan - in fact I own only this and Vagrant Story. I replayed PE recently and it's still one of the best games I've played on PSX, and one of my all-time favorites. It gets ripped for having a weird story, questionable combat, not RPG-ish enough, etc etc., but being a non-RPG fan, I devoured every second. I liked the fact there were no voice-overs. I liked the combat-dome mechanics. I liked getting new weapons and adding slots with Tools, gaining PE powers, and levelling up in general. It features fantastic enemy design (esp. the bosses), and the museum still stands as one of the most gorgeous environments I've visited (the whole game still looks great). I thought the soundtrack was excellent. The combat system also did away with the fixed camera-angle problem so prevalent in 3D adventure combat. I got into the story from the beginning, and I'm willing to bet I'm one of the few people who enjoyed every inch of the Chrylser Building (esp. the Bee boss).
I looked forward to the sequel, but was severely disappointed. It took most everything I liked about the first game and changed it, for the worse in my eyes.
I keep hoping for a sequel that returns to the origins of the first game.
