It's an awesome game. The mech designs are elegant and combat is straightfoward since the gears are essentially extensions of the characters. The map is 3D and you can rotate the view as you go.

The music is gorgeous. Yasunori Mitsuda is one of the best video game composers ever. Listen to Crono Trigger or Chrono Cross OSTs for futher evidence.

The plot is complex and you grow to care about the characters. The complexity is sometimes a problem as you may get confused by what's happening. Also the symbolic content is almost overwhelming at times.

The other main problem is the game was rushed out so disc 2 suffers from too many cutscenes and not enough action.

But it's well worth the time to play.