The King is dead. Long live the King.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.

Yes, FFT does have slowdown. It happens on just about every special attack in the game.
Yes, FFT does have some wonky sound effects. Only on special attacks, though.

The slowdown is particularly annoying on spells or attacks that hit multiple characters. I hear that the slim gets rid of this problem but have not had official confirmation.

Okay then. That's the bad stuff, on to the good.

Everything else.

10 years later FFT is STILL the pinnacle of SRPG gameplay. It is ridiculous how well this game has aged. I'm a huge fan of SRPGs and have played a lot of them in the 10 years since FFT saw its initial release. FFT plays the best. Still.

I don't know if it's the active movement in the game that gets rid of the Your Phase/Enemy phase, making battles more dynamic and exciting.

I don't know if it's the job system with some of the most customizable characters ever in an rpg. FFT on psp also adds the Dark Knight and Onion Knight into the mix, although I haven't been able to unlock them yet.

Or it could be the amazing soundtrack, which still has some of the most amazing music ever in a video game.

Maybe it's the new translation which, only 10 hours in, already has severable memorable moments:

Agrias: You would have us slaughter them? That would play into Lord Goltanna's hands. All we need do is rout them.

Gaffgarion: I find dead men rout more easily.

I haven't played the original in several years, but I remember being very confused. I eventually stopped paying attention to the story and just played it for the gameplay. Not so anymore, the new translation is not only a hell of a lot better, but you can actually comprehend it. The tension between the nobles and common is palpable. The scene with Algath (was algus) and Delita after Tietra, Delita's sister, gets kidnapped also stands out.

It's probably all of these things, along with the animated cutscenes which are as great as the rest of the game, that combine to make FFT such a great game. It has its flaws, but the rest of the game is so good that I simply don't care. The entirety of the game more than makes up for a little bit of slowdown. Would I like it if the slowdown was gone? Yes, of course. But it's there and I can't change that, so no use bitching. I hardly notice it anymore in any case.

There aren't very many games that I can go back to so many years after where the gameplay is just as good as it was the day I touched it without the power of nostalgia lending a hand. Super Metroid, Castlevania: SotN, to name a couple. I'll just add FFT into that elite list of classics.