Having recently gone back to re-play that game, since I now have access to a version of the game which isn't crippled by bugs, I have to say that the playability is not all it's cracked up to be. The fact that permanent stat boosts are assigned based on which specific magicite you have equipped at the time of level-up means that there's a lot of XP-countdown-watching and magicite shuffling between fights, which could have been easily avoided if the magicite simply gave a stat bonus while it remained equipped.