Great story, poorly executed.
You really have to go out of your way and read stuff on the PC and talk to NPCs multiple times anywhere you can access every time the "game moment" changes to get a real picture of what's going on.
As someone mentioned, the game was heavily cut due to time constraints or disc space and they cobbled it back together with asspulls, story band-aids, and hidden dialog.
At least on the first playthrough it has this aura of mystery about it, but you'll probably notice a few asspulls and be confused about why Laguna matters.