I finally got my copy. I played for about an hour, so here are some first impressions. I've been avoiding impressions by others until I got my copy, so I apologize for any redundancy.
● The music is decent, but it's not very Hirota-ish so far. I can hear his influence in a few songs, but it's still nothing like Shadow Hearts.
● They totally lied -- you can't use the face buttons for everything. They force you to use the stylus for all of the tutorial stuff, and for the magic strengthening.
● I think I get the slow battle complaints, but I'm starting to think that good use of skills will make them much more tolerable. There's a weakness exploitation system, and Lokhos even starts with an ability that gives him (lolz) an extra attack if you bring an enemy down to critical health without killing it. If there's more stuff like that, I really think it'll be tolerable. It's already not really annoying me that much. A lot of the slowness comes from a considerable pause between the end of a turn and when you regain control.
● It feels really nostalgic for me, a lot like Glory of Heracles 3.
● I wish you could rotate the camera in dungeons, and not just towns.
● The game is ugly... and pretty at the same time. The sprites are really highly detailed, but they look like crap when the camera is zoomed out. Unfortunately, the camera is zoomed out most of the time so far... but when it does zoom in, they look fantastic. The framerate is really smooth so far.
So that's what I think after a little over an hour of play. We'll see what I think after some more playtime.
