Any Magna Carta Impressions?

i saw the cover art posted here a while ago, when it was being released in japan, and for some reason i wanted to find some info about it, i went to the korean site, and managed to download a small video of it, well there was 2, 1 was good quality but short, the other was horrible quality but longer. I was blown away by it, the graphics look amazing, theres this dark feeling in the movie with battle fields and fighting that have this eerie feeling, the music got caught into my head for days too. Has anyone got impressions of the japanese release? and more importantly, any idea of a western/Aus release? one movie made me fall in love with the game, sound skinda stupid, but the movie was that good!
 
I've been trying to like it, but it's a pretty big bucket of meh so far.

The battle system is a little strange and seems really restrictive in that you can seemingly learn skills, but the way you attack seems to be based on how many successful attacks you have in a given battle. Each successive attack can be more powerful than the last, but if you screw up on your timing (hits are a hybrid of the shadow hearts judgment ring and parappa the rapper-ish button combos), you lose your "overdrive" hit option (trinity drive).

Areas seems to be aligned with specific attributes (earth, wind, etc), and I *think* you can change them at specific points in an area. If you use complementary attacks, your attacks will be stronger (it seems).

The opening animation is fantastic, but there's a ton of reusing video in the in-game segments, so it seems like you're not seeing much new.

Music is good, but seems not to be super-varied.

You can speed up the gaps between party attacks of certain members by making them like you more. I think you improve this gauge by giving them stuff (bribery!).

Monster variety is pretty slim, and the world wandering is pretty lame. If you want to run, you have to go into "express" mode, where your sphere of sight is very small, and any monsters/treasure chests outside it are invisible until you're right on them. This leads to missing chests and ambush (back attack!) attacks from monsters. If you put it in the more visible mode, you walk at a snail's pace, but can see more hidden stuff and usually surprise monsters and get first hit.

I was really excited to play this game when I saw the opening animation initially, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself to continue playing. Anyone finished it that can comment on if it gets better?
 
The general comments on Japanese boards and shopping sites seem to sum it up well: "I bought this game because I couldn't wait for DQ8, but I wish I hadn't bothered."
 
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