I've played it for a couple of hours and my initial impressions are mostly positive.
+ Clean look and mostly nice character designs.
+ Environments are a bit better than the boring boxy stuff in the Xillia games.
+ Fusing with seraphs is a cool mechanic.
+ The battle system seems more balanced than usual. Not as much mashing. You exploit elemental weaknesses, dodge to keep your SC high, switch out characters Marvel vs. Capcom style. It feels like you're constantly doing stuff. You need to do it too if you're playing on Hard.
+ I actually like the way they streamlined battle skills. Getting a ton of skills and leveling them up got old in the recent Tales games.
+ I like the way gear works too. Fusing it to get specific skills, filling up the skill board to activate bonuses. I might end up getting tired of all the management, but so far it's cool.
+ The game as a whole feels more polished than Xillia. Nice transitions into battles and cut-scenes. The camera is also more dynamic during those cut-scenes, it feels like it has a bit more flair to it.
+ The game rewards you more than ever for playing on Hard. You get better gear and some unique skills.
+- Towns seem pretty good so far, haven't seen anything really special yet though.
+- Protagonist is a too much of a goody two-shoes, but not as dull as Jude. Probably better than Lloyd too. Not as interesting or as charismatic as Yuri and Luke.
+- The other cast members are not great so far. Lacking a bit in terms of personality. Funny skits are therefore kind of infrequent. Thank god for Edna though, just got her and she seems great.
- Dungeons so far have consisted of sewer-like environments that are just basically corridors that connect to each other. Not creative at all.
- The camera can be terrible in relatively closed environments against big enemies. It can't zoom out properly. Sometimes you can't even see your character anymore. This is the result of doing away with arenas.
- The story is a straight-up good vs. evil save the world tale. There is a lot of talk about 'malevolence in people's hearts'. That kind of stuff. Might be too simplistic.