Alright, now that I'm a couple of hours in I can give a little more info.
As far as the story goes, it's basically about your character, Rush Sykes, searching for his kidnapped sister Wanda Sykes...jk, her name is Irina. King David (pronounced dahv-EED for some reason...) and his troupe are willing to help. That seems to be it so far.
Ok so first thing's first, the stuff that irks me.
The Union Board. It's not hard to understand, it's just very confusing. Basically, you can have up to 5 people in your union. The thing is that there are different battle formations, each with its own pros and cons. So if you don't spend time trying out all the different combinations, you might not be getting the best group.
Next are the graphics. Now in my first post I said they were good...and they definitely are. Only thing is that, even after I installed the game to the hard drive, the battles still are kinda laggy and the textures still take a few seconds to load. Not a big deal, but it gets annoying after awhile.
Lastly, from the looks of it, there are no levels nor is there exp to gain. Or at least it doesn't show that you're gaining exp. Your stats just randomly go up after a battle.
Ok, now for the stuff I like.
From the looks of it, you don't really have to worry about getting gear for anyone but yourself. Even better, there is no armor, just accessories. So all you're worrying about is your main weapon and offhand, and accessories. That's it. You can upgrade your stuff in cities at the Workshop using components you gain from fighting, disassembling armor and weapons, or disassembling captured monsters (weird I know, I'm not 100% sure what the tearing apart captured monsters does for you besides giving you components).
Another nice thing is that you fast travel on the world map and in cities. So basically there's no more treks across landscapes, you just open the world map and go where you want to go instantly. Even in cities you can choose a part of the city to go and it just takes you there, it even tells you what important places are in what part of the city, so no more aimlessly wandering around looking for the weapon shop, just point and click.
I have to say it again, the battles are really fun. There are so many people on the field, you would wonder how you could possibly lose. At the moment, I have a party of 9, 3 groups of 3, it's crazy. However, sometimes you have to fight like 5 groups of 3, so it gets intense. Your union shares HP, so rather than an enemy hitting one of your characters for set damage, the damage is subtracted from your union HP pool, so if your union has an HP of 900, and each character has like 300, and the enemy hits you for 500 or something, all of your characters are still alive because they are sharing HP. An interesting battle design, I guess it works.
Another cool thing about the battles is the fact that, even though it's time based, you're characters are still in 'battle' when it isn't there turn. So, while you're deciding on what one union should do, you can see the other unions fighting a stalemate, instead of just standing there. They aren't doing any damage to the enemy and vice versa. It's just fun to see.
RAGDOLL!!! For whatever reason, they decided to add ragdoll effects to the battles. When you defeat an enemy, instead of a preset death sequence, they slump over and fall to the ground. Not sure why they included this feature, but it's definitely fun to watch. Hopefully when you get better spells and attacks, the enemy goes flying across the battlefield.
That's it for now. If I notice anything else worth mentioning, I'll update again.
