Mine were transferred as well but the game keeps giving me the shaft...

Tifa is the Ex-Death of the Warriors of Cosmos. She's been a pain to go through story mode with the AP rule. Not to mention her uber optional mook fight against a level 18 Ex-Death when she's barely level 10 is a pain in the ass...

Tried out party mode in Quick Battle and must say its is pretty smurfing awesome. Especially since you're whole party gets levels but you only switch out a character when they are finally defeated... Meaning I've been raising levels for the new characters by just using Kain to rape all the opponents. The new Rule system is also pretty awesome. EX-Centric rules means that EX-core will automatically fill up your gauge and it depletes incredibly slowly... I'm sure every Cloud and Gabranth player will insist on using these rules.

Assist rules is similar with the assist gauge filling up almost everytime you land an attack, BRV Centric makes the amount of BRV you earn from stage bravery and attacks really high making for excellent quick battles. In party mode you also get to assign job classes to characters that affect their abilites in combat. There is a bunch of variety for combat now.