Good! Manual links! Now we should truly be able to get a feel of how we control the entire party -through- Noctis. This makes me think a bit of Radiata Stories actually, wherein you used the main character directly in battle, but could use various formations for hugely different effects called...well, links. I'm not expecting anything as wacky as Radiata, but I'm hoping it provides a similar level of control.

P.S. Radiata's ending sucked, glad to see a proper team and budget take this idea up.