When I watched trailers and such with battles in them, I always thought the flashing arrows were a bit distracting, but when I got the demo today with DQVIII, I found that they didn't bother me at all.

I found myself becoming annoyed with it stopping every time I opened the menu in the first part of the demo, but when I played the second part everything was so much smoother. I play FFXI, so the battle system was relatively easy for me to pick up. I'm more than satisfied with the new battle system.