My japanese is quite limited, so I didn't get to go into any of the intricacies, but I played this today and tried out several of the special abilities. They are truly spectacular. There was one in particular I did where the main character releases the dragon from his shadow, then proceeds to ride it around and attack the guy. I genuinely smiled after I won, and Shu and his Dragon shadow give the thumbs-up. I'm in love with this game.
I don't particularly care for generic turn based battles, but the story from the little bits i've seen looks pretty decent. Who plays FF for the gameplay anyway.

The game is just gorgeous. It's hard to tell if some of the cutscenes are FMV or In-game, because they look exactly the same.

I can see that this will be more than just running around and random battles. Part of the demo was a flying/shooting stage that's set up much like Panzer Dragoon. I was the only person in my group to get past the shooting stage before the time ran out. (Tip: Use the missles!) I felt special