The first few hours of this game are abysmal. They've probably forced the majority of players to turn this game off in complete disgust and never play it again. I honestly don't blame them. They’re that bad.

However, I saw just enough potential to keep pushing myself forward and you would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't try to do the same.

Once you get a proper party together you can finally see what the designers were trying to do when they made this game and it’s a heckovalottafun.

I had an absolute blast with this game. Has it been unfairly reviewed? No. Not by the professional reviewers, no. I'd say 3/5 or 6.5/10 scores are fair estimates of the quality. This game is not without its (many) flaws which have already been gone over in some detail by others.

However, if the game initially looked intriguing to you or if you like real time action RPGs in general than you should definitely consider renting this one.

Is it worth buying?
I wouldn't say that, at least not at full price.
I was seriously tempted to Keep It at the Gamefly discounted price, though. I probably would have if there weren't so many new games coming out right now as the game+ dungeon seemed like it would be a fun diversion.

It may not end up being your cup of tea and some of the gameplay design choices may turn you off (I almost threw my controller more than a few times and I’m sure I kept my wife up with my cursing while I was beating this last night), but it also may just surprise you. It sure surprised me. I suggest taking a chance on this one.

A last thought: I noticed a lot of reviewers seemed to really like the bear, but I really didn’t. No, did not like the bear at all.

I've seen many RPG's from the time of NES and on, and so far Square has rarely let me down, but this time they did. I have to say that this game is definitely weak.
One of the biggest issues is play control, everything has boiled down to mainly 2 buttons, A and B. Use them in the standard AAB, AAAB, etc. to pull off combos. While this works well in games like Dynasty Warriors, it doesnt here. The reason is, that in this game there are inventory screens, combo equip screens, and other characters to control all in REAL TIME! There is just simply too much here to manage efficiently, ESPECIALLY in big boss fights.
For example:
In the first part of the game you are being chased up stairs by an Ogre, you need to unsheath your sword, destroy barriers or men, sheath it again just to "examine" a treasure chest then press "A" open it, grab the item and keep running, because you cant kill the Ogre, you can only run from him. There are explosive barrels placed that your party member can shoot, but in order to do that you have to hold RB then X to select that character then hit X again to select that characters special, then AIM character to shoot at the barrel to blow it up. AGAIN all while being chased in real time. Sound like a lot... it IS!
The game further goes into a HUGE pet peve of mine, voice acting. In this day and age ALL RPG's should be voice acted, theres no reason not too, the games are now on DVD's and there's plenty of room. What makes this game even worse is that there IS English voice acting in the cut scenes but then subtitles for the rest of the game. HOWEVER, the Japanese version is FULL voice acting. Which means Square cut corners. Thats just lazy in my book. Especially considering the price that games are now!

Overall:
There are too many menus and options to navigate in real time which makes this far more complicated then it should be in what is basically a hack and slash RPG. Rent it if you want, but this game is fair at best.