I was the first to give this game a 5/5 on this website. It's objectively not a perfect game, but it's still pretty amazing and quite unique and means a lot to me on a sentimental level.

Androu1 described the game really well, read his review if you want something more in-depth

I'll just say that between this, Lost Odyssey and Tales of Vesperia, it was pretty nice owning a 360 back in the late 2000s as a J-RPG fan.

Pretty great game, despite its flaws. Surprised it hasn't been ported to any other systems about a decade later still. The combat system is fairly unique, although it follows a "MMO combat" formula akin to, say, FF12. The twists here lay in the fact that there's no MP, instead there's "Kan", which comes in two flavors. Strenght and Attribute. The main difference is that Attribute Kan is used for wizardry and is envioremental (so enemy Wind Wizards have access to the same Wind Kan pool as you, for example), but both are generated by using regular attacks and both are required for special attacks. The other is a fairly unique stamina system, in which using up your stamina causes you to Overheat, boosting your damage but making you unable to move for a time after you are done attacking. Later on, you can "Chain" Overheat by switching character, which gives then a further damage boost, and can then also Chain Break by Overheating the second character and finishing with a special attack, which fully restores Stamina for both. As you can imagine, pulling off Chain Breaks is the main thing to shoot for during battle. The annoying thing is that the combat can feel somewhat clunky, and bosses can trigger special attacks that fuck up your chains completely, wasting Kan and Stamina. The AI can also be really fucking dumb, particularly Zephie who likes to get up in the face of enemies despite having no melee options of ANY kind. Some enemies are also a tad too resilient for my taste, making battles drag at times, but it's generally a fun abd fairly unique combat system. I think the main thing I would change is allowing the player to swap between each characters two weapon types (which have different skillsets) on the fly, but changing party members from the battle menu instead of the slower main menu would also be great.

Visually, the game is a mixed bag. The character models and designs are great, after the initial shock of their weird stylized anatomy. They really grew on me. I particularly love their faces. Enviorements however are nothing amazing, and sometimes the game is very slow to load the proper high resolution textures, despite me playing the game installed on the HDD. The cutscenes are all good looking although they're all FMVs and few and far between, plus they could use higher quality videos. Most of the story is presented by two character models standing next to each other talking, not unlike VNs or the Raidou Kuzunoha games, but that's not bad when the characters are the best looking thing. Certain attacks have some pretty cool looking cinematics going on, although I eish they could be skipped as they're a bit long, but due to how Kan works you don't really get to spam these attacks too much to make it an issue for me. The music is pretty good, but generally not memorable. The voice acting is generally great with only some spotty moments when generic NPCs speak, though the VAs are easily recognizably here, with the likes of Johny Yong Boshh and Yuri Lowenthal.

The story starts off relatively slow, as you're in this super relaxed village setting as the game introduces the protagonist, who is amnesiac. But things quickly start going. I really liked the story, and I found it engaging from the moment you leave the starting area. Actually, I didn't vibe too much with the early gameplay, but the story kept me going, I admit. The characters are pretty good, though for such a small party, most of the characters fall off to the sides as Juto and Zephie hog the spotlight. It's not an entirely bad thing though, as it makes sense for the story and the party members all have one side quest chains that deal more with their personal stories (aside from Zephie I think? But maybe I missed it). The villains are good, and the story actually manages to make a decently grey conflict in which both sides are doing what they truly believe is best, the main difference being that the antagonists go balls to the wall with an "end justifies the means" approach. I really liked that, though I wish it had been even greyer.

One last gripe however, is the final dungeon (and the only area really built like a dungeon actually) which is kinda garbage. It's just boring padding that makes the game's finale drag on. My favorite part of it is this section that plays like a tower defense mission, but it's terribly designed. You have to protect an area from slow-moving balls of energy that detonate upon reaching the area, but there's only one path and the balls can be one shot by any character in your party. In fact, I'm writing this part of the review as I wait for the part to be over (it runs on a timer), while the AI-controlled members of my party do all the work by camping the area to defend. It's pure useless padding. The fact that you have to do it 3 times for a total of around 15-20 minutes makes it even more fun. But at least it's painless, since it beats itself, anyway. The puzzles you have to do in the first part of the dungeon are much more annoying. At the same time, despite the padding in the gameplay, it also manages to feel slightly rushed story-wise, although the final boss and ending were great.

All in all, I really enjoyed the game, mostly due to its story but the gameplay turned out to be pretty fun despite taking a bit to get going.