If you're banking on the strength of the story and the characters in a Level 5 game to make up for middling gameplay then you're making a sucker's bet. Honestly, I'll be genuinely surprised if this game doesn't feel like it was written by a 12-year old who's mother abandonment issues and lack of any sort of sex education dominate the choices used to fill out his disjointed narrative cobbled together from a mad-lib of random plot points.
Why you always gotta be so negative?
Yeaah. Dunno when Level 5 had a game with excellent characters...
Anyways:
+ Pretty good battle system, simple, but to the point
+ That score!!! Auuugh, great music~!
+ Background graphics
+ World Map graphics
+ Though they really only mentioned it for a minute of gameplay, I did like using magics to help that miserable guard or whatever. I smell some good sidequest potential
+ I miss high-fantasy games. D: So yay! May get it just on that
+/- The mascot. I dunno if I find his cockney accent and design to be darling or annoying.
- Character models are "meh". Higher poly or just... I dunno, they're really simple looking, look odd amongst the scenery which is near flawless. A bit more detail would have been swell anyways. I realize even Ghibli designs aren't too expansive, but if there was any time it wouldn't have hurt it'd have been on a videogame
- Boss "super attacks" don't stand out too well, but even when I do...
- ...the battle controls are kind of sticky. Dunno how crazy I am about running with the control stick then selecting options with the d-pad... (being an active-time battle system, I suspect running, stopping, and picking is a good suggestion).
- Story line is...? It sounds sweet enough (the bit with the dead mum), so I'm curious how involving the plot will be otherwise. But between Ghib/Lvl5? I expect creativity if nothing else.