Yeah Jude's not much of a lead -- just a kid who got lucky.
It's pretty fun to play as most of the characters, they function very differently and are pretty diverse.
I feel like the game's length is kinda hampering it, forcing drama and interactions and technically giving little exposure to the fancy world. And seriously, the dungeons suck... 3x of a very "samey" map then a dungeon that's just walking, climbing, and jumping. I liked Graces' world map more by comparison because they added Discoveries and tried to divert the appearances and make new paths... this is just sort of "world map chunks", they don't even have a goddamn river running through them or any real environmental markers.
And while the cast is more direct, it's odd but I just don't think they jive as well together as, say, the Symphonia cast or Vesperia one.