WOW, this was a nice game with a proper ending. Somebody fly to Japan and teach the Zelda team how to end a game.
Clocked-in 50 mulitplayer hours including grinding/treasure hunting/item creation experimentation.
Melee combat for the two main characters is emphasized, and battles with screen-filling attack spells have been de-emphasized. Do-everything mages like Genis and Raine have taken a backseat, as I've assigned monsters to perform the healing and attack magick functions, with the added benefit that they're much better melee combatants than Raine and Genis ever were. The monsters are cooler than I expected, they have a variety of awesome/useful abilities, and they can be tailored to be very effective in battle (sometimes too effective), depending on how one manages all their aspects. Monster designs are generally pleasant and/or cute, and some evolutions are badass and make you go "I WANT THAT IN MY PARTY."
The dungeons and save points are much better paced than in ToS. The story is better integrated with the dungeons/boss progression, improving the maintenance of freshness, preventing the overly predictable 1990s game design of "you'll definitely fight this elemental boss at this elemental temple" found in Zelda and ToS where the story disappears and the dungeon roaming drags on until the temples are scratched off the checklist. The price for all this is geographic restrictions, no overworld, and increased linearity. No overworld is no big deal since grinding with unidentified random enemies is a waste of time. The enemy avatars in dungeons respawn on a regular basis, providing adequate encounters for grinding, as well as semi-predictable locations to revisit to befriend monsters.
There's a good balance between revisited dungeons and completely new areas. I think they did a great job tying the new story infrastructure back with the previous geography, history, and characters from the previous game, as well as some references to the "future" of the series (ToP).
I think it has the finest combat in all the series (I hope they build off this in the next game) and doesn't need much explaination. A lot of the convoluted "T versus S" alignment crap from the last game was thrown out. Many options/nuances have been reworked to make a more streamlined product. You simply learn all the techs/artes/skills you can, and I've utilized all 12 controller shortcuts. Boy hero is focused on high-damage sword combos, while Girl hero was specifically designed for combo support with some extensive base combos of her own, in addition to healing duties. In other words, awesome teamwork by design (we got a +13 grade on one of the latter boss fights).
3-4 person multiplayer is not advisable until the near-END of the game, because the playable roster of extra characters changes throughout the story (many extras, or sometimes none). Cameo characters cannot take the Player-1 slot, and monsters are not playable.
When all is said and done, this game is an incredible 2-player co-op adventure that a single-player reviewer will not realize.