It sounds a bit dreary until you factor in just how many interesting abilities you can pick up for your shadow. By mixing and matching different jobs, you can learn abilities that intertwine: take Sword's ability to attack all of the enemies in the front row, add Monk's skill to charge up your attacks for higher power. That's serious damage. Now that we've finished the game, we've seen the slate of abilities you can earn, and know they often play well together like this; there are also very few stupid or useless skills. In fact, picking and choosing which you want is the bigger issue (that's where the Combi skill - short for "combination"- comes in. It gives you more skill slots.)
That's what's going to drive your interest in this game - exploring a colorful, creative world (full of secrets) and raising your party's badass monster shadows up into a rank of powerful killing machines. The whole package is totally addictive, even though sometimes the battles can be a snooze. We can't wait to find out Microsoft's plans for a US release.
