I ended up getting it (found it new for $23) and I've played through Momohime's story on normal (easy) with a good start on Kisuke's on the harder difficulty. I gotta say I really love the game. I can see why some would say it's repetitive but its so much fun I don't care. You are getting new blades all the time so if nothing else there's constantly new abilities to try out. You're constantly leveling. The grind that I hate so much is taken out of the RPG that I'm consistently falling for. I don't think the backtracking is as bad as people make it seem. Occasionally you'll have to traverse maybe 5-8 screens, each screen only takes 10 sec to run through, you'll see some enemies on 1 in 3 screens I'd say. It would be nice if the story was more accessible to a western audience but I think part of it's charm are it's mysteries. (Although Odin Sphere seemed alright in that area)
