@disolitude:
As with the best of its kind, you can gladly just skip all the dialogue/cutscenes in the game. The only things you actually have to sit through is Stewart's talk for the amount of time it takes a level to load. Now granted the exploration aspect is much lower than Igavania, but I cut my eye-teeth on Simon's Quest and it doesn't bother me much.
I would also argue that 3-D action titles haven't advanced THAT much since Lament of Innocence's release, at least not mechanically, so there's no real inflation of mechanics to take into account.
EDIT: Also you can turn on damage indicators in the extras menu, and it's great. Gives you a much better idea of what works best.
@makingmusic:
It's a slow burn. I didn't like the demo at all. It... well, it gets better in every single level, as well as every single chapter making a big leap. It's like FFXIII kind of, only you don't slog through twenty hours to get to the good shit, and the good shit just keeps ramping up and up and up and up. By the end it was doing things and showing me things like I hadn't seen anywhere else this year.
The combat gets better and deeper with every new combo you unlock. It really gets great.
