I will definitely be getting the game when it comes out in the US. I still have my copy of WKC1 and will be trading it in towards the second. I thought this game was brilliant in a lot of ways. It did something different than what most are used to seeing. Reviews on it were overly harsh over a slightly sluggish battle system.
Basically the MAIN gripe everyone had with the first was the fact the ATB-ish bar loaded slowly. Yet they forget it is NOT an Action RPG, but a turnbased one at heart. It just made it so u can move around while attacking and stuff. It's Battle Ring actually moved relatively fast in comparison to ATB bars in the old FF games. Also it's speed was effected by Armor and Weapon's equiped. Lighter armor and weapons meant much faster attack speeds, IE:Cloth clothing and a bow was the quickest.
The other big gripe was the fact enemies could hit you in technical "short range" from a pretty far distance, but the same could not be said for you. This I totally understand and was an annoyance. The same issue was said of FFXI and XII.
The game had so much more to offer beyond these SMALL issues. The story was actually pretty good and interesting if not short. It allowed you to customize and make your own cool combos and even name them, LOVE THAT! All character armor was visible. Plenty of synthesizing and looting to get new stuff. And then there is the MMO/Monster Hunter style online that was genius. Plugged in over 200hrs into the game because of it.