Famitsu gave the game 8s and 9s so you cant really go with that. It also got an 8/10 from C&V UK

 Famitsu Blue Dragon; 9, 9, 9 & 10 for a total of 37/40

So, going by your argument that famitsu is a valid reviewer (its not), that means that Folklore is worse than BD. Keep in mind that BD recieved mostly average reviews, especially in the US. 

So, Folklore should end up below the 78% BD has on gamerankings - not what I'd call "pretty darn good"

 Well.. do you know any valid japanese reviewers?  We will have to wait a long while for Folklore which is why I cant figure out why CVG UK and EuroGamer reviewed a game that isnt going to be out till October in the US and Europe. 

Actually after reviewing this game again if you like it... you should get Lost Kingdoms and or Lost Kingdoms 2.... as the gameplay appears to be near identical since you map the folklore onto your main buttons. It looks pretty identical, however the story looks better.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=80402

Main complaints, basically a standard adventure, to linear, tedius, faires all do the same thing.

 dont most NPCs in RPGs do the same thing? plus with 100 different attacks for the characters that adds some interesting combos.

Actually that's what i mean by "The faries all do the same thing" they say that if it wasn't for the fact that you can only kill certain monsters with certain faries you wouldn't swap them since the attacks they give you are very similar to one another.  The 100 folks all pretty much fall into the same categories and do the same ethings. 

Lost kingdom was much the same way, though some attacks were stronger then the others and had some different effects, Folklore i'd hope ends up being the same. It's definitly a game i'll get since it looks just like Lost Kingdom.  Which was a fun game.  I imagine it won't be as hard since there won't be a 30 attack limit per stage. (Biggest difference was that the stages were seperated with a world map.)

For what it's worth Lost Kingdom and Lost Kingdom 2 got a 72 and 68 respectivly.  Lost Kingdom also had 100 differnt monsters you could collect.

Lost Kingdom 2 had 200.

The demo impressed the US and EU but not Japan. This is not a JRPG, not even close. I really like JRPG games and I don't like this demo at all.

So, game that does suit Japan tastes + low user base = Bomb. Simple as that.

the game isnt a total bust in Japan.. it still sells 1+k a week.

I agree with poster. The first couple of min. I hated because i had no idea whats going on but after I figured it out I liked it. I just hate that you have to read the story and not just that its hard to read the typings.

The American/European demo is 10 times better than the Japanese demo that they released before. I am much more excited about this game now.

The two boss fights were good, the game looks amazing and the locations of the new demo are much more impressive than the locations in the japanese demo.

Each character's demo is in an extremely different location. I just hope the game is decently long and I'll be very happy.

Definitely looking good and it went up on my list to the top 30 games I'm interested in this year.

Also, I can't believe how this is the same developer that made Genji. This is so much better and better looking even though it runs smoother (Genji ran horribly). Now I got to try Brave Story to see how Game Republic did with that game.