I rented this game to try it out a couple of days ago and I have mixed feelings. I love the story line so far, and the battle system is really cool, but I do have one gripe.
Never in all the years that I have played RPGs have I played a game where you have to grind to kill the regular monsters in an area in which you are supposed to be, repeatedly. This isn't a case of me just being under leveled at one point, for the last three areas (I just got Viola in my party) I have had to run around an area and hope to goddess that I only get one or two of one of the monsters to fight at a time until I've leveled up a couple of times. If I get three of them, I'm a goner. I don't mind having to go back and grind a bit to kill a boss (in fact I've had to two that with every boss except the last one), but grinding to kill trash monsters seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Part of me thinks that maybe this is an example of a game going back to old school RPG difficulty level, but I've played some older games and not had this problem. I've played Chrono Trigger, FFIV and FFVI, and not had this issue. Granted I did play the PS remakes of them, were they made easier for the PS than they were on the original SNES? Am I just a wuss and a crappy RPG player or have other people had this experience and frustration with the PS3 version as well?
Despite my complaints though, I'll probably still go buy the game when I have the cash.