Downloaded it today.

It is absolutely gorgeous.  The battle system is intuitive and strategic, and at the same time, extremely easy to abuse if you know what you're doing.

I will go into more detail about my gameplay experience if others would like to share in the glee of this wonderful, Sakuraba-scored game.

Anyone else get to play the demo?

It's going to be so hard to wait for the NA release in September... :\

Edit:
To play the demo, you'll need to make a Japanese XBox Live account.  Worry not, it's easy, and you can do it with all 360 hardware.  Tutorial is here:
http://www.gamersreports.com/article/19/

But the music...tell us about the music!

andrewfee from neogaf did a high quality recording and put it to http://sr-388.net/images/gaming/360/ete … ata/music/ (hope it won't kill his server, but considering the huge file sizes I guess he's prepared).

As a note beforehand (in case you don't read my news at the official site): In several interviews Sakuraba already stated the soundtrack doesn't use rock instruments at all to fit the game's "Chopin" theme (in the XBox magazine he even went so far to say that he had troubles writing the battle themes not being able to rely on the usually used drum kit and bass). According to these the soundtrack seem to be mostly focussed on strings with some additional reeds, pipes, choirs, piano and brasses here and there.

Ok, these are in m4a format... what do you use to play these?

I only got them to play in iTunes/Quicktime as they are in 192kHz (other players can playback mpeg4 audio, but apparently not at that frequency).

Oh well.  I have Media Player Classic with Quicktime Alternative; it doesn't seem interested in playing it.  I'll hold out for mp3s.  Thanks anway, Datschge.

...never mind.

-Joshua

Music reminds me of Baten Kaitos, a good thing for sure.

That's pretty disappointing, but not unexpected given the source material. Those are really the only thing that keeps me listening to Sakuraba nowadays. I'll probably still give it a listen, but I hope it's more interesting than his usual orchestral-styled array...

Doubtful. It is Sakuraba. I don't think that he's going to reinvent himself for this, unfortunately.

I like this, a lot.

And I usually don't like his music all that much.

-Joshua

Considering the source material, this music is a major disappointment. Despite having removed the drums and guitars, the battle music betrays its rock origins (and is painfully unoriginal, the main melody being a mishmash of other Sakuraba battle themes). The quieter music has its moments but there's nothing that separates it from his other generic orchestral attempts. I wish they had hired someone with classical training. I can't see this music and Chopin blending very well.

Sign me up.  That's by far my favorite work Sakuraba has ever done.

http://www.g4tv.com/pile_player.aspx?video_key=15874

Translation at the end of the video when the girl falls off the cliff:

"Don't kill yourself... JUST PRESS THE MUTE BUTTTTOOOOONNNN!!!"

*rolls eyes at the way this thread turned out*