The gamefaqs board on it has people posting friend codes constantly, so it looks pretty hopping.

Timing is different yeah, but it's different for every weapon. And a few weapons can't be chained into 3-hit combos (shooting with gunblades and the bazookas, from what I've found so far).

I've always played rangers since PSO but they are awful here... my force of the same level (a) does about 1.5X as much ranged damage (with the ability to multi-hit with charged spells and barta), and (b) does about 2X as much melee damage as the ranger (and equal melee damage as the hunter...) Forces are really overpowered, and it takes a lot less skill to do a force than it used to.

The big overall minus is poor controls compared to previous PS's. They screwed up BIG time by not letting you use the stylus (except to draw pixelated smiley faces and pick tactics for AI parties). Unlike previous PS, when you pull up the menu to do things like changing weapons or using items or non-palleted techniques, you're frozen and completely vulnerable. (Also for some BIZARRE reason, you can't cast spells out of the menu, you have to put it on your palette first.) So no changing weapons mid-fight, hard to use your menu to use -mates and -fluids... just significantly worse UI overall.

If they had allowed you to navigate through the menus with the stylus while you moved around to dodge with the D-pad, major problems would have been avoided.

Going to try multiplayer when I'm home tomorrow.