Battles are turn-based, with your usual variety of melee attacks, abilities, and spells, but also had a dynamic which asked you to think about your positioning. You can change the place your characters are in on the battlefield into one of six neighboring positions, to avoid getting flanked on both sides, or to move closer to an enemy so a melee attack will actually work. While it wasn't necessary to think too much about it in the demo, its uses in more difficult battles are obvious, and adds a new mechanic to the JRPG formula, instead of just innovating on tropes.
Later in the demo I trudged through caves and defeated dozens of monsters, before finally meeting a final boss and, sadly, not being able to overcome them. It just so happened that a PR rep was telling me I was running out of time anyway, but that didn't help how salty I felt putting that controller down in defeat.
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