(No spoilers please) How is Tales of Zesty?

I read many rather negative comments about this upcoming game. I haven't played it (because it's not in NA yet) and I haven't watched anyone play it either... so I guess I'm pretty "not spoiled" (so please, no spoilers!).

Here are the things I read:

-Terrible cameras
-Heroine fiasco
-Inferior battle system

What is your opinion (for those who played it) about the game? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Should I be worried?

I still intend to buy this game on day 1 so my "money" doesn't hang in the balance.

Well here's some things I enjoyed about it
- Story was enjoyable
- Sorey and Mikleo's relationship
- The references to the other games
- The Lord of the Lands were an interesting element to the game
- It's actually pretty hard. Probably the most I ever died in my first playthrough of a Tales game

Spoiler:

I'd say what I didn't like about the game but that's way too many spoilers

Is it related to characters? Combat? Story?

Well, no need to elaborate. I'll forge my own opinion once it comes out.

I can't say much about the story or characters, cause I don't understand Japanese, but the gameplay's pretty solid. The combat is fun, especially if you were a fan of Graces' battle system. The fusion mechanic is really neat, even though it hinders multiplayer funtionality (though I don't think that's much of a loss, personally). The overworld is a huuuuuge step up from Graces' hallway overworld and Xillia's "let's take the same map and palette swap it for every region" overworld. The overworld's kinda empty, but I still consider it a huge improvement. Also I really liked how they made exploration more interactive again with map actions and stuff like that. There are actual puzzles again! Lastly, the soundtrack is phenomenal. Both Shiina and Sakuraba are in peak form, imo.

How long in ToZ?

How is exploration compared to previous Tales of Games?