I believe that this forum is mainly for comparing Civilization with other Civ-like games.
Dan, please close this thread if you do not want this to become a console game forum!

Before such closure, I will offer my opinion though. :-P
Magic System - Troublesome, you need to get the magic from the monsters you fight. Each monster will have 1-3 different magic powers. Each turn in combat, you can fight or drain magic from monsters for future use.
Control - You walk around using your joypad, it's intuitive.
Story - Not much. Typical Japanese style role-playing game.
Game play - Awesome graphics everywhere. Not much game play though. You will probably enjoy the card games within.
NOTE: I have not played the game. Yet I have the Chinese walkthrough for this game. You can finish the game without walkthrough quite easily. But you will miss many secrets.
NOTE 2: I am a Chinese, not an Japanese.