The first time i played that game, i hated it. Weird opening, no music on the character selection menu, cut scenes every time during the battle, only two button to play. That last point looked really awful for me, i was used to fighting games with a lot of buttons and special techniques you had to do something more to launch like in Street Fighter but in that game, any special attack is a button and a direction (a standard now) whereas jumping is not done by just a direction and the action depend of the distance with the opponent. I got quickly used to that system without combo or great depth but still interesting and even with shared capabilities characters stay very differents. It include that great idea of being more easily able to launch the best attacks when you have an almost empty life bar because it's also the super attack bar. Fights are dynamics just like an anime with the cutscene well integrated in the fight and not repetitive because angles are never the same (a feature i rarely saw even in modern games which often show the same identical scene everytime) . I also discovered the lore, much developed than most fighting game at the time, with very different characters with links between several others from before the events of the game : There is even an encyclopedia with entries of weapons, characters, techniques... every aspect of the characters. Their story mode is basically an anime series with title and preview of the next episode...err.. battle and there is really a story which unfold and which develop the motivations of each characters.
The characters are also very differents thanks to the multiverse concept of the story : There is a A metal hero, a old vampire looking like a little girl, a mage, a highschool girl with a sword and a guardian angel spirit and so on.
I learnt the opening was in reality stripped of its voice in the euro version, there are some bugs out there, the game has flaws but it's unique and i love how unique it is.