I'm not quite sure if this is just "Odin Sphere Samurai Edition" or something more just yet. This is all I said about OM so far:
Seems to have more to the battle system than Odin Sphere, but it also still seems easy and a bit too repetitive, even for the genre. Yes, it's insanely, jaw-droppingly, HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT GORGEOUS (perhaps the best-looking 2D game ever made?), but I'm not sure how many people would really care about this game if it weren't for its visuals. I only played the first stage (which was just go right, go right, go right, kill enemies, go right, go right, tedious-but-easy boss fight, go left, go left go left [fight no enemies], go to the next stage), BUT things seemed to already get better with the second.
If the second stage had continued on the like first, I would have said "yup, Odin Sphere 2 no doubt," but the enemies started getting a little more varied and level paths started branching out more in stage two. The game seems to be all about collecting and forging new swords to use. You can equip three at once and switch between them; enough wear and tear makes them break, but they will slowly get repaired automatically, it seems. You have one attack button, and it can be used for a small variety of moves, like slashing, blocking, parrying projectiles, upward strikes, downward strikes in the air, slide attacks, dashing, that kind of thing. You've also got a super meter that can be filled up by touching little smoke clouds found around the stages or from dead enemies (are they supposed to be spirits?), and then you can make use of it for super attacks, which differ depending on which sword you have equipped. Changing swords at the right time also triggers the classic ninja-attack of the screen going dark and suddenly every enemy has been slashed multiple times by your new weapon. There's also random huts/rooms and townspeople around that you can get/buy food from to heal yourself.
I stopped pretty quickly into level two, but I was pleased to find an area (with a recommendation of being level 9) filled with a ton of ninjas that came at me hard and killed me pretty quickly, so perhaps there is some real challenge to be found!
There's two types of play styles. I went with the action-type and have no intention of using the other, so I'm not sure what the difference is. All of the dialogue seems to be fully-voiced, but just about everything on menus are in Kanji, so importers may not get everything out of the game. It seems pretty straight-forward once you get used to things, though.
