The player customization is exactly what we wanted to hear -- you create a character to travel with the main party. That means we've still got a static main character and other party members, but you create your own self-image to travel with them. This is a fantastic move, if you ask us. Our reasoning is complicated, but if you're curious enough, we might type up a rant about it should it be requested. This character customization mechanism was actually used to create the main protagonist as well as over 1,000 NPCs.
Finally, gameplay. Level 5 indicates that, aside from the White Knight transformation, battles will play out similar to Rogue Galaxy. We've noticed a few subtle differences, though. Battles seem more organized in pacing, less "mash square and triangle" like RG often forced us to do. It was square and triangle, right? Been a while. What we really think was meant in this comparison was this: action-based RPG battles with seamless loads between battles and map-wandering. The crutch of a standard hard drive in the PS3 will help in shattering any sort of load times and we believe if anyone can pull it off, it should be Level 5. We'll keep you posted with more details as they arrive.