Principally amongst them is the game's unique and quite innovative battle system. You can have up to four characters in your party at once, and each button on the PlayStation controller corresponds to one of them. The battle is strictly turn based, so your whole party attacks, then all the monsters, then your party again, and so forth. But within the individual turns you have a lot more freedom. You can target each character on a different monster like with other RPGs, but you can also try to do more interesting combo attacks on single monsters by timing your attacks correctly.
Some characters take quite awhile to wind up attacks, while others can hit almost instantly.
By timing your attacks so that all four characters hit at once, you can do extra combo damage as well as get a chance to pull off a special attack. Alternatively you could have a character hit a monster into the air, then time the other characters' attacks to hit the monster in the air for extra air juggle type damage. Finally, if a monster is guarding, you can try to attack both high and low with two characters to crush the guard. The possibilities aren't endless, but you do have a lot more options than in most other RPGs, and as a result the game's battle system feels a little like Street Fighter 2 but without losing the essence of RPG combat. The game's graphics are noteworthy as well.