This is my first EO game, and it took me an hour or so to figure out what was going on and how everything works.  But now I'm 5-6 hours in, and I'm thoroughly hooked.  (I must admit, also, that I'm playing on Casual difficulty, because on Normal I was getting wiped out almost immediately and I didn't yet know how to properly strategize.)  Key thing is to make sure you talk to everybody in town, and to really get familiar with your menus.  I spent a good 2-3 hours playing the other day before I realized that while my party had been levelling up, I hadn't been assigning them new skills!

This is my first EO game, but from everything I've read it's apparently noticeably easier than the previous 3 - and that's on purpose.  Indeed, I'm actually playing it on Casual - just so that I don't get overwhelmed before I understand how to actually play the thing - and I've still wiped out a few times from not being careful.  That being said, I'm enjoying the hell out of it.  My ship has made it to the 2nd area (north of the starting area), and my party is around level 15 or so, and I'm definitely getting the hang of all the skills/bursts, and I'm more or less mowing everything down that's in front of me - which is still fun as hell.