Whoever said innovation equals disaster obviously hasn't played Wild Arms 4 yet.
Never will you find any role playing game with the same batlle system as this one. It works on a HEX system, where characters and enemies are randomly placed on seven (six outer, one core) hexagons. Spells affect the HEX themselves, and it allows the player to actually strategize every single move as the enemy AI is really great. Also, one commendable thing would be the fact that after every battle, all party member's HP is filled maximum. It might be strange at first, but it really is a wise tweak because eacha dn every enemy encounter is a challenging one,
As for the puzzles, its not the best part of the game but still is a good addition. A lot of trackbacking is to be done, and this might piss you off at times due to those challenging random encounters. However, you can have the option to stop these battles from occuring through "Breaking" a save point. Kudos to the writer and the technical developer of the game. It is obvious that this game is well-prepared. Although this might not be at par with the likes of FFX and Disgaea 2 - this is still a worthy addition to your collection.