Hehe, so I beat it.. sort of. You can get the "bad ending" incredibly early in the game I guess.
I have to say though, so far this game is really good. I almost want to say better than Dawn of Sorrow (once you get into it). The different subweapons and spells makes up for the lack of Soma's soul powers, and they really do a decent job of making the two characters work well together. It requires a bit of strategy too, as while you can have that second character there to do some extra damage, there are also areas where it's a bad idea, since any damage they take lowers your MP. In particular, the circus-themed painting is absolutely full of swinging pendulums and other such traps that make it much easier to just do solo.
I also like that they added a lot of digital voice to this - more than Dawn of Sorrow. Even some of the enemies have speech. Also nifty, I tried out boss rush mode - the first level features all bosses from Dawn of Sorrow! Neat!