The gameplay is an improvement to Trigger for sure, but the story is really cliche and dumb most of the time. Also, Serge is terrible. I don't remember much. I remember it being super intuitive after you got used to the crazy amount of elements. The grid is basically plotting out all of your moves except for basic attacks iirc, each element taking up certain space and then appearing as an action depending on where you put them. It's just a lot to process. Stamina is regained by guarding pretty sure. There's a lot of stuff but it stays pretty stagnant. I'm not the most reliable source since I played it 4 or 5 years ago but I didn't have too many problems after the initial what the hell moment. EDIT: oh and each character/enemy has a color, which is like rock-paper-scissors but with more options.
