Even the most heart-warming characters can't make a game fun to play, though. That's where the breakneck pace of the new battle system comes in. Instead of just taking turns, you're vying for placement on an action bar. Whenever your character's icon reaches the end of the line, you can choose all sorts of attacks - charged-up special moves, items or one of two types of physical blows.
The first is straight-up damage. You hit the dragon or slime or whatever the thing in front of you may be. End of story, back to the end of the line. Or you can go for a break attack, which pushes the enemy further back on the action bar. If you can time your attacks right, you can plow through creatures before they even get a chance to hit back.
Trouble is, they can do the same stuff. Thus, the battles are furiously fast and require constant attention. Iris 2 is pretty easy on the whole, though, so don't expect many knock down, drag out fights. Still, being able to actually clear the room of enemies and random battles is a huge plus.