I bought this for original MSRP (yay me?), played a few rank matches, got stuck on Shinobu (like so many others before me), got disgusted by the inane overworld with its terrible collision detection and stupid mini-games, and almost sold it back.
Then I picked it up again recently, brute-forced my way through Shinobu, then after shaking out the hand-cramps, I breezed through a couple of less frustrating (and much more fun) rank matches. Then it really "clicked" for me that the game is a satire on the stupidity of open-world games, "game collectibles", and serious video game / anime stories in general.
Talk about niche market, though. Glad it sold enough for a sequel. Never could get into Killer 7, which was just way too obtuse and puzzling for me. Though I wish they would do a Wii version of Killer 7, which is basically a light gun shooter without the light gun. Because it also had some striking and stylish visuals.