Such a shame about the missing intro. I was very confused when the game started without any cutscene and then when I got into battle I was Oldhar all of a sudden. Without an intro I didn't want to save or sacrifice any of the NPCs, so I only fought the demons which still ended up giving me the dark end.
I concur with bg that a short battle tutorial would have been cool as I only figured it out about halfway through my first battle. I did really enjoy the battle system.