Wow, it's a lot of work then. Please don't feel that you have to pursue this in any way, I was just spouting thoughts.
That's a really great idea you have about making the battles turn based. Quite honestly, the battles should have used the same system they made for the B Ball Tactics mini game. Every time you touch an enemy or start a battle, it should go into a smaller turn based map. I think they released the source code for it too?
The cutscenes are that complex?