Shining Force EXA turned away from the strategic turned based fighting that Shining Force usually does (I'm guessing, Shining Force EXA was the first one of the series that I played) and has slash and hack gameplay. It actually suffered from a bit of slow down on my PS2 when I would have over 20 monsters surrounding me, but it was still fun to completely decimate their numbers. You can play as the male character Toma and fight with one handed swords or heavy swords/hammers/spears, or as the female character Cecilia and use magic or crossbows. Both are fun to do. The only things I would complain about are the voice acting is not very good (the main male at least gets much better by the end), but thankfully you can turn it off except for the cut scenes, so that will eliminate about 90% of the voice acting. The other is that some of the locations get a bit monotonous (which is a let down considering the first area is beautiful).
On the other hand, these two issues are always popping up in Dynasty Warriors, so if she doesn't mind that (plus the anime look) then I heartily recommend Shining Force EXA. Oh, the equipment stats might be a bit mind boggling at first too.