Glad you went with the black backgrounds. I think they work nicely in this situation by making the icons pop out more.

This was the best part of the game IMO. I really liked the execution of the skill trees. It felt like I was being rewarded for doing my homework and prioritizing the most optimal skills early in the game. I loved the freedom of choice. For instance, Elle was handling most of the healing duties just fine with her song, so I was able to prioritize learning AoE abilities on my other characters to clear trash faster (instead of healing skills). Once I grabbed Elle's AoE magic, I took her off song duty (except on the final boss), leveled Sieg's single-target heal, and just had him heal people up between fights. Rally is shockingly good for being so low on the skill tree btw. I popped that on Elle during the quizzer fight and just kept her in near-perpetual Aria mode. I chose my secondary jobs specifically because their AoE options seemed juicy while I was previewing the trees. Despite a few bugs here and there (Aria IV not working, Wind III costing 0 MP, occasional skill cancellations) I'd say this is one of the deepest skill systems in a traditional 2k3 game because it felt like I was having a major impact on my gameplay experience; most skill systems feel like they are on rails and offer only the illusion of choice. Nicely done.