I think you are being a bit unfair. The animation was pretty good unless you were looking at certain frames. I mean, Noel looked good.
I figured Noel just instinctively felt like doing it because of the Saya influence. Both of them showed some of it there.
It could do with some more explanation, but most of these anime are made for fans of the series already. I am a bit concerned about it jumping right into CS, but otherwise it has plenty of time to flesh out everything that's going on. Remember, CT itself starts with Ragna fighting all these people and the player has no idea what's going on at first.
Yeah, it's more like they are not a video game now so they can use their "moves" however they like. And the fighting is more realistic. Getting stabbed by a sword once is usually all it takes, not 10 times with an HP bar.