Trust me, skip ES. It's awful. That's how I feel. I wanted to like it. It is not representative AT ALL of Vesperia. I thought it was an insult to me, as a fan of the genre, quite frankly. If ES was my first JRPG, I'd hate them all.

As for judging a jrpg by a demo, that's silly. If you've never played Vesperia, or Abyss, or Symphonia, then A. You've missed out on great games, and B. You don't know what you're talking about, and you've just conjured up some way to marginalize the games in your head. The demo isn't indicative of the game, and Eternal Sonata is on an entirely different wavelength than Vesperia, especially in the battle systems.

If you want to spend 20 bucks to find out what ToV is like, then buy Tales of Symphonia or Tales of the Abyss. Especially if your younger and just being introduced to jrpgs. It's like a less in depth version of Vesperia, which is without a doubt the best jrpg released on a home console this generation besides arguably FES, I don't care what your tastes are like.

You can do what I suggest, and enjoy yourself, or do something different, and screw yourself over. That's just how it is.

If you hate Anime, hate jrpgs, and hate any game that has been released in the last 2 years, odds are you'll STILL probably like Vesperia. Ask anybody who ever played it.

IMHO.

In fact, if you wanted me to recommend a jrpg on this generation of consoles, I wouldn't be able to do it, if Vesperia exists. However, don't take that to mean that standards have been lowered because Vesperia exists. I would also rank Vesperia as the 3rd best jrpg on the Playstation 2, were it on that console, above Abyss, FES, Symphonia, and a slew of other games. I can give you my full PS3 jrpg ranking list, if you request it. This isn't something I've just made up. I've thought it over previously and made an encompassing list of how I would rank every PS3 jrpg I've played, from FFXII, to Growlanser Generations. Vesperia marks very highly on that list, and it ranks in the top 20 jrpgs that I've ever played on any console.

Saying that it's "good for a new jrpg" is a gross understatment. It's the best Tales game I've played, and it's the best Tales game yet released, imho. I'm not the only one who shares that opinion, either. Go check out some user reviews and surf the forums over at Gamefaqs. See what the fans think about it. It's already a cult classic. The casual core gamers just don't know it yet.

Eternal Sonata is generic jrpg lite. I know that sounds trollish and arrogant, but good lord you have no idea the ire that game truely built up in me after how much I'd hyped myself up for it. It has no character development, and no depth in its battle system. Its such a joke to compare it to ToV, which is on the opposite end of the spectrum, where it's actually a little too complicated. ToV's endgame on playthrough 1 took me longer to complete than me beating ES twice. Me giving that game a review would not be nice.

Blue Dragon at my local EBGames/GameStop is $20 new. So I might get that. I heard that Enchanted Arms was horrible. The battle system was okay but the story was cookie cutter, the characters were not all that important. And they said you run into random battles way to often. I'm just going to skip that game and move on to others. That's exactly why I didn't list it in the JRPG's I want

@ZenfoldorVGI

Eternal Sonata looks exactly like Tales of Vesperia. I liked Eternal Sonata. This is coming from a gamer that rarely plays RPG's in general. I haven't touched a next-gen RPG yet. I have played Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon for a brief period but didn't get the chance to dive straight into those games like I wanted to.

Lost Odyssey was awesome, but I couldn't decide whether I should use a strategy guide or not. Because for some reason I like to collect everything on my first playthrough. That's just the way I am with RPG's. The only true RPG I enjoyed was Final Fantasy X on the PS2. I'm looking for a RPG that take my mind off that game. 

I never played a Tales game, so this is probably why I made a thread and kinda made a awful talk about Tales of Vesperia, because everything about the game is new to me. It looks entertaining. I watched some more gameplay videos of it and enjoyed it. I'm going to give the demo a second go and see if it is for me. 

Today is the day I buy a RPG. I want either a strategy/RPG or a strategy game in general. Because I'm trying to get into that genre now. Jeanne D'Arc for the PSP looks mighty awesome and so does Advance Wars on the DS.

But I might just pick up Blue Dragon today and play through it, because its only $20. But I will in the mean time decide between Infinite Undiscovery and Tales of Vesperia, which one I should get.

But to be honest I'm leaning more to Tales of Vesperia than anything :)

They're nothing like each other, aside from being in the same genre, and having something to do with anime.

If you like Eternal Sonata, you don't know what you're missing. ToV is gonna blow you away. I wish there was some way I could bet some money on that outcome, lol. I've recommended the game to about 50 people, and every one of them that actually played the game raved about it.

There's a PS3 fan on this forum that hates everything about the 360, and every game ever to be released on it. I won't say his name outside of a PM because I fear moderation. He says the game was "pretty good." That's the best praise you can get. It's like Nintendo telling Sony that LBP looks good. It's freakin' unpresidented.

Get Vesperia. It's made of fun and sex. I'm slick, watch this fresh for you:

Edit: I can't believe the comments stopped after I posted that, lol. It's awesome! Praise be to Zenfoldor(I cut the bottom half of that photo off for decency's sake)! She's the mage from Tales of Vesperia, btw, just drawn by a different artist.

Oooohhh, now i have to buy a 360! /sarcasm

I'd appreciate it if you didn't make fun of me or my posts.

Not really. If you like JRPGs you do. Why not just mooch off your friend's 360? All you really need to do is rent the game yourself.

 Yeah, i plan on picking up the arcade version of the X360 soonner or later, since its now finally in my range of "buyable" i see no reason not to fork up 200 bux for some good JRPG gaming, that is of course until WKC comes out aswell as versus XIII, until then though wouldnt mind playing Tales of Vesperia and infiniti undiscovery. :D

 i wasnt making fun, truth be told friend...i was half serious...the Arcade model of the X360 is looking more and more eyeplease'n to me since i really need some next gen JRPG gaming and i need it NOW! im getting tired of waiting for them on PS3, i still will of course but wanna be playin some kind of JRPG in the mean time get my drift buddy?

Awesome bro, there are some great games on the console. I just didn't want it thought that I would say a game is good just because it was or wasn't on a certain console.