Just need a few more days to beat LO and I'll be ready for ToV

Anyway, here's some cool stuff:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20004

Critical concensus report talking bout how good the game is:

While many modern RPGs are criticized for their outdated gameplay and reliance on genre clichés, reviews claim that Tales of Vesperia manages to sidestep both complaints with interesting characters and a satisfying, innovative battle system. Critics describe the title as a worthwhile purchase for Xbox 360 owners in search of a quality RPG experience.



There are 4 free DLC's up for ToV right now, compliments of Namco-Bandai:

Free Gel Set
- Contains Apple Gel, Pineapple Gel and Orange Gel

Trial Skill Pack: Estelle
- Estelle will learn, DEFEND, RESIST, RECOVER, ITEM THROWER, BACKSTEP, and EXP SHARE

Trial Skill Pack: Yuri
- Yuri will learn, STRENGTH, VITALITY, RECOVER, ITEM THROWER, BACKSTEP, and EXP SHARE

Trial Synthesis Kit
- A pack with syntehsis material. That is a trial package.(Medical Herb, Soul Grass, Gel Base, Magic Resin) x 10

Get em while they're hot.

http://www.gamersplatform.com/2008/08/27/4-free-dlc-for-tales-of-vesperia/

I got the game today and played for a couple of hours, it took me a while to get the hang of the controls and i still think that there is more to master. Oh well, i need my sleep.

Best JRPG on the 360 so far. very enjoyable.

I'm still waiting on my special edition to show up.  I decided last minute to order a premium, got it about an hour before it went out of stock online.  So in a few days hopefully I'll be able to fire it up for myself :D

Premium/CE's are atrociously hard to get a hold of, from what I hear. Hopefully you get yours soon!

Also, who is enjoying the animated parts of the game? Way better than CGI, as it adds a far more unique element to the game.

Just wait Stick. These games tend to grow on you, and when you're about 25 hours in, and the battles start getting deeper, you're gonna suddenly realize, "Hey, MAN I LOVE PLAYING THIS!"

It's like when you're high and you're really enjoying a certain song, or something, it's like that, except you're totally sober and want to write letters to the developers thanking them, lol.

That's my "Team Symphonia" experience, anyway. The games are like really fun 60 hour long animes with a really great game built in as the filler episodes.

Before it's over, you'll be shocked at how much non-filler content the story packs in, lol. Epic.

I died once, because I didn't realize how much damage he was doing to me by not blocking.

Spoilers to follow.......Lots of 'em:

The scene leading up to the boss fight was pretty awesome, I think. He has around 5,000HP, and one string of his attacks can easily take out 25% of your HP if not blocked. That was my issue - I wasn't blocking properly, which reduced the damage from his attacks.

At any rate, once I realized that the boss would take *gasp* actual strategy, I realized I couldn't go easy on him. I chained a ton of combos on him, and blocked about 100% of his attacks. I had to heal once in battle...About half way through, Estellise joins in as an NPC extra character, and at that point, he was a pushover.

Review stuff with spoilerish content.

The game itself is shaping up real nicely. Much better than Eternal Sonata. I'm getting MUCH better at chaining attacks, and defending. It's very complex...

Story>

Story is pretty good thus far. It's somewhat by the book for a JRPG, but it's fun...I'm about 2hrs in and it's shaping up pretty good by the 2nd town.

Encounter Links>

Oh man! It's like Blue Dragon's Encounter Ring on crack cocaine! After leaving the first major town, and getting to the overworld, your greeted with lots of monster/enemy parties in the overworld. If you initiate a monster battle, monsters have a second (or two) to join in on the fight - very similar to Earthbound. After about 10 minutes of grinding, I got stuck in a 3-party monster battle - there were about 14 monsters to fight vs. my 3 party members. It was INSANE! One of the most frenzied battles I've ever had to deal with. The payout from the battle was incredible though.

Sythesizing>

Haven't been able to synth anything yet, but I'm building up a nice inventory of items. It would *seem* (and can someone confirm this?) that your max combo in a battle may effect the loot drop rate. I attained a 11hit combo in the said encounter link battle - I got like 5-6 synth items and 2 regular items. I'm a sucker for systems like this (such as KH's system, Alchemy in Secret of Evermore, Lost Odyssey's Ring Assembling, and FFXII's system of obtaining rare/cool items from monsters as opposed to gil). In 2hrs I have around 50 items from about 10 different enemies. Most monsters have a regular and rare drop.

Combat>

Very deep. I'm a Tales newbie, but the combat is oh-so beefy. I've gone from barely stringing together a 3hit combo, to getting a max of 13 hits for 1,000 damage in about 2 hours. The LIMBs system (or whatever it is) works very well, and is easy to target and attack enemies. The combo progression works like: Normal Attacks>Basic Artes>Arcane Artes....And it would seem that as you level up, you may unlock new normal combos + the increased damage and combo output from new artes. I can see why and how you can get those insane 30hit combos later on in the game. Combat is NOT about button mashing. It's about as strategic as you can get - It's far more about timing, and stringing together a proper normal combo, and finishing with the proper artes for max damage.

Overall, the game is heads & shoulders above Eternal Sonata. I enjoyed Eternal Sonata (but admit it's sucky faults). ToV craps all over ES in virtually every way, except maybe for music - and even then ToV's musical score is good.

Right now, ToV is as good as Blue Dragon was for me (and that means it's very good).

Just wait. The game'll pick up, the battles will get very strategic and deep, and the characters will grow on you even more. At 2 hours in, if you are watching a Bond movie, you'd be in the middle of the beginning action scene, that ends with the opening credits and that Bond movies theme song.

Oh, here's something. You get a score at the end of each battle right? Sometimes it'll be negative, sometimes positive.

Well that is all added up(and subtracted) throughout the game, and when you beat it, you'll go to a "once a playthrough" store, when you can buy things for your next playthrough(with your score points), like the ability to keep all your skills, or level at 10 times the regular pace.

To max out your character, you'll need to play through about 3 times. If you wanna grind out score on your first playthrough, you can rack up 100 hours on it. However, you'll probably just want to move on with your newly bought uber skills for a second playthrough, so you can build a superscore as you tear through the game a second time.

That's a major reason these games are great purchases.

At least that's how it was in Symphonia.