It's not all based on scores. I want a new game for the 360 to justify my purchasing of the console because those amazing high scoring games that are out on the 360 are all owned by other friends and if I wanted to play them, I"d just go to their house. Once I get the hardware I am more inclined to take a risk on a lower scoring game (obviously) but if I can't justify the purchase initially, I don't see a reason for buying it. I'm still pretty sure that Fable II or Banjo are going to be enough reasoning for me to get the 360 but I don't want to buy a system off of 60-70 rated games on metacritic. That wouldn't do me any good personally and it wouldn't raise my opinion of the 360 to where I think it should be.

So summarizing all of it, if I already bought the hardware, it's not a big deal to shell out 50-60 bucks on a mediocre game. But when I'm forking out money to buy a system and 2 average games, it will not only drain my paycheck but I would probably not give the 360 the chance that I should give it because I wouldn't be impressed by the games.

Gamespot gave Folklore a 7 and Disgaea 3 a 7.5.  I only watched about half of Folklore at a buddy's place, but I've played through a good bit of Disgaea 3 on my roomie's new PS3, and I think the game is definitely better than a 7.5

I've basically come to accept that unless the game is called "Final Fantasy", western reviewers give JRPGs about 1 to 1.5 points in score less than I would give the same game. I've got some other shit to finish, and then I'm going to tackle ToV and IU.  I think I might play through IU first. 

Oh... and DmeisterJ, I beat Final Fantasy 12 in about 25 hours my first playthrough just cause I wanted to get through it and wasn't really enjoying the combat or the story.  I'll eat my hat if "15 hours" is the entirety of IU, cause you and I both know it isn't, especially when you throw in Tri-Ace's famous bonus dungeons.