I played the first 30 minutes of this game today.

I've never been more sickened by a main character in an RPG before.  Emil is quite possibly the single most pathetic character I've ever seen.  Evidently Bandai Namco decided that rather than write a plot that gives real character development that they'd just have the main character start out as a spineless wonder and then become not-spineless later and call it character development. 

Also... does anyone else think that having half a dozen flash backs to a scene we just saw 5 minutes ago is a bit... idiotic? 

The only thing I've ever seen with more flashbacks in the span of a few minutes was this episode of Clerks:

Well thanks to everyone that has apparently beaten the game 10 times for helping me with my problem. not

What I lose if I start the game without finishing ToS?

You don't 'lose' anything. The game gives you a random item set, items which are pretty common. I got extra gald.

So I dont need to finish ToS first?

@bolded:

Maybe this is a Namco thing because in Eternal Sonata they did the exact same thing.  Some chick was having a conversation with her lover, conversation ends and 3 minutes later she dies.  During her much drawn out death it keeps flashing back to the conversation I saw not even 5 minutes ago.  Does Bandai think I'm retarded and can't remember something that happenned so recently?  I spent the whole time thinking "y'know alluding to this shit woulda worked fine, how dumb do you think I am that I need to see the same scene again?".  Drove me crazy

@Claude

I think the Synch ratio gives you an idea how likely it is that any given monster will join in with you when you do your team attack thingy.  As to your other questions I'm afraid I can't help, I don't remember which food does what.

I'm pretty sure the elemental wheel determines others joining in on unisons.

Monster synch abilities are the only thing in the game referred to as "synch" so that stat has to refer to those, especially since only monsters have the stat to begin with.

Okay, so right after Claude gave me the info to make pacts with monsters, the game got easier to make them join your ranks. Is anyone maxing the levels of the base forms of the monsters (the ones that usually get to Lv25) before evolving them? It's a good idea to do so, since they get their extra skills and such and then carry on their 20% of their stats when evolving. I am leveling the monsters out evenly like how I do it on my Pokemon games. Which recipe do you get that Free Forms and Ghost specie monsters will enjoy eating (for food)? I got 5 monsters that need to be fed, but they don't like the four recipes I have (I'm only on the 3rd Chapter, since I'm taking my time leveling my monsters up).

EDIT: OH YEAH, a lot of these monsters have the same attack names that the monsters have on Final Fantasy XI. Like, the Leeches have Sand Breath, and the Bear has Power Attack (the Beetles in FFXI have that attack, and you can learn that as a Blue Mage, so I have that).

EDIT 2: Emil and Marta are both at Lv43 on my game, and I'm grinding with my monsters' levels right now. I got some of them evolved. I maxed out some monsters whose base level is maxed out at Lv25, so those ones are evolved. I'm still on Chapter 3, though, so I'm REALLY taking my time now. If you max out your monsters' levels, their stats are slightly higher than evolving them earlier on. Plus they get more skills and artes, so I think it's good to max out your monsters before evolving them.

Did I kill the thread or something? No one has been posting anything lately on here...

I need some help. I sent Soriku a message regarding the Attack Artes that monsters learn while leveling up. To my surprise, after a monster evolves, it DOES NOT keep it's learned Attack Artes that it gained at an earlier stage, but only the Magic Artes that you taught the monster via Tomes. Why is it that Tales Namco did not let the monsters accumulate their move pool from the earlier forms they had? Would it make the monsters too powerful?

Then with the Grade Shop after you complete the game, there's a purchase to keep all your learned Artes. I'm guessing that's just for Emil and Marta, so your monsters cannot keep their learned Attack Artes after evolving on a second play through...