I just picked up this game last night and I want to try it out (putting Star Ocean 4 on the back burner). I have just enough room on the HDD to install this since I still have The Last Remnant on it and I go back to that regularly.

If I install this game is it going to make a noticable difference or should I just play it from the disc?

Just play it from the disk.

How are the load times without an install?

There is almost no loading time.

So when it goes into a battle it isn't anything like Lost Odyssey where I needed to wait like 10 seconds before the battle started?

If so then I guess i'll just play it from the disc.

No It's nothing like Lost Odyssey's load time. Enjoy the game and make sure to listen to the opening theme, its catchy.

By the way. I figured that for some reason you would be the one to answer.

Of course. Everytime I load up a JRPG I make sure to watch the opening video and listen to the theme.

I have many opening themes memorized because of this. I even know the words to the Lunar opening theme by heart.

ToV has the shortest load times of any JRPG I've played on the 360, bar none. The very first battle of each time you play will be the longest, around 3-4 seconds. After that, every battle will be instantaneous. The screen will 'crack' and shatter revealing the battlefield, with absolutely no time other than the frames it takes for the screen to crack.

Otherwise, all loading will take in between 1-3 seconds for any scene in the game. From what I hear, installing reduces loading to (litterally) 0 - like playing an SNES or DS RPG.

Only load time problems I have had was trying to get into skits. About a 10th of them took about 10-15 seconds to load but it only seemed to appear when I loaded the game. Also have fun trying to skip through the opening I never was able to once...>_>