Is this supposed to be any good?

I'm playing through Tales of the Abyss on 3DS right now and digging that. I was kinda meh on Vesperia and Symphonia though..

edit: also, the sooner this comes out, the sooner (hopefully) Xillia comes out.. which looks amazing!

Word from people who've played the Japanese version seems to be that it's pretty good.  
 
Personally I really hate how it clearly looks like a Wii game they put little effort into porting to the PS3, everything just looks so bland and flat. Combat still looks like fun and fast-paced Tales stuff which is what I really enjoy most of the games.
 
And I'm sure we'll get Xillia in 5 or so years :P

The art looks terrible, that alone is making me not pick it up. I'm sort of a fan of the Tales game, mostly Vesperia. Dunno if this is any good. It looks like JRPG number 67979799 to me, but what do I know?

The combat is a pretty big step down from Vesperia. They focused on making it flashy and as a result, failed to keep the depth that Vesperia brought to the series. You can beat the game and do huge combos by just mashing the buttons with your palm. However, they did introduce a new dodging mechanic that is pretty awesome.

The art style and story are both apparently a lot more childish and cheesy than anything in the series before...so yeah. Don't know how that was possible, but by all accounts they've managed to pull that miracle off.

It's gonna be the first localized Tales game that I don't pick up. That has more to do with my growing distaste of the genre but it doesn't help that the game doesn't seem like anything special.

 You can beat the game and do huge combos by just mashing the buttons with your palm. 

Namco likes to use as little advertising as possible and to release Tales titles around other major titles. Never makes sense to me.

I'm getting my copy soon, and honestly, from the demo, I like the battle system. Game looks okay to me to, looks like a cleaned up Wii game, which is fine with me.

have you guys played it yet? hows the story?