Since I'm stuck here at work until much later this evening, I'm curious to hear some first impressions from people that already have the game in their hot, greasy hands. How does the battle system compare to Graces F? Are the characters less grating? I'm already planning on running from mailbox to Playstation when I get home (eat dick, lawn that really needs mowed), but feel free to help me build/temper my enthusiasm for when the work day is over.

well at least it sounds like u got urs waiting when u get home. mine is apparently still in transit from the shipping depot :(

I just wish I had money.

sssssssshhh... Giant Bomb might here you.

My attempt to inflate excitement has turned into a vessel of sadness. A vessel filled with sub-par postal services and struggling economy.

From what I remember of the JP edition: the characters are still dumb (it is a Tales game) the battle system has some improvements but some drawbacks. On the downside, they reinserted TP so you can't just blast your most powerful attacks as long as you have enough CC, and the two-dozen-weaknesses system is back to the traditional elemental weak/resist/absorb style, so once again you have to watch what your AI is doing closely so they're not fucking you over. On the plus side, the link system is pretty cool and allows you to do certain things MUCH easier.

A lot of the insane advanced systems of Graces F (which I loved) are either streamlined or nonexistent. There's no character title system giving you constant upgrades. The "titles" are now like an in-game achievement system that gives you grade, so if you know you're only gonna play it through once, you can basically ignore them. The shop upgrading system is REALLY cool -- all the generic material drops can be applied to whichever shop category you want, so if you wanted to just blaze straight ahead with weapons at the expense of everything else, it's fair game.

@oldenglishc: I here yah. I was actually quite surprised that when Ni No Kuni came out alot of people were up for that game. I just think the Tales games is one of those games that's stuck in a rut. If they probably renamed it to something else without Tales in it more people would be inclined to take a shot at it, but it would also alienate a bunch of the hardcore fans. Its pretty much the Final Fantasy dilemma.

@abara:

As far as the systems go, Graces F is far and away the best in the series. I'm kind of surprised to hear that are so many changes.

i actually think that the Tales series is better than what the FF series has become. i guess its just not a widely known game so its harder for it to build its fan base. if it actually got the same kind of media coverage that FF did, who knows it might really take off. but then again, that kind of fame might cause it to fail as well lol.

@i_stay_puft: Namco seems to be doing a better job of making sure the games get localized, so they might be getting a little less niche-ish. I think the last one sold relatively well.

I think the whole genre in general could use a little kick in the ass.

@wheady: I'm with you. The Tales games have always been more fun for me, too.

I feel like we're getting too many Tales games, to the point where I don't know whether what I'm getting is the newest, latest or just some remake or rerelease.

Franchise is practically annual now, it used to be a big deal for a Tales game to make it over here, now it feels really over saturated.

In Xillia 2, you unlock voiced dialog for the main character in the second play through.

Hmmm, I was going to wait on this, but after watching the release trailer on the front page I'm wondering: How much of the game is focused on nations at war and how long before the storyline devolves into "Save the world from ancient power"?

@starvinggamer: Going by previous games, probably right after "Meet the Protagonist".

@mikkaq: Part of that is because they're playing catch up now that they actually care about bringing these over. We should have gotten Xillia like 2 years ago.

thats the basic story in the tales games ive played (vesperia, graces f, abyss). at this point i know its coming so its not disappointing to me. Besides, most game stories are the same if u boil them down enough. Im sure it will still be entertaining but the real meat of a Tales game is the combat. At least for me.

@oldenglishc: Vesperia was pretty good about that IIRC. But man, there hasn't been an RPG like Suikoden II since Suikoden II. Suikoden V came close though.

@starvinggamer: I could punch Konami in the face for letting that franchise die. Hell, I even thought 3 and 4 were half-way decent.

Anyone else notice that in general, a large majority of western gamers have ignored the Tales games since Symphonia? That's not limited to this particular series though; JRPG's in general haven't been doing great for a while now over here. Largely due to the fact that they frequently make you feel like you're playing the same damn game over and over again.

you do? WTF was Namco thinking. The non voice acting is terrible....

Yeah, that seems like a terrible, terrible decision on Namco's part.

@starvinggamer said:

I'll take your prediction to even greater levels of specificity: Is the game about the heroes shutting off ancient magitech that humans are abusing for warlike purposes?

I would love to play this, but the more I think about it I remember how many Jrpgs are on my back log.

So, maybe once I finish Ni No Kuni......maybe.

I sure hope not. Something new would be nice.

I just played Graces F last year and really enjoyed it. I am not hankering for a new one quite yet. Plus I have Ni No kuni which I barely played.

I pre-ordered this and Graces f as soon as they were announced as coming over here, but never got around to playing Graces and I don't know if I will have time for this. I basically just wanted to order them to encourage Namco to keep bringing these over.

Vesperia is one of the few RPGs I have actually completed in the last decade, and I greatly enjoyed it. Damned adult responsibilities keep preventing me from getting into any new RPGs.

I see, I guess it's this and poor marketing that is leading to some confusion on my part. What game is supposed to be the proper follow-up to Tales of Vesperia anyway? Xillia or Graces?

Totally agree on Graces F, unlocking and upgrading titles was so damn addicting, and even though the weapon upgrading was often pretty obtuse and the dualizing system was unnecessarily complex, it was really fun to dig your way into them and steadily progress through all the entries. No weapon upgrading (although there is a variation on the cursed weapons from Symphonia that increase in power as you use them) no item synthesis.

I know that a few of the "mothership" titles in the Tales series were not done by the main studio (I believe Graces and Xillia are both Namco Tales Studio though) but for all I know there could be multiple teams within the studio creating some kind of IW/Treyarch alternation of styles. It's weird.

@mikkaq: Graces was originally released before Xillia, so... Graces, I guess? Depends what you mean by 'follow-up'. Just like Final Fantasy, these games are entirely disconnected from each other when it comes to their game worlds and stories.

@oldenglishc: Yup, I plan on using a completed save to start the game for that reason.

I guess by follow-up I meant more in terms of mechanics. Also I got confused cause I thought one was a "main" game and the other a spin-off. Guess they're both main entries.

Anyway I still have Tales of the Abyss to finish up on 3DS before I dive into another one.

Graces was originally a Wii game that was ported to the PS3 and it shows. Xillia is the better game

Don't you guys only have 3 release this gen and 4 total? That is really not a lot.

On topic, Xillia is great. The characters are great and Xillia 2 is better so look forward to that. Part of this resurgent is partly because of the success of Ni no Kuni. Before that, localizing jrpg for the west was not even a topic of discussion in japan after Vesperia and Lost Odyssey bombed.

I wish I had a PS3. I love the tales series so much.

While I'm excited for Xillia, I'm still hoping that one day, we'll finally get the PS3 version of Vesperia over here, too. Because My God, with the amount of additional content that's packed in there it's almost like an expansion.

They don't even have to localise the dialogue audio, just give me English subtitles. I'd even pay full price... Oh, Namco... the things I would do for Vesperia's PS3 version.

@yummylee: I agree with that. I put over 200 hours into Vesperia on the 360 and would gladly do so again on ps3 lol

I got the collector's edition of the game. I haven't played it yet (waiting until tomorrow to dive in.)

But the collector's edition comes in a big box. Inside this big box is a figure of the main female lead.

It only hit me now that I essentially paid forty extra dollars so I can have an anime girl figure.

Sometimes I really need to think before I buy shit.

We got 5 this gen and have like at least 10 total I think.

@bocam Cool that makes more sense then. I think Xillia would be more of the follow-up I'm looking for.

Let's see, theres:

• Tales of Vesperia
• Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World
• Tales of Graces F
• Tales of Xillia
• Tales of Xillia 2 next year

And there's also going to be a HD rerelease of both Symphonia and its sequel packaged together -- yay!! Now if only they'd do one for Legendia and Abyss, considering Legendia is still impossible to buy in any form over in Europe. We finally got Abyss over here on the 3DS, but I'd rather play it in HD on a home console.

So, we got five new Tales games across this generation. Six if you count Abyss for Europe. That's a lot of Tales anywhoo, no matter how you spin it.

I only played tales of Vesperia and it was fantastic. The characters were not lame, the combat was good and story had a surprisingly dark tone to it. Is Xillia anything like that or more of a cookie cutter JRP?

@yummylee: Legendia was... well, it wasn't all bad, but it's no tragedy for it to be out of reach, I'll just say.

Yeah, I've noticed that Legendia (along with Dawn of a New World) are the black sheep of the lot. Still, I've always wanted to try it out if only because I wanted more of Dat Cam Clarke. Gameplay does look really cramped and borderline claustrophobic, though, with it being restricted to a literal 2D plain.

Anywhoo if that theoretical HD packing of Legendia and Abyss were to exist, I'd primarily be in it for Abyss and would consider Legendia a bonus; a little something to finally sate my curiosity.

I have not played a JRPG since Last Story but I am really enjoying Xillia so far.

I have a real soft spot for the Tales series (Symphonia is one of my favorite games ever and I loved Vesperia) but I'm not sure if I can play through another 60 hour JRPG like this at this point in my life.

I ordered this last night. So stoked to play it. The last one I played was Tales of the Abyss on the 3DS, and while I didn't like it as much as I did Vesperia or Symphonia, it was definitely fun. I'm definitely ready to play one on a console again.

I'm enjoying it so far only a few hours in but i find the story more interesting so far than graces, which i found to have a cookie cutter story. Judging from the early goings the combat and title system won't be as deep or buttery smooth as graces tho. Even still it does some interesting things like the linking system and the level up system.

Speaking of which, why couldn't they give us an option for Japanese voice acting w/ English subtitles? I mean the work is already done right?

I agree with the story part but so far I like the (basics) of the battle system better, I felt kinda hobbled, especially at the beginning, from Graces with the limited number of moves you can do. That system is still kinda back here but the CP(?) regenerates faster and TP is back too. The linked system so far seems pretty cool, wonder if it gets any deeper. It's nice that they tell you the best partner to use when you select an enemy, cause at least at the beginning I couldn't tell when I'm supposed to use each character. While the title system isn't as deep in terms of what stats you upgrade I do like the orb upgrade system.

The materials to upgrade shops system is pretty cool but I'm wondering if there's some sort of crafting or other use for the materials. I find myself not using all of my more rare/higher point materials just in case they become useful for some other purpose later in the game.

I like Xillia's story better than Graces so far, the child prologue in Graces was especially annoying but imo the story for the rest of it didn't get much better.

Even if the work is already done it still costs money to license the voices to be used in overseas releases. As always, it's about money.

There are some subquests that require you to bring a particular material but they are very few and far between (and from what I remember, they're pretty much just "bring one of these to me." Spend away!

I'm liking what little I've played so far. Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned, but I think I'm more fond of this style of battle system compared to Graces' version of it (though I enjoyed that quite a bit as well). It's nice that free-run is useful again... and jumping! Totally on-board for this Linking mechanic too.

Anyone else playing on Hard? I used two apple gels just to survive the tutorial battle, and thought I had perhaps made a mistake. I got my shit together and it's evened out though.

I even liked the child version of Asbel way more than what he grew up into. He left his old character quirks behind and never bothered to develop new ones in the whole span of the game...