El Cid- oh, there's mass media. Just, he was into cloaks and face masks BEFORE he was evil, and I doubt an ends-justifies-means warrior turned Sith Overlord grants many candid interviews anyway >.>
Personally I don't find that ToL suffers compared to other Tales games in customization; it tends to be very linear stuff in which you either get the good stuff or miss it, nothing worth bitching about.
The problem with the game was they kinda fucked up enemy design and made blocking common to the point of frustration; enemies tend to laugh off your attacks and wail on you quite a bit. Well, that and all the mages were almost but not quite interchangable and sucked for everything but healing (making Norma the best one by default), but that's because most Tales games don't have half the cast be a mage. The sucking thing of course is not exactly unique to ToL (here's looking at you, Genis)
All that said ToL isn't so bad as the Tales fandom makes it out. Grefter has said it before and said it better, but it does a great job of making the game and its story seem like it's actually just a chapter in the larger world, even if an important chapter to be sure. I also think the second half of the game is pretty neat for fluffy character stuff, but a lot of people don't get that far so I dunno how much of a factor that is.
