Tales of Vesperia - yep, finished the game too. Overall I wasn't amazed about it but it's still a pretty solid RPG for the 360 and the best one among a bunch of medicore-to-crap games.
SPOILAR TAG
I was really digging it until sometime into part 2, then the "heh? what the fuck plot" start kicking in and not even the lively cast could even save it. I think it was more of a lack of a solid villain besides the rarrIeatbabies and the humanitymustsuffer that exists in almost every average RPG. Abyss did kind of break that mold for a while at least which actually made the game better than Vesperia for the most part. Also, the lack of a Dist replacement hurt a lot. Yeager? His voice made him feel like a joke, but he kind of fails besides that. Speaking of characters, I felt the cast lacked a strong bond besides the usual we're friends and friends stick together stuff along with no real plot twist except that out of left field thing with Raven really being an Imperial Captain .. In fact, I was sort of expecting Flynn to put a Delita and become a bad guy or something (but really Yuri acts more of the Delita type while Flynn is the goodietoshoes that is Ramza, kind of makes sense). Totally don't see the yaoi overtones except maybe one scene. Niu, stop trying to make yaoi happen and ignoring the even more frequent yuri overtones between Rita and Estelle! >_> Really, the whole part of turning blastia into spirits and Entelexeia into spirits felt more of a rush job and an excuse to make a throwback to other tales games showing "here is how summon spirits were born! OMFG It's a ToP/ToS prequel!!1" Ugh, the ending was even worse. Here, have a slideshow of drawings from a 12 year old! That's it. No real relationship resolve between Yuri and Estelle (or Flynn in Niu's POV"), no real ending FMV or any sort of dialog. Lazy and lame and totally killed my thoughts of a replay at the moment.
Yuri: Really great main character for the first 70% of the game, then just sort of becomes the typical unsung hero who fights with his friends. He really got too sidetracked early on with looking for the aqua blastia for someone who really cared about his home. He really does pull off a believable lone wolf without looking like a jackass pretty well though. Gameplay wise, he's easily MVP with the sheer amounts of physical damage at a high rate. The game is much more breakable that any game in the series and it's hard to not break things with Yuri.
Repede: Badass dog. Really doesn't add much to the game besides being Yuri's partner and an extra PC. No real backstory, no real major cutscenes. He's a dog and acts like a dog......just fights with a ninja blade. It works. Gameplay wise, just an average attacker. It requires player interaction to make use of his hit-and-run tactics and fails as an AI. He needed more artes and some sort of gimmick besides stealing to warrant any real use (besides being a dog of course)
Estelle: I really liked that dress at the beginning of the game, also pink hair. Oh wait, her character? Usual healer architype with mysterious powers that threatens the world and makes the same jokes of her boobs not being big enough. I thought the swordgirl build would have made her a better attacker but she's far too slow to really make use of it. Also it felt kind of lame that she didn't get any more Pow Hammer skills. Those are always a fun arte to use. Other notes of her, she's probably the only character than can win via only using the defend command. The set of skills allow her to reflect damage back, heal TP, immune to guard break, and never die all while guarding is an hilarious gimmick, but too bad I couldn't really get people to hype it because ToV isn't turned based or something.
Karol: The party's scaredy brat. I never liked him from the beginning and not ever, except when he's on the blunt end of the jokes. I suppose he improves later in the game but I couldn't really begin to care. Gameplay wise he actually gets pretty good damage wise and the healing gets good if you can abuse Altered artes but his speed is horrible and you really can't do anything about it.
Rita: Little science bitch. She's funny when she acts like one and makes some great scenes owning Karol and Raven, but she just got too creepy with her Estelle obsession later in the game. Gameplay wise: "blahblahblah Tidal Wave!" repeat 1000 times until you're so sick of hit you want to smash the speakers out of your TV.
Raven: Not really so UOM despite what the game calls him. Very Captain Kish otherwise if that gives you an idea about him. The big plot twist with Raven was probably the only major one in the entire game and even then it only really amounted to a small part of the story. Pity, as there was some potential there. Gameplay wise, he's easily the LVP if it wasn't for Love Shot. Otherwise, his stats suck and his archery blows. Really sucks after the awesomeness of Natalia.
Judith: Easily the best character outside of Yuri. She knows that she's the game's fanservice character and shows it. Lots of it. Sort of reminds you of a loveable little slut. The whole mystery of his mission was probably one of the clever parts of the game and did a good job of hiding it from the non-Yuri people (Yuri is too smart for bitches). She's really fun to play as once she's learned all of the aerial related skills and there's some sense of achievement pulling off a crazy aerial combo. It's much more fluid in ToDr, but this comes pretty close.
Villains were terrible. Gauche and Droite get points for random pantyshots and Zagi falls under that special type of fail that never stops failing. Meh, I say.
However, the biggest piss on you moment of the game is the amount of missable stuff in the game. Here's just a list.
Estelle's overall best weapon (with a good skill!)
Judith's best weapon (which spans a 8 part sidequest that begins BEFORE you get Judith)
Several spells and artes, all of the advance type
Several costume titles (Yuri's True Knight one is okay missable one because Secret Missions are well documented)
Rare monster sidequest (which begins after you actually find a giant monster)
THE ENTIRE OPTIONAL DUNGEON, WHICH IS REQUIRED TO COMPLETE TO FIGHT THE CAMEO BATTLE AND MONSTER BOOK COMPLETION.
