Hah, that part is worse when you pick Milla first Have fun controlling this character that you've never tried, while being all alone! You're close to getting my favorite party member to play as, though!

I figured! That's why I added you haha. I love your otome game collection.

I only use Free Run when I'm trying to run down the item cooldown count, so that probably doesn't help. It probably also doesn't help that I'm always kind of wishy-washy about outrunning the enemies, so they catch me in weird spots like doorway, next to walls, so on. I kind of like the idea of the overworld actually appearing in battles, but the execution... yeah, they probably needed more money/time.

I agree that the battle system is a lot of fun! Just unlocked the Intense difficulty, so I... probably should actually figure out the skill/equip/title system, since it's starting to look like my early game strategy of mashing some combination of B/A and gluing swords together randomly isn't working too well any longer. If I had one real, serious complaint, it's that the game throws way too many systems at you at the beginning of the game.

I like that idea. Raine was always my favorite in Symphonia, so having three Raines in one place sounds... amazing, actually. I kind of picture everyone else wandering off while the three of them nerd out, and it's super adorable.

By the way, the things you mentioned that were bad about the game way back when you were playing this game are pretty much true. I keep getting the camera stuck in the walls, the world is weirdly huge and empty, and the story-telling is a little... weird at times, but I'm still having a lot of fun. The characters are pretty great, for the most part! Sorey and Mikleo especially are probably my favorite childhood friends pair in Tales.

I genuinely liked Graces, and I thought the future arc was pretty good, but, uh, don't hesitate to look up a walkthrough for its dungeons. In fact, don't try to do them without one because they will destroy any good feelings you have towards the game.

Haha, I have no idea where the not came from. Probably just my brain not working in the morning. I am excited about eventually playing it! Edit: oh, "to" was autocorrected to "not". Guess that makes sense.

Every Tales game has something I hate in it. Abyss had the long loading times, Xillia had the weird split path thing, Vesperia... actually, I think I liked all of Vesperia, but Graces had a lot of problems too. As long as the characters are fun I'll forgive weird game design decisions or technical flaws. Even if the story isn't great, I still don't want to spoil it by looking up discussion threads, so I'll take your word for it!

Hah, Tales games are like Final Fantasy in that everyone's favorite (and least favorite) is different! Don't worry, I'm sure when it comes out in English you'll have a whole new group of (wrong) opinions!

For what it's worth, everything you've written about it so far has made me pretty excited not play it!

Hah, actually, official merchandise has already led me astray. I kept seeing keychains and stuff for Junko, and she was the second to get killed! I'll avoid shopping until I've finished the game anyway, since I'd probably get more out of it now than before I knew any of the characters' names.

Honestly, I have no idea how I managed to remain unspoiled about the game so far, but I figured I should probably hurry up and beat as much of it as I can before either I/someone else ruin plot twists.

Yessssss, physical copies! No memory card musical chairs!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm pretty much sold on getting the sequel now, I'll probably just wait a little bit to see if there's a localization/play the first one until I'm sick of the songs and then I'll pick it up.

It sold well enough on the PS3 for them to do a Vita release, so hopefully they'll localize the sequel too? I guess there's not too much text in these games, so importing wouldn't be too big a deal (just like Elite Beat Agents/Oeundan). If they only make an announcement for the PS3, I'll probably end up importing it anyway, since I've given up on rhythm games on the console. It'll probably be a while until I'm finished with this one, though, and hopefully they'll have made an announcement by then.

I was actually under the impression that the Project Diva games were import-only games, and I really didn't want to go through that hassle (although apparently the Vita is region-free, so at least there's that). I usually like handheld rhythm games, and I'm having fun so far, more than I was expecting. I only really listened to Vocaloid stuff when it was starting to get popular, so I was really impressed how some of the songs - mostly Luka's - sound almost human! I REALLY like World's End Dance Hall.

I got the Vita bundle that came with four downloadable games and a 4GB card, so that got tossed pretty quick, but I only picked up a 16GB one since I picked up the Vita on a whim and didn't expect to buy as much as I have for it. Now I'm debating getting the 64, and ugh, on one hand not doing the memory card shuffle would be great, but on the other hand... $115 for 64GB of memory is insane.