I never fucked w/ the Tales series before this but I copped it on Live since I had 2 weeks to kill before school starts back. If you got $30 and some time to blow you need to play this.

This shit is a motherfucking beast.

The combat system is incredible. It's actually a lot more like a fighting game because you end up with an absolute truckload of moves you can do once you get to the meat of the story. Party AI leaves a little to be desired but its nothing that being a little mindful of your party's HP cant deal with.

The main character Yuri is pretty cool for a JRPG lead. YMMV with the rest of the main party. I like 5/7 of them. Only thing I dont like is that other than Yuri, for much of the game you're rotating party members as they come and go. So don't get too settled on one party.

The story aint winning any awards but its solid. They basically searching for what's basically a stolen moon rock that powers the fountain in Yuri's hometown. You will roll your eyes at how corny the main party gets at times though. It's excellently paced so you'll (or at least I) never feel like it was a chore and once the story opened up I never felt like putting it down.

It has towns!!! I never realized how towns were there for pacing purposes until FF13 didnt have them lol. And there's actually a lot of useful and interesting shit in them. Lots of sidequests too, but you'll miss a lot of them w/o an FAQ so I'd recommend saving those until the second playthrough (New Game+ ftw)

The world is pretty big and beautiful and it really shines once you get some real transportation (boat or airship).

<--- Big Baller World Order