I have recently beat the game and will update this topic tomorrow when I get back from class with my opinions on the game and what not. Here's the intro video for the game:

Looking forward to it SF. I so want to play this, after the excellence that was Tales of the Abyss. Do you usually have friends that play with you?

Tales of Vesperia, in my opinion, is the best in the series. The main character is a raven haired swordsman named Yuri Lowell who has a deeper voice than many of the lead characters in the past, which is a nice change.

I'm not going to divulge much as I would prefer you play it to find out about the characters for yourself. I will say that the characters are the BEST in the series, and for the first time, there isn't a PC that I don't like. In ToS it was Genis, in ToA it was Anise. But in ToV, I like all the characters you can have. The development of the characters is very well done and you can see the changes within a lot of them and how they came to change. Interactions between the party members is fun and the skits are a joy, like usual. The plot itself was a nice one though a typical save the world kind of thing. Some might suspect who the main enemy is early on, though some may never figure it out until it happens.

Battle is the same as Tales of the Abyss, although now you have Burst Artes which are a weaker form of a Mystic Arte. You now have more Over Limit levels (up to 4) and you can distribute amongst party members, or you can use all of them yourself. You have to gradually build toward getting 4 Over Limits, so you don't get them right away. The skill system is kind of like FF9's but there are a f*ckton of more skills to learn, and there's no way you can equip almost all of them unless you do 10x EXP after a couple of playthroughs. Synthesis is a VERY important part of buying now, as you can create stronger weapons with more skills.

Music good, like usual. After it's all said and done, I must say that this game is the most well put together out of all of them and is the best. I don't know if I have to do extra stuff for a better ending, but the ending is the worst part of the game, imo. But Tales of the Abyss' ending scenes are hard to beat. So, that's a brief overview of the game and some of my opinion. If there's something you want to know about the game, ask.

BTW, character models are anime styled, cell-shaded characters. the environment is 3D and a lot of the environment is pretty, but not like Eternal Sonata (excellent maps).