I'm hearing the story is somehow quite good, and I know that can't be true but release day hype has me almost believing it.
There's one character who I don't like very much because he's completely dumb and it kind of adds up over time. Additionally, I heard that in the English version, Elise and Tipo fare worse.
But overall, I... kinda like this cast, and Tipo's my second-favourite Tales mascot character. It's one of the better narratives in the series. It's just that the game itself suffers because it's kind of dictated by the narrative and pacing of it (because of the push for better cinematic / better directed cutscenes in Tales). So it exists more to tell a story as opposed to letting the player explore the world a little more. That's partially why the fields are so barren, and why the sidequests are nothing more than fetch quests with some character quests (which can be missable, btw), sprinkled in.
A lot of the stuff like Tales staples (cameo battles in the arena, hot springs scenes, character quirkiness sidequests, etc) were simply stripped in order to tell a story. Titles don't even matter because they aren't something you equip. They're just things that tell you how your trophy / grade progression is going.
There is a reason why I said some people thought that this was the FF13 of Tales games, and why I said that I felt like Tales of Graces f was more of an anniversary game than Tales of Xillia ever was. I don't really like how streamlined it is, and how stripped down it is compared to other games in the series.
Kiddo can be Yuffie, I'll just go ahead and brood in my coffin.
Okay:
Vincent - Noi
Yuffie - tiggerkiddo (though I'm trying to rationalize how to fit that into 9 characters)
9 characters, right? "ShadowHog" fits :V
I juuuuuuust remembered that.
