I'm around 46 hours into the game, just got the airship.
Once you get the airship the game really opens up. I got waiter costumes for the girls at Dahngrest. You can get Karol and Raven waiter costumes too, which I'm going to do later today. Aside from getting those titles, a good reason for doing the good ol' Tales waitress mini game in ToV is that income. I went into Dahngrest with 50k. When I finished that mini game, I had 100k Gald and I only did 3 people. The characters have varying difficulty as well, so there's different set amounts of money. So far Rita's was the hardest, so during that I got at least 30k Gald, I'm guessing, I don't know. And it took only 10 minutes to do.
I like the waitress costumes in this game for the most part. Rita's main outfit is way better than waitress one so I changed it back. Her waitress outfit is some animu bullcrap with cat ears. I got her a Magatama necklace too. Looks badass. Estelle's main outfit is awful, because she's on some long journey and she's dressed like she's going on to a goddamn dinner with the president of the USA, so her waitress get up is pretty swell. Got her a pair of glasses to go with it. Judy's is pretty cool but I prefer her main costume, but I thought I could use a different change of pace. I wonder what Karol and Raven's costumes look like lol
Anyways, the game opens up. Noderpolica now allows you to enter into various competitions at the coliseum. There's a 30 man competition all the way up to 100 man. I tried out the 30 man, and won with 6 seconds to spare. It is SOOOO FUN. The coliseum is a good way to get some cash too. I got 6000+ Gald and it took just a few minutes. Flip it to easy and you can get yourself some major cash goin' in a few minutes I gather. Coliseum owns. 30 man is the first level and it was friggin hectic. I can't even imagine 100 Man.
I must be really tough.
Right now I'm exploring the world again, town after town. I'm considering going through every dungeon up to this point again so I can get some more crafting materials. Now that I can go anywhere in the game synthesizing is way way way appealing.
Went to some dungeon where I skipped out on a Giganto monster earlier in the game. I kicked its ass. Awesome. Now I have to take out the other Giganto monsters.
So like, 46 hours into the game in less than a week and after today when I hang out with my friends and crap, by the time my session finishes I should be a good 50 hours in. The only game that I have done with in recent times is Suikoden V when me and a friend raced each other the first weekend it came out and both had 55+ hours clocked by the end of the weekend.
I think at this point I can now make a good comparison with Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and Mass Effect in terms of quality as they all took me 50-60 hours to complete and I'm in that range right now.
This is what I think: Tales of Vesperia kicks all their asses. Not only is it polished, it's just so much more...fun!
I didn't even fully master the battle system until 40 hours in. It is really deep and has a lot of nuances. And I could STILL get better at it at this point. The story sometimes drifts around in typical Tales fashion, but for some reason I don't mind because the cast is so good. Even then, the story has its good moments. When it's good, it's REALLY good. So basically, if you need to get any rpg this gen up until, I don't know, FFXIII? SO4? Get Tales of Vesperia. Then again I haven't played Infinite Undiscovery so who knows. I know this sounds shocking because it's a fucking TALES game of all things, but I am not fucking with you. Honest.
