[Laith]

Originally Posted by Shinji103

Just got in my copy this morning and I'm about an hour into it. So far, it is in fact quest-based, although I'm only starting the second quest now.

Same system than the last two, cool with that.

I love how you can customize the heck out of your character; you can even make the eyes different colors and change the character's battle voice set. There's just one problem though; this means that your character won't be taking part in any of the anime sequences or skits. Plus, the fact that you can have your character be either a girl or boy as well, pretty much shoots down the possibility of a romance angle between Kanonno and the player character, a factor common for the Tales series and which I've always liked. The only possibility is if your player character's relationship to Kanonno varies by gender; friendship if the player character is a girl, and romance if a guy. But I'm not holding my breath for this.

Weren´t there hints on the first RM? I don´t remember much of the second one though.

Anyway, the combat system is the basic rehash for Tales games (at least, it's the same combat system that was used in both Vesperia and Symphonia 2); a three-hit physical combo varying by D-Pad input with the O button, and an Arte attack you can tack on at the end with the X button and varied by D-Pad input. Your characters also use TP, same as Vesperia and Symphonia 2. Not that this is a bad thing; for some reason, while I found this combat system slow in Symphonia 2 and the Vesperia demo (which, as I pointed out earlier, is part of why I couldn't motivate myself into getting Vesperia), it seems to pass over with me better than before. *shrug*

Pretty sure they are using the Abyss battle system which is different than Vesperia/Symphonia. So there is a reaon why it feels different.

And I do like the OP, except now I've pinpointed what I didn't like about it; the little chorus for the last part of the OP theme. It sounds like it was sung by a chorus f little kids to me for some reason, which is a bit "bleh."

Talking about music, does the battle music is good? The RM2 was pretty awesome (even the normal battle bgm) so I have high hopes for it.