I didn't get my VP figures, because ncsx at the last minute said they couldn't get sets, just factory sealed cases of 10 for $75 + shipping which isn't bad, but more than I want to pay now so I had to pass
Anyway on Legendia I finished the game at around 80-85 hours (I have to estimate because I had a lot of "sit time" where the game was on but I wasn't playing). I'm don't have it available now, but I was at about level 79 or so, and had about 1400 battles clocked. I did all the arena stuff and got the majority of the titles, but there were some I couldn't trigger, along with some skits I could not seem to trigger for some unknown reason. When I have a chance in the next couple days I'm going to post those to see if kiro or anyone has any idea on those. Also had something like 570 Grade points, more than enough to buy everything in the Grade shop. As far as the game itself:
-Music is fantastic.
-Characters are great, definetely my favorite Tales cast (although others come close). I think previous Tales games have had really interesting characters, but Legendia just seems to do a lot more with the characters. Wasn't the game's script largely penned by some famous author over there? That would explain that.
-Story and pacing is pretty good. This is only disrupted by some long dungeon travels in the CQ's, but isn't bad enough to knock it down for me. And like Shouta's said, you can use Holy Bottles and get through dungeons with 2-3 encounters.
-I like the CQ concept. It's kinda've like you've just gone through a RPG, and you're getting a sequel right away. It's an interesting concept I'm sure wouldn't work in most games, but I like it here. The MQ and even earlier CQs do a good job at hinting at things you find out later in the CQs.
-I personally liked the town graphics, but they were nothing amazing or anything. Battle graphics I also had no problem with, but could've been better.
-Combat. Mixed bag here. First off the game uses the one line system (2D) as opposed to ToS. That itself I have no problem with, but the game just doesn't feel quite as good as the previous Tales games. IIRC this game was made by a completely different Namco Team (SC team?) which explains this. Senel's Throws, which get a lot of crap, are a mixed bag. I think if you use his Throw eres as just one more ability, and not try to make it the crux of your strategy with him (which I think a lot of people make the mistake of doing), there's no problems. It's great taking advantage of when you or your allies have knocked an enemy down, might as well throw it for massive damage while it's on the ground. On the other hand, it's annoying when an ally knocks an enemy down and you're in the middle of a eres, or if you knock an enemy down and then 2 allies cast spells which do nothing since the enemy is on the ground. I find it much more positive than negative, especially as you progress through the game, but it still has it's problems.
-On a related note, battles take too long. I found nothing unusual about the encounter rate, but enemies just have WAY too much goddamn HP. Even at the end of the game, at high levels with all his best equipment, the Extreme Symbol, and Attack Up, it would still take Senel at least 10-15 attacks to kill the weakest enemies at the end, much more than that for some. This could've been balanced much better.
-Grade shop isn't as good as ToS, and it's nigh impossible to get some of the titles and skits which is annoying for completists like me.
-VA's are a mixed bag. First off some of the characters were fine, others were not. This mainly gets knocked down because the game has no VA in the 2nd half of the game, and in-battle the VA is absurd. EVERY time you attack your character says something, and it's unbelievably annoying. I had all battle voices turned completely off within 3 or 4 battles into the game, although even all the way down you can still hear them slightly.
-Backtracking in the CQ Dungeons. I'm not sure why they really did this, since in the MQ the game would warp you out, and when you get to the end of a dungeon in CQ there's no real reason they couldn't warp you out as well (although it does for the last few thank God). Holy Bottles mostly make this a moot point, but it's still annoying and one of the few (I feel) legitimate complaints about the game.
-Combining Eres to make Compound Eres was annoying since you can't see as you're adding eres what the end result is going to be until you've added all 3, which is a pain in the ass later in the game. I just wound up looking at the guide to see which ones I needed.
-If I got called "Child of Man" one more time I was going to shoot someone.
Overall I loved the game though. I still like ToS better, and possibly ToD 2 (I didn't understand any Japanese at the time, so since I didn't understand the script, I can't really make a fair judgement). Definetely like it better than ToE, and probably ToD, which I haven't played in forever. I wrote more text above in negatives which seems odd, but here's the short of it:
The Good
-Music is Great!
-Great cast and interaction
-Story and pacing is good
-Character Quests is a good concept done (for the most part) well
The Neutral
-Graphics aren't bad but could be better
-Combat also a mixed bag. Definetely solid, but has some oddities to it
-Enemies have way too much HP, making battles longer than they should be
-Grade Shop is so-so, waaay too hard/impossible to get some skits/titles
The Bad
-Mixed bag on the voices themselves, no voice acting the 2nd half of the game, extremely annoying use of voices in battle
-Backtracking in CQ dungeons. Holy Bottles cut down the time
dramatically, but I'm still annoyed it's there.
-Compound Eres are annoying to make, and are useless almost all of the time except on occasion for Senel and Jay.
-Stop calling me Child of Man as;ldjf;alsf
Final score:
9/10
I have no idea why this gets GAF hate. It has a 72% over at gamerankings which is average, and most people I've talked to who've actually
played the game for any length of time really like it. I can understand why some people don't like it, but I do think it gets unfairly dumped on.
Shouta to elaborate on what I said earlier about some people being disappointed from this after ToS, I think it's largely the graphics, battle system, and lack of a larger world map/exploration. The graphics in ToS had a different style than ToL. Although the graphics in ToL are fine (to me), I can see why people would be disappointed. As far as battles go, ToS was really satisfying in the sense that it was 3D and if you were good you can really juggle enemies and end battles really quick. You don't have that satisfaction in ToL, even the easiest battles take way longer than they did in ToS. Also, ToL moves pretty much in a straight line the entire game, there's very little in the way of sidequests/exploration that ToS had, and the world area is much smaller. I still think ToL is an awesome game, but I would definetely give the nod to ToS, and can understand why people would be disappointed in ToL if they were expecting something like that or better.
