Tales of Graces F

Some of these usage titles are unrealistically high. Even the ones that master at ~250 are way too high considering how slowly they cast.

Wii version had 100 for Adept and 1000 for Master for any non-casting Arte (i.e. every Assault Arte for every character). They're still pretty stupidly high for Asbel, but any spell caster's is reasonable in my opinion.

Does anyone like playing as Richard? Because I spent the first area playing as him and I just can't stand it.

I always felt he's super squishy. I really like Fiery Beast and Rising Phoenix, which you probably wouldn't get in the first part since they're at like lv30 or something, but Hurricane Thrust/Lightning Blade (i.e. the same thing) could have been a bit more creative. Every spell that isn't Vengeant Fangs is a bit slow. Shooting Stars is amazing though (for special effects, damage and usefulness is questionable).

Like what?

Well, it was mostly technical issues and the final dungeon/ending.
The game was semi-rushed in order to meet the deadline Namco Bandai had set down, since this game was to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Tales series.

There were a lot of reused graphics and models. Jude had a bunch of terrible artes in my opinion. I didn't have any technical issues in the game at all. The very end was a bit rushed, but I enjoyed the ending quite a bit. The final boss fight is pretty good. The bonus dungeon is a bit rehashed of Vesperia's, but the boss there is haaaaaaaaaard. The story is really good in my opinion, and it has good twists in it. Much more mature than Vesperia or Graces (hurr). The world seemed small, and the world map has a lot of dead space on it, but if you consider how expansive each area is, and it's the first time you have an adjustable camera in a full 3D environment, it's acceptable. There's almost no costumes in the game too (1 per char, 2 for Jude & Milla), they're all DLC.

Artes in that game didn't have the same unique feel as others, but I guess that was a direct result of Link Artes. You really have to use them a lot. The Link Gauge charges faaaast, especially when you get higher levels. It had a really cool battle system that sets a good precedent in terms of AI, but I enjoyed Graces' combat and systems a lot more.

The game is more like Vesperia than Graces, even though both team Symphonia and Destiny worked on it from what I recall. I very much prefer Xillia over Vesperia, except the PS3 EX Dungeon in Vesperia was really cool, and I was hoping they would reuse that model for one in Xillia. ='[

I enjoyed Tales of Hearts, but when you really break it down, Shing has 4 artes you get in like the first 20% of the game that he can spam to victory, and using anything else is actually a detriment because of the increased delays. It'd be like Demon Fang, Lightning Strike, Shockwave Slash, and Frost Breaker being the only artes you could use because every other higher tier one cost too much CC and had too much recovery time that you were guaranteed to be hit if you used them because the distances in the game were so small, and the ranges were for a melee character.