cool, thanks. so these spoilers are about the plot, and near the end, so you know, buyer beware (highligher beware?)
so i liked the game a lot. it is the first game i've played straight through since (IIRC) the first ToS (yeah I am looking at you FF4 sitting there at the last dungeon...)
i kept getting lost in places that i remembered from the first one. but it was still cool to see them again. The story was overall really good, though i kept expecting Ratatosk to be Kratos but that doesn't happen. I was also looking forward to Killing Lloyd for some strange reason, but that doesn't happen either
ok, and one thing that was bugging me if Emil is Ratatosk, spawned from Marta's head, WHO IN THE HELL ARE HIS AUNT AND UNCLE?? and why do they know him? are they Astor's family??? sigh.
about length i beat it in 31 hours. which is short, i think. i didn't do any side quests, never once cooked anything, used the same four creatures throughout the game. I did synthesize the black sword way early, which was nice, but didn't play with that much either. near the end i noticed i had a few 'add 3 to hp' type herbs and such, which i didn't use. basically i need to go back and take my time. i finished with Emil at lvl 52 and Marta at 49
as for the boss battles alice and decus was the hardest fight in the game. seriously. even the final fights are no where near as bad. i think i used nearly 70% of my items getting those two down. after that, it is smooth sailing
before the Wii is done, I want to play them both back to back, i think that would be fun. i wish there was a way you could go back and watch the cut scenes, some of them i accidentally fast forwarded through.
i now need to read about the time line and see where these two fit with the other tales games.
oh and i am an item whore. thank you final fantasy for improper RPG tactics.
all in all, great game, well worth my time, my money, i laughed, i cried, it was better than cats. It is better than the 6-7 ratings I have seen. I'd put it a lot closer to the first one.
oh and the end is a total homage to Dark City, seriously. I kept expecting Emil to ask Marta if she knew the way to Shell Beach