Aside from the whole "no skit voices" thing, it has additional content. Like, new Hi Ougis and such. And they're really cool... But Guy's looks a little... Uhmm... weird.
Nevertheless, the US version is also cheaper, so getting it shouldn't be out of consideration for you, even if you are fluent in Japanese.

The lack of skit voices is irritating (more so than with ToS because there's more fo them). Worse yet, you can't speed up the text so you're stuck waiting for the skit to proceed (and they're rarely interesting, unlike ToS's).

Wow what happened with the overworld map with this one? What a complete mess with ridiculous long load times to and from the overworld, slow camera rotation which starts chopping from slow disc streaming and if you play the game for a while there is an obvious memory leak and the overworld music theme won't load properly.

This is a really good game, but the technical flaws really make playing it difficult at times. This is why I've started to look at production value more than other game aspects because we should be at the point where crap like this shouldn't be allowed to slip though a game release.

The overworld map is awful, isn't it? It looks bad, it's sluggish and load times are atrocious (check out the 12+ second load times from battle to world map). I learned pretty quickly to dodge enemies as much as possible while there.

yeah the world map is even worst than in Legendia and it'S sad because in other tales I fight monster on world map when I need money for equipment on a city , but now I doN,t do it, it just too long because of the loading time >.<

ans now I need some leveling >.< i'm stuck at the fight vs Legretta, damn that bitch is hard...

Played for an hour earlier.

Cons:
My god, it takes a good 15 seconds to save the game. 15 seconds.
Loading times are horrendous, even off a hard drive. What?
Slow rotation on world map makes me ANGRY.
I really, really hate luke. Wow, really, i mean lots of other Tales main chars were kinda fine, i even liked Lloyd. But Luke? fuck, give me tales of destiny 3 or something.
Lack of skit voices or skipping.
From what i saw from previews/fight videos, the only characters i'm going to care about is the archer girl, Ansie and Guy. Sigh... Tear mabye...

Pros:
Very, very talesy. <3 the music. At least the fighting is competent.
The graphics are INCREDIBLE. I can't find any jaggies at all. It's just so clean.
Tear is pretty cool.
Ummm...
I actually have no complaints about the voices yet. Seems pretty decent. Would be unfair to compare this to the current dub king, FF12.

Overall: I guess i'll play some more and hope the story and it's crazy lingo start to make sense really soon.

To be fair, Luke was obviously set up in a way where he will change. Give it time, you'll see... games have character development for a reason. Well, the GOOD games have character development anyway.

The story picks up considerably about a 3rd through the game. Most people agree it's got the best storyline out of any Tales game at the least.

The game takes a year and a half to save because it has to create two save files, although that's not much of an excuse.

The overworld map is so crappy you can glitch it up by taking out the disc and closing the tray and go anywhere in the game, although going somewhere that is obviously ages away can cause you to be permanently stuck there, but it's still fun to roam around and get all those search points.

http://img279.imageshack.us/img279/8424/toamt1xf4.jpg

When you put the disc back into the ps2 though you should probably make sure you aren't in a location that will get you stuck (which can be a chore because you can't see diddly squat since you glitched up the map), but if successful you can obtain lovely prizes at the beginning of the game.

http://img468.imageshack.us/img468/2595/toamt2ea7.jpg

Oh god the lols don't stop, how could they let something like that slip by?

Oh right it's namco, carry on.

This glitch will also apply to a certain event in the game with a certain character, which will leave that person in your party permanently.

Although he sucks for shit and it ruins your chances of doing any sidequests. Still, fun nevertheless!

He would be better than Luke if it werent for his permanent equipment. Rending Saber is also better than Radiant Howl but yeah, permanent low-mid tier equipment makes it sort of pointless other than for novelty.

I think that glitch is pretty cool actually, I dont see why its so "lol" worthy given that not many people are gonna think to open the tray, REMOVE THE DISC ENTIRELY and run around the world map. You cant just open the tray cause all that does is freeze the game, so yeah.

They did fix the Lorelei jewel bug though, which is kinda sucky actually cause that was a very useful glitch. =(

Lacerta, if you do what you said will it effect the game in anyway?

Everything else is identical and you can play through the entire game without any problems. Still, 250 attack power sword = phail. It really isn't worth it.

But yeah, it's only worth it if you mess with it on a second file for kicks.

nvm just got that Meadow Crystal >>;; Sup Swordian Dymlos. Still can't unlock that darn Elven Bow (for Natalia's US Exclusive Hi-Ougi)... Din is the worst girl ever.

Heh I've just learned two of the new people added to the Tales team for ToA were 'overmap' programmers. Yeah, go figure there.

Ouch! I don't dig those long loading times and long saves that people are mentioning now, even if it's as good or better than ToS. It reminds me of the hideous long saving time in Digimon World 3 >_>

Why wouldn't the game be on GCN like ToS? :(

They aren't bad other than on the world map and saving anyway, but I wish it was on the GCN, too.

Ask Nintendo.

Or Namco. Maybe they didn't want to make a game for the GCN. I dunno why though. Didn't ToS sell a lot on the GCN? I love that game.

There really weren't any want for Tales on the gamecube. ToS got ported over to the PS2 like months afterward and it was tons better too.

Also hear that Tales of the Tempest got a horrible score by famitsu, which i'm glad for. A tales game on the DS that's 3d can't be very good =/

<grumpy old man> Tales should have stayed pure 2d! :mad: </grumpy>

The PS2 version had new attacks, 1 or 2 more anime scenes, a working casino and new costumes, but from what I read about it, it was hampered by long loading times. Fans preferred the GCN version.

I bet if they made another game for the GCN, people would go ape over it. I know I would.

It was Nintendo's decision to get Symphonia put on Gamecube, not Namco. It was neglected later by the PS2 port anyway which everyone loved (people are loyal to their Sonys).

Tempest didn't score "horrible", it just received one of those "This isn't anything you should go out and buy right now, but it's not a heaping pile of trash." kind of scores. I guess you'd say it was average.

Their main complaint was poor AI, which has plagued the Tales series since day one so that's not really surprising anymore.

Played for 4 hours and i'm def.liking this. I read on IGN that the reviewer disliked the character "Luke" and his whining,but i love it! The Battlesystem is cool, as i'm not really a fan of real time battle.

The only thing i didn't like (like others) is the worldmap,it looks sloppy(doesn't mean i don't like the villages etc)

I wonder how the sales are doing for the US version of the game. I have a feeling they probably aren't too great. Wal-Mart still has like 10 copies of the game sitting on the shelf as if they aren't selling or something. I haven't seen much advertisement on Namco's side either.

I know this is a game people would enjoy if they just played it. My friend went and purchased the game after playing it with me for a day. Lots of good stuff to be played here. Just not too many people know about it I guess.

Considering the push for the next gen right now, and how Legendia recieved similar amounts of press before it came out, it's not really surprising. Especially since some bigger name RPGs are right around the corner. (You know of what I speak).

That said, the world map in this game is lol bad, but the rest of it is pretty good so far. I've only played it for a few hours and so far I"m enjoying it more than that mess VP2 turned out to be.