I'm only a couple hours into the game but I think that it's AMAZING. Love everything about it so far and can't wait to get even further into the storyline.

Started playing it yesterday. It's immensely gratifying to charge an enemy, unsheathe your sword, then start swinging like a madman. Basically, everyone's jumping on the fact that the game isn't phenomenal and making it out to be a bigger letdown than it really is.

The game's a 7 or 8, and you can do much worse for yourself than buying a slightly above-average RPG.

This game just gets better the longer you play. I guess that's a good thing. More and more engrossing. The characters really start to develop pretty well too.

And it helps a lot that the environments are very pretty (except the "dark" areas...they overused that element a little bit).

But otherwise, definitely happy with my impulse buy here.

I broke the first chain, and I've really been enjoying the game so far. The beginning didn't really feel slow to me, though it's definitely getting better as it goes along. Targetting felt kind of wonky at first, but once you start fighting crowds of enemies it feels pretty natural.

How long does it usually take for creation skills to level up? I've done quite a bit of cooking especially, but still haven't gotten any sort of rank up message. I wouldn't even think it could happen if there weren't two achievements tied to each crafting skill.

I don't really know if there is any indication of skill ranking up. I've noticed the number of things I can make increasing, but no indication as to when I've gotten them. Maybe someone else knows better than me.

Well because the majority don't give things a chance at all, and just go off a whim of a "track record" base, or reviews. Their minds are clouded by what reviewer media says. :p

I agree with what Taco said earlier about the motion capture and dialog. The dialog felt very awkward when I first heard Capell's voice. It just needed more emphasis.

Despite the mediocre reviews, sales have apparently been doing pretty well around here. I just called the local shop I bought it from last week to see if I could trade mine for a new copy since he'd accidentally made a cut on the cover when opening the shipment box (I didn't see it until I got home), and apparently they've already sold out.

So I hear a ton of things about this game being full of suck, and I'm on disc 2 and I love it.

I'm in the final dungeon at the moment, and I really don't understand all the hate for this game. Disc 1 moved a bit slowly after the beginning and a few characters were kind of irritating (like those demonic twins), but it works well as a start. Things really pick up on disc 2, though it really would've worked better as a three disc game. It has plenty of storyline to be stretched out, but instead screws up the pacing pretty badly trying to fit everything in at once. One twist in particular was pretty cool, but not much was ever done with it before it was resolved somewhat abruptly.

Overall it's a pretty fun game, and I enjoy the combat system enough to try my hand at the Seraphic Gate once I beat it. Quite a few achievements can only be done once you've at least set foot in there, so I might as well give it a shot.

Oh, and to correct Guru's answer to me a few posts up, it does indicate IC skill rank up with cooking/writing/smithery/alchemy. You check it via Personal Skills.