Hope all is well with all, enjoying summer I hope. Just blogging to heap praise on Tales of Vesperia, which has taken up a good chunk of my summer thus far. I was slightly worried during the slow-starting and relatively uneventful early game, but it picks up nicely as it progresses.

I loved Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube, and in my eyes, it's very similar. Adequate-to-awkward storytelling with fantastically fun and addictive combat. To be fair there are flashes of good character development and grey-area morality, but the resolutions of these things are usually cop-outs. Approximately 150 hours later, I've collected/seen/beat/etc. everything the game has to offer (with the exception of the low-level challenger achievement - that one is a couple of hours away I reckon). My achievement craving days are past now, but when I do get the last one, I'll be pretty happy - I don't think I've ever fully completed a game - as in every little detail, let alone in an RPG. Highly recommend it to RPG fans who can tolerate a mostly sub-par story.

Related shenanigans - I managed to get a free repair for my 360 that died a little while back. Out of warranty, but past troubles was enough for an exception in this case. At £80 (inc. VAT) for a repair, I wouldn't have bothered otherwise.