First Square-Enix RPG released on the 360?

Made by people that made Star Ocean? SOLD. (Star Ocean's reviews were tepid at best, but an AMAZING game. The 3rd was a little meh, but the second is one of my favorite PSX games ever.)

I'm in. I love Tri-Ace games. They are second only to Level 5 in terms of a 'sure thing' to me.

Damn it, too many JRPGs! I haven't finished Lost Odyssey yet, have yet to TOUCH Blue Dragon or Eternal Sonata, and have Tales of Vesperia on my waiting list. Augh!

Hm. The real-time combat aspect of this probably won't make me happy. I don't mind that mechanic in a single character type of game, but when I have AI controlled party members, it never seems to go very well. Hopefully there will be a demo at some point.

This game has moved to my 'buy cheap' pile. I'm not sure if I'll be able to cope with the clunkiness of the control system mentioned in the reviews. I'll read other reviews though. I really want to like this game.

Depends:

Have you played any of the other Tales games?

Star Ocean?

Did you prefer one or the other? (If you played Tales and liked it, get Tales of Vesperia, if you liked Star Ocean, get Infinite Undiscovery.)

That's a little like "Should I have the chocolate ice cream, or the vanilla + caramel ice cream" Either way, win.

I'll be checking it out, at least as a rental. I'm one of those people who didn't find a JRPG to like until FFXII. Now I'll take a look at just about anything that doesn't have surprise random battles, separate battle screens, or super-deformed avatars.

I'll throw up some quick impressions after playing for 90min or so last night.

- A good amount of scenes are NOT voice acted. As in the scene is presented, the characters are moving their mouthes, but there are only subtitles on the bottom. It's almost random which scenes are voiced and which are not. Disappointing to say the least.
- Beginning is pretty slow. You run away, then you run away some more, then you're put in a situation where you're unable to fight and have to run away yet again.
- Graphics and animations are pretty rough at times. Some of the scenes reminded of "Team America: World Police" where the characters have this lifeless feel to them and shake to express excitement. Often times mouth movements are no where near in sync with actual speech. That said, for every area that looks rough, there's another area that comes together nicely and is well presented, not breathtaking, but well done.
- I like what they're trying to do with the battle system, however I'm having a rough go at getting a handle on it. There's no action to roll out of the way, just a parry action you have to time when you're struck. I haven't really figured this out yet so every battle just becomes a hackfest where I absorb ever blow.
- Your party AI is really really well done. You hardly ever have to request a heal as your teammates will provide them to you. They'll also evade when they're low on health and act how you'd expect them to act. I died during one of the opening scenes and was able to watch from my corpse as my part member evaded some enemies, healed herself, then ran over to me and revived me, all without me issuing one command.
- The framerate does nosedive as soon as things get hectic, so far it hasn't really hampered gameplay.
- The plot is dumb and will loose you within the first 30min, but what else is new?
- I think achievements are done how BD did them, where they set requirements on one section of the game and give you one shot at it. For instance there's one for blowing up every barrel in the opening dungeon and I got one for running through one scene without getting attacked. As an achievement whore I can't decide whether to play through with an eye on the achievement list or just plan a 2nd play through with a guide. I might go with the latter since more content opens up when you play through again on Hard.

Overall: I'm kind of lukewarm on it so far, but it's growing on me.

Alright, some more impressions after hitting ~6hrs in.

+Music is really great, I never usually say that about a game, but it's good enough here to really stand out and get noticed.
+Battle system makes grinding well . . . not really a grind. I haven't "had" to grind anywhere, but chose to for one of the more masochistic achievements. It really wasn't bad, the varied combos and party interactions keep battles pretty fresh.
+No loading, except when moving to different environments.
+After the first 2hrs it really starts to open up, everything that feels promising early on begins to fulfill it's potential.
+Gear and items are varied enough so that your equipment decisions feel like they're making an impact on gameplay

-Little to no direction on your goals. I've really gotten frustrated so far with figuring out where I'm supposed to go. The game wants you to explore on your own, but it's aggravating to just wander around hoping you stumble into a previously blocked path or the trigger for the next plot element.
-The first 2hrs are abysmal. They feature the worst animations, environments, voice acting, and limit the battle system enough to make it a chore.
-I really really really hate the achievements in this game. I should be a good 2hrs further in the plot, but I keep reloading a save for one of the ridiculous battle scenarios you have to complete for an achievement. I suppose this is my own fault though. If you played Blue Dragon, you're familiar with how sh*tty JRPG achievements can be and unfortunately IU is of the same frame of mind. Oh yah, there's a "Get every single item in the game" achievement . . . bastards . . . .

All that said, for everything this game does right it does something else to just really annoy the crap out of you. I don't think I could recommend this to some one at $60 unless they were really into Star Ocean and had an empty queue of games (err, like me ).

I do like the battle system and look forward to seeing it again in SO4 eventually (well, sans framerate issues of course). With Too Human people kept saying it really shines after a couples hours, but I saw where it was headed and wasn't interested. With IU you see the potential in the battle system initially, but it actually pulls through and shines given time.

Heh, I'd really advise against that. The one I'm stuck on now is just brutal. I may just circle back on easy to get it, as it's proving near impossible on normal.

Says LobsterMobster.

I found that laughing contest to be really depressing. The laughter sounded so forced and agonized. I believe that is the sound of someone's soul dying.

Those kids are really annoying/creepy. In screenshots they look fine but when they move and talk they look like something out of 'The Midwich Cuckoos' (village of the damned.)