I liked the game, but I think it has a major flaw. I'm what some might call a leveler. In jRPG's especially I have a tendency to artificially jack up my characters. As an example, I went in Rabanastre palace at level 31 in the beginning of FFXII. I even found a cool way to get my characters to level 50 in disc 2 of Lost Odyssey despite the games desire to hold you a certain levels.

The major flaw in Lost Odyssey then for me was that there were no sweet abilities, items, spells at the end of the leveling process that made it worth it to get stronger. As and example, there is an attack called "Combo" at the beginning that does 2 hits, and an attack at the very high levels called "3-Combo" that does 3 hits. The problem is that Combo can be done in 1 turn and 3 combo takes 2... so you're just gyping yourself of a hit by using the stronger attack.

This is all not to mention that none of the characters have any unique attacks. A friend of mine noted that Limits/desperations/overdrives/MQs from Final Fantasy actually contribute a lot to the overall interest of the combat even though they don't pop up every fight. The idea that your just storing up for a baller attack makes things interesting, and the elaborate nature of the final version of this attack makes working so hard to get it worth it. Lost Odyssey doesn't have that, the combat is just extremely basic.

I personally think that the story is pretty good and I agree that the mature nature of it makes it much more interesting. I just wanted a little more depth in the combat and some better hair graphics for this game to be truly great.

I personally think that one should get Tales for sure. The main reason is that it will take you a while to plow through it. If one is a fan of the genre, liked the demo, etc. really just if you have interest in the game, then a 50 hour game should put a serious dent in your free time. Basically, if you get Tales and don't play another game till Fable 2 comes out then that is a really good deal.

Now I think that the real issue is Tales or Infinite Undiscovery. They are relatively similar, the release dates are more directly competitive and are in the same genre. I personally have gotten Tales and will be getting Infinite once I'm done, then Last Remnant once I'm done with that. It is a good day to be a jRPG fan (at least with a 360).

Fable doesn't really have a direct competitor. I personally think that Fable is going to be one of those games that I'm going to enjoy, but not really care to replay. I simply can't forsee that there is going to be that much different about play method, The other thing is that if you decide to make a certain move the first time around, if you artificially choose to not do that same thing the next time isn't that doing it to do it, instead of doing it because it is fun. Bahh, maybe I'm over analyzing, but I just think that I like to get engrossed in a story than I like getting engrossed in a character.