Anyone played this? I picked it up over the weekend and so far it's not impressed me. For those of you who played ToS, you'll get a nostalgia out of it, as it takes place and revisits the old cast of characters, but it kind of lets me down.

Cons:
First of all, you play a kid named Emil, who is a ridiculously whiny little bitch, to the point that you actually start to hate your character. This doesn't sound so bad, but with cut scenes that aren't important at all[that you are unable to really 'skip'] and some really annoying voice-acting for his character, it's noticeable. Another strikingly disappointing feature is the lack of an overworld, which the previous games have, because of "time-constraints". The overworld was something characteristic of the series, and having it missing make the game feel incomplete. For once I wish companies would take their time developing something great instead of always saying, "Yeah, we could make this better, but hell let's just release it now and cash in on it." I'm sure it's a much more complicated situation, but still. new features can be fun, and adding something new can add interest for people who may have gotten bored with the old, but sometimes things go terribly terribly wrong. This game has a new feature where you can "join" with monsters you defeat, and they will play the role of a character in your party [like filling their battle-position].Sure, catching pokemon is fun, but this is Tales of Symphonia, and I don't want to catch monsters in this game, I want to use characters with personality and relevance to the story to kill monsters. Lastly, although revisiting old places from the last game is great, they took the areas DIRECTLY FROM THE OTHER GAME and re-meshed them. That really annoys me, why couldn't they take the time to remake all the towns, maybe make them less polygonal and obviously gamecubish.

Pros: This game has fully-voiced cutscenes and skits[optional conversations between characters].
Beautiful character art/design etc. It addresses possible plot-holes up front, providing substantial and believable reasons for inconsistencies.

So far I'd say it isn't a terrible game, but I guess it isn't fair for me to judge it until I've beaten it. It's interesting and I'm hoping it starts to redeem itself.

Yeah, I've heard quite a bit of disappointment from people for this one. Avoided it thus far. Sometimes main characters can be goofy in an awesome way though, like Dean from Wild Arms 5, he cracks me up the way he holds his pistols in the air and fires alternating shots. BANG BANG BANG BANG! It's humorous when he climbs up poles because he spams alternating grunting noises. But everyone else in that game is tragically retarded. Avril talks all deadpan and cordial, telling enemies "please don't dodge." (they dodge when she says it) and Rebecca is annoying as all hell, spinning her gun around like she has A.D.H.D. and whining about everything. Jack and Cecillia would be shamed to see that snot in battle.