Tales of Vesperia First Impressions

The first thing I thought when loading up the game was that the acute sense of dread whenever I played the game never seemed to rise up as much as it did with Tales of the Abyss. A hangover from Tales of Symphonia, I always felt like I was about to get ambushed at every corner with Abyss. Vesperia not so much.

The second thing is that the characters are, like all Tales games full of life and expression, rich with characterization as time goes on. Is it just me, or is Rita REALLY concerned for Estelle?

Thirdly, I've never really seen a Tales person go so far as to start murdering higher ups in the empire. Sure you CHEER when it happens but wow, it's pretty awesome to see stuff like this and it really gets into the character of Yuri.

Fourthly, the End-battle skits are HILARIOUS. Case in point.
Estelle: They're bouncing...
Judith: Uh, where are you staring at?
Estelle: I want to bounce...

Estelle: The sign of victory!
Raven: Oh yeah! Now a hug!
Estelle: Uh...!

Finally, TOV really feels like you're set up for one big, "Oh God, Not Again!" because you're not proactively trying to get into trouble, trouble just follows the team wherever you go. Yuri's most common statement is "I know it, I'm cursed." whenever they manage to run into problems. If it's not the knights chasing them, running blockades, etc, it's the Guilds in-fighting and simply trying to offer up services for Brave Vesperia that often gets them into horrible trouble all the time.