having played only symphonia and vesperia beforehand, the combat is a HUGE step down imo, and a really unfortunate and unavoidable downside to the game that instantly weighed it down from the start of it. the story isn't anything spectacular for like, the first whole half of the game, but during the second half and most specifically the last few hours of the game, the story gets GREAT and even my least favorite characters of the party had good moments. for the first half especially, the party is a weaker point as well but not nearly the downside the combat is as there are still some great characters. if velvet was more interesting as a character (she's amazing story-wise but pretty boring for a main character) and we had more traditional tales gameplay, i'd have easily rated it higher.