Got my limited edition today, but I'm not playing it until a few a months before the second game hits (whenever that is....)

I'm 8 hours in and once you learn how to skip your own moves the battle system becomes fast and enjoyable. I'm having fun, although if you're not a die-hard JRPG fan you're probably not going to enjoy it.

So if you ring the bell and defeat whatever enemies appear there will be no more random encounters for the remainder of the dungeon?

Yeah, I fought one of those optional bosses and got 1300xp while the random battles in the same dungeon were giving like 30-40 xp. It's crazy.

I beat it last night after around 30 hours; got Finnel normal ending. It looks like multiple playthroughs are a must given that I didn't even get past Cosmosphere Level 6? And how do you get the happy ending?

In general, I had a good time with it. On the RPGFan scale this is an 85% title in my book.

So I started this last night and played for a couple of hours.  Mixed feelings so far. Combat is like Xenogears on steroids, but slow. I can see the gameplay getting very repetitive if you want to do to all the side quests (which it looks like they may be mandatory given the laughable experience you get from random encounters). I like the whole premise though and the characters are cool. Great 2D graphics, but what else is new. Very good voice acting too.

Wait, so an 80-minute DLC is $7? Wow.

you're joking, right?

Radiant Historia - 30 hours in, I think I am slowly nearing towards the end. Great game. My only complaint is that there seem to be some balancing issues.

Ar Tonelico Qoga - almost 30 hours in as well and enjoying it. I think it's on par with AT2 and AT1 is still by far the best entry in the series.

Hyperdimension Neptunia is next on my list, as soon as I am done with Ar Tonelico Qoga, whenever that is.

I'm not as far in as you, but I agree with pretty much everything you said. The game is a lot of fun. The combat has been simplified in comparison to AT2, but I think the reason is that Qoga simply does not focus on combat the same way some other games do. The random encounter gauge is usually empty way before the end of the dungeon and leveling is very, very fast - this seems to suggest that the devs wanted to concentrate on the other aspects instead. And I think they succeeded - the cosmospheres, for instance, are even crazier and more entertaining than in AT1 and AT2.

Ar Tonelico Qoga and Radiant Historia. Very different games, but both are very good. Japan is where it's at.

I'm really worried about TiTS 2 not getting published. Realistically speaking, the chances of us seeing Zero no Kiseki and Blue are extremely slim.

You bring this up in your every single post re: SJ. I think there was only one or two instances where you had to find an invisible door to progress the story and they were pretty easy to find from what I remember.

Or maybe you are burned out and should take a break from JRPGs or gaming in general. For me, JRPGs are as fun as they were 5 or 10 years ago.

11 hours in, just beat Phase 1. I'm having fun. I kinda wish the random encounter gauge took a bit more time to deplete...but I guess it doesn't really matter since leveling is very fast. Kind of strange that boss battles don't give any experience, though...