Yeah, supposedly Vaan was sort of a last minute addition- Square wanted an "everyman" character for the player to expereince the storie's events through. 

None of the story, short of the intro really belongs to Vaan- once he is absorbed into the party along with his "girlfriend", they are largely just silent observers to the stories real main players (Ashe, Baasch, and Baltier, with Ashe as arguably the "main" lead)

You kind of describe my entire experience with Hyperdimension Neptunia- All along I knew what I was playing was total crap from every traditional standpoint we review games on.....yet I kept coming back.   I just found the game......amusing. 

Ironically, I did play the sequel for a few hours- they greatly improved the gameplay mechanics but I felt like I was missing the some of the madcap insanity, humor, and it lacked the nonstop references that kept me smiling and I kind of lost interest. 

This turn of events is all due to the MMORPG that 38 Studios (Curt Shillings company) was pushing Big Huge Games to help them develop after they purchased them. 

Reckoning was basically a game that Big Huge more or less had in the bag already, but was intented to be little more than an intro to what Curt really wanted - his own MMO. 

The thing is, it was totally misguided.  That genre just doesn't not viably exist anymore, unless you are a company with a endlessly huge fanbase (like Blizzard).  Heck even Bioware's Star Wars MMO is starting the flounder now, even with all that name recognition.  The only game thats going to take any glory from World of Warcraft is going to be whatever Blizzards follow up will be. 

I even posted on the official Kingdoms of Amalur message boards back when Reckoning was first released (and Curt Schilling was a regular poster at the time) and I said how they should just concentrate on supporting Reckoning since it was a good but flawed game and making good single player rpgs and forget this MMO folly which would fail horribly, and that it would never compete with WoW, and he actually posted back with some crap about "well they said the Red Sox in 2004 would never win the world series either when we were down 0-3 in the ALCS with the Yankee, and look at us now!"

I mean the guy was completely deluded thinking his brand new unheard of IP from his start up company would  take WoW's fire.   

Now I guess he is just another broke/sad ex athlete since I think he pretty much threw his whole fortune into making this MMO which will never release now. 

Its a shame since Reckoning was a well done first effort of a game and I would have loved a follow up. 

All in all its actually a pretty decent game and almost must have to me if you are a fan of the books/tv series. 

The entire thing with it is that it is low budget.  As such you get some sketchy prodcution values (some graphical uglyness, clipping issues, attack animations that aren't pretty, voice acting adequate but unspectacular), but at the end the day it scrathes that RPG itch quite well, has some really good RPG character bulding elements, and the story is quite good- its certainly not a broken game, and fans won't be able to put it down.   

Think of games like Risen, Divinity 2, or Alpha Protocol on console- if you saw past some of the technical problems and minor glichyness these had, didn't mind they had lessor production values than Bioware/Bethesda, and enjoyed them regardless because they were finely crafted experiences, its kind of a similar situation here. 

I wish Nomura would just tell the truth and say this 'project' to completely borked. 

He talks about doing something new?  This console is over 6 years old now, and the next gen is being developed as we speak.  There should be nothing new anymore about makings games on ps3.  Making games for this console should be an absolute sciene now- Squaresoft itself has an entire high end engine invented, use it!

This one is just Duke Nukem Forever all over again.  He needs to just drop this waste of time and actually make what everyone really wants (Kingdom Hearts 3!!), if not for ps3, then make it to be a launch window ps4 game- talk about system seller!

Wearing a size L T shirt makes you a big fatso?...  I used to wear a size L...when I was 11.

I was a 6 ft tall beanpole and still wore XL all through middle/high school.  Now that I"m 33 and eating actually is starting to make me fat, its now 2XL..

But size L makes someone a tubba lard these days, LLOLLOLOL  Gotta love kids today with all their "skinny clothes" and big hair they don't cut.  In the 90s it was all big clothes with plenty of room in them, and hair on guys coudn't be short enough (if you could actually measure it, people would accuse you of having a "fro" and that was the stylistic kiss of death.  Still, you coudn't get me in all that skinny crap, I'd rather be confortable. 

I think the greater JRPG community just needs to lighten up.  People make much more of these things than they are worth. 

Sex sells, thats it.  Some people might enjoy the fantasy of these highly exaggerated designs and thats fine.  No real people are harmed when somebody just enjoys artwork. 

Fantasy is what it is- Why does the porn industry do so well?  Because it basically depicts stuff that is fantasy- 95% of real women don't enjoy or tolerate what goes down in the average scene- the real thing is much more tame, and two sided, not the 100% deviant male-centric fantasy thats typically displayed in a porn scene. 

Should everyone who has ever watched and enjoyed porn be locked up?  No, because you'd be locking up 90% of the population, and since its all being enjoyed indoors in the privacy of homes, and no ones being harmed.  (and the performers are both well paid and willing)

And back to the games, the funniest part, is these Agarest War games are so tame, its insane.  You have a 60+ hour rpg, and 95% of the time its a super-serious dialogue heavy strategy rpg about war and variouis other conflicts and intrigue, and then once every 10-15 hours for about 5 minutes you court a female party member and get a wedding scene where you get a still of your spouse in a wedding dress and another still of her in a mild "come hither" pose where everything is still covered up suggesting you consumate the marriage, and then the quest continues 20 years later with the new couples child....big deal. 

So basically, while the marketing is quite saucy (afterall, sex sells, and they do need to sell the game,  and this strategy undoubtedly pushes more copies) , the game itself probably doesn't even have 1/5 of the sex appeal you would get in the average episode of 'Glee' which ironically does feature sexually charged underaged teen in sexual situations, as opposed to Agarest War's adult characters that barely even go there, other than a few innuendos and attractive character designs. 

1.2 patch completely ruined the game on console- helped the framerates a little, but now magic resistances don't exist, (so mages or fire breaths will rip you up) total game crashes are way more often, and dragons now glitch like crazy, sometimes flying backwards. 

Disconnect from LIVE or PSN and keep playing with 1.1 if you haven't downloaded the patch yet, so you aren't forced to update. 

Zenonia is probably the best.  Its a little grindy like you said, but it an action rpg ala the original zelda so fights last seconds and it keeps you engaged since its fast paced.  For a buck, I can't see any reason to not try it because its a fun diversion and I enjoy powering up my guy.

Spectral Souls was kind of considered a middle of the road strategy rpg on psp, but its seems to be much better received on android, where people are basically amazed to play a console quality full length rpg.  The console reviews all basically said it wasn't a bad game, it just didn't stand out amoungst other countless games in the genre, but if you want a strategy rpg to play on your phone, this seems to be your ticket. 

Yep, like I said, the way they handled the plot is crap.  I should never have to work to figure out whats going on.  Maybe the more "arthouse" crowd will disagree with me, but I say tell the me the plot, tell me well, and better make it entertaining.  A plot can even be extremely complex, but tell it in a straightforward manner, not in an obtuse, disjointed way.

Waiting for them to finally give up and announce these games for consoles.  They may make pot shots at Dragon Age, but once they compare its console sales alone vs whatever sales they scrounge on pc, they'll want to cry. 

I can really see it both ways, ideally there is a balance of both great story and great battle system in the best RPGS, but there have been plenty of games that totally enthralled me based one element or another. 

For instance - I loved Final Fantasy 9's plot, setting, characters, and the fact they simplifed the battle system, but it was just so SLOW with all of the animations, even just for the attack command, that made everything just drag.  The plot kept me glued to my seat for the duration, however. 

On the flip side, Resonance of Fate - I LOVED this games battles to no end, and fighting them out & customizing my weaons in that game became my life for awhile- the game plot however is probably the most disorganized lump of crap and nonsense I ever encountered, yet- the game sucked me in for dozens of hours. 

That game was fun just based on how bat-crazy nuts it was. 

Just the whole premise of a broadway theather troupe, whose theater also doubles as launching pad for Giant Freaking robots to dispatch and fight for Justice makes me smile from ear to ear just thinking about it.  Beings the entire game's grind is basically just a dialogue based dating sim makes it even better and certainly unique amoung game choices availalbe in the states.  I'd love to see more of these games. 

OK, touche, maybe a little bit. 

But that was still a very basic convention.  Each character was innately still unique and leveled up traditionally- no sphere grids, junctions, materia, etc. that made each character a generic, whatever you want them to be.  I like my fighters to be fighters, mages to be mages, etc.  At least FF9 was a return to form, and I personally think Square desperately needs to do the same with FF15. 

I'm kind of sad Bamco is publishing this one.  Atlus should get the credit for taking the chance on the first one, localizing it and making it a hit in the states.  They should have been the one to publish this game and enjoy the continued success since they took all the risk bringing this series to us but now that the series has an audience, Bamco outbids them, because they are a more wealthy publisher and will now buy in to what they see as a surefire cashcow. 

I just hate to support the company that deems the Tales series unworthy for America, although FromSoftware definitely deserves success.