I decided to give Tales of Vesperia another chance and fought my first real boss battle and won.
The controls could've been a little sharper. It feels like everytime I do three strikes, I can't quite press the defend buttons in time and generally get two hits or more.
But I'm liking the game thus far.
The hero seems like a hardned soldier who talks like a real man and acts like one, better than the ocassional emo man child we get in some RPG(Enchanted Arms, I'm looking at you!).