Tales of Xillia, play through one

So Xillia play through one is complete, with no major difficulties as I am pretty sure I was grinding a little bit too much. One of my favorite games in the Tales franchise is Vesperia and so going into this one I felt skeptical as none had lived up to its awesomeness as of yet. In my opinion this one competes on every level and I don't think I've ever played a game where I want everyone in  my party this badly.
I write first play through in the title because at the start of the game you are given a choice of the main protagonist and I chose Jude (male) who is a medical student turned some kind of martial artist....yep. Hes a pretty awesome male protagonist but I feel some of his attention was stolen by other stronger characters in the group. I think hes a bit of a fool for being so oblivious to the feelings a Leia and swooning over grown up woman Milla instead. Milla is meant for Alvin! He's going to have to get over this fact in the upcoming sequel next year. I finally managed to utilize a food system in a Tales game, and thus managed to have all the money in the world. The shop leveling idea was pretty awesome as instead of  new places unlocking new items, you had to unlock the items yourself by donating stuff you found on your adventures, you could donate Gald but I'm pretty fond of the stuff and didn't really want to squander it away.
Alvin was looking to be my favorite characters until he turned a bit emotionally unbalanced half way through the game, in a cut scene I am sure I will see when I play through as Milla. Leia Turned out to be my bestest in the end....swinging big pole arms around is awesome...the end. Rowan Illbert was pretty awesome for an old guy, some of the skits painted him out to be a hilarious pervert....but in a nice way....if that's possible. When Teepo appeared I thought my game was ruined but I turned into a huge fan when the connection with Elize was revealed. All the characters had emotional back stories and I loved them all!
The intro song is pretty epic and probably on par with Vesperia and the opening movie had my bestest anime facial expression in a while....I don't know why but I love it....powerful stuff!