The only taint so far on Birth By Sleep is the decision to employ the card system. Seriously, what the bloody hell? The plot seems redeeming enough as it's going to add some much-needed back story of the series. Hopefully it'll explain a lot more about the nature of the keyblades in particular. We went through the majority of Kingdom Hearts 1 with the impression that there was only one keyblade. By the end of the game, we're introduced to three, and then in the secret movies for the game we find out there's as many as five. Next thing we know, we get a secret ending for Kingdom Hearts 2 which shows hundreds of keyblades. My one beef with Kingdom Hearts as a series is stuff like that--there's a lot that really goes unexplained for the most part. I mean, it's an indication that there's a lot of life left in the series, but damn it's rather frustrating. I think Birth By Sleep, moreso than the other two announced titles, will help rectify this situation.

As far as Final Fantasy XIII goes, I've not looked a whole lot into it. Nothing about it has really grabbed my attention yet. It looks pretty, but that's about all I know about it. Oh yeah, Shiva's a bike. I'm interested to see where it goes; I know I'll get it, too. I don't expect it to be fantastic though. I find I like the medieval setting far more in Final Fantasy games anyway.

As far as ToS2... well, I went to buy the first game and it wasn't at Gamestop. I've rented it, but haven't played an awful lot. So far I'm not particularly impressed, but I'm not willing to give up on the game quite yet as it receives an awful lot of praise from most people I've talked to. I'll refrain from commenting on ToS2 until I've played the first. I have no experience with the Tales of series to base anything on. I'll be honest, though, I'm more interested in Tales of Vesperia.