Like has already been mentioned, the Fonon Fields become more useful later on and are kinda worthless in the begining. And cooking, while kinda fun in all of the Tales of games, is only an actually important feature in Tales of Graces (cooking in that game is very useful in fact).
Vesperia is one of the best (if you ask me anyway). Yuri Lowell is possibly my favourite RPG MC of all time. And Rita is just as awesome a mage as Jade (but even better in battles).