Yeah, ME is like KOTR, but to me that's a good thing. There were some parts about ME that I didn't like, but for the most part it was a solid game with a nice story to it. As for tales of Vesperia it all depends on if you're into the Tales series or not. If you are, this is going to be right up your alley and they toss some new things in. If the series isn't you're thing and you think it involves button mashing pass it up. If FF12 was your thing you might feel at home with this one as you can set your team on autopilot and have them do everything. The downside of this is you don't get points for your "grade" at the end, and grade will come into play when it comes to certain parts of the game.
There are a lot of weapons, items and armor that can be found, purchased and synthesized, and the moves and combo links look tight. It's a good looking game, but besides the giganto monsters, the enemies don't really offer much of a challange. What I don't like about the game are the english voices (Carrols voice will make you want to commit suicide), how some of the cut scenes in the game have no dialog while others do (I heard this was because of translation errors and not being able to get the actors back in the booth), parts of the story (either you can see it coming or it simply sucks) and how the game opens up for full exploration right before the final battle.
Replay value is extremely high on this one as there are achievements and items that can only be earned once you beat the game and reload the old file.
I'd give it a solid 8.