a lack of end-game content. As part of his review, he called it "perhaps the finest franchise entry to date". Matt Miller of Game Informer was less positive than most other reviewers, finding the story and gameplay lacking while appreciating the graphical polish. IGN's Ryan Geddes called it "a strong anime-style Japanese RPG", generally citing the game as an enjoyable experience. Francesca Reyes, writing for Official Xbox Magazine, found some aspects of the battle system frustrating, but stated that most other aspects of the game made up for this deficiency. Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot was positive overall, despite noting a lack of strategy in a lot of battles and similarity to previous Tales games. Hardcore Gamers Steve Hannley called the game a good starting point for the series on then-current consoles. RPGFan's Ashton Liu said that, while it stood as perhaps the best entry in the series, he also noted that it had not evolved very much mechanically when compared to other RPG series. GameSpy's Gabe Graziani cited it as a graphical improvement over other JRPGs on the console, and praised the characters despite citing the story as being conventional, and called it "[a] superior blend of style and production value". Famitsu gave the PS3 port a positive review, noting its expanded content when compared to the original and sharing many sentiments with their original review. Japanese gaming website 4Gamer.net recommended the PS3 port to both veterans of the series and to newcomers, and positively noting its expanded content. James Quentin Clark, reviewing the port for RPGFan, said that the added features had made Vesperia the best JRPG of its console generation. In conclusion, he called it "the most complete package game in the series and a must-have for fans of action RPGs". Sales In its debut week, Vesperia reached #4 in Famitsus sales charts, selling around 120,000 units. An alternate assessment by Media Create placed the game at #4 with sales of 108,000 units. The game helped boost sales of its console in Japan: sales rose to just under 25,000 over roughly 5,000 during the previous week, doubling the console's sales when compared to the PS3. By the beginning of 2009, the game had sold just over 161,000, reaching #82 in Famitsus list of 100 top-selling games of 2008. It was also the only Xbox 360 game to appear in the list. As of April 2010, the game's Japanese