Namco's Tales series thoughts

Vesperia is one of the better ones so I think you'll enjoy it.

Last Tales I played was Xillia, still need to get around to Xillia 2 and Zestiria eventually. I'm not sure if I'll get Hearts R or not, maybe later down the line if there is a long period of no Tales releases.

I've only played Vesperia and Symphonia. Vesperia was amazing, and one of the few 360 games I could get into. Symphonia was okay, played for about 6 hours and lost interest.

Tales of Vesperia

I just finished Tales of Vesperia after about 50 hours, and i thought I would note down some thoughts.

Edit: (just popping in the CGR and CGRUndertow reviews by Mark and TJ respectively.)




Visuals:
I love the cell-shaded art here, and having seen later entries in the Tales series, I'm a bit sad that it didn't become the series standard. This game came out 8 years ago, and still looks lovely. I'm sure I'll enjoy the later entries' art, but I will definitely miss this.  Because of this choice, the transition from in-game engine scenes to animated cut scenes is a lot less jarring than any of the other entries I've played.

Both the cell shading and the general colour-palette reminded me a lot Ni no Kuni, which I definitely consider a positive comparison. 

Voice Acting:
It was nice to hear Troy Baker as Yuri, but I really liked the whole cast.  Normally I have a few standouts, but this was just an excellent English voice-cast.

Audio
Just a fantastic soundtrack from start to finish.  There's a reason why TJ calls out Sakurai's score in all his Tales reviews.

Mechanics
The skill system was interesting, with characters learning them via equipped weapons.  I found it kept me switching out weapons, and using the synth system more than I probably would have otherwise.

A second character able to act as a primary healer would have been useful as well, as it means Estellise has to be in the party most of the time, and:


As far as negatives, there aren't a lot. After dying at a few bosses, particularly the final boss, I would have greatly liked the ability to skip cut scenes.  
I understand that this issues was addressed in the Japanese-only expanded PS3 version, but still, the 360 version is still an excellent game.

Other Presentation Stuff
Shout out to Repede for being probably my favourite mascot character from the series.  A lot of this has to do with him not speaking, and simply looking stoic with his pipe, but he's a great combat character as well.

Story (behind the spoiler tag)


Overall
I think this is overall my favourite Tales game that I've played up to this point.  It definitely doesn't look or feel like an eight year old game.  I'm sad that we didn't get the enhanced PS3 version in North America, but the Xbox 360 version is definitely worth the playthrough.

Next on the Tales list (though a few other games will come beforehand) will be Tales of Graces f

Tales of Graces f

Edit: Just reformatting this to match the other reviews in the thread.

I finished up Tales of Graces f today, and thought I’d post a few thoughts, as I continue with the Tales series. First up, here’s TJ’s Undertow review for reference.



My playthrough took about 40 hours for the main game, and another 10 or so for the epilogue.

Tales of Graces was originally released in Japan as a Wii title, and then received some extra content, including a full epilogue chapter to the main story, and was re-released as Tales of Graces f for the PS3, which is the version that we received.

In a lot of ways, this is sort of the opposite of how things went with Tales of Vesperia, where we received the original 360 version, rather than the PS3 version with added content.

Visuals
After playing Tales of Vesperia, the art style chosen for the character models in Graces feels like a downgrade. Note that I didn’t say the character designs themselves, as the characters in skits and animated cuts scenes look very much like Vesperia. However, the character models no longer use the cell-shaded look of Vesperia. I liked that in Vesperia, the art style remained consistent between the in-game models, animated cut scenes, and skits.

The style they went with for Graces does allow for more detail in shading and such, but the character models end up looking very doll-like. This effect varies from character to character, though I noticed it most with Cheria’s model. I had wondered if this might have been a technical consideration for the Wii, but from what I’ve seen of the subsequent Tales titles, it looks like they’ve stayed away from the cell-shaded look of Vesperia, which I find unfortunate.  I also don't remember the effect being that prominent in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, and that game predated Grace's Wii release by a year.

That said, I don’t think this choice actually detracts from the game much.

Voice Acting
The voice acting here was top notch. Lip movement for the English voices was not well mapped to the character models, but I only noted it a few times over the course of the playthrough.

Since I mentioned it previously in my Vesperia thoughts as a feature I’d like to see, it was nice to be able to skip cutscenes. I didn’t use the feature a lot, but it was nice to be able to skip scenes after I died on a few bosses.

Audio
Sakuraba's soundtrack was top notch as always, though as with a lot of the Tales games, none of it has particularly stuck with me.

Mechanics
I miss the overworld map as, and I understand it is missing from subsequent games as well. Certainly other JRPG series have abandoned the overworld as well, so it isn’t earth shattering here. However, I found that the design of the travel sections between towns and dungeons made the world seem fairly small.

I very much enjoyed the combat system in Graces, though it took a little getting used to after older Tales titles. There isn’t really any MP in Graces. Instead, combat revolves around CC (Chain Capacity). Every action in combat uses up CC, and once it is used up, it takes a few seconds to recharge.

This eliminates the need for tracking both HP and MP in combat, and seems to make for both more fluid combat with fewer interruptions to use items. This means that recovery Artes can’t be used outside of combat, but I never really found this to be an issue and rarely had to use any healing items while outside of combat.

Titles for characters have been present in many previous Tales games, usually with minor mechanical effects. Here they’re the primary customizable feature for the characters. Titles are unlocked via various story, side quest or combat pre-requisites, and then each has 5 benefits that can be unlocked when equipped. Nice to see this long-time series feature become a bit more important.

Story

Overall
I’d definitely recommend this, either to Tales fans, or to newcomers looking for a jumping on point.

Tales of Xillia is next on the list for me, but I'll be taking a break first to try out Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE.

You seem to be really into the 'Tales' series. Have you tried Berseria demo? I'm assuming you have a PS4.
I have to say, Berseria rekindled whatever interest i had in the series after Zestiria killed the series in my eyes.

Tales of Xillia 2

I've finished up my playthrough of Tales of Xillia 2, so as usual, I thought I'd post some thoughts.  As always, he's TJ's CGRUndertow review, although I believe this is the last of the Tales games he reviewed.  As usual, review may contain some minor spoilers.




Unlike Xillia with its two viewpoint characters, Xillia 2 features one playable protagonist (Ludger) and one non-playable protagonist (Elle) who serve as viewpoint characters, along with all the playable characters from Xillia, and a few new party members.

Ludger is a (mostly) silent protagonist, a rarity for the Tales series, and most of his personality takes the form of player-driven choices, and silent emoting.

Visuals
Once again, Xillia 2 is a very pretty game.  Most areas from the first Xillia are re-used, and look virtually identical.  The Elympion metropolis of Trigleph has been expanded, and several new areas are available within the technological country of Elympios, such as the seedy trading town of Duval, the western-themes hamlet of Drellin, and the new port of Marksburg, which links Elympios to the island-nation of Rieze Maxia, where most of the first Xillia was set.  

The new locations are quite pretty, even if the old locations don't really get a face-life.  I did notice that even when running a digital copy on the PS3, when entering an area, various NPCs would take upwards of 5-10 seconds before they would start popping into existance. I don't know if the disc version features more significant delays.

All of the returning PCs from the first Xillia get a bit of an Elympion makeover, as most are either visiting or working in the new country. This serves as a nice style difference, as Rieze Maxia fashions had a distinct fantasy flair, whereas Elympian outfits seem more like a mix of modern earth high fashion, with a bit of 1930's and 40's thrown in.  King Gaius from the previous game for example, looks cool decked out in a three-piece suit and trenchcoat, rather than his previous fire-themed cloak. 

Most of the costumes from the previous game are unlockable, along with new costumes and variations.

Voice Acting
As usual, this is a high point for most Tales games.  The returning cast are generally great, along with new characters like Elle, Julis, Bisley, Nova and Vera all featuring excellent performances.  The low point again, is unfortunately Minae Noji as Milla.  While her very reserved portrayal of Milla in the first game eventually grew on me, here she spends a large part of the game playing an alternate version of Milla who is much closer to a normal human, and comes off as very grating.  I was very relieved to see the return of the original version of the character later in the game.

Audio
Much of the soundtrack is reused from the previous entry, but new areas like the additional Elympion cities all feature excellent, distinctive themes.

Mechanics
Battle mechanics are very similar to the previous entry, but with more focus on various elemental and attack weaknesses.  In addition, the previous entry already added an extra complication to the tales battle system by providing an item that allowed the player to access a completely different set of 8 pre-set artes by holding down L1, for a total of 16.  Xillia 2 adds to this complexity, by giving Ludger 3 distince weapon styles which can be swapped on the fly (dual-swords, dual-pistols and sledgehammer), each with its own set of artes. In addition, the same item makes a return later in the game allowing up to 48 different pre-sets for that character alone.

I found tis to be...overly complicated for my needs in a Tales game.  However, for someone who is a fan of games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry who has been looking for a JRPG to get into, this might be perfect.  The Tales games with their non-menu-based combat are already better suited for this kind of fan than many other JRPGs, but Xillia 2 (and Xillia to a lesser degree) offers a ton of options to explore, particularly if they want to crank the difficulty.

Xillia's previous grid-based Lillium orb leveling system has been scrapped for the Allium Orb system.  Character's stats increase normally by level, but skills and arts are learned by equipping orbs which focus elemental energy along one (or more) or 6 paths. It took me a while to get the hang of this, and I think I liked it less than the old grid system, but it wasn't unmanagable.

Other Presentation Stuff
The only thing I really recall is that you're given access to a bunch of Rieze Maxia just about 1 short chapter before you have access to fast-travel, which was a bit annoying once I realized this.

Story (Going behind a spoiler)


Overall
This definitely feels like an expansion/continuation of the original Xillia.  I often like to see what happens in these sorts of epilogues, because "happily ever after" usually isn't.  I'd have preferred that the story have focused on the integration of the two worlds, rather than all the other plot elements, but I'm not sure if that would have made for a full game.  I would say that Xillia 2 isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but there is still a lot to like here.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

I really didn't really expect to finish this less than two weeks after Symphonia.  I was visiting some friends around new year, and started it up, intending to play a few hours while we had nothing else going on.  I played up to chapter 3, but then the highways were closed due to blizzard conditions on the day I was to go back. I ended up playing all the way up through to near the end of chapter 7 that day, and then finished off chapter 8 (and thus the game) the next night after driving home.

Much like Symphonia, I had played DotNW when it originally came out on the Wii.  As such, I once again ended up grabbing an existing save file and using some of the options in the Grade shop (10x experience, item carryover, etc).  This definitely sped up my playtime, and much more so than Symphonia.  My playthrough clocked in at just over 22 hours.

One odd note.  Unlike Xillia 2, DotNW is considered a spin-off, rather than a "Mothership" title for the Tales franchise.  I'm not sure why this would be, but my guess would be the monster-collecting element, which is a bit of a departure for the series.

As always here are the Undertow reviews.  First, the original Wii release done by Ray Carsillo, and then once more the review of the Chronicles collection from TJ.  (Beware, the first Undertow review is pretty rough):





Visuals
The visuals in DotNW look excellent, particularly considering it was a Wii game that came out in 2008.  While it can't compare to Vesperia, which was released on the Xbox 360 the same year, I do think that it holds up favorably when compared with Graces, which was released in 2009 on the Wii.  I didn't replay Symphonia when this came out originally, and now playing both of them so close together, I was surprised at ho2 many of my memories of how Sylvarant and Tethe'alla look is based on this game, rather than the original Symphonia.

Aside from the opening movie, I don't recall any anime cut scenes in the game itself.  Everything is done with the in-game engine and looks great.  Fight choreography and motion capture in particular should be spotlighted.  The characters seem to move like real people would, and a few sword fights that take place in cut scenes look great.

The character models are much improved over Symphonia's lego-people, which is no surprise given the 5 year difference in release and a different console generation. Th dark outlines on people and buildings are gone, and the game has a softer colour palate than either Symphonia or Graces.  The previous Symphonia characters all look excellent with their new models, and the new party members and supporting characters and antagonists all match well with that standard.

The opening sequence is standard for a Tales game, but I really liked the closing credits visuals.  As much as I liked Symphonia's, these are even better.

One bit of disappointment. A new type of creature, an elemental Centurion is introduced in the game.  Tenebrae, the Centurion of Darkness and Aqua, the Centurion of Shadow both play prominent roles in the story, and have interesting designs.  Despite their role in the story though, the other six centurions are never seen on screen except in "core" form, basically a glowing orb.  It was a shame we didn't get to see the others.

Voice Acting

Unfortunately, most of the original voice cast did not return for the sequel.  That said, the majority new cast members do a great job of staying true to the spirit of the characters.  In a few cases, such as with Genis and Raine, I wasn't even able to tell that they had new voice actors until I looked it up after the fact.  Sadly, the major exception is Brian Beacock's verion of Lloyd, which seemed too serious, mature and intelligent when compared with the last game, and didn't feel like the same character, even given the in-game circumstances.

It was nice to have Cam Clark's Kratos do a bit of opening narration, and I think Heather Hogan's portrayal of Colette had come a long way since the first game.   

For the standouts here though, I have to give credit to the new cast.  Johnny Yonh Bosch as Emil, Laura Bailey as Marta and Christopher Corey Smith as Tenebrae are excellent, and given that they have the majority of the dialogue, this heavily impacted my enjoyment of the game.  

Audio
Since the majority of the music is remastered content from Symphonia, the same applies for DotNW.  Much like the visual section though, I'd like to say that DotNW has an excellent closing credits theme, with some great piano work.

Mechanics
DotNW introduces a monster capture system.  Basically Emil is a front-line combat character, Marta uses healing and attack magic, and everything else is done via monsters.  The original Symphonia cast members join the party periodically, but their levels and equipment are locked.  Even in my original playthrough, I found them to be under-leveled when in the party so I never really used them, let alone in my Chronicles version replay.

The monster system is fairly interesting.  Basically anything except boss monsters are fair game.  There is an elemental grid manipulated based on what artes the party and enemies are using, that will allow you to attempt to recruit a monster of the appropriate type. The first time I played DotNW, I had a great time hunting for monsters and spent quite a bit of effort on it.  This time I pretty much powered through with a small group I picked up by chance along the way.

Beyond that, the combat system is pretty much Tales standard.  8 artes assignable to button combinations or the right stick.  Free-roaming is possible and much welcomed. It was not in the original Symphonia, but had featured in several intervening series titles.

I think that DotNW may have been the first Tales title to forgo an overworld, in favour of a map screen and quick-travel.  I think it works pretty well here, though the in-game world can't just be walked through, like Graces or Xillia.  Unlike Graces, it is made available early on, which is welcome.  Similar to Xillia, certain areas may be unavailable at times due to the story, etc.

Story


Overall
I don't know that I would have said this when I originally played DotNW, but having played both Symphonia games close together this time, I think DotNW is probably the superior game.  I still like Symphonia, and DotNW definitely wouldn't be as strong if it existed in a vacuum, but I really did enjoy the sequel more in this case, and that doesn't happen often for me.

Up next will likely be Tales of Zestiria, though I'm finishing up a few non-Tales games first.