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Post by Imperial Khador on Mar 3, 2017 0:58:25 GMT
fsfsxii Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! (both the review and the game) I kind of have a love/hate relationship with the skits in Tales. I think they're great way to expand the story, but sometimes they can get a bit tedious when they come in clumps. I do like how Zestiria had more chatter just occur as you were walking around without interrupting the game-flow as well. In Zestiria, after every story event, a number of skits seem to unlock at the inn, but you actually have to pay and stay there for each skit. I could easily see someone not realizing this, and miss a ton of background information because the only stay at an inn once. It is also a bit of a cash sink since you have no easy way to determine how to many more skits are left. I found I only rarely paid for the higher priced food options at inns because of this, despite the better battle-benefits they offered. I didn't notice the 2-3 frame delay, but that could easily just be poor perception on my part. I did notice that in the option menu, there is an "Attack Input Time" selection with both 'normal' and 'long' options, to give you some extra time for combo inputs, so it is possible the designers noticed the delay, and this is the semi-solution. Regarding the accessing higher seraphic artes by holding X, I did notice that. I guess it is a battle option called 'Charge Cast'. I found myself using it quite a bit when armatized after I unlocked it. For whatever reason it felt more natural that using the stick directions. I hope it shows up in future tales games. There's a similar option for hidden artes called 'Greater Heights'.
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fsfsxii
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Post by fsfsxii on Mar 3, 2017 11:56:59 GMT
Imperial Khador I think this is my favorite Tales game, and possibly my favorite PS4 game. I'm doing the shrine trials now, while simultaneously doing some side quests, and i really like how they don't give you any indicators, your only cue is talking to people in towns or Rose. It makes the adventure much more interesting.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Mar 3, 2017 12:03:36 GMT
Yeah, just because I had a few qualms doesn't mean I didn't have a ton of fun. It was thoroughly enjoyable, and I'm interested to see what changes they've made with Berseria.
The shrine trials are a pretty fun section. The music from the 4 shrines are definitely some of my favourite in the game.
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fsfsxii
Space Striker
What to believe...
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Post by fsfsxii on Mar 3, 2017 12:18:23 GMT
Yeah, just because I had a few qualms doesn't mean I didn't have a ton of fun. It was thoroughly enjoyable, and I'm interested to see what changes they've made with Berseria. The shrine trials are a pretty fun section. The music from the 4 shrines are definitely some of my favourite in the game. Right. You can try the Berseria demo, its quite good. ah yes, the music was simply outstanding. The whole game is giving me a FF12 vibe, as it was a huge expansive game with an epic story that was misunderstood by its fans.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Mar 4, 2017 21:48:10 GMT
Played the Berseria demo, and I really enjoyed it, short as it was. It seems to have the biggest variation on the Tales battle system in quite a while. Took a bit to get used to, but I liked it.
I notice that they seem to be going with smaller overland areas, compared to Zestiria. Closer in size and layout to Xillia. Since I noticed it running at a consistent 60 fps, it seems like this was a decent compromise. The mini-map also seemed to be more like Xillia's, which I liked. I know Berseria was the last Tales game that's going to be designed with the PS3 in mind (even though its western-release was PC and PS4 only). I think I'll really enjoy it when I play it later in the year, but I'm interested to see what Tales Studio does with the next game, assuming it will be built for the PS4 from the ground up.
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fsfsxii
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Post by fsfsxii on Mar 5, 2017 23:12:30 GMT
Thats assuming Bamco gives them a proper budget xD
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Post by spidershinobi on Mar 25, 2017 16:52:15 GMT
I see you guys have been talking about Tales. During the time I stopped coming here I became a huge Tales of Xillia fan. I remember the digital edition was on sale for dirty cheap, so I decided to finally let go of the overwhelmingly confusing views from Tales fans and buy it.
That game became one of my favorites really fast, giving me once again that child-like feeling of discovery. Everything about it was new to me (including systems, of course) and I can't downplay the budget that may have gone into its making when it comes to my enjoyment; in a similar fashion to RE5, it's a product that was already going to be good, but was made better by containing things that only money can buy, such as the nice and expansive voice-acting, specially in ToX considering how many lines had to be recorded. Since I just mentioned it, I'm sorry for everyone who didn't like voice-acting on any of the main characters, they were all on point 99% of the time (at least); only a few non-recurring NPCs show signs of bad acting, but they end up sounding cheesy so it's ok, I guess.
If I'm to talk about the shortcomings, I think that in a game like this, in which you choose your path, there should ALWAYS be a recommendation for those of us who aren't aware of what's to come. If you play Milla first, you're missing out most of the intelligible part of the plot, often times being exposed to things that are only meant to be understood in the latter half of Jude's side. It's a similar issue to Folklore in that you have 2 characters to choose from, but in that game the player is given enough freedom to ruin the fun of the game by playing each characters' episodes back to back - or even playing anything with Keats before finishing Ellen's chapters. Another issue, but way softer, is that there's somewhat of a strong learning curve on dealing with the arena styled commands for the combats; even today I still see myself ocasionally jumping when I should have held another button to circle around an enemy. There's also one scene right in the final moments of Jude's side in which one character makes an amazing realization out of a single, throwaway line from another character during a flashback, and that realization steers the plot in a certain way. I just think that specific moment could've been better developed, possibly with multiple characters helping that one in coming to that "epiphany".
Now that I've talked about the pet peeves, it's time to talk about the more particular aspects of Xillia. And if anyone who didn't finish the game at least once is reading, please mind that there may be SPOILERS, even if I try to be light about them. There's one thing that this deserves credit for and I never saw anyone talk about it: it tells a story no one is willing to tell. From books to videogames, I'm not aware of any author who would tell such an off-beat story. Yeah, off-beat. Everything about the story in ToX seems to be placed right before or right after that "just-right" feeling that makes super-hero and book inspired movies sell well; sure it isn't a completely weird experience, but once you think about what just happened right in front of your eyes you realize the tale being told isn't exactly trying to fit among other stories of similar or bigger scope. In the end, I don't think I can recall any epic in which victory brought almost no accomplishment other than friendship, or even one in which there were very few (and debatable) villains despite the amount of antagonists. The characters, all the main characters (except Wingul of course), are great! I must admit that this game came to me in a quite opportune moment of my life, and one of those characters impressed me a lot; at first a character who I didn't think much about evolved to become "too real" or just "reminding me a lot more of myself than I ever expected to". Things like this only make the bonding among them and even the ending of the game much more meaningful, and even happy all things considered. I absolutely love how Elise and Alvin go from non-interesting/annoying to become the best characters in the game and how that's saying a lot when you've got Milla around. All those folks have a special place in my fictional-character memory because of what was developed in this tale, even Agria and Nochtigal.
As a bonus, after finishing the game my memory of the last 2 chapters remained very strong in my mind, and I happened to listen to State of Trance when a new version of a track by Duderstadt played, and that track not only made me have a lot of the feels again, but also made me very confused because I began to retroactively remind it as the actual theme of Xagut Floodmeadows:
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Post by Imperial Khador on Mar 27, 2017 9:12:46 GMT
Great post there, spidershinobi . I'm glad you took the plunge and had a great time with Xillia. Digital sales are definitely a great way to get into the series, since a lot of them go for under the $5 mark during the sales. The only possibly sad point is that Xillia is a bit of a high water mark for the series, so hopefully you'll enjoy some of the others nearly as much if you give them a try. Xillia 2 also has a lot going for it, even if I feel it doesn't reach the heights of the first one, so you may want to try it next Very enjoyable to hear about your impressions. At the moment, I've been trying to put an hour here and there towards Tales of Innocence, as time with other games permits.
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Post by spidershinobi on Mar 27, 2017 10:26:21 GMT
Thanks for that! And yeah, I realize ToX seems kind of "distanced" to other games seeing how it isn't talked about often. But I'm definitely going to play the other ones! After I finish the Milla side playthrough I'll play ToX2 which I already have in the shelf - I just really want more of those characters - and then I'll see where I'll get... Hopefully Tales of Rays gets localized because playing on the phone is quite convenient for me lately.
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Post by spidershinobi on Sept 7, 2017 13:58:55 GMT
If you are a fan of the Tales series you must know about Tales of the Rays, the latest entry in the series. I have installed it in my phone since the day after it released, and I feel safe about what to say on it.
Tales of the Rays shows failures in game design. As someone who plays Tales of Link and has some experience with the mainline games, the Rays clearly set out to provide an experience similar to that of the 3D games, and as a result we get practically a streamlined Tales game. While you have full control of the movement of your character of choice in the field and during combat, the rest of the controls were designed to work around system limitations: screen taps commands your character to perform regular attacks, if one is far away then first he/she runs up to the target; defending is done by not touching anything; diagonal swipes perform special moves which the player has assigned via different equipment, so Jude's Cerberus Strike can performed by assigning a specific gauntlet; and mystic artes are slowly charged and performed by swiping upwards a character's portrait. Deployment is done in teams of 4 characters you slowly collect, plus a mystic arte from the friendlist. You see, even if having only 4 moves doesn't streamline much, the lack of items certainly make for a big difference, specially considering how often item usage happens in the regular games. If that wasn't enough, as someone who only played Xillia, the Rays doesn't feel deep at all. To make things worse the fields are super uninteresting, mostly roads which contain either badly hidden chests or enemies waiting around.
And those aren't issues big enough for me... The biggest problem of the Rays is that it contains a legitimately interesting story but doesn't seem to be the right game for the platform... And Tales of Link is a much better fit for phones. Lets face it, matching tiles in Tales of Link while occasionally making use characters' skills and dealing with adversities there isn't only deeper than everything the Rays has offered up to this point, but you can also do all of that at any moment, even during work breaks. Details such as how Tales of Link never tried to streamline mechanics from the main games don't help the Rays, either.
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fsfsxii
Space Striker
What to believe...
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Post by fsfsxii on Sept 8, 2017 4:46:03 GMT
Nice to see you shinobi. During the time i stopped coming here i lost my Tales of Zestiria save file because of missing DLC files. I've been bitter since then. The last two weeks i bought Berseria, and its great fun. I've no more to say about it.
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Post by spidershinobi on Sept 8, 2017 11:02:45 GMT
And I started watching the anime for Zestiria! Currently at episode 4.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Sept 13, 2017 19:03:39 GMT
spidershinobi Thanks for the insight into Tales of Rays. I haven't played any of the mobile entries in the series, so I find your observations interesting. I stopped playing Tales of Innocence a while ago, but I should pick it up again now that I'm done with Fire Emblem Echoes. I'll be interested to see what you think of the Zestiria anime. I quite liked the early episodes, but enjoyed it less later on once the divergences from the game became more pronounced. The animation remained excellent throughout.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Oct 9, 2017 4:28:30 GMT
Tales of Innocence (Incomplete) I've put down Tales of Innocence for the DS for the second time recently. I'm not sure if I'll pick it up again, so this should definitely considered an incomplete review. If I try it again at some point, I suspect it will be if Tales of Innocence R for the Vita gets localized, or an english fan-patch. I played the using the english translation patch from Absolute Zero Translations, who also did Tales of the Tempest, and once again this is a fantastic job. Dialogue is localized well, and conversations flow naturally. They even included options that can be toggled in game to switch the names of techniques between the localized names used in other tales games, or more literal translations. Here's the intro sequence, which I quite like. Visuals
Innocence looks fantastic, particularly in comparison with Tales of the Tempest. The team that worked on this seemed to have a much better grasp of the DS's capabilities, and it shows. Gone are the extremely blocky models. Characters and towns look much more vibrant, and alive, and the characters' facial expressions manage to emote quite well. Dungeons seem to be fairly rudimentary, and are presented in an almost isometric view. They don't stand out among the Tales series, but were a darned sight better than those in Tempest. Voice Acting
Japanese voice-acting only, so I can't comment too much on the quality, aside from the voices seeming to match well with the characters' personalities. That said, there is an impressive amount of voiced dialogue, particularly for a DS game. Most of the main story sequences are voiced (something like 160 minutes), though the skits are not, and I find this makes it feel a lot more like a modern tales game than Tempest. Audio
I really like the opening theme for the game, and found myself watching it in full every time I started the game. The score is by Kazuhiro Nakamura, and while all the music seemed appropriate to the scenes, none really stands out to me. Mechanics
The menu system is greatly improved over Tales of the Tempest, and looks quite similar to that used for Tales of the Abyss on 3DS. Characters can each pick from several different fighting styles (attack, defense, caster, speed), which are leveled up separately. Each modifies the characters' base stats, as well as unlocking various abilities which can be mixed and matched regardless of style equipped. I found this style of mix-and-match appealing, but some of the normal limits of the Tales series limited their usefulness. For example, there's not a lot of point in powering a character up as a caster if you intend to use them as your directly-controlled character. Enemies tend to dog-pile the PC, constantly interrupting actions, so spellcasting is best left to support NPCs. Like Tales of the Tempest, you are limited to 3 active characters in battle, as opposed to the normal 4, but combat is closer to more modern Tales games, unlike the 3 horizontal planes used in Tempest. Story
What I've played of the story definitely seems interesting. Various characters in the semi-modern age of their world (think Tethe'alla from Tales of Symphonia) begin awakening as 'Avatars', finding out that they are essentially reincarnations of powerful magic-using beings who lived in a world linked to the current one in a long-ago mythic age. All the characters so far seem to be reincarnations of those who lived in the final era of that other world and fought an era-ending war that brought about the current world. It is definitely an interesting premise, and the player characters often have personalities quite different from the old incarnations. Some are even reincarnations of a dragon, or a sentient sword.
In the current day, various groups are rounding up these avatars as they awaken, either forcing them to fight using the magical abilities, or as batteries for magical war-machines.
The premise definitely seemed neat, as far as I've played.
OverallMy main complaint about Innocence, and what has twice caused me to put the game down is the apparent amount of grinding involved. After about 6-8 hours, I think I had a pretty good handle on the different strategies and fighting styles used, but I found that regular battles would often still take several minutes of chipping away at enemies' health, and even gaining a few levels didn't seem much different. On the boss where I finally quit, I had spent several hours grinding in the same dungeon, with weapons appropriate to the area, and I still found myself taken out by the boss and his minions too quickly to keep up with items, or or any different strategies, characters or styles and ability combinations to make much of a difference. The prospect of grinding for several more hours didn't appeal to me, even if I was going to be doing something else like watching television at the same time. You can set all the characters to auto-battle, but given the nature of combat in Tales games, this would increase the amount of time spent grinding, as computer controlled characters are not the best tactical thinkers. That said, for players that don't mind the grind, save points all fully restore health and tech points, so you don't have to worry about being caught just before an unwinnable battle with no way to level up. Oddly, I've seen people online mentioning that this is an exceptionally easy Tales game, even on Maniac mode, but that hasn't been my experience so far, at least with some of the bosses that I've found to be bottlenecks.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Dec 31, 2017 17:53:19 GMT
So kind of a neat thing. I have a friend with the PS3 version of Tales of Vesperia, which has a fair bit of extra content, but was never officially translated into english. There is an unofficial english patch that has been around for a while (http://www.talesofvesperia.net/), but neither of us have wanted to try and go through the hassle of downgrading a PS3's firmware version to soft mod, etc.
However, it looks there there has been a recent exploit that allows PS3s on the current firmware (4.82) to be softmodded very easily. We modded his this week, and got Vesperia up and running with the patch. Once he's done, I'll probably borrow his copy and do the same on my PS3. Aside from an entirely new character, and another NPC becoming playable, the script is apparently about 30% longer, so I'm excited to re-experience this game in 2018.
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