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Post by spidershinobi on Dec 31, 2017 22:57:18 GMT
Oh this is very cool! But at the same time I wouldn't do something that may be risky for my console; Sony ones are already delicate without tinkering.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Jan 1, 2018 6:24:03 GMT
That's completely understandable. It might be a bit yet before I give it a try. I'd like to finish Nier Automata and Final Fantasy XV first.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Feb 25, 2018 0:22:36 GMT
Sad to hear, but it looks like Absolute Zero Translations is shutting down. In years past, they had released some excellent translation patches for the PS1 version of Tales of Phantasia, as well as Tales of the Tempest and Tales of Innocence. They had some other projects going, such as the PS2 director's cut of Tales of Destiny, but it looks like all work has stopped, and they've decided to take down their patches for the older games. I was hoping their patch for the PSP version of Tales of Phantasia might see the light of day at some point, as it was closest to the modern Tales, featuring more voice acting, a grade shop, etc. Since it looks like that won't ever be completed now, I guess I'll have to get around to trying the PS1 version, since I downloaded that patch a while ago. It is a shame that they opted not to keep the older patches up, but I'm definitely grateful for them allowing me to play some of the unlocalized Tales games in english. |
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Post by Imperial Khador on Apr 8, 2018 20:33:24 GMT
Tales of Berseria
I finished most of Tales of Berseria up a few weeks ago. I don't think I'll be doing much of the post-game content though, so might as well post some thoughts. Here is Tales of Berseria review from Easy Allies (the former Gametrailers folks), written by Michael Damiani with voiceover by Brandon Jones. My playthrough of Berseria took around the 40 hour mark, which appears to be about average if someone isn't persuing all the extras. VisualsI played on the PS4. Like Zesteria, Berseria is available on the PC as well, but was available on the PS3 in Japan, and definitely feels like it was designed for that console. This appears to be the same engine used for Xillia 1 and 2, and Zestiria. Some of my concerns with Zestiria were definitely addressed here. The game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second on the PS4, and enemies no longer appear to just have a few, choppy frames of animation when too far from the party. NPCs faces seem a bit more varied, even if some of the face models in use since Xillia are definitely here. There are some drawbacks as well. Outdoor areas are no longer the massive, sprawling areas featured in Zestiria, but are generally a series of smaller, interconnected areas. This is similar to Xillia, though I believe individual maps here are larger, sort of a happy medium between the previous two main-series entries. Dungeons suffer from the same large, empty look that I found to be an issue with Zestiria. In that game though, there were some standouts, like the elemental shrines. I did not find that to be the case with Berseria. Voice Acting
As usual, I was quite pleased with the quality of the english voiceover cast, and happy to see all the skits voiced. I would say the standout this time is Christina Vee as Velvet, mainly because there is such a deep contrast the Velvet we see in the prologue and flashbacks and the rage-filled demon we see for most of the game. Her intonation as demon-Velvet actually reminds me a lot of David Hayter in the Metal Gear games. Audio
As always, the music fits the game well enough, but aside from the intro, I didn't see any standout tracks here, which is unfortunate. Mechanics
As it shares the same world, it makes sense that Berseria shares a lot of the art-tree structure that Zestiria had in place. I found Berseria a bit more user-friendly. Party mechanics are a bit closer to older tales games, as without Zestiria's Armitization techniques, you aren't forced to lower the total number of party members in order to get a power boost. Party members can be switched out semi-freely, which is definitely helpful for protracted battles. I did find myself just finding a few art combos that I liked and sticking with them, but I think there is the option to go deeper if the player is interested. Zestiria had experimented with having battles load directly onto the dungeon or field map, and the were definitely some camera issues caused by this. Berseria features a short transition, and the background does look like the same area as the dungeon or field map you were on, but the game makes sure you have plenty of room in which to manuver. Outside of battle, I will say Berseria leans way too hard into collecting. Some costume items can be found by locating Katz boxes throughout the world, but you also have to have found enough Katz souls in order to unlock them. Katz souls are everywhere in your path as you travel, but you'll frequently have to double back to unlock these boxes. Just simply unlocking the items when you find the boxes would have been a lot more direct and enjoyable. StoryBerseria serves as a thousand-year prequel to Zestiria. In a time of crisis, when demons roam the land, a man named Artorius performs a ritual that makes the unseen spirits known as Malakim, and as Seraphim in Zestiria's time, visible and binds them to the service of his order of exorcists. He becomes known as the Shepherd.
That title carried a lot of weight in Zestiria's time, but its origins were lost. It was however known that the Shepherd would always oppose a force of power and malevolence known as the Lord of Calamity.
Berseria's protagonist, Velvet, is the woman who would be known as the first Lord of Calamity. Transformed into a demon, she was Artorius' sister-in-law, and one of several sacrifices, along with her younger brother, that he made in order to put forward his vision of a saved humanity.
The party is a curious one. Aside from Velvet, we have a trickster witch, a demonic man obsessed with besting his brother in the sword, an formerly enslaved Malakim, a pirate and an renegade exorcist whose beliefs put her in the company of those who should be her worst foes.
I think the game does a good job of portraying a situation where neither side is right, and there are no good options. We become fond of Velvet and company because of their interactions, and see Artorius as a monster, but there is no denying that the party and their allies do terrible things and ruin peoples' lives.
I think the game also does a good job of acting as a prequel in the distant past of Zestiria's world. Since the Malakim/Seraphim are effectively immortal, there are a few characters whose earlier lives are shown. We also get to see the development of tools like armitization, and the reasons that the seraphim will later distrust humanity so much and only allow a single person at a time access to their power. A few locations are repeated, though some more subtle than others as the land is shaped drastically differently (with a decent in-game reason as to why).
There also seems to be room for the Tales team if they want to come back to this world. The civilization here is about to fall, and is of a similar level to what we see in Zestiria, but there were still remnents of a still greater age far in the past, and references to far off continents to which the pirates had traveled.
OverallI didn't quite enjoy Berseria as much as I did Zestiria, but it was a fun game none the less, and I would recommend it to Tales fans and newcomers. I would be interested to see the thoughts of someone who played Berseria first and Zestiria second. Next up...I don't know as far as Tales goes. Nothing has been announced about any upcoming titles, and the fan-translation projects that I've been following seemed to either stall or were formally cancelled. I may give the PS1 fan-translation of Tales of Phantasia a try. I was waiting for the PSP version to be fan-translated, but that is one of the cancelled projects. Alternately, I might see about soft-modding my PS3 and trying the fan-translated PS3 version of Tales of Vesperia. I would say that with future Tales titles, I would like to see a return of the more sci-fi features of the series (spaceships, alternate worlds, etc). After two entries in an almost pure-fantasy setting, I miss those.
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Post by spidershinobi on Apr 8, 2018 23:13:11 GMT
Are you aware that Tales of Link saw it's closure last month?
I was pretty bummed about it, because even though I didn't play much it was a way to at least look at some of my favorite characters in a regular basis. Well, I guess I should really go back to them in their games whenever I can...
And with Tales of Link resting in pieces we're also seeing the end of the western version of Tales of the Rays. Yup, it was kind of crazy how they simply decided it wasn't worth keeping thar one up before it even completed 1 year... It wasn't a good game, though. Sucks for people who were enjoying the story.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Apr 8, 2018 23:24:27 GMT
I had not heard of the demise of Tales of Link. I hadn't seen much that appealed to me in the mobile games. Sort of the same as with the Tales of the World gamex...the sort of our of canon crossovers weren't really my thing. Definitely unfortunate to hear about though, as I know some other folks who enjoy the mobile entries.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Jun 9, 2018 19:36:47 GMT
Looke like Tales of Vesperia might be getting a remaster. I'm kind of glad I held off on the PS3 version for a bit. I've still barely played the Twilight Princess remaster, due to playing through the original about a year before the remaster was released. |
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leaon79s
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Post by leaon79s on Jun 13, 2018 1:30:37 GMT
Leftee hero!
Another character for Cervantes to identify with. Between Yuri, Luke, and possibly some others, is the development at the Tales studio headed by lefties or something...
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Cervantes
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Post by Cervantes on Jun 14, 2018 3:00:56 GMT
leaon79s - Lefties for the win!! It seems the Tale series have their priorities right. Or left, I mean. EDIT: By the way, the Tales series is heavily discounted (70-75%) on Steam right now.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Jun 10, 2019 5:30:40 GMT
Tales of Arise was announced at E3 this week for a 2020 release date. Looks very pretty. Zestiria and Berseria were both built to run on a PS3, despite PS4 and PC releases, so this feels like it will be the first truely current gen Tales game in some ways.
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Post by Imperial Khador on Sept 17, 2019 9:08:05 GMT
Another Tales of Arise trailer from the Tokyo Game Show
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dschult3
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Post by dschult3 on Feb 25, 2020 9:09:02 GMT
I just started Vesperia on the Switch. I'm a couple hours in, and I like it so far. The story is intriguing, and the visuals are nice. The combat is simple to figure out so far. This looks to be fun.
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Pimpjira
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Post by Pimpjira on Feb 26, 2020 12:35:32 GMT
I just started Vesperia on the Switch. I'm a couple hours in, and I like it so far. The story is intriguing, and the visuals are nice. The combat is simple to figure out so far. This looks to be fun. There is free DLC for the game that includes some costumes if you are interested. There is also an adventure starter pack, which I thought the title of this dlc was funny since it gives you like a million gald and 40 level ups. You can just redeem the items you want though and big cheater stuff. |
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dschult3
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The true heir to the Monado.
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Post by dschult3 on Apr 24, 2020 21:44:30 GMT
I just started Vesperia on the Switch. I'm a couple hours in, and I like it so far. The story is intriguing, and the visuals are nice. The combat is simple to figure out so far. This looks to be fun. There is free DLC for the game that includes some costumes if you are interested. There is also an adventure starter pack, which I thought the title of this dlc was funny since it gives you like a million gald and 40 level ups. You can just redeem the items you want though and big cheater stuff. Thanks for the heads up! I'm trying to play the game without any online help so far. A friend of mine told me that there are missions than can disappear, and you'll probably not get it unless you use an online guide.  That annoys me beyond belief.
I'm finally towards the end of the game. I got stuck on <spoiler highlighted in white--> Commandant Alexei. The damn difficulty spike was insane. I fought him ~10 times, and gave up for a week. When I came back to it, it took another 3-4 fights. The last fight he spammed me with Brilliant Cataclysm 7 FREAKIN' TIMES! UGH... Anyways, I'm back on track. I'm flying around the world to try to start up missions I've missed, but I'm sure I'll find that I've missed even more when I do a Google search after I've beaten the game. This game has become fun again!
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Post by Imperial Khador on Nov 9, 2020 5:44:51 GMT
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive EditionI finished up the main plot of the definitive edition on the PS4. Most of my review of the original on the XBox 360 over on the first page of this thread still applies. Visuals:Aside from the increased frame rate on the PS4 version (and I believe all the versions aside from the Switch), there isn't much different here. Largely due to its cell shading, Vesperia's visuals hold up very well among the 7th console generation. When compared to its 7th gen siblings, Vesperia does take some shortcuts to keep its visual quality. Players have no control over the camera angles for example (as they do in Xillia and later entries), which limit the amount of objects to be rendered. Cities and dungeons are implied to be much larger than they through backgrounds, and it works very well. Soundtrack: Nothing to add here. The score is still great, and the opening theme is still a banger. Voice Acting (English):The original recordings are re-used, and most of the original cast returns to voice their original dialogue, with the notable exception of Troy Baker as Yuri, whose new lines are dubbed by Grant George. It is sad to hear that Troy Baker was not asked, despite being interested, likely due to his profile these days. I'm guessing the English voice director assumed he'd be too expensive without asking. Grant George does a serviceable job, but the difference is noticeable if you're listening for it. There's also a bit of an issue with some of the audio mixing on the new dialogue. Some of the skits are extremely quiet. On my surround sound system, I noticed for new skits with this issue, sound was coming from the side-speakers only whereas for older skits, the dialogue also came through the center speaker. It is possible this might not be as notable if using just stereo sound, but even a lot of Flynn's newly recorded battle dialogue is noticeably quieter than that of the other characters. Mechanics: Not much to say here that didn't apply to the original, but having more characters who could function as healers were nice, making it not as essential to have Estelle constantly in the party in the later half of the game. She's still the best healer, but you can make due without her. The game lacks a lot of the more complex battle sub-systems introduced in later Tales games, and I actually kind of enjoyed that. I thinks fans of more complexity will still be able to enjoy switching between different primary battle characters to see the variance in style This was the last console tales game to feature a world map (Innocence and Hearts both have one, but both were handheld titles), so it was nice to see it return. Graces, Xillia, Xillia 2, Zestiria and Berseria all featured interconnected areas with fast travel, and Symphonia: Dawn of a New World featured fast travel via map. It was enjoyable to go back to the old-style overworld map. Sadly, there were a lot of things missing that have become standard in JRPG remasters lately, such as the ability to speed up to 2x or 4x speed to hurry things along. While I can see this would make tales real-time combat potentially quite confusing, it would have still been nice outside of combat. Cut scenes and skits can be entirely skipped over, which is nice if you're replaying it, or if a skit is dragging on. Unfortunately skits can only be skipped. If you want to watch them but read very quickly, you still have to wait for the voice acting to catch up. One thing I wasn't looking forward to was playing through the game with base stats again, since there is no way for folks with an old save to skip directly to the Grade Shop and New Game+, even if you're playing on an XBox One... ...however, to compensate for this, all of the original DLC is available for free. This includes costumes, a large number of rare items, cash, and 40 levels worth of free boosts. For those who've played the game before, these are excellent boosts, allowing you to skip grinding, unlock powerful synthesized weapons early, etc. Though I would note you get more bang for your buck the longer you can hold off using free levels. Players experiencing Vesperia for the first time have the option to use none of these, of course. Story
I was interested to see how the story would be adapted to Flynn being with the party at various points, and for the addition of Patty, but I would say that both were handled very naturally. I think this was probably intended from the start, since both date from the PS3 release of Vesperia. Patty's existence is hinted at in the original 360 version, so it makes sense if the writers kept her in mind during the initial creation, and wrote scenes that worked with and without her.
I still really like that Yuri is the main character, despite being the more disreputable of the two friends, and willing to go outside the law to do what is necessary. As I said in the original review, in most JRPGs, Flynn would have been the main character, and Yuri would have just been a fan-favourite side-character.
One thing I noticed on the replay is that Vesperia doesn't really have a compelling antagonist. The initial "main" antagonist, Alexei, doesn't get fleshed out very well, and is dead by 2/3rds of the way through the story. The final antagonist, Duke, is quite friendly to the party, and up until very late in the game, is someone who helps out quite a bit. Someone with similar, but ultimately incompatible goals. The Adephagos is mainly a strange entity, and not really personified at all. It could be said that humanity's hubris, short-sightedness, etc. This is common in the Tales series, but it hasn't prevented them from having compelling antagonists before or since. The lack of a strong villain is probable Vesperia's main weak point.
Overall
I liked the original, I like this one. Definitely recommended. However, like most Tales games, but the time I reached the end of the story content, I had no real interest in finishing off the side quests, dealing with any post-game optional stuff, etc.
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That annoys me beyond belief.