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It also appears that the thread on the official Namco forum dedicated to the relatively recent Tales of Rebirth translation seems to have been deleted. That's not boding well for that translation group.
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Jan 12, 2013 00:58
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Is there an Abridged Idiots Guide to the Tales Series or something? I've played a few, and I really enjoyed Vesperia, but trying to figure out which of the recent releases I should bother with is a confusing maze of titles and platforms.
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Jan 20, 2013 14:59
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victrix posted:Is there an Abridged Idiots Guide to the Tales Series or something?
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Jan 20, 2013 15:19
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victrix posted:Is there an Abridged Idiots Guide to the Tales Series or something? If you want a more modern game, definitely look at Tales of Graces F (PS3) and Tales of the Abyss (PS2/3DS, get 3DS if you can as it's a better version)
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Jan 20, 2013 16:54
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Volt Catfish posted:It also appears that the thread on the official Namco forum dedicated to the relatively recent Tales of Rebirth translation seems to have been deleted. ...I can dream 
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Jan 20, 2013 17:01
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victrix posted:Is there an Abridged Idiots Guide to the Tales Series or something? It's pretty simple. Pick as many as you want from Tales of Symphonia (GCN), Tales of the Abyss (PS2, 3DS), Tales of Vesperia (360), Tales of Graces (PS3).
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Jan 20, 2013 19:56
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Sophie, I love using you and that isn't about to change any time soon, but could you please loving master Angelic Ascent already so I can stop using possibly the single most unsafe finisher this game has. Ta. e: Even post-game, I still can't stand using Malik. He just never seems to stun anything, probably because the enemy runs straight through his boomerang. Stelas fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jan 20, 2013 |
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Jan 20, 2013 23:10
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I started playing Graces over the weekend, and all this title and dualizing business has me blowing all my cash and maybe getting an  -induced-Aneurysm. Is there anything for me to do with these gems once I extract them beyond combining and equipping them?also either the enemy AI on higher difficulties is actually harder or the allied AI is just  . I finally had to take down the difficulty from Hard to moderate at the usurper uncle boss fight, because about half way through the fight he decides to kill my healers and I can't do poo poo to draw his aggro back onto me, or I hit one of the 20 patches of fire or electricity he starts leaving everywhere.I have to remind myself to use Asbel's B-artes or else I forget they exist. (I barely beat the Nova Wolf at the beginning by getting a burst then mashing the Lighting button )oh yeah anyone got a simple, spoiler-free, sidequest checklist list that works kinda like "after events at [location X], there are sidequests at [location list N]". I do appreciate the little stars, the NPCs with the  -bubbles, and the inn requests that help point out some of these. SPOILER EDIT:I am screaming at everyone for not noticing how Richard has the dark-equivilant of Sophie's powers that is possessing him, that the 3 of them had some of Sophie's powers rub-off on them, and general poo poo like that but loving whatever 
NextTime000 fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jan 21, 2013 |
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Jan 21, 2013 16:46
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NextTime000 posted:SPOILER EDIT:I am screaming at everyone for not noticing how Richard has the dark-equivilant of Sophie's powers that is possessing him, that the 3 of them had some of Sophie's powers rub-off on them, and general poo poo like that but loving whatever Better get used to it 
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Jan 21, 2013 17:12
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NextTime000 posted:SPOILER EDIT:I am screaming at everyone for not noticing how Richard has the dark-equivilant of Sophie's powers that is possessing him, that the 3 of them had some of Sophie's powers rub-off on them, and general poo poo like that but loving whatever Congratulations, you've figured out the plot 40 hours before the main characters do. Also, you can just sell the gems. I never do because I MIGHT NEED THEM LATEEEEER
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Jan 21, 2013 17:19
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NextTime000 posted:also either the enemy AI on higher difficulties is actually harder or the allied AI is just The ally AI in Graces can be very when it comes to positioning, but it's at it's absolute worst when it comes to unblockable attacks, which they are willing to eat trying to block all day. If a boss is focusing it's effort on killing a healer, use quick swap to that character and focus on evading the attacks that come your way while putting distance between you two. Being able to know when to quick swap also works well on trying to get your dumb allies out of unblockables as well.I don't have a list for you, but Graces is pretty nice on the missable front in that there's not a whole lot of them. The most major missable event off the top of my head is an inn request Fredric has at Lhant Manor that shows up after the events at Strahta's valkines and it's aftermath are done and is available until post-game dungeon events start I beleive, but it's safer to get that one done the second it pops up, so you don't have to worry about it.
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Jan 21, 2013 17:28
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^ "whats that? the boss is standing next to me? better start casting this long-rear end spell it's not like he is going do anything about it  "I was still very myself while I was playing Symphonia and Abyss so I never caught on to anything until it happened, and Vesperia genuinely surprised me when Alexi WAS evil after all! (but I still think I was kinda then too) but this game just has giant neon flashing signs everywhere Jesus poo poo
NextTime000 fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jan 21, 2013 |
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Jan 21, 2013 17:30
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victrix posted:Is there an Abridged Idiots Guide to the Tales Series or something? Spiffo's Abridged Guide To The English Tales Games Or Whatever Tales of Phantasia (various systems): DeJap made a translated SNES ROM that's floating around. There's also a Japanese-only PSX rom (that apparently has a translation now too?) and an official English translation for Game Boy Advance. Tales of Destiny (PSX): Plays a lot like Phantasia. I thought the plot was really boring, not everybody agrees. They did this Swordian thing where the Important Characters get special elemental swords they stick with for the whole game and gives them magic. They also included a ring accessory which lets other players join the fray - you have to find them, though. Tales of Eternia (PSX): Moves a lot faster and cleaner than the other two. Game no longer pauses for magic spells, and multiplayer is available to everyone right away. It aged much better than Destiny because of these things. Pretty small pool of party members. I have a Let's Play going on over here. Tales of Symphonia (Gamecube, PS2): Introduced 3D battling. Very large cast (8 members, technically 9), but a few of the characters are straight-up broken in terms of being so much better than everyone else. The pacing for the story is really bad. Multiplayer can be a shitshow because the camera focuses only on Player 1 and there's no minimap like in Eternia - the Japan-only PS2 port apparently fixed that problem. Tales of Legendia (PS2): Haven't played it more than a few minutes, what I have played was poopy and dumb, I hear it was worked on by a different team. Also it's single-player only. Tales of the Abyss (PS2, 3DS): Pretty well-done character and plot work, but the pacing is glacial. Battles are 3D, introduced Free Run which makes it so much better. Also self-activated overlimit to go "super" (Symphonia had this but it was automatic) The load times on the PS2 version can be pretty brutal, but I understand the 3DS port fixed that. Tales of Vesperia (360): Really well done, nice big cast, great pacing. My favorite out of the lot of them. Pretty much every character can be interesting and fun. Best protagonist of the lot. Overlimit is a shared gauge. The skits IIRC are finally voiced in English, which adds SO MUCH. Anyone who hasn't played it, for god's sake what is wrong with you. You have though so you're good. Tales of Graces (PS3): Pretty rad. The TP gauge was thrown out in favor of the CC system, and it's really neat. All the playable characters are fun and engaging (there are 6). I thought the protagonist was pretty likeable. The main plot gets a bit groan-worthy, but it has an absolute shitload of optional skits and content and it's usually hilarious. wdarkk has a fresh LP thread going on as well. Any other titles aren't on this list because they're bad or Japan-only or I forgot Spiffo fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jan 21, 2013 |
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Jan 21, 2013 17:48
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Tales of Phantasia's PSX release has been translated for years. It's pretty solid, I don't remember anything off about it. Strangely enough it got ANOTHER translation not too long ago by a group that had been working on it for like a decade. Anyway, there should be no question about which version to play. The PSX release added quite a bit of content, and to be frank the DeJap translation is pretty cringe inducing. Not to mention the SNES's gameplay is just too dated to be any fun.
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Jan 21, 2013 17:56
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP4acSFH2Mo Tales of Phantasia GBA brought us the best voice acting ever.
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Jan 21, 2013 17:57
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Cool, thanks for the info.Nate RFB posted:the DeJap translation is pretty cringe inducing. I'm setting the bar pretty high there, I know
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Jan 21, 2013 18:19
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Appreciate it - I had a friend bring over Graces, it looks quite good. I don't think I like the party members I saw as much as Yuri & co, but the game looks like the Vesperia engine or something, and really sharp (and apparently 60fps combats? sweet). I'll put that on my list next and investigate some of the others - I have played some of the older ones, I just can't keep the names straight, shits confusing. edit: Tales of Destiny had a PS2 rerelease and directors cut? And it's only in japan? drat you Namco  I loved that game, probably for all the wrong reasons.
victrix fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 21, 2013 |
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Jan 21, 2013 18:21
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Spiffo posted:Tales of Legendia (PS2): Haven't played it more than a few minutes, what I have played was poopy and dumb, I hear it was worked on by a different team. Also it's single-player only. I loved this game. No idea why, but I used to looked forward to coming home from work to play through it. I think it was the insanity of grinding to get a special attack that was only useful against the end boss.
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Jan 21, 2013 18:34
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Spiffo posted:Tales of Legendia (PS2): Haven't played it more than a few minutes, what I have played was poopy and dumb, I hear it was worked on by a different team. Also it's single-player only. Legendia's pretty much the black sheep of the "mothership" game. I believe it went through multiple systems during development, wasn't originally intended to be a Tales game, and was mostly pushed out there as a holdover for Abyss. The combat was done by people from the Soul Calibur team, and it shows with it's knockdown mechanic, which only Senel can take advantage of, but I swear I've seen one other character able to do things to enemies in a knockdown state. Learning new crystal eres(magic spells) is also a pain in the rear end, because you need special items dropped by monsters of certain amounts along with character level. This can lead to points where a character only has a few spells and you can't do much to give them their new spells. It doesn't help that when new characters join, they'll usually start with and attack an a heal spell, if they can even learn a heal skill. There's also two distinct halves of the game: a main quest which focuses a lot on Senel and Shirley, along with a pretty unlikable race of people and their history, and the character quest half which is episodic and focuses on the other party members with a small thread that connects them throughout. The character quest half could have realistically been side-quest and sub-plot material if they had re-written and re-paced the main quest to accommodate them better. Also, the character quest portion re-uses all the dungeons from the main game, so it's got that going against it too. Despite it's many faults, and being an admitted hater of it before replaying it a few years ago, I can't help but like it for what it is. It's easily got the best soundtrack in the franchise, having Shiina do the soundtrack instead of series staple Sakuraba. It's almost universally considered the best part of the game. I also personally find the party members pretty enjoyable for the most part, but it might be an understandable uphill battle to get to that point. Spiffo posted:Any other titles aren't on this list because they're bad or Japan-only or I forgot The others you didn't mention were Japan only. Have a (lovely) abridged guide to them: Tales of Destiny 2(PS2) is the first direct sequel of the franchise that focuses on Stahn and Rutee's son Kyle and his adventures chasing down Reala, a girl who mysteriously shows in some ruins he happens to explore. There's time travel shenanigans involved in the plot, and the whole thing really feels like fan-fiction Namco found and turned into a game. Tales of Rebirth(PS2) focuses on Veigue, a man who is unhealthily obsessed with his girlfriend, and his efforts the get her back after getting kidnapped. There's also racism against animal people and the attempt to try and prevent an execution by using peach pie in a speech to the people. It's also got a fairly interesting battle system with a lot of technical stuff added in and a three line 2-D combat field. The only thing I know about Tales of the Tempest(DS) is that it was apparently so bad, it was kicked out of the "mothership" line of the series. I also don't know much about Tales of Innocence(DS), so I'm not even going to try to go into much detail about it. Tales of Hearts(DS) is about Shing and his attempt to help Amber, a girl he just meet, after loving around inside her heart-space trying to help her and ends up turning her into basically a soulless doll. It's a trek across the world trying to gather up pieces of her "heart" trying to restore her to normal, and then the second half kicks in. If you couldn't tell, the story is one of the dumbest in the series, but I don't find it offensively stupid like some of the others. It has a combat system similar that focuses a lot on aerial combos, and has a CC-like system which encourages stringing together multiple artes together in your combos. It was the last 2-D game of the main-line games in the series. Tales of Xillia(PS3) is about Jude, a student at medical school, and Milla, an "incarnation of Maxwell", getting in over their head trying to destroy a weapon and their wandering the world trying to find a way to stop the weapon in the first place. Has a choice at the beginning that chooses which character you focus the perspective of as you play, but there's only a couple of major points where the two will actually split up. Combat uses a mixture of CC, called AC here, and TP, and you can link with allies that give you beneficial actions in combat. Tales of Xillia 2(PS3) is a direct sequel to the first, focusing this time on Ludgar and his misadventures trying to get out of debt and save Elle, some girl he runs across, from a bad end. The whole cast finds a reason to come back along and help him with two other from the original game. Battle system is an updated version of the previous one, and the main character now has a weapon switching mechanic. I'm more than happy for someone to show up and tell me how horribly I butchered this, by the way. Forest Thief Pud fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jan 21, 2013 |
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Jan 21, 2013 18:53
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Forest Thief Pud posted:Tales of Destiny 2(PS2) I guess one other thing I forgot is that Tales of Eternia (PSX) was released stateside as Tales of Destiny II. It's a good game but if someone wanted to find it, it might be under that name instead. I am never calling it that. Rumor has it that the namechange happened to better associate it with the Tales of Destiny brand (first Tales game released stateside) as well as to avoid a dispute with Mattel (who owns the He-Man universe, their world is Eternia also)
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Jan 21, 2013 19:08
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Forest Thief Pud posted:I also don't know much about Tales of Innocence(DS), so I'm not even going to try to go into much detail about it. Tales of Innocence stars Luca, a young boy that finds out he's a reincarnation of the ancient god Asura, the ruler of heaven that wanted to reunite Heaven and Earth. He ends up meeting five other people that are also reincarnations of gods, and they end up traveling the world trying to regain their memories by going to different color-coded pieces of hell. I mean dungeons. They're hard to tell apart sometimes. They're antagonized by a group of other guys that are also reincarnated and want to find an ancient power to destroy the world. The battle system is pretty simple 3D Tales, with only three characters in a party. I quite enjoy the game, even if it's really simple, but the dungeons are atrocious. There's also Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World which I'm pretty bias toward because it's not the first game, but it's still not a very good game.
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Jan 21, 2013 19:25
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Spiffo posted:Tales of Legendia (PS2) Since I know entirely too much about this game, it's story time. http://movies.rpgamer.com/tales/tom/tom001.wmv The original codename for this game was Project "MelFes". It got thrown across multiple systems throughout its development. The teaser trailer I posted was footage of it running on the Gamecube. When it actually surfaced officially with legitimate  NO REALLY THIS IS A TALES GAME news, its platform as Tales of Melfes was the PSP. But by then, Namco already pushed along its port of Eternia. So they figured it would at last be a PS2 title called Tales of Legendia to be made to whet people's appetite before Tales of the Abyss came along.It was made by members of the Soul Calibur and Tekken teams. When Bandai merged with Namco, this group was disbanded mere months after Legendia's American release. What remains of that team now works on the Gods Eater franchise.
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Jan 21, 2013 19:29
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Momomo posted:Tales of Innoncence stuff This game is also currently the only Tales game to have never come stateside that has a translation patch, courtesy of the people who did the first Phantasia PSX patch a few years ago. There's also a Vita remake that I know very little about, and Hearts also has a Vita remaking coming soon as well.
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Jan 21, 2013 19:57
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This is weird. I'm looking at the US PSN store and I can't find Tales of Graces. I can find the individual dlc items via a search but not the game under the "All Add-ons By Title" deal. EDIT: To raise the irony level to "critical", Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike is in the PSN movie store 
wdarkk fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 04:04
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Momomo posted:
Yet strangely enough it's becoming one of the more expensive Wii games to come by.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:07
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NextTime000 posted:I have to remind myself to use Asbel's B-artes or else I forget they exist. (I barely beat the Nova Wolf at the beginning by getting a burst then mashing the Lighting button If you want to have even more fun with Graces' battle system, use other characters! Quite frankly, Asbel is the most boring character to play as, so feel free to swap around and experiment.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:09
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Can't really say I totally agree, Asbel is definitely not the least boring. That would probably be Malik or Cheria, which goes to show how fun everyone is.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:18
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Pascal is pretty fun to play as if you have certian skills. Usually I don't like playing as the casters but she doesn't really do that much casting.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:31
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I had a lot of fun playing as Hubert. I tried Malik and didn't hate it. Never played Asbel, but messed around with everyone else and kept coming back to Hubert each time.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:37
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Yeah, once I'd gotten a full party, I'd often switch between Hubert and Sophie because they were the most fun to fight as. I occasionally used Asbel, and Richard when possible, but nowhere near as often.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:39
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Forest Thief Pud posted:It's easily got the best soundtrack in the franchise, having Shiina do the soundtrack instead of series staple Sakuraba. I wanted to mention this but you have it covered. Legendia has a drat good soundtrack and I wish they would bring Shiina back to arrange more often. There's also the Tales of the World series which are more like fan games for the PSP. We got the first one localized but not the others. In each game you create your character and can change classes. Essentially you recruit other Tales of characters to help you on your generic main quest or side missions. I've only played the first and third game. They are easy games to hop into and it's pretty neat forming a team based on your favorite characters.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:42
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Mayor McCheese posted:I wanted to mention this but you have it covered. Legendia has a drat good soundtrack and I wish they would bring Shiina back to arrange more often. This is true. Even if you don't play the game, listen to the soundtrack. It's gorgeous. Overbite posted:Pascal is pretty fun to play as if you have certian skills. Usually I don't like playing as the casters but she doesn't really do that much casting. Once you get the hang of her, Pascal is probably the most fun character to play, even though I'll never stop playing Richard. He's just so...elegant with his moves. 
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Jan 22, 2013 04:48
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Overbite posted:Usually I don't like playing as the casters but she doesn't really do that much casting. You really need to read my post about B Arte chaining, Pascal does so much casting and it completely crushes everyone (the tips apply to everyone, even Malik and Cheria)
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Jan 22, 2013 05:27
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Yeah, I just recently finished a playthrough as Pascal, and she becomes super-fun to use when she gets the CC to bust out a three A-art chain, dash over, then wreck faces with a near instant cast Infernal Prison/Cyadine/Whatever.
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Jan 22, 2013 05:28
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Momomo posted:Can't really say I totally agree, Asbel is definitely not the least boring. That would probably be Malik or Cheria, which goes to show how fun everyone is. Cheria surprised me in that way. Usually the healer casters are the worst characters to play but she can be incredibly fun thanks to her A artes and the fact her heals have decent autotargetting. Still found myself using Pascal and Sophie the most though.
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Jan 22, 2013 15:13
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Today while I was picking up Ni No Kuni the gamestop manager told me that Xillia was ready for preorder. Gamestop's website doesn't seem to list any bonuses though. Does anyone have bonuses?
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Jan 22, 2013 21:38
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wdarkk posted:Today while I was picking up Ni No Kuni the gamestop manager told me that Xillia was ready for preorder. Gamestop's website doesn't seem to list any bonuses though. Does anyone have bonuses? Gamestop will probably announce some costume DLC later down the line if Graces F is any indication.
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Jan 22, 2013 21:40
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Chiming in on Legendia, it's kind of a tragic game because everything about it is great, except for the gameplay, which is mediocre at best. The music is absolutely amazing, as others have said, the story and character writing is strong, though it's paced with the gameplay kind of poorly to the extent where I'd often forget what was going on in the plot due to multiple long dungeons between story segments, and the voice acting is very strong in the main story, but I always feel like it's a bit off during skits or post-battle scenes. That, and the character quests aren't voiced for the most part. If you don't intend to play it, somebody's uploaded all of the cutscenes in order on youtube, and honestly it's worth checking out if you have the time.
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Jan 22, 2013 22:15
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wdarkk posted:Today while I was picking up Ni No Kuni the gamestop manager told me that Xillia was ready for preorder. Gamestop's website doesn't seem to list any bonuses though. Does anyone have bonuses? If it's following the Graces f route, then it'll be these pre-order costumes Japan got. KoB posted:Does Xillia even have a date yet? There's now an official tentative release date of "Summer 2013" that was announced pretty recently. Forest Thief Pud fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 22:59
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wdarkk posted:Today while I was picking up Ni No Kuni the gamestop manager told me that Xillia was ready for preorder. Gamestop's website doesn't seem to list any bonuses though. Does anyone have bonuses? Does Xillia even have a date yet?
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Jan 22, 2013 23:00
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