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ultrachrist posted:EDIT: Nevermind, I discovered I could let Anise die, keep Tear on guard and manually make her heal me if I needed it, and let Jade use all his magic then do whatever while I attacked him with Luke since he is so easy to dodge, but when I realized how stupid long this was actually going to take, I quit and put it on normal and fought him. He has 1k less HP (reasonable) but instead of doing like 10 damage, Luke does 70-80 (what the gently caress). So he was a joke. No middleground, eh? There's this thing where if you get stuck in a video game and ask for help on the Internet, the chances of you figuring it out shortly afterwards are VERY high.
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Nov 18, 2008 23:39
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I dunno, I didn't really get un-stuck. I just sort of said "gently caress it" and moved on. I think maybe I'll try and keep it on hard most of the time and just swap it to normal any time it gets stupid. Arietta was hard and took me several tries but was still fun.
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Nov 19, 2008 00:16
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Tales of Symphonia 2 is really fun. Some of the complaints I've heard is about the monster system, and how you only really get the two main characters while the others are merely guests. In all honesty, the monster system is pretty easy to get used to, and not difficult to understand. Plus, you find items that give them EXP and skills so it's not like they're a pain to level. Some level faster than your regular characters, too, and become strong pretty quickly. I also dig the quests you can get from the Katz, mainly because the reward is random so if you exit the quest menu and then talk to them again the reward changes and I got some pretty loving good rewards for the first few quests, in addition to all the exp and synth items that I collected during the quest itself. The writing is solid and the skits are awesome (Tenebrae is really loving funny) and if you can get past the fact that Lloyd has a different voice actor and remember to tell yourself it's okay that it's not exactly like Tales of Symphonia, you'll enjoy it. It's not as good as Tales of Symphonia, but still a fun game. And I'll second what someone said about disliking it if it's your first Tales game; in fact, I wouldn't recommend even thinking about playing it without having played the first game, because nothing at all will make sense.
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Nov 19, 2008 00:16
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I hope ToS 2 gets better, I'm 40 minutes in and I want to kill Emil so badly. Also whats with all the freaking flashbacks?
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Nov 19, 2008 17:42
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Bandai Namco have revealed their secret weapon in the Tales of Hearts marketing campaign: mabo curry convenience store bentos! Nothing can stop the Tales juggernaut now.
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Nov 19, 2008 19:39
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Avarice7 posted:I hope ToS 2 gets better, I'm 40 minutes in and I want to kill Emil so badly. Also whats with all the freaking flashbacks? Yeah, after about the first hour the story picks up. You'll pretty much want to kill Emil all game, though. At least Tenebrae picks up the slack. And the flashbacks stop shortly. I, too, failed to see the point in flashing back to events that took place minutes ago.
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Nov 20, 2008 05:30
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Avarice7 posted:I hope ToS 2 gets better, I'm 40 minutes in and I want to kill Emil so badly. Also whats with all the freaking flashbacks? I've stopped wanting to kill Emil and want to kill Marta instead now. Also, having recently played through Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, I can safely say the amount of retconing going on in this game is minimal. Luckily there isn't any "this character you actually thought was good was actually secretly a bad guy the whole first game!" as far as I can tell.
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Nov 20, 2008 05:48
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Samurai Sanders posted:Bandai Namco have revealed their secret weapon in the Tales of Hearts marketing campaign: mabo curry convenience store bentos! Nothing can stop the Tales juggernaut now. Hey, that looks pretty good. Not 500 yen good though.
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Nov 20, 2008 06:30
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I've been playing Tales of the Abyss in conjunction with watching the anime. However, I didn't consult any FAQs or walkthroughs early on so I ended up missing some extra events. The ones I'm interested in are the Artes for Luke and Guy which I completely missed the beginning of. Can I still pick these up when the area the triggers are in are open to me again? Or should I just start a new game? Or should I just not bother with them?
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Nov 24, 2008 23:04
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I don't think so, Abyss has quite a few things like techs which are permanentely missable, sadly.
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Nov 24, 2008 23:10
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I think you're screwed if you don't get the one Arte for Luke early on by resting at an inn in Kaitzur or Chesedonia or something, but I'm pretty sure you can still trigger the other Arte sidequests (where Luke has to buy back Van's books and the one where Guy has to look all over for teachers) while you're quite far into the game. Just be careful not to spend the Gald you get for Luke's quest.
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Nov 24, 2008 23:32
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I always though Tales of Destiny was always the best simply from the storyline. Hell, you could make an awesome prequel with the war and you play as the people who would become swordians and the end of the game is your guys getting turned into swordians and whooping rear end. Anyway, I stopped playing Tales of symphonia because the game disgusted me with the loving children bullshit. God, it was the essence of saccharine. Cutesy Naive little children making me want to puke. Yeah, Destiny had Stahn and he was like that a bit but good lord, not to that extent. and in conclusion Tales of Destiny is the best Tales of game simply because of the Swordians. Also the loving world condom was pretty neat too.
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Nov 24, 2008 23:54
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Vesperia is $34 on Amazon right now, for another hour or so.Johnny Aztec posted:I always though Tales of Destiny was always the best simply from the storyline. Haha... you just described the plot of the Japan-only Tales of Destiny 2 (not the same as Tales of Eternia). Rutee and Stahn's daughter goes into the past, meets Dymlos and the other Swordians, etc. Here, have a story guide: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/561922/29078 Skychrono fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Nov 25, 2008 |
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Nov 25, 2008 02:22
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I just beat Tales of Symphonia 2 a few days ago. I tried to start up a New Game+ but god the first few hours killed me. Emil is quite possibly the absolute worst protagonist I've ever seen in any RPG. It's nearly impossible to identify with him in any way and his manners just piss you off endlessly. Then there's that whole deal with being unable to actually "use" old ToS characters (they level up based on plot and max out at 50 with equipment too weak for endgame/higher difficulties). Monsters are cool, but the AI is atrocious. You can barely manage their strategies (no dedicated healing option for Marta, no "Scatter" option for MANY monsters) and they keep getting in your way. Why make monsters so huge when all they do is block you? Combat... is bad. When you do a normal attack, you run towards the enemy if you're on Semi-Auto. When you try to combo it up with a second attack, you attack at your current location with no regards to how the enemy has moved from your initial attack. In fact, it appears as though Emil only attacks with the tip of his blade as opposed to getting up close and personal. Many of your artes won't connect from base to arcane just because Emil won't move up close to the enemy, or just because the aiming is loving stupid. Blade Fury is a multi-hit base arte sort of like Sword Rain, but because Emil starts so far away and barely hits with the sword tip, the enemies get pushed back from the first hit and the rest of your hits miss. Overall a very tiring game. The aerial combat isn't even all that developed. Judith from Tales of Vesperia is miles above Emil in terms of aerials. I was hoping this would be a good game but all it did was remind me how much I missed Tales of Symphonia. On a happier note, I'm almost done with my 2nd playthrough of Tales of Vesperia. I'm on part 3, just got Undine, and I'm gonna rock that Labyrinth of Memories.
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Nov 28, 2008 22:47
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You beat ToS2 even though you hated it? Wow, I'm glad I don't have your dedication to the Tales series.
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Nov 28, 2008 23:22
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Samurai Sanders posted:You beat ToS2 even though you hated it? Wow, I'm glad I don't have your dedication to the Tales series. Well I did buy it the first day it came out, and I was determined to at least see the "bad ending." It was the most satisfying ending I've ever seen (if you hated all the characters). Bad ending spoilerEmil fakes turning evil to convince his friends to hurt him enough to turn him back into a core (because he's actually Ratatosk), but he accidentally kills Marta, so he kills himself to revive her. At the end a letter appears and it's read by Marta, with it implying that she killed herself because she didn't want to live without Emil. "THE END" flashes on the screen and you're back at the title. No option for CLEAR DATA save. Now that I've seen the wonders of Tales on the 360, and the horrors of Tales on the Wii, I'm curious as to what Tales on the PS3 would look like. Eddain fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Nov 29, 2008 |
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Nov 29, 2008 00:06
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Eddain posted:Now that I've seen the wonders of Tales on the 360, and the horrors of Tales on the Wii, I'm curious as to what Tales on the PS3 would look like. Considering the next main Tales game is a Wii title, you're going to be wondering for a while.
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Nov 29, 2008 02:49
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Syvalion posted:Considering the next main Tales game is a Wii title, you're going to be wondering for a while.
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Nov 29, 2008 03:05
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Eddain posted:Well I did buy it the first day it came out, and I was determined to at least see the "bad ending." It was the most satisfying ending I've ever seen (if you hated all the characters). that owns, I wanna get the bad ending once just to see it. I don't care much about spoilers, because the story is kind of lackluster. I'm disappointed that it isn't amazing like the first Tales of Symphonia, but it's still a fun gaming experience so far (I just got Regal, still voiced by Crispin Freeman thank god. What the hell is with the awful voice actors?)
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Nov 29, 2008 03:16
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Syvalion posted:Considering the next main Tales game is a Wii title, you're going to be wondering for a while. Well, they'll still probably port Vesperia to the PS3  Really though, after Vesperia it's pretty hard to stay positive at all about another Wii game. Even if it does turn out that the rumours about it being Destiny 3 are true, it's gonna hurt to look at. I wish they'd just gone with another sprite-based game, if they're sticking to SD regardless.
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Nov 29, 2008 03:36
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:that owns, I wanna get the bad ending once just to see it. Oh Regal, how the mighty have fallen... I once tried to have Regal in my party. My monsters kept blocking his way through and ruined all of his aerial combos. And considering his equipment, lack of titles, and lack of level growth, his P. Atk settles around the 1200 mark endgame with his P. Def around 700. He dies so fast it's not even worth it. Besides, with a lvl 86 Sword Dancer with P. Atk 4000 and a lvl 96 Ravenous with A. Atk 5800, who needs Lloyd or Genis? First time I ever saw Meteor Swarm do 15,000 a hit (on Hard mode). And oh, one last thing. Why all the Tales of Phantasia hate? I loved that game. I first played the SNES version, then attempted the GBA version (god that version sucks), and finally the PSX version. Klarth and Chester were cool characters, especially once Chester finally got actual techs instead of having to rely on brute force. Sure, 2D is a terrible idea nowadays, but it worked quite well I think.
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Nov 29, 2008 04:44
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I forgot to add that the graphics in Tales of Symphonia II are atrocious, it's like they didn't even try. I know the Wii isn't a graphical powerhouse but if Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 can look good in 480p, then why can't this game?
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Nov 29, 2008 04:53
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:I forgot to add that the graphics in Tales of Symphonia II are atrocious, it's like they didn't even try. I know the Wii isn't a graphical powerhouse but if Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 can look good in 480p, then why can't this game? They probably spent all their time working on Sheena and neglected everything else about the game.
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Nov 29, 2008 06:24
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Dawn of the New World is so loving terrible. For a supposedly low-budget game this thing has more cutscenes than Metal Gear Solid. Oh, and about 1000 other problems.
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Nov 29, 2008 06:55
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:(I just got Regal, still voiced by Crispin Freeman thank god. What the hell is with the awful voice actors?) Actually, that's not Crispin Freeman. It's Troy Baker doing a Crispin Freeman impression.
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Nov 29, 2008 07:09
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Eddain posted:They probably spent all their time working on Sheena and neglected everything else about the game.
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Nov 29, 2008 07:11
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I'm something around ~35 hours into it and I've been enjoying Symphonia 2, personally. The Pokemon thing is interesting enough and can be mostly ignored if it's not your thing provided you choose a few that are okay and just use them when the Symphonia 1 party aren't around in sufficient numbers. The skits are generally entertaining and actually being voice acted is nice. Tenebrae is playing a lesser version of Jade's role in the skits, so they're worth watching. The combat system is the best of Symphonia with some of Abyss's features thrown in. The first hour is absolutely atrocious and you want to kill everyone and return the game, but if you get through that it picks up fine. Load times are fast and from battle->game almost zero. The thing it tends to lack is balance. Some monsters are fantastic and some terrible (mostly for AI reasons). Some quests take 30 seconds and some take 30 minutes but the rewards each will give you are identical. I frequently look through my Synthesis list to find that there's still nothing worth making in a giant giant list. The Tales 1 characters are generally better than most of the monsters primarily because their AI is better, but perhaps when I get toward endgame their poor growth and static equipment will screw them as others are saying. Emil's semi-auto does have some issues, but I mostly consider it reason to stay awake and play with better movement rather than just mashing A A A B repeatedly like "better" semi-auto devolves into. Anyhow, perhaps I have low standards or something but I've been enjoying it fairly well. I've played Phantasia, Symphonia (several times), most of Destiny, 1/4th of Legendia, and Abyss. For me it's pretty close to Abyss but with voice-acted skits and without the load times that kept Abyss from being the best thing ever (and kept me from playing it more than once). Instead it has the aforementioned balance issues, but the combat system is fun and screwing with the monsters keeps it fresh. The story is about the same level of barely-passable that all Tales games have and most suffer from the same godawful-first-hour that it does. Where it suffers story-wise is a lack of character development since only the new pair get any development and the TOS1 cast are static rehashes of their old jokes, but I felt like only Abyss had much in the way of character development so while this has less it's hardly an awful game. Did Vesperia just raise the bar so much that the rest all suck after playing it? Someday I'll get a 360 and play it; I just find it hard to justify a console purchase for Vesperia and only a few others. Perhaps in the meantime it's better that I keep waiting so I can continue to enjoy the rest of the series.
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Nov 29, 2008 09:08
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I wouldn't be surprised if ToS2 was basically the next Legendia (although I liked Legendia and I'm not sure if I'll like ToS2). The Symphonia/Abyss/Vesperia team has raised the bar so much with each game that it looks like it's hard for the other teams to keep up.
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Nov 29, 2008 13:50
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I loved Tales of Symphonia. My brother picked it up for like $10 in a used games bin and we played through the whole thing together. The story is like a lesson in the worst way to tell a story but somehow it really works. It's so cliched that I can only assume it's an extremely clever parody. I mean how long did it take anyone to figure out that Kratos is Loyd's dad? They really smack you over the head with it. "Oh you're adopted and you don't know who your father is? Well I never stay in one place long so I know what that's like. I'm sure you father had a good reason for leaving. Hey would you like me to teach you some sword moves and other father figure type stuff? I'm sure where ever he is your father loves you very much" They may as well have thrown in a "He's probably closer than you think (wink)" just to make sure you got it. Plus pretty much every cut scene ends like: Loyd: Well time to go Character B: (Vague threatening comment or reference to tragic past) Loyd: What was that? Character B: Nothing I know it sounds like I'm making fun of the game but for some reason all the cheese makes it a joy to play. Stuff like Handcuff guy never shutting up about how sorry he was for a past deed should have been really annoying but instead I really wanted to fund out his secret. I really should play though it again sometime because I skipped most of the side stuff on my play through. For a good time get 3 friends together and have everyone read their character's lines out loud.
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Nov 29, 2008 15:42
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Lakitu7 posted:Did Vesperia just raise the bar so much that the rest all suck after playing it? Someday I'll get a 360 and play it; I just find it hard to justify a console purchase for Vesperia and only a few others. Perhaps in the meantime it's better that I keep waiting so I can continue to enjoy the rest of the series. Well there's also Star Ocean 4 coming in March for the 360, made by tri-Ace, which formed from Wolf Team, who made the original Tales of Phantasia. Sure Star Ocean takes a drastic turn in regards to synthesis and skills, but the basic free-style combat is still there. Everything just has a different name. One of the biggest issues I had with ToS2 was that there was no real character development. You pretty much hate Emil from the beginning and that never changes. Marta is a whiny version of Colette and Tenebrae is probably the only saving grace of the new cast. The old cast never really develops at all and just stays in the background. Hell, Lloyd is a silent jerk until the very last chapter of the game! Then there's the lack of sidequests. The only ones I found were helping Richter get the Sacred Stone and the Twilight Palace area gotten from the Katz Quests. There's also Gladsheim, but that's a secret dungeon only on 2nd playthrough or after. Only the first sidequest dealt with character development and the rest are just extra dungeons. Actually, that leads me to another thing. Item synthesis. It's not that good at all. You get a ton of synthesis items but then you realize that they all pretty much make the same thing. Emil barely has 20 weapons in the entire game! That's approximately 2 new weapons a chapter, or if you actually used synthesis and did Katz Quests, you could've gotten 1 of the top 5 weapons by chapter 3 or something. The fact that half of the weapons gave no skills (basically all the ones you could buy) and another quarter had useless skills made "treasure hunting" nonexistent. Speaking of skills, though, has anyone tried to break the combat system yet? I found out that skills actually stack, so if you equip the accessory Mystic Symbol which reduces cast time (it specifically gives Speed Cast 2), you can equip another Mystic Symbol and that extra Speed Cast 2 would also work. Marta learns Speed Cast 1, 2, and 3 as she levels up, so if you equip those skills plus 2 Mystic Symbols, she can drop a Prism Sword every other second. Her TP suffers a lot but bosses become ridiculously easy. Emil also has something like this with Sky Attack 1, 2, and 3 (1/2/3 extra aerial hits). So with all 3 skills equipped he gets an extra 6 hits in the air. It's not as good as it sounds though, since if you kept them on the ground instead your allies could be helping you.
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Nov 29, 2008 18:36
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I played the poo poo out of an early translation of Tales of Phantasia. Everything after that was downhill. More like off cliff now that I'm thinking about it.
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Nov 29, 2008 19:26
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Sylphiel posted:Actually, that's not Crispin Freeman. It's Troy Baker doing a Crispin Freeman impression. quit ruining all my hopes and dreams, dream ruiner why the hell couldn't they get a single original voice actor except heather hogan? It gets kind of old after a while.
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Nov 30, 2008 01:19
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:quit ruining all my hopes and dreams, dream ruiner Kratos returned. Sheena I couldn't even tell was different until I checked (it's Judith from Vesperia). But Lloyd's change was the worst I believe.
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Nov 30, 2008 02:55
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Eddain posted:Kratos returned. Sheena I couldn't even tell was different until I checked (it's Judith from Vesperia). But Lloyd's change was the worst I believe. yeah they mostly sound decent except Lloyd. Also spoilers on Kratos being in the game (I figured he would be)
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Nov 30, 2008 03:06
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Just beat ToS2, I liked it but not really. One of the reasons why I loved the first ToS game was because you could play up to 4 players and generally have a blast (even if you were playing as Raine and just healing/magicking things). It was a wonderful RPG to play with friends. In ToS2 you can't exactly do that however, since the MC is the only so-so playable character along with the love interest who is your basic jack of all trades that sucks at everything she tries to do. If anyone liked Colette in the last game then Marta would be his/her character of choice. Speaking of which, the characters from ToS that you can get have horrible level caps and equipment, and monsters are so loving insanely overpowered that you really don't need other characters anyways. You cannot control the monsters though so much of the game where you don't get the ToS characters yet is bound to 2 players only. Actually, gently caress other players, you need all the monsters you can get to beat most of the ridiculously hard bosses without grinding anyways. By the end of the first quarter of the game I found myself as Marta in each battle, healing the monsters as they went at it. Since the monsters leveled up in literally two loving fights they quickly became ridiculously strong, even though they were braindead AI-wise. The many You're-not-supposed-to-win-this boss fights were annoying as gently caress, but this is a tales game and I guess you need at least one or two of these, but come the gently caress on. Atleast the monsters could still generally eat those bosses alive because they were level 90 by that time, minus the first fight at the beginning. And no, I barely did any grinding, at many points I was trying my best to dodge the increasingly annoying fights. My major disapointment was Regal. He was my favorite character in ToS, with Presea close behind. He was loving boss and had the best ex skills along with Presea and could kick all kinds of rear end. In this game, he's terrible, Presea's terrible. All the original ToS characters except Lloyd and Genis are terrible, but again even they are overshadowed easily by how stupidly strong monsters can get. The game does have a few upsides over ToS, in that the action scenes are a whole lot better. The original ToS had scenes that bordered the nonsensical, like Genis firing pissant fireballs all the time when he has that Giant Thunder Sword of Death spell stocked away he could easily use instead, as well as very stale action sequences altogether. ToS2's storyline was also a tiny bit more fluid and interesting then ToS, in my opinion anyways. But that's it, if you've played ToS then ToS2 will most likely disappoint you. If you like Pokemon-style gameplay minus any input then this might very well be a good game for you, but you'll have to survive the first hour of extremely cliched and downright terrible gameplay. If you really want to try it, rent it. This is definitely not a game you would ever want to play again anyways, unless you like pokemon which is fine, no disrespect.
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Nov 30, 2008 03:48
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:yeah they mostly sound decent except Lloyd. Also spoilers on Kratos being in the game (I figured he would be) I haven't played the game yet, but according to the Nintendo Power preview it says that Kratos voices the narrator. Maybe he's in the game proper too, no idea.
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Nov 30, 2008 08:47
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Skychrono posted:I haven't played the game yet, but according to the Nintendo Power preview it says that Kratos voices the narrator. Maybe he's in the game proper too, no idea. Yeah, you hear his voice like 3 seconds in, so I wouldn't really call it much of a spoiler.
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Nov 30, 2008 09:09
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I'm playing Vesperia and I'm really enjoying it now (but these Secret Missions are gonna drive me insane probably). I've seen Tales of Abyss sitting in my GameStop's used section. Is it that much similar to Vesperia that I would like it?
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Nov 30, 2008 09:12
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MacBook Air Gamer posted:I'm playing Vesperia and I'm really enjoying it now (but these Secret Missions are gonna drive me insane probably). I've seen Tales of Abyss sitting in my GameStop's used section. Is it that much similar to Vesperia that I would like it? Yeah, I'd say so.
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Nov 30, 2008 09:14
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was Legendia any good? I haven't heard much about it.
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Nov 30, 2008 09:14
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