|
Oh hey look, Abyss is at the bottom of the poll. As usual.  So anyway I just got to Chapter 2, and I'm curious: did any of my previous choices matter at all? Like, if I had chosen to save the CEO instead of the girl would it not have put me into bizarro hyper-time? Or if I just hosed off instead of getting on the train would something contrived happen to make me get on it anyway?
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2014 20:47
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 03:30 |
|
|
I'm quite disappointed that Teepo no longer shouts "SHARING IS CARING!"  every five seconds in battle when I'm linked with Elize.Edit: Also, the thread really hyped up Shadow Volt, but really all I had trouble with was the adds constantly swarming in. Guns are so loving OP at this point I just linked with Alvin, and air juggled the guy to death. Granted I'm only on moderate, I guess. Sydin fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Aug 25, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 25, 2014 05:11
|
|
|
Is there a way to check the jobs you've accepted out in the field? I keep forgetting them and I'm sick of having to run back to the job board to see what I've accepted.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 00:34
|
|
|
JavaJesus posted:The quest log (which includes jobs you've taken in the "Underway" section) is somewhere in the Library, but if you go into the options you can set it to be the menu that opens when you click L3. I'm only barely done with chapter 7 so I don't know if any other menu options will come up for L3, but at least for now between the quest log and the food menu I'm much happier having the quest log quickly available. Beautiful, this helps immensely. Thank you!  Also having just beat Chapter 6, it would have been nice of the game to give me the world map before opening a huge new swath of territory for me to explore. I did all of it then had to manually go all the way back to Spirius Corp, only for the game to then give me the option to fast travel. 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 01:44
|
|
|
Endorph posted:Nah, it does feel worse here. To be fair, they cranked this out in like a year. Would it kill Namco to actually take some time and finish a Tales game for once, polish and all? And I mean without having to come back a year later with an updated re-release to complete it. But really, I'm enjoying the game so far for what it is. It's definitely not up to the standard of the better Tales games, and the debt mechanic is a painfully obvious way to draw out what's looking to be a pretty short game, but the combat is fun and I liked Xillia's cast enough that I'm willing to put up with Ludger's autism to get some more time with them. I'll just straight up say I'm enjoying the individual character chapters for the Xillia cast far more than Ludger's inane plotline.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 17:21
|
|
|
Do you ever get the ability to increase the number of jobs you can take at once from five?Endorph posted:That's what they seem to be doing with Zestiria. We have a lot of info on it and it's still a ways off: if they're aiming for the 20th anniversary of Tales, it won't be out until winter 2015, though of course they could just be aiming for the same year and not the same exact timeframe. Oh hey, I hadn't even seen anything about this. Can't wait for the adventures of Not Marta and Male Colette. 
Sydin fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Aug 26, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2014 19:47
|
|
|
SpazmasterX posted:Surprisingly she doesn't annoy me. It's probably because she's just a girl that acts her age and isn't some chosen one professional gundam pilot anime nonsense. Yeah when I first heard her voice in the intro cinematic I was really afraid I was going to have to go through the whole game listening to that voice, but she's kinda grown on me. It helps alot that she doesn't actually fight: she's a little girl who actually acts like a little girl instead of the usual anime badass.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 27, 2014 03:30
|
|
|
So I realize I'm a bit behind the curve, but wow does this game pick up in a big way past Chapter 6. Also I take back anything even remotely negative I said about Elle. By the end of Chapter 7 she's grown on me in a big way. Her interactions with Ludger are so  and it's great.Also gently caress Muzet, holy poo poo. Aska and Rideaux were pushovers, and Chronos was marginally annoying, but Muzet ended up eating my whole supply of life bottles. I even had light weapons and I was still getting murdered.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2014 23:15
|
|
|
Volt Catfish posted:I was about to mention "Not even Graces final dungeon was that bad" Nothing is worse than the Graces final dungeon. Graces had the infuriating dungeon formula down to a science. It's almost impressive how convoluted they were. Eddain posted:Man are all Tales games mandated to have extremely lovely final dungeons? This place is annoying as gently caress. Honestly Graces is the only final dungeon I can think of that was outright infuriating, at least in the games I've played. Xilia's was ten minutes of walking forward, Vesperia's was fairly straight forward even if you went for the extras, Abyss was only annoying if you wanted to leave and come back to do all the sidequests endgame, and even if Symphonia's was bad, I don't remember that because it was overshadowed by much, much worse dungeons like Latheon Gorge or the space station zero gravity sliding puzzles.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2014 01:30
|
|
|
It really wasn't all that long. Yeah you have to fight three bosses and sit through some cutscenes, but if you book it you can be standing in front of the final boss in the better part of 20 minutes. The light/dark fonons to flip the dungeon puzzle can indeed gently caress right off, though. Particularly if you don't know what order you're supposed to flip them in, and end up backtracking like crazy until you brute force it.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2014 01:39
|
|
|
The poker game uses Abyss's casino music.  I calculate I'd need somewhere in the ballpark of 5 million chips to pay off the full debt, which doesn't seem hard as much as it does tedious. I'm getting perfectly fine hands even without the gold/silver dice, but high/low is kicking my rear end. It has to be rigged to gently caress with me: there is no way in hell you'd draw this many evens in real life. I can accept "you had two choices, and you chose wrong", but "no matter what you chose you lose anyway, sucker" five hands in a row is just a little infuriating.  Goddamn it, why did I have to find the poker game? Because of my completionist compulsion I won't be able to continue on until I've paid off the entire debt and gotten all costume poker rewards.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2014 09:17
|
|
|
Gaius. He's a complete goofball now, and I love it. Granted throwing a top hat and sideburns on him so he looks like Abe Lincoln probably isn't helping either, but hey. I like how the game just casually integrates two major antagonists from the last game into your core party.Endorph posted:The best thing to do with the poker game is to just not get greedy. There's no way of losing any real money once you get going, since you're playing with 100 at a time, so just hop off double or nothing once you get around 10k. I did that at first and got up to about 100k chips, so yeah I was basically never worried about losing hands. I was more bemoaning my luck at high/low, since now that I have a solid chip base I'm going for broke on every win and trying to max out my winnings.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2014 21:14
|
|
|
Well, I just finished Chapter 11. Goddamn.  I have to admit I was skeptical as hell at the initial "alternate dimensions" plotline, but drat if they haven't managed to squeeze some fantastic writing out of it. This game was a really slow burn at first, but when it picked up it did so in a big way. Although great job taking all the tension out of prime Milla's return for me by immediately giving us an upskirt. Really, guys? She's not even wearing a skirt at this point, it's just a long shirt. 
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2014 02:52
|
|
|
Wow, this game really does not know how to keep a consistent tone. One minute I'm killing my future self and learning that I'm slowly killing Elle because I'm the worst anime dad, and the next I'm fighting flamboyantly gay Aska because Jude refuses to "tether" with him.  Although I guess without all the comedy in the character stories, it would just be all dismal all the time, because man is this game depressing. Edit: And then Alvin's depressing as hell mission right after. Goddamn writers, give Alvin a break. Sydin fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Sep 7, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2014 18:10
|
|
|
So is it just some running joke with the Tales translation people that when it comes time to pick a VA for Celsius, they choose the intern who's never voice acted a day in her life? I mean this isn't Symphonia bad, but it's pretty bad.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2014 02:58
|
|
|
Endorph posted:Funny thing about that: her VA was also Fang in Final Fantasy 13. This explains so much holy poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2014 03:23
|
|
|
wdarkk posted:Bats drop the Unicorn Horn? loving bats? It's Tales, I don't have to explain poo poo. Endorph posted:My favorite alt. timeline is the one you take Muzet to where you see absolutely nothing different and never leave Bermia Gorge. I'm really torn on the whole fractured dimension idea. On one hand, the writers use it to give us some great character insights and interesting what if scenarios, like Leia's reaction to her being BFF's with Agria, Rowan finding a world where Nactagul didn't devolve into madness, or the dimension where Milla and Jude got wrecked by Maxwell and Muzet took over as master of The Four. On the other hand, the designers are shamelessly reusing old boss fights to pad out the game. It's not even hidden. Also even though the writing in these segments is solid, they just don't seem to have any faith in it, and throw in boss battles constantly as if they think we're going to fall asleep if we get five minutes without a fight. My favorite shoehorned fight is in Jude's final chapter, where he and Milla tell Celsius that their vow of cooperation is genuine. It's a normal conversation, and then they just immediately draw their weapons out of nowhere, to which Celsius responds by summoning a giant ice dragon. It's so out of left field that even Ludger has a look on his face like "wait, we're fighting now? why?"
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2014 04:47
|
|
|
Eddain posted:Eh, that fight is standard Tales affair no? Every Great Spirit requires you to show your resolve through battle. I guess it was just jarring how out of nowhere it was. The conversation was perfectly cordial, but then Celsius asks an innocuous question and Milla/Jude whip out their weapons. Not to mention that when Celsius does likewise, Jude chastises her for being stubborn, despite having drawn his weapon first. Endorph posted:To be fair, reusing boss fights is fine in a game where combat is fun. Although You fight Muzet like eight times in this game. True, although they do overuse a few fights the Aska battles have no difference, and you fight the various Chimeriad members quite a few times. Muzet is by far the worst offender, but at least they tried to vary her up a little. Like in Milla's last chapter, where she gets the four great spirits as attacks and is completely unstaggerable.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2014 07:42
|
|
|
Yinlock posted:I kinda wish they had her face what an absolutely lovely person Muzet used to be but I guess the poor girl has enough to bring her down already. They kind of make a point in her character chapters that the party is uneasy around Muzet, and that she's aware of it and trying to change that. But it's played much more for humor than for drama. It would have been nice if in one of the dozen or so fractured dimensions where you encountered a crazy Muzet you had to fight, the actual Muzet was along for the ride. Like, her seeing a world were she killed Milla and became the new "Maxwell", or a world were she and Gaius bested the party and Elympios is quickly spiraling towards destruction now that they've eliminated all spyrix. At the very least, it would have been more interesting than going to an alternate dimension to kill harpies or whatever the hell her second chapter was. On the other hand: quote:Really Xillia 2's plot in general has holes you could drive a bus through but it's fun/interesting enough to give it a pass.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2014 17:46
|
|
|
^Also this, yeah.wdarkk posted:Poker's great if you enjoy getting screwed by the RNG. This can't be right: I love Fire Emblem and hate Xillia 2's poker.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
I can't really rag on Xillia 2, even though I don't think it's a very strong entry into the series. Something like 80% of the assets are directly ripped from Xillia 1, but a lot of heart was put into that 20% of new content, particularly around building up the characters and playing with a lot of "what if" scenarios. It's obvious that, after having to rush out Xillia 1, the development team wanted to be able to have some fun and put out something in the same universe that was more polished, and I can appreciate that. They kind of tried to do the same thing with Symphonia 2, and that was a loving disaster. The game isn't amazing or anything, but neither is it offensive. The writing is strong when it needs to be, and I still contend that Elle is one of the better depictions in a JRPG of how an eight year old child actually acts. gently caress the debt plotline, though. It serves no purpose outside of artificially lengthening a somewhat short game, and it barely even has enough emotional investment to qualify for a C plot. Cake Attack posted:it's hard for me to call Xillia 2 bad because I just started playing TotA again and man i'd forgotten how far they've come as far as battle systems go. The older Tales games are starting to show their age when it comes to battle, yeah. Even Abyss, as much as I don't want to admit it . When I played through Symphonia Chronicles earlier in the year, it frustrated me just how badly the mechanics have aged.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 24, 2014 01:13
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 03:30 |
|
|
Nova was great. Doesn't excuse the debt bullshit, though. Also she was underdeveloped as hell and I really wish they did more with her character. There were hints that there was a sort of love triangle going on between her, Ludger, and Julius, but it just falls of the wagon when the plot picks up at the end of the game.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 24, 2014 01:27
|
|