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I will never not be able to see Zestiria's title without a mental image of someone grating a lemon
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Nov 6, 2016 17:24
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Caphi posted:And then Tales of the Abyss came out, and it's the RPG Of Learning The Meaning Of Birth. It's still not clear what exactly the Abyss is? Pretty sure it's a reference to the Qliphoth, since about 2/3's of the game is concerned with the earth breaking apart.
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Nov 6, 2016 17:32
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I remember when they were first teasing Zestiria and people found Namco had copyrighted like three different names as is their custom to obfuscate the real title and everyone thought "Zestiria" was the obvious dumb one that would never be used
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Nov 6, 2016 17:34
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i remember when they were first teasing zestiria and they said it would be a good game
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Nov 6, 2016 17:37
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Endorph posted:i remember when they were first teasing zestiria and they said it would be a good game
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Nov 6, 2016 17:48
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So i got my friend into the tales games with symphonia, we breezed through the same as a lloyd genis tag team. Lots of fun. Then he got zestiria on a slae and thought we could continie the fun. 20 minutes in and between the camera shoved up a random spider's rear end and almost never centered on us, and literally the entire battle system gutted to "no no we'll do the moves for you just mash the one button" we were done. Edit: oh and i remembered we put it so i was sorey or whoever and he was this other guy, very clearly labelled p1 and p2, yet in battle we were switched which was baffling. something fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 17:59
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uh you can set the arte system to not do the 'mash the one button' thing
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Nov 6, 2016 18:06
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Endorph posted:uh you can set the arte system to not do the 'mash the one button' thing
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Nov 6, 2016 18:20
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and you do that by literally just assigning an arte to a command making it the default is a little weird but it's not like it's overpowered, it fucks up combos 90% of the time and seems to mostly just be there for people who play these games on the easiest difficulty and just play them for the story/skits, which is totally fair
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Nov 6, 2016 18:36
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In the next game they'll introduce Phoenix mode and then there will be hell to pay
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Nov 6, 2016 18:52
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This is the Graces track that really bothers me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLo_-5MyI84 I find myself liking Tales soundtracks the further back you go in the series. I like the soundtrack to Phantasia for all of its SNES prog rock glory and the soundtrack to Destiny is very catchy. The Symphonia soundtrack is where things get far too codified but even I've warmed up to a few themes. Once you start approaching the PS3 era that's when the music features more live (sounding) instruments and the music loses a lot of atmosphere and personality because the performance is so overblown.
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Nov 6, 2016 20:29
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eternia, legendia and zestiria are my favorite tales osts, and a few tracks from abyss. go shiina is a lot better at maintaining an interesting style when it comes to tales music than sakuraba is, which is weird cause sakuraba's ps1 era music is insanely good and he's done good orchestrated stuff for other games
The Colonel fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 21:55
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If you think Graces music sucks, just wait until you play ToB! Sakuraba is at it again with this amazing set of tracks that sound so unremarkable that I literally can not remember a single song he did from the OST at this point in time. (This is another of my gripes about the game. Though at this point in time, I guess Shiina is like the kiss of death.) About skits vs. event scenes, I know a lot of people like skits, and so do I, but it just feels somehow frustrating to go event -> event cuts off to forced skit -> skit ends -> another skit is immediately available. When Graces came out, it had worse graphics than Vesperia, but I remember liking the cinematic effort put into the event scenes in comparison to Vesperia, which really was just talking heads 90% of the time. I guess mileage will vary on how much you like how event scenes have made progress as the game series has gone on, but Berseria was clearly not interested in trying to make their event scenes anything special. Oddly enough, I swear the lip syncing is improved, though... Anyway, more than anything, I am just not convinced that Berseria is the game where Bamco took a step back and realised they had to spend actual time and money on their games to make them into something special. It feels much like all games since Graces: rushed out the door. Even though I like Zestiria more than most people out there, I am the first to admit that it is full of flaws, both minor and major, that add up to making it a game that I'd say is probably the most frustrating in the series to me. And the only thing I was hoping from it after it was released and it was so hated by the community is that Bamco would take a moment to consider their release scheme and rethink it. I am not convinced that has happened when I play Berseria. Not in the least. And I think, ultimately, that's what bothers me the most about the game. It's not a bad game, but it's not a good game. Story wise, Caphi, I just fought my evil big brother-in-law and got sucked to another realm and forehead-chan made LifeSet her whatever spirit or whatever. For the record, I am interested in where this story is headed. Maybe if I finish my work today, I can play it for a couple hours. Also, I was the person who turned all damage to 1-damage in ToV and FS'd my way to victory. It really sucks when you forget to turn it off before boss fights though. Also, I loved FOS but I played the Japanese version of Abyss and I heard the US version nerfed Guy. Can't imagine why..... I'm not huge on Team Symphonia combat, but in retrospect, I think both systems have their good points.
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Nov 6, 2016 22:01
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I feel like they needed to get a game out quick, even if rushed, because the actual kiss of death is releasing nothing at all for multiple years after you release a stinker. Granted, they could have opted for another remake instead while they figured stuff out but on that front they might still be a little scared after their last two kind of bombed to the extent that they abandoned the third one. A new, gradual improvement seeking to draw in new players was probably their safest bet. Also, I doubt the US version nerfed Guy or at least not to any point that matters. He's still crazy fast to the point that being even more fast wouldn't actually alter the way you play.
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Nov 6, 2016 22:56
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I do not remember a single Tales track outside of the title themes and their orchestrated versions. Not one! Come to think of it, that applies to everything Sakuraba's ever done outside of Valkyrie Profile.
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Nov 6, 2016 23:00
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I don't think Guy was nerfed because I could still do his infinite
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Nov 6, 2016 23:02
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Fury Sparks was fantastic and I wish all Tales games aspired to have soundtracks as good as it or the Go Shinaii tracks in Zestilicious
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Nov 6, 2016 23:15
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Guy had two infinites, one was removed.
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Nov 7, 2016 00:07
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Oxxidation posted:I do not remember a single Tales track outside of the title themes and their orchestrated versions. Not one! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Es6Ic8cR9E
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Nov 7, 2016 00:23
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Decus posted:I feel like they needed to get a game out quick, even if rushed, because the actual kiss of death is releasing nothing at all for multiple years after you release a stinker. Granted, they could have opted for another remake instead while they figured stuff out but on that front they might still be a little scared after their last two kind of bombed to the extent that they abandoned the third one. A new, gradual improvement seeking to draw in new players was probably their safest bet. It's probably this. Remember that they announced "don't worry, guys, we're working on the next one" a few months after Zestiria's release and something like eight months before they actually had so much as a proper introduction or trailer. And for all that, Berseria still feels less full of holes than Zestiria. Still holding out for the next one being Fukaya-P's "brand new era." It seems likely that Berseria was well under way before Zestiria was released, so it was going to have to come out with all of its links anyway, but I want the next one to be a clean new thing. And not just because I didn't like Zestiria or Defilement, just because even though Wasteland's saga isn't really "over" I'm still sort of done with it. Used to be Tales would do something completely different each year, and now we are on our sixth year of just two settings and largely one "style". Caphi fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Nov 7, 2016 |
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Nov 7, 2016 01:12
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ruta posted:I am not convinced that has happened when I play Berseria. Not in the least. And I think, ultimately, that's what bothers me the most about the game. It's not a bad game, but it's not a good game Like Berseria has moments where it feels rushed but it at least feels like a game that you can call 'finished,' even if some things could have done with more polish or just more, in general. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Xillia, Xillia 2, and Zestiria don't feel like finished games. And hot take but it feels more whole than Vesperia, too, at least in the sense that its third act has anything whatsoever to do with its first and second. Like I don't know how you can say this when Berseria feels like any other B-Tier JRPG released in the past decade, compared to Zestiria which barely even felt like a video game that was made by humans, or Xillia which forgot to have a third act. Endorph fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Nov 7, 2016 |
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Nov 7, 2016 01:51
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ruta posted:If you think Graces music sucks, just wait until you play ToB! Sakuraba is at it again with this amazing set of tracks that sound so unremarkable that I literally can not remember a single song he did from the OST at this point in time. (This is another of my gripes about the game. Though at this point in time, I guess Shiina is like the kiss of death.)
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Nov 7, 2016 01:53
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Endorph posted:Beerseria has a story with a definitive beginning, middle, and end, and it hits all the notes it needs to hit for those things to be satisfying. That literally hasn't happened in a tales game for like 7 years. Eh. I'd say you are. Xillia's ending is rushed but it's finished. You don't get a 100% absolute resolution to the OIL CRISIS issue but are left with a clear 'things will be better' ending which is pretty common for a lot of RPGs. XIllia's second world could have been better developed (which X2 does sort-of) but not to the point it's unfinished. Xillia's themes and concepts come to a coherent close and the worst you can say is that it could have had more time to flesh things out. Xillia 2 I can't really say is unfinished. Budget certainly but not unfinished. There are problems with the plot but they're not ones I think would have been resolved with a longer game. The parallel universes thing was gonna be weird no matter what you did.
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Nov 7, 2016 01:54
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I remember the Tales of Graces battle theme while you are on Fodra just because it was so different and kinda awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rjs8u5G2A8
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Nov 7, 2016 01:58
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ImpAtom posted:Eh. I'd say you are. And calling Xillia 2 unfinished isn't really fair, you're right, but maybe it'd be more fair to call it like a fandisc? Like something that should have been a $30 expansion pack as opposed to a full game.
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Nov 7, 2016 01:59
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Endorph posted:Xillia's ending is fine but the path there from the beginning of the third act to the end is a trainwreck. Yeah, I'd say that is pretty heavy hyperbole. If that part is a 'trainwreck' instead of rushed then I'm pretty comfortable saying that there hasn't been a non-trainwreck Tales game since the PS1, because almost all of them run into rushed areas or poorly developed plotlines.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:01
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, I'd say that is pretty heavy hyperbole. If that part is a 'trainwreck' instead of rushed then I'm pretty comfortable saying that there hasn't been a non-trainwreck Tales game since the PS1, because almost all of them run into rushed areas or poorly developed plotlines. Dude, Xillia is my second favorite game of all time, I'm not calling the entire game a trainwreck. Just that the third act very obviously doesn't achieve wants it want to do, way more so than Symphonia dropping a few plot threads or Abyss having a weird start-and-stop towards the end, in a way that noticeably detracts from the story telling. Maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic, but considering I just called Zestiria 'not a video game...'
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Nov 7, 2016 02:03
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I would agree that Xillia is mostly complete. I'd put Berseria on par with it, on the whole, which is still above X2 and considerably above Zestiria, but not quite up to Graces and before. (Say what you want about Graces' actual content, but it knew what it wanted to be and did it thoroughly.) I am with Endorph on the story though; it's basically all there and coherent and (probably the biggest issue) avoids falling off right at the end. Even the "filler" in the middle is all pretty relevant, which is more than you can say for X2, where Important Character Work would just sort of force itself to happen tangentially on your way to a Beacon. (Actually, that's kind of Fracture dives in general and probably sums up my big issue with X2.) There's stuff like Salehtoma and the fishing trip, but honestly I found those to be fine since they take place after big intense plot segments, I think, so they work.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:07
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I don't know if unifinished is the word, but Milla's third act tells me the game's entire gimmick was just inherently flawed and did not benefit it. The game feels like it's got a beginning, the first half of the middle, and the second half of the end. Xillia 2 is a weird one because it never gave me the sense of "This is a full new JRPG", it was more like an expansion pack, like someone said earlier. It was also a lot more fun in general than the first game, so I ended up liking it more.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:08
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Endorph posted:Just that the third act very obviously doesn't achieve wants it want to do, It doesn't but I think that's pretty far away from being a trainwreck. Especially with JRPGs it is super easy to see areas where they couldn't achieve the full ideas they wanted to do for time/budget/whatever issues, but I don't think that leads to Xillia being incoherent or anything, just rushed. Rushed isn't great but it also is a problem I'm not unused to with a lot of RPGs (both W and J) and certainly with the Tales game. I'd say Abyss, Vesperia, and Hearts all sort of collapse near the end and the only thing that really saves Graces is the additional arc added to the PS3 version. (And Graces, of course has lots of other problems.) So while I think Xillia is flawed I never found its flaws more significant than the other recent games in the series I've played. If Bersaria is head and shoulders above them then I'll be pleased as punch I admit. It's always been a problem for Tales games for me that the ending arcs are pretty halfhearted.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:10
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I guess there's a bit in the endgame that's kind of perfunctory but by and large I thought the last act (a bit more, starting from Aval, I should say) of Berseria was, rather than going downhill, actually some of its strongest material.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:17
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Caphi posted:I guess there's a bit in the endgame that's kind of perfunctory but by and large I thought the last act (a bit more, starting from Aval, I should say) of Berseria was, rather than going downhill, actually some of its strongest material. That is excellent to hear, not that I didn't believe Endorph when she said it.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:23
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:I remember the Tales of Graces battle theme while you are on Fodra just because it was so different and kinda awesome. I was always a bit fond of Risk it All. Not saying its a good song, just that I liked it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y9BB_gChDE
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Nov 7, 2016 02:31
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Caphi posted:I guess there's a bit in the endgame that's kind of perfunctory but by and large I thought the last act (a bit more, starting from Aval, I should say) of Berseria was, rather than going downhill, actually some of its strongest material. I'd say the game's strongest material starts with the big second act twist and doesn't really let up from there. Not sure where exactly you'd put Magilou's big arc in the plot's structure, but it's definitely when I said 'wow, this game is great.' and kept feeling that way. ImpAtom posted:I'd say Abyss, Vesperia, and Hearts all sort of collapse near the end But yeah, going by these standards Berseria really is the first complete Tales game since the PS1. Its signs of being rushed are imo more in things like presentation. The side quests just kinda come from random dudes standing around, there's no real context to a lot of the side material, a lot of the cutscenes are presented as skits, every character feels like they could have used maybe 4 or 5 more artes, etc. Its beginning could have maybe used some polish/rewriting just from a gameplay perspective, but from a pure plot perspective the game hits everything and it does it fine. If anything I'd say rather than needing more time, it just needed to be freed from being connected to Zestiria to really shine,. A lot of the plot connections it tries to make are the things that end up underdeveloped - but it's hard to blame Berseria since it basically has to do the work of two games with regards to that stuff, and it never really puts the core plot on the shoulders of the Zestiria connections, they're mostly just side details. And the character writing and how they develop puts every other Tales game to shame. Even the tales games I feel have the best writing don't really manage to give everyone a complete arc (Abyss manages it with 90% of the cast but Tear kind of fades into the background as just 'Luke's love interest' as the game goes on, even if her development to get there is pretty good, and Dist just kinda... stops... without a conclusive end, even if you do Nephilim he just kinda vanishes) but Berseria doesn't just make everyone in the party feel fully fleshed out, it makes like 4-5 side characters feel fully fleshed out, and they all have very nice arcs and complex relationships with each other. It's fantastic writing, especially for a JRPG, especially for a JRPG in a series that is built so heavily on characters, and it does a lot to make the game feel whole in a way a lot of other games in the series don't.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:40
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ImpAtom posted:Eh. I'd say you are. I don't know. Xillia's 3rd act feels sorta unfinished, in that they just seemed to have skipped a decent amount of stuff (even when ignoring the whole 2nd world). I've only played Jude's route but that starts with like 4 different boss fights that you go all around the map for with no dungeons or anything in between. Like, all the important stuff for the story is there but it definitely feels like more stuff was planned to come in between those parts to flesh them out more. Then there's the fact that although Alvin's actual betrayal and his character leading up to it is really well done the fallout from him rejoining the party afterwards just doesn't really happen despite them laying the seeds for it. It's brought up right after he joins up again that Leia won't talk to him anymore (cause you know he shot her) and even Jude hasn't exactly forgiven him. And you'd think there'd be some stuff to address that but it just sorta falls by the wayside aside from his talk with Elize before the final dungeon. It wasn't super rushed like a lot of games, because the developers still managed to include all the important scenes for the story and everything. There's doesn't really seem to be huge chunks cut or anything, but a lot of stuff that I feel like was planned to be put in the game just doesn't make it in and it really screws with the pacing. The game itself doesn't feel unfinished but i'd say there was something missing from that final act.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:44
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Endorph posted:I'd say the game's strongest material starts with the big second act twist and doesn't really let up from there. Not sure where exactly you'd put Magilou's big arc in the plot's structure, but it's definitely when I said 'wow, this game is great.' and kept feeling that way. There are what, three segments between me and you? I'd say they're all good or great. The first one is wonderfully tense, the second is some decent villain work but also puts a spotlight on all of Phi's and Eleanor's development, and the third one is a dungeon which is short but basically fine and well-themed. And yes, everything after that is a roller coaster.
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Nov 7, 2016 03:02
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How close am I to this strongest material?
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Nov 7, 2016 03:56
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Honestly a while, you're through the first act and I'm thinking towards the end of the second, but I still liked the second act, personally. Just enjoy the show. You liked Malevolence and I thought the way you did was interesting (not sarcastically, like, actually) so I'm waiting for your reactions to some of the plot in the latter half or so, also. Caphi fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Nov 7, 2016 |
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Nov 7, 2016 04:19
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Yeah, the story/world are most of what's keeping me going. Part of me wonders if I should just turn the difficulty down to normal and just kind of ignore the combat system and the gear system completely and speed through things to enjoy the parts I like more.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:28
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ruta posted:Yeah, the story/world are most of what's keeping me going. Part of me wonders if I should just turn the difficulty down to normal and just kind of ignore the combat system and the gear system completely and speed through things to enjoy the parts I like more.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:59
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