Tales Series

wait like you can't play with any other character in your first walkthrough or you just always have Ludger in slot 1 and then can switch in-combat?

Okay those improvements sound really good with that improved combo system, especially the element aspect amd improved ai during links,better mystic artes linking and more moves all just make it sound alot more complete.

The recycled stuff doesn't sound too bad but since I intend to keep tales of xillia, it might create some confusion there with all the similar stuff.

Shame there isn't any new link artes between the old cast, but that's fine by me.

although the party things irkes me, feels like a downgrade to not be able to swap out characters during combat, I guess I can sort of say it seems fairer given that means you have more characters that it can make battles easier if you could have more characters on standby to swap, but it would make it more tedious that you have to go back to town to swap members. Well not really that tedious but it just adds a layer of stuff that wasn't needed before

is there any specific reason you can't swap Ludger out for the first playthough, is like swapping him a thing you unlock after the first playthrough is that a grade shop thing?

Thanks for all the information Lu 127

VS again

Man the AI is annoying on Normal but the good news is I finally buffed up Kyle so he isn't lagging behind and started on Lloyd and Colette's story. The first fight i with our old buddy Cless Alvein who's now training under Kratos and offers to train Lloyd in return.

I just wanna hurry up and unlock my favourite psycho environmentalist hippy Dhaos and shoot lasers at people. Or run into Richter and stop him from inadvertently resurrecting Dracula.

Oh wow, that does suck.

So in other words, once you leave a town, your are stuck with whoever you choose, and can't change it at all.

It's kinda stupid to not be able to change characters in the field.

Okay, just so I don't get misunderstood:

When I say switching members during combat, I mean the way Xillia did it. That's gone, so you have the same thing as every other game in the series once it starts.

Ludger is stuck on the first slot, which means you can't take him out of the party for a first playthrough. You can switch to any of your three other characters during combat. The only place you can kick him out on your first playthrough is the Arena. On a second playthrough, you can take him out during free time and subevents, but all character episodes and story episodes require him no matter how many times you beat the game. That's because he's the only one with time-travelling powers. Oh, and no kicking him out of the extra dungeon either.

If you want to change your party, you need to be in town. Your party is further locked during character episodes that require specific characters, and some main story events. A certain spoileriffic event in chapter 12 is locked with Milla, Rowen and Jude, for instance.

Okay it seems fair about the the not being able to swap characters thing in the middle of combat in Xillia, given that you mentioned that it can't be done in other games, guess I just got to used to that in Xillia I guess. Also the reason for keeping ludger around seems fair.

How is the grade shop in Xillia 2?

The Grade Shop is...okay. The prices are pretty much the same as Xillia's, but the things you can get are better. You can unlock Ludger's voice so you hear him speak when you make choices, add more weakness multipliers, carry over affection, get all corpse shell levels from the start and reduce TP consumption (yaaaay). Farming Grade is more groan-inducing. The required number of times for your special skills and link skills has been bumped to something like 400 times instead of 100.

It does, but remember that the game's build is episodic, so it's like taking a bunch of your colleagues to a mission and then returning after your work is done. It's not like other Tales games where you're travelling from area to area and it'd be jarring for people to just pop up in town if they weren't available in combat.

Also, to make up for this, every character has a way to heal. Alvin has his Guardian Field, Rowen already had Diffusional Drive's extra healing properties and now learns an actual cure move (Healing Etude), Jude has his medical artes, Milla has Undine II, Gaius has a couple of spiritual artes based on Vital Flair and Muzet is your third support healer. She learns a couple resurrection moves and can link into Fairy Circle. Leia and Elize obviously have what they already had, with Elize being the best.

Still blows to be stuck with Ludger.

I wouldn't mind being stuck with Ludger <3

Especially in his Emil outfit

Bosses auto-break combos? Ah, I know. It's when you are happily pummeling them and they get a blue exclamation mark, which means they're going to cockblock your next hit with their own. And if they get the RED exclamation mark they can chain into a Mystic Arte (only on Overlimit, but you should already know to run the fuck away when they use it.)

I never had problems with linked AI. If I tell them to 'Use Artes' they go for the enemies' back and attack. 'Cover Rear' means they will defend you from the enemies you are not targeting. But if you want healers to do their job (stay the heck away and spam heals.) they should be unlinked.

Complete movesets? They seemed pretty complete to me. And the CC system means that all (but one) of them being Base Artes doesn't matter, they chain just fine. I am not the one to learn long, hard to chain combos. I spam whatever the enemy is weak agaisnt. Also, bosses auto-break, remember? Long chains are useless in Xillia.

You can't switch members during combat. It is reasonable why: Front row is four characters, reserve members have another four slots. There are 9 chars. Ludger is stuck in the front row: Also reasonable, only he is able to use the Corpse Shell overlimit + Time Stands Still new gameplay gimmick (just like how only Emil can make pacts, so either he or Marta must be in the active party.)

Aside from that it sucks that Xillia 2 has such bad character availability. (Hey, Legendia also did the episodic 'dungeon > boss > return to town' thingy! But that game had the excuse of only having ONE town...) So basically, pray that you get at least one of either Leia, Elly or Muzet for that day's field trip.

@ Kombat: seen some videos of Tales of VS. I should try it, but so-so graphics, weird battle system (too much platforming.) idiotic AI (allies are Leeroy Jenkins, rivals are too defensive, especially when items spawn.) forced skills (Spell Save + cast reduction + Pikohan spam is the only way you are going to win with Mint, f.e.) and you know, japanese text in a very menu-text based game makes me... look the other way. Sigh. (Is there even a menu patch for this beast?)

I heard the Emil costume is DLC. Well damm it. My Pony friend is not one to waste his money on 'useless' clothes.

edited 26th Jul '14 8:15:13 AM by FlightMaster

There's menu translations for it but no...patch yet. I still like the idea of actually playing as Dhaos and Barbatos tho.

Eh. The only good outfit Ludge has is his Akito costume. The hair is just gorgeous. The Emil costume is Day One Edition DLC, not PSN.

If you link a melee with a caster, they will act stupid. If you play the melee, the caster will stay back and do nothing but defend you. If you play the caster, the melee will do the same. This makes you run into hilarious situations where Elize is jumping into the fray like a chicken with Milla instead of raining havoc from afar, or cases where Jude just sits next to Rowen watching him cast instead of doing something. The Link AI is phenomenally stupid, because it's programmed to always stay close to its partner, while Xillia 2 allows you to give it a "move freely" command.

Movesets weren't complete except for Jude and Milla. You have Leia, a character geared towards aerial combat, and yet she has very few aerial skills (instead they went all to Milla) and no air-to-ground artes, which makes no sense. The fact that spamming the same moves is the most effective strategy in Xillia is only proof of its shoddy design. Seriously, the game gives you great combo freedom, but then proceeds to make it worthless against what should be the most fun fights. I'm no combo master, but artes in this game have a lot of unique properties (Milla's Spirit Shifting, for instance, where you have three different versions of Wind Blade depending on which spell you shifted it from), but the bosses won't let you experiment with them. Not to mention the awful defense scaling that makes Burn the best thing in the game.

Resuming Destiny 2 (I've been playing far too much Atelier Escha):

One harrowing clash with Barbie later, Karell dies against Miktran and Harold has an uncharacteristic breakdown crying. After the victory, Harold says she'll come with us to destroy Barbie and take down god. New destination: Dycroft, during the original Destiny's time.

The next map sucks majorly and I got lost all the time, but I finally got into Dycroft, only to save the Swordian masters from Barbie. "I'd name my son Kyle if I ever had one." Oh, Stahn. You are so predictable. They stab the Eye of God, but the Swordians' power is not enough, so Leon pulls out Chaltier! Awww, I missed the little dummy. Before we can destroy the eye for good, it's time for the third Barbie fight.

Yes, the game puts two Barbie fights with only a very short dungeon. Biggest jerk move ever. That said, Barbie 3 is considerably easier than Barbie 2. I did very well against him for once, but getting the spell-cancelling timing right was very challenging. Phew.

And thus, Barbie throws himself into the exploding eye because he cannot accept defeat in our hands and shall instead go out on his own terms. Don't worry folks, he's not really dead. He's wandering around Destiny R as the bonus boss and lounging around the arena in Vesperia.

edited 26th Jul '14 2:46:11 PM by lu127

.*rummages*

.*rummages some more* Come on...

Found it! Destiny 2's world map music Step to Tomorrow! For the ones that don't know, it is extremely earwormy. I know the Bad Future timeline has its own arrangement, but can't find it... the 'Mist' version is slower and calmer, but what I am looking for has more / crisper instruments. Lu surely must have noticed the difference.

GAH! I am humming it again! Daaa da da daaa, da da daaa...

Oh, I also found Admiral Curtiss has reached the postgame in his Vesperia LP. So I clicked the post that includes the PS 3 swimsuits to JUDGE!

• Raven: Estelle is 80/100 points. Rita is 2. Judy is two trillion points. Patty... I can't rate her, she is aimed at a different 'demographic'.
• Me: Stupid old man! Rita's swimsuit has finally made me see her as physically attractive. That's a huge achievement!
• Rita: I don't know if I should thank or BLAST you.
• Me: Huh? *sees Swimsuit Muzet HHHNNNGGG!
• Raven: THREE THOUSAND GAZILLION POINTS!

edited 30th Jul '14 2:07:17 AM by FlightMaster

The OST is great! Very atmospheric and the battle tracks are amazing. Alea Jacta Est was my favourite theme in Graces so I always had Pascal in the Harold costume, and the original theme here doesn't disappoint either. Too bad I can't navigate the past era map to save my life.

Also, Divine Saber's awesome. Harold gets brownie points for coming up with it. One of the few artes where the Japanese incantation has always remained the same (except for Graces).

In sad news, Bamco announced that the Card Mobile games will be terminated by September. That means no more gorgeous artwork!◊ And many tears were shed. In better news, there's a Zesty livestream coming up soon. I'll watch it if I don't tumble over asleep.

edited 30th Jul '14 3:27:17 AM by lu127

At least I got epic sexy Beach Emil before it died so there's that.

Zesty news was once again disappointing. They only showed a few character introduction videos, but the scenes were very short and they'd pulled out the voices from most of them. The way they're dragging their feet with the promo materials makes me think they're pushing it back.

But, uh, there was actual battle footage! Battles commence when you touch an enemy symbol on the map, which causes the appearance of an entire group of enemies. The field doesn't seem to be limited anymore, but there are victory quotes. Oh, and post-battle grade is back. I guess they're done with the experimental achievement-style grade Graces and the Xillias had.

Here's the video shown at the stream. It looks kinda...cramped?

Moar Destiny 2:

After Barbie is defeated, we stab the Eye and lose Chaltier. Now we can finally return to the normal timeline, where everything is fixed! Woodrow is all well and dandy and thanks us for everything. We spend a night in the castle. Reala nd Kyle go on a date, where Reala starts acting a bit weird and asks what Kyle would do if she were to disappear. Suddenly, some freaky time distortion happens, which expert Harold deduces as a disturbance in the timeline. Someone or something is trying to collapse the future and present together, so the future is slowly vanishing. Realising this is Elraine's doing, Reala warps us to Kalviola, ten years in the bad future to confront the witch.

We run to Fortuna's inner shrine, and I have to say I love the atmosphere in this dungeon. It reminds me of FFIX. We try to confront Elraine, but Gaap, her manservant transforms into a...Gargoyle? And he flys annoyingly high. This was actually a pretty interesting fight because I had to manipulate his AI to keep him near the ground and keep his SP low. Fearful Storm rocks, btw. After he's kicked the bucket, Elraine reveals her plan. She's trying to repeat the catastrophe of a thousand ears ago by summoning a huge comet called the Egg of God to crash with the planet and wipe out humans. The energy produced by the clash would allow Fortuna to descend upon the land with enough power to make humans happy. Of course, they'd all be dead by the crash by then, but Fortuna says she'll remake humanity anew. Wow, it's Sephiroth's gender-bendered clone.

Kyle says that if she's going to be such a giant bitch about it, then he's going to kill god, but since Elraine and Reala are both incarnations of Fortuna, they'll both die with her. Kyle has a short Heroic BSoD, but Reala is okay with whatever he decides. Leon just wants him to make the decision he feels is right, so we visit the previous heroes for advice. Woodrow doesn't say anything particularly interesting, but Philia gives us some insight on Leon! She says Leon's eyes were icy cold, but within his heart, he was more passionate than anyone. The decision to fight Leon was one of the hardest thing sin her life, but she doesn't regret it one bit, nor does she think Leon regretted his. Judas says that he's certain Leon would tell her she did the right thing if he were there. So now we have to talk to Rutee!

Trivia time:

There's a skit where Kyle asks how travelling with Rutee was. Loni is curious as to whether Leon flirted with her, but Leon says "she's my...my...not my type! She has no delicacy and acts like a shady thief." He still can't bring himself to call her sister!

If you talk to Philia after this event, this hilarious convo takes place:

"Judas, have we ever met before?"
"NO. You're totally confusing me for someone else."
"My apologies. Obviously, there's no way he'd be alive..."

Leon still trying too hard to be 2cool7u

Man I haven't unlocked anyone on Tales of VS yet. I have gotten Lloyd and Kyle's mystic artes tho

Is Fortuna a real slog of a boss fight? Cus there are videos on YT that peg the fight as being upwards of an hour on harder difficulties.

I can die a happy man now◊

cardia mea !

edited 31st Jul '14 6:34:47 AM by Kiefen

I'm damn happy Namco are still acknowledging Rondy. And by FUCK does she look sexy in that bikini

Elraine and Fortuna are both veeeeeeeery annoying. I somehow managed to unlock Mania difficulty before the final dungeon and it's really trying my nerves. Elraine has an automatic counter, starts with a field of effect that drains TP, can insta-cast Twinkle Star without Crazy Comet and gets a freezing field at 40% HP. Fortuna just casts high level magic, but as her HP fluctuates she begins flying so high, your melee can't reach her at all, and it severely messes up spell hitboxes for your casters. And she teleports like on steroids. Oh, and in Mania, I got horribly owned by her summoning. Thank god she can't extend Fearful Storm, it's the most powerful spell in the game and that would be torture. I don't want to think of Unknown, my mind would collapse.

Daaamn, I only need one Darkness point for Crazy Comet! C'mon game, I don't wanna go to the Aqua Labyrinth....Magnadeus is too horrifying to think of.