Tales Series

Nope, he's just sort of left there. I feel kind of bad for him, since we basically mugged him, took his heart, and used it to power an elevator. It was for the sake of saving the world though, and since his job is to keep the Sephiroth tech safe, I'll say that he technically fulfilled his purpose by allowing the party to repair the Sephiroth.

Man, dumb skit gettin' my hopes up.

edit:

Anise: "But... he's a traitor..."

Oh, Anise. Anise, Anise, Anise...

edited 25th Sep '12 7:54:15 PM by Enlong

So, I think I finally figured out how each of the God-Generals match up as something of an Evil Counterpart to each member of the playable party.

• Asch The Bloody : Luke. Obvious reasons. After all, They're both Luke Fon Fabre.
• Arietta The Wild : Anise. Both Fon Master Guardians, both doll-wielders, cast the same spells, history together.
• Legretta The Quick : Tear. A long history together, mostly involving Legretta teaching Tear to be a soldier.
• Sync The Tempest : Ion. Since Both of them are Replicas of the original Fon Master. Akashic Torment is just the Daathic Fonic Arte Ion uses in the Radiant Howl extension. He does use lots of Tokunaga's attacks, but that's a red herring.
• Dist The Rose Runny Reaper : Jade. Again, history together. Mostly involving Gelda Nebilim and inventing Fomicry.
• Largo The Black Lion : Natalia. As her father, he makes for a very interesting counterpart, even though they share nothing in terms of fighting style or personality.
• Van : Guy. Both of them survivors of Hod, both initially entered into House Fabre for revenge. Heck, Guy was originally Van's lord.

Guy and Sync seem like Rivals at first due to their speedy styles and interation at first. But taht is more or less a red herring as well.

Sidequest Hell: complete! Argh, I hate Wallbridge, I hate side quests that suck up money (Cheria's swimsuit and Aston's sword) and above all I hate how trying to cast a spell puts up a neon sign on your character that says 'I'm unprotected, KILL ME'.

About Abyss: I think Anise would be much less hated if Team Symphonia had pulled a Kratos/Zelos-like option between Arietta and her. (But don't actually make me choose, Namco... because I would want both.) Speaking about the traitor trope, I just came from watching an incomplete Tales of Vesperia LP, and I must say:

Anise VS Raven! Who is the worse traitor?

Anise had her parents on the line, Raven had his own life... which was artificially extended to keep him in check. Between the two, Anise feels the most sympathetic, because she is a child with moronic parents and Raven just a soldier that prefered to keep working for the bad guy instead of dying as a hero.

Anise's actions killed Ion, which was just a clone to begin with, and his loss is mitigated because Abyss' clones are a dime a dozen (at least for the villains) Then, Raven's stunt of kidnapping Estelle almost caused her to die, and if she had not released her power, Zaphias would now be an aer-infested jungle. Again, Anise's faults are easier to forgive here.

Anise got her folks rescued and her only punishment was Arietta bitch-slapping her. Raven, after helping Estelle's rescuing and all-in-all being a reliable dude from then on... got his face punched six different times (seven, if you count Patty on PS 3) The old man wins this round's sympathy, because he got a punishment proportional to his misdeeds. Congrats.

Completely unrelated to the above, or not: I still can't forgive Kratos for his Tower of Salvation betrayal. The guy not only leaves you, but also takes Colette away for his boss battle. Great, now you have 3 characters forced on you, which conveniently for Kratos all have paper defenses. Cool.

Darn it.

I'm trying to Steal the Time Traveling Girl doll accessory from Arietta on Mount Roneal, but either I wind up killing her before managing the steal (Hard mode), or their team just completely facerolls mine (Very Hard mode).

Either way, I must say that Indignation is a very nice Mystic Arte to use on bosses.

edit: DARN. The Time Traveling Girl lets Anise use Resurrection. Now I have to keep trying for it.

edit edit: Ahaha! I got it! So, from now on, I think I'll have her use the Time Traveling Girl during boss battles, and the Warrior Maiden against random monsters.

edited 26th Sep '12 12:58:33 PM by Enlong

Somehow, I think I wound up overleveled. My team is heading into The Absorption Gate for the first time, and my file has about 40 hours on it. I had 46 hours by the final boss fight in my original run-through.

I don't mind overmuch, though. I just ratcheted up the difficulty to Hard, and all is good.

I've been using Anise a lot more, ever since I figured out how to improve her Strategy, and about using the Doll accessories. She can actually fill a useful transitionary role. Her, a swordsman, a healer, and Jade makes for a pretty balanced team.

I've managed to have lots of fun directly playing as anyone but the two healers.

It makes me want to play Symphonia again, and learn how to properly use Regal and Presea.

edit: Hrm. Auldrant has 24-hour days, and 765-day years. That means its year is a little over twice the length of our years.

Which means that Jade would be a little over 70 on Earth.

...and Anise would be 26? Seems like the years are twice as long, but the people seem to age only half as fast.

edited 28th Sep '12 1:19:13 PM by Enlong

...Oh man, this is priceless. I did the Mushroom Road quest, and now Asch is... stuck in his Abyss Silver costume.

Even in story events.

I am pretty sure that the canon sources list their ages using OUR calendar system, if not, that would mean Anise and Arietta are legal. Well, Arietta already is... isn't she 16?

Yes, it can happen. You can only access Asch's status screen during the short time he is playable, so you would have to wait until next playthrough to make any changes on him again.

Whoa, I am literally knocking at Lambda's door. Once that black blob goes down... I already dusted off the game I will use to rest from Graces: Radiant Mythology! It was the game that made me get a PSP, along with Dissidia. That gem has awesome power of customization and replayability, but then again... Dissidia was also a bigger time sink.

EDIT: I finally knocked LAMBDA down, not his 'door'. So it is time to rest for a bit. The sand ruins puzzle shaved YEARS off my life. Maybe I could have done it myself if it didn't, you know, RESET everytime you make an invalid move.

edited 29th Sep '12 8:28:59 AM by FlightMaster

Thing is: We know Luke's birthdate (ND 2000), and the current year (ND 2018, before Luke's birthday). Luke's age is given as 17 (actually 7, but you know), so there's really no getting around the fact that either Luke would be 34 by our calendar system, people age more slowly in Auldrant, or an hour isn't as long in Auldrant as in our world.

I think it's like the Discworld thing. A Discworld year was stated as being 800 days in the first book as a side effect of having the world be a slowly rotating disc where the sun follows a set circular path at a different angle from the disc itself. However, in every single other book, while there are references here and there, Terry Pratchett ignored it possibly because it's really clunky to write around.

Tales of the Abyss probably did something similar, where it is just rather difficult to work around because, how do you do it without it being clunky and mood-breaking? It seems to be an interesting tidbit that gets mostly ignored due to the difficulty of implementing properly.

edited 30th Sep '12 4:44:47 PM by Zendervai

So, I've been replaying Tales of Phantasia recently. I forgot just how much I enjoyed that game. It was a really good start to the franchise.

The GBA port isn't...great, but I still enjoyed it. Certainly more than the deJap translation which was actually pretty offputting to me.

I still haven't finished that GBA version.

I keep losing interest near the end.

I swear I will finish it someday, just like I finished the Spider Man 2 movie game about a week or two before I got Skyward Sword.

I keep getting to Dhaos's castle, getting hit by the Derris Emblem trap (man, so many things that were referenced in Symphonia), regrouping the party, and losing focus about halfway through the castle and forgetting where I put the cartridge about a month later.

That's like, the ending. There's maybe an hour left if you're really slow once you do that.

I know it is, I just... never quite muster the effort to make the final push.

So, which chamber is better on Guy's Void Tempest? Grass or Sunlight? Void Tempest is, like, the second most efficient stealing move, but I've heard people sing the praises of being able to go right into Dragon Tempest after a Severing Wind. Though, couldn't I use Thunder Beast in its place?

About Phantasia: Yep, I was in the same situation myself. I did everything and got Sidequest Burn, then I stopped just at the castle's door. After a while I got back and my save was gone... F****CK! Maybe the data got corrupted, it was a very old second hand cart... I would have restarted, but the game's slooooooow battle system was and is off-putting.

About Radiant Mythology: Whoops, so you can't switch jobs while mercenaries are with you... there goes my powerleveling plan. At least the Tales dudes keep their levels, all is not lost.

Wow, I did'nt remember the Dissidia CPU's being so cheap and button-reading... maybe that's why I did everything but Inward Chaos, that should be renamed Impossible Chaos (off-topic)

Definitely go with Sunlight. Void Tempest is not that good for stealing due to having a lag early on that leads to most attempts being blocked. I'd suggest using the Grass Chamber on Final Cross, since that is likely to hit more consistently.

Sooo, I found Tales Of Graces F a few days ago. It's probably the first Tales game I've been able to find. Is it worth it?

After the prologue, yes, IMO. The prologue sucks though.

I have all six Fonic Hymns.

...now I need to grind up 20 more uses of Grand Cross, and 39 uses of Judgment. Sigh.

I found the prologue rather effective, myself. A short flashback wouldn't have done the backstory justice.

Also, someone please help me. I can't stop buying costumes.