Tales Series

The guy's asking which Tales game he should start with, with particular emphasis on how bad Luke is as a protagonist. I felt comparisons to other games' protagonists were a natural thing to do.

edited 6th Oct '14 7:25:18 PM by Clarste

I really, really liked Luke. As soon as he stopped being a jerk, I started warming up to him, and he quickly became my favorite of the cast. It's hard to explain, but something about him just clicked with me.

He is very unpleasant at the beginning, and he gets worse before he gets better...but there are some good reasons for that. And even then, his situation makes him some degree of sympathetic - it's just the way he reacts to said situation that's the problem. For that matter, I didn't think his character development was too forced or abrupt. It made perfect sense in context. And...I dunno, he just seemed really human. He actually didn't change immediately - you can still see shades of his old self every now and then, even if he's a much nicer person overall. He spends the entire game developing as a person, and it's not just a one-way track.

If you get through the game and still don't like him, that's fine, but it'd be nice if you didn't trash him like that without having played it. "One of the worst characters ever made" is one hell of a statement.

edited 6th Oct '14 7:44:18 PM by SapphireBlue

Apologies, thought that was a statement directed towards me and not the topic at hand.

Yeah, I wouldn't even go as far as to call Luke a bad character by any meaning of the word and that I just found him unappealing, which was consistent with the rest of the game.

Abyss came out during an experimental period for the series. After Symphonia and its bland, typically typical protagonist and 4 previous games of good-natured dumbass country-bumpkins, they started experimenting with different types of heroes.

Veigue is cold, aloof and extremely anti-social. He opens up later, but he's never getting any awards for being talkative. Luke is bratty, spoiled and does everything to make himself unlikeable at first. Ruca is shy and completely lacking in confidence and Yuri is more cynical than the others. After that, the series went back to typical nice guys who want an adventure with Shing and Asbel, and it's been going so far with Sorey.

If you ask me, only Luke was a complete success in that experimental stage. Veigue is the least relevant person in Rebirth and his character arc has less to do with the overarching racism theme (even though he's responsible for most of the repetitive dialogue) and Yuri...was in Vesperia's mess of a plot. Ruca's developement was just weird. It's like he suddenly decides he loves being by a girl who treats him terrible because of past life suckery. R made it a bit better, but it's still eeeeh. Luke was the only one who actually developed well.

Eh, I would say Lloyd's blandy blandness works in his favor rather than against it, but that's just part of Symphonia's great writing honestly.

I think Yuri's story could have been good since what he was doing in the first half reflected on what happened in the second half, but they sort of... never really drew attention to it. And/or the circumstances were different enough that it's hard to say what exactly he was supposed to have learned. I mean, it feels like there should have been a resolution to his character arc, and you can see all the pieces in place for it, but it never happened.

What about Emil and Jude tho?

Jude is generic nice guy. Though at least he's smarter than the average bear.

Emil is a damp mop.

Jude's pretty awesome. Despite the fact that he is a really nice person, he's also really smart and actually uses that to his advantages and does alot of awesome feats by doing a Sherlock Scan.

Emil's good too, he is pathetic at first, but he has some really good albeit predictable Character Development.

I'm glad Jude is smart tho. Its about time we got a Tales protag who wasn't dumber than a box of hair.

And I WUV Emil. Well, Green Emil at least. Red Emil's too much of an edgelord at times whereas Green emil grows up and becomes much more likeable.

@Mage: I'm not a big fan of the idiot hero archtype at all, but if you're going to do it, I think Lloyd is the preferable route.

I think Jude had an interesting case of development since it didn't necessarily involve any drastic personality shifts, but that's just me. I personally liked Green!Emil more and more as the story progressed, and I think he and Marta did work as the Designated Couple well enough. Hate when he's compared to Shinji Ikari though, since he's not that damaged to start off with .

The whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing he had going on didn't do it for me either.

edited 7th Oct '14 9:05:01 AM by SkormSnow-Strider

Green Emil's development is great especially once Chapter 8 hits and he finally starts appearing in battles in place of Red Emil

Jude was Bland Mcblanderson. His intelligence only really came across well in Xillia 2. In the first game, he was faaaaaar too anchored on Milla, and the part where she dies was awfully clumsy.

Lloyd, on the other hand, blends in with the generic idiot guys. He's not entertaining like Stahn or Kyle. He's so much like Cress, who is boooooooooooooring. Even his moveset is the most copy-pasted combination arte moveset so far. Everyone has brought something new, and then you have Lloyd who only has Tiger Blades/Beasts/Demons/Sword Rains. Boooooring. Shing is by far the best Idiot Hero so far. His idiocy is actually charming.

So, I made progress in Innocence R. After the volcano, we return to the mine-tunnel that has been added between Garam and Garam port, and what do you know, it's a gate to the Triverse! We have to go through the rift between the worlds, only to meet a giant black blob at the end of the labyrinth and...it's QQ! When we help her defeat the guardian, we get a flashback to Tales of the Tempest, and...QQ...hugs Ricardo like crazy. She thinks he's the boss, and wants to thank him. So she decides to come along!

A few things about her: QQ is dressed like a stripper, and speaks a made-up language that only Kongwai understands. Kongwai asks her to use normal Innocence-language in front of the others, but she's not very good at it, so she speaks broken Japanese. Kongwai also says she's a student of old cultures and stuff, but there's something off. Apparently, she doesn't like him, despite all evidence to the contrary. She's very...touchy-feely. She enters into the boys' hotsprings cause she wants to stick around Kongwai, which causes Ricardo to run out and the girls freaking out over his...indecency. Poor guy. She also has a black bunny costume.

Meanwhile, I noticed that Spada's pervert tendencies have been quadrupled in this version. He goes to the hot springs every night trying to find a girl, and he instead stumbles upon a gay guy, Kongwai (who looks like a girl) and Ricardo. Nope, you ain't getting any action, Spad.

Unfortunately, the "Ange is fat" jokes have also increased. -_-

edited 7th Oct '14 9:32:59 AM by lu127

Comparing anyone to Shinji is most likely hyperbole.

edited 7th Oct '14 9:35:10 AM by Niitris

Uuurgh, I fucking hate that there were "fat Ange" jokes to begin with even though she barely looks it.

QQ and Kongwai hate each other. As in, serious mortal enemy hate. I'm pretty sure they've tried to kill each other in the past.

They have a History and it's not a good one.

edited 7th Oct '14 10:30:17 AM by asterism

With Emil, not really given that the relative lack of backbone/any impetus outside his disgust for Lloyd in the beginning has been comparable for some people. Most "wimps" do get tagged with it, but I think Emil's case is a little stronger then some.

EDIT: IIRC, she eats more then the rest of the cast and has mentioned something about a diet here and there, but she isn't statistically overweight as far as I'm aware. Not that the Tales of Series would ever depict them if they actually were, provided they weren't Gonk to begin with. I actually do think its a thing to make fat cracks on the other side of pond if they seem to eat more then average. Still horribly mean.

Yeeeeeeah, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

edited 7th Oct '14 1:33:50 PM by SkormSnow-Strider

*shrug* Stahn and Kyle offer a lot of energy to their respective groups, and their ignorance is rather endearing. It helps that Destiny skits have a very nice humorous quality to them. Symphonia's skits, on the other hand, are at the bottom of my entertainment list.

QQ and Kongwai don't seem to know each other. Kongwai recognises her speech patterns and his first inquiry is "which side of the border were you born in?". I guess their country/world is at war. The implication is that she's from an amazon-like tribe. Kongwai only uses female pronouns to refer to her people, and apparently they're all named after their physical characteristics cause it's easy to remember. QQ is a type of soldier, but her style appears to belong to some type of covert ops. She also likes twirling around herself when she's happy and is dislikes Spada. Cause Spada thinks she's weird.

There's been a new addition! After we sail for Galpos, we are attacked by a ship commanded by Chitose. Let me tell you, this woman has been turned even crazier. She captures us by threatening to sink our ship and locks us up. QQ can apparently pcik locks like nobody's business, but she's mad at Spada because he's acting like a jerk to her. According to Kongwai, Spada insulted her (her people are very proud) and she will only help him if he says "pleaaaase". No ordering this lady around. Spada apologises and gets a huuuug. They're best friends now. But, as we try to leave the ship, Chitose catches us and threatens to burn EVERYONE if Ruca doesn't come along. To the point where her own followers think she's nuts! Ruca has finally grown a pair and says he wants nothing to do with her, so boss fight! She's annoying, but QQ is a powerhouse. Amusingly, I finished her off with with Illia's MA, Absolute Zero. XD Karma?

'kay, now I have my own ship. Time to get to Galpos.

Why do I kinda like the sound of QQ too now?

Also no effing wonder I kinda feel sorry for Ange.

Innocence R's story seems like it's jumping through hoops to fit the new guys. Which is the complete opposite case of Patty's. But I like that Luca is less wimpy and distrusted Hasta. (Cue Kombat saying Emil was a fool for believing Alice)

Speaking of Vesperia, there was a LOT of progress and I forgot about my report! We rescued Estelle and pressed on to finish the Second Act. This is what transpired in the Shrine of Zaude...

Yeager: the first form has no trick to it. Smash him until he reveals his heart. Send your guys to attack him and force him to block, once you do, Overlimit 1 and spam Destruction Field (it has a lot of Guard Break value, but has ZERO Knockdown, unlike Raging Blast) When the sucker gasps for air (Friend: RAVEN, USE RAIN!) Yeah, I know. Mission complete! But I get to do Alexei...

Alexei: The secret mission is, if you forgot about it, plain suicidal. After double checking and triple checking I was on Easy Mode, I... let him wail on me for the most part. When he starts Overlimit, YOU start Overlimit 4. It was only after the THIRD Brilliant Cataclism (on Normal difficulty it would have meant 10 Game Overs by now) I nailed him with Raging Blast and made him kiss the floor. Full offensive now! (Guardian Frost is annoying...) Mission complete!

Sodia, you bitch. Why did you do that? I mean, I know why you did it, but still. WHY you did it just then? Third Act starts, we lose the Dein Nomos, etc.

We just did the two hardest Secret Missions... On our first try. Back to back. We spent a lot of luck there (cue some future boss or mission giving us hell...)

edited 10th Oct '14 1:10:47 AM by FlightMaster

Well he WAS. Up til now she was a moustache twirling bitch! If you hadn't actually seen those side scenes that explain her story that's all she is and even WITH it it hardly justifies giving her even a slightest chance.

Honestly I think games like this are too easy on characters like Alice just because of their backstories.

So in Xillia 2, Chapter 15 is done and Julius is dead. It was really sad, Julius was a good guy and big brother. The character quests were pretty sad too. I love Xillia 2 for how it makes me feel.

So he dies, that sucks. I really do need to get back to Xillia 2 one of these days.

Yeah, being pick on in youth doesn't justify becoming a horribly deceitful bitch (as if anything does).

edited 10th Oct '14 6:57:57 AM by Niitris

Its like that one show said. "Nice motive. Still murder."

It's okay, he's a totally underdeveloped character and the circumstances are contrived as hell. Like half of Xillia 2.

Heheh, the season demands Halloween Kongwai! I'm working on Judyhalloween but she's trickier.

So my Innocence R adventures have me on a costume hunting spree: Hermana has a gothic lolita costume (suspiciously similar to Sophie's), Ange has a Yamato Nadeshiko costume that makes her look like a miko, QQ has a factory worker outfit (but her bunny suit still looks better) and Spada gets the Dark Wings' outfit! Yes, the Dark Wings exist but only as a background sidequest. See, they're retired. And their outfit is white for some reason. But it has a nice hat for Spada.

Of course, now I'm in Galpos and everyone complains about the heat, so I put them in swimsuits! That should look ridiculous enough.