Tales Series

I'll add to the list

• Symphonia's Niflheim requires an arbitrary timer in Soulfire, restricting sorcerers ring use and basically demanding you avoid fights and find treasure chests full of it to proceed. Not the worst, since it has some decent floss fights near the end, but still kind of a pain in the ass.
• Abyss' replica mine first requires a couple unrelated side quests done so some dude named Shiba can do your mining for you while demanding a bare minimum of 1000 gald per wall, where the amount of gald you pay him determines his stamina and restricts your movements immensely, while also turning you off of exploring he dungeon. Mooks were unremarkable, but the first boss, the replica God generals, were alright. Replicantis is a trash boss though, even on higher difficulties, so the dungeon just isn't worth doing.

Well that Abyss dungeon can help get you a costume title for Tear at least.

Also Niflheim has red floors where you HAVE to kill all enemies on the floor to proceed.

Oh yeah, forgot about that in Niflheim. Is it wrong that in spite of how bad it was, it's still better than a lot of bonus dungeons in this series, due to having at least some satisfying boss fights and a relatively limited time scheme (I.e, no crazy artificial length bullshit like fake gald, which completely killed the LOM when it could have been a fun little boss rush). Still, being better than shit isn't much of a compliment. I kinda liked how Niflheim looked at least, though the floor plan was a bit lazy even then (i think it was just a bunch of crisscrossing pathways), and the mooks weren't pallet swaps iirc.

As for the replica mine, it helped you get a costume for Tear, but cost you dickloads of gald if you wanted to explore the place in even the barest sense to gather the treasure. Me and my friend had a map and we still burned through over half of the huge stockpile of gald we'd saved up (we wanted to transfer money so we could buy the dragon killer sword for Luke and Guy and ended unable to buy even one upon checking). Still, better than some bonus dungeons since there's a decent fight in there and at least it looks kinda cool.

I need to try the PS 3 Niflheim since its basically the PS 2 Niflheim with the extra fights.

Personally, what I disliked most about Niflheim and the Replica Dungeon was how everything looked the same. And unlike Zhonecage, there was no break between floors, so I kept getting lost. These kinds of maps frustrate me.

The Aqua Labyrinth (Destiny 2) and Cyglorg Chambers (Rebirth) also suck. Cyglorg Chambers get all my hate. It's 60 floors of absolutely nonsense, randomly generated maps and you have to complete random missions to move to the next floor. The missions can be simple (kill enemies while afflicted with x ailment) to rubbish (find x number of crappy artifacts). And only floors 40 and 60 have bosses. Soooooo not worth it.

Arcana Ruin (Destiny R) is bearable and actually has saves between floors, but its maps still blow. And the random mobs....it's like playing through Graces little laser spamming mechanoids. Ew. Forbidden Guild Dungeon (Innocence) is randomly generated palette swaps that suck, like all of Innocence.

Never! I hate those two sooooooooooooo much. Imitation Gald haunts my nightmares.

Yes, you heard right. Oh, and it's not just mobs. Any time you unlink, you deal 1 damage. Even for bosses. You can't take Ludger out, and you need to take all 9 party members with you at least once, or the final boss (Shadow Stahn & Cress) won't appear. The timer is only in the desert areas, where you have to kill X number of mobs from X type of monster. Timer isn't adjusted to your difficulty either, so have fun wasting all your time on Unknown! Dumb dungeon is dumb.

So true. Hearts R's is...okay. There's not any particularly aggravating gimmick and fighting shadow versions of your characters was interesting. But I don't like how it's designed. I'd prefer something like the Twilight Forest to tie in the Triverse stuff.

It actually has a shitton of conditions according to the Japanese guides! See if you have done the following:

• Get Meteor Swarm in Aspio.
• Do all 7 Guild-related sidequests (these take looong).
• Get the Ivy Blade from the guy near Halure's Tree after the guild sidequests.

Apparently, Guild Quest 1 & 2 can only be done before Zaude, so it is possibly missable. Check if you've done them or if they can still be done.

edited 22nd Nov '14 7:58:44 AM by lu127

Hearts R's bonus dungeon is basically little slices of other dungeons in the game arranged in a random order (not randomly generated, there just doesn't seem to be any sort of pattern) with the occasional bit with a sub-boss that looks like the gate and the architecture in the Twilight Forest. Which feels a little strange, since the Twilight Forest itself pops up at least once.

edited 22nd Nov '14 8:18:15 AM by Zendervai

Yay, I finally got past Lone Valley in To P, particularly that cave with all the miasma. Took me like two days because goddammit, you lose health insane fast. After like the first 3 tries, I stocked on Apple Gels (only to be disappointed that the cap for them is 15) and holy bottles so I wouldn't run into that Hell Master thing (because uh, yeah; wiped out my party in one move). Kept messing up on the pushing the boulder part not knowing where to go, thought I'd never get past the cave. So then a random battle happens just when I'm about to die (again) and that's when it hit me...

DUH!!! Mint can heal (yeah, oops).

And now I'm finally past the cave. :)

Also learned how to run away from battles.

edited 22nd Nov '14 3:55:13 PM by niitris

Okay, so that fight with Kornerupine at Lignatore. That one ended my streak of beating bosses on the first try. A pretty fun fight, though, and I liked the scenes afterwards.

So is this game like X and X2 where some Artes are more effective than others at breaking through an enemy's guard? Part of the reason I kept struggling with the boss at Lignatore is because I could never reliably get a stagger so I could keep the boss away from Hisui.

Some artes have a higher iron stance break value. For Shing you have Beast, Jade has 嵐交喙 (it must have been translated as Storm-or-something), Amber has 紅蓮皇輪 (Crimson Ring, I think?), Gallando has his own version of Beast and all his boomerang artes can dish out a ton of hits if you control it from afar. Beryl has Slash Colours, Kunzite can use Phantom Edge or 空破穿命弾 (Megasonic Drill, perhaps?) and Innes...actually don't know, I don't play Innes.

so it might just be me but doesn't Zinnia from the new Pokemon remakes look a fair bit like Rutee?

I see it.

Yeah they do look pretty similar. Spooky.

I can't believe how foreign Pokemon is to me now; seemed like yesterday I was all over the series. Yeah, they do look rather alike.

So I picked Graces F back up this weekend and goodness it's just straight easymode compared to Phantasia. Maybe it's just that I'm not up to the more intense part yet?

It picks up a fair bit later on.

It picks up, where exactly are you? You do not gain full access to all your skills till the F arc and that is where things get way fun. You can crank up the difficulty too though and unlock higher difficulties as you fight battles.

The final boss of the F arc on chaos is just nuts.

edited 24th Nov '14 10:30:06 AM by Memers

I'm about to start the Arcadia Garden in Graces F. I thought that this arc would be longer because of the stuff I'd heard about the script book but it's more that there are skits. Lots and lots of skits. I'm glad they did it this way instead of making it a complete sequel, since the F arc has almost no padding beyond optional stuff.

Graces' script is about 6-7 volumes, with 3 of them in the F arc. Zestiria is evidently going for the same length.

Vesperia was 10. Wow, talk about padded. And Legendia's was somehow 15. Uh, okay.

Arcadia is a load of shit plus you have to deal with some annoying bear to get the Magic Carta cards its blocking.

Also I got the Graces f preorder costumes a while back because CEX is surprisingly good with preorder codes and Day One editions. So now Asbel's rocking Kyle's outfit and Theme of Battle keeps playing (Unless I subbed him for Sophie as Rutee where I get Bare Its Fangs or if I use Richard as Judas where I get Leon - Irony of Fate)

Think if I got a Day One EU Edition of Xillia 1 from CEX I'd get a preorder costume code with it?

I love this scene so much.◊ T_T

The best scenes in the game start there.

Why isn't Richea a playable character?

@ Legendia's script: Probably something to do with the Character Quest stuff. The main quest is about as long as a typical Tales game, and then there's all this other stuff after it.

Because that gorgeous hair and dress would be a pain to animate. T_T And she's kinda dying. She'd be flat on her face after a single battle. Plus Clinoseraph tortures her in a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Clinoseraph is a dick.

Ew, character quests. Needing an entirely separate plot to develop your characters is just bleeeh.

edited 24th Nov '14 12:45:42 PM by lu127

Yeah, I get the feeling I'd have to be REAL lucky to get the X1 preorder costumes now, I heard for some bonehaded reason they were Game and Namco online exclusives so unless somehow one guy got a DLC card with them, never used them ad handed them in to CEX I'm out of luck

Dang it Namco :/

When people say that Legendia's main story is Senel and Shirley's character quest, they're not joking.

Future Arc of course, pardon me. I'm about 5 hours in I'd say.