Tales Series

And the combat was rather uninspired and some of the enemies were harmless but time consuming Stone Walls.

And there are way too many incidences of Karma Houdini in that game. Fuck off and die Maurits.

edited 25th Jan '13 11:00:10 AM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Some of the enemies were just weird. In the context of the game. Did anyone else get the feeling the monster designers ran out of ideas and just started looking around the office? I mean for Pete's sake, one of them is a giant pair of scissors!

Not Three Laws compliant.

And they still resorted to more recoloured enemies than an SNES era game.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

I love the songs. :(

THEY'RE SO TERRIBLE! [evilgrin]

I'm sort of coming around to Norma. She's speaking from the hip, and the presence of the near identical Harriet is helping to even things out. I've never had much problem with Senel or Will, and Will and Chloe's rejection of Senel after he proves himself a loose cannon is cold, but fair. Chloe seems to have deep seated _issues_ though.

Just picked up Moses. He is not leaving my party, no sir. Unless he's terrible.

edited 25th Jan '13 7:12:07 PM by Nicknacks

This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.

The one in the Character Quests made me burst out laughing. It starts out like this big epic thing introducing the Coliseum and then the last line is: "And beat the craaaaap out ooooof theeee reeeeest!"

Not Three Laws compliant.

Chloe doesn't get real bad until much latter.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Don't worry. She'll work out those issues later.

Senel will help too. They'll really cut to the heart of the matter.

What do I mean? You'll see my point.

One Strip! One Strip!

Edit: Please don't hint at future events. Please. I'm fairly smart and the game overshares enough as it is. You'll just ruin whatever surprises this game could legitimately throw at me.

edited 26th Jan '13 3:33:10 AM by Nicknacks

This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.

Sorry. I tried not to drop too many clues, but I'll be quiet about that from now on.

One Strip! One Strip!

Thanks, it's okay. And sorry for my harsher, initial reaction if you (if anyone) saw it. That was bad of me.

I finished Part 3, well mostly. I quit out of the game because my emulator settings*

seemed to be fucking up with the animated cut scenes, but turns out it always does that. They're still visible, but they've got weird scrawl up the top and at the bottom of the screen. I'll post a picture of what I mean.

I love the angler fish monster designs, and I really love the designs for the Hollow. I don't think I've ever seen a dungeon quite like it, with its fragile wooden petals and pinwheels designs. And really gorgeous score. Also quite hard. How am I meant to dodge elemental eres like the ones they drop? I found smacking the shit out them with Senel was okay since they could never attack in the first place, but it's difficult to keep his combos going. While meanwhile, Chloe's getting 15 hit combos fairly regularly. Any hints?

(Also any hints about what to do when the enemies all get bunched up on on top of each other?)

The ruins of frozen light were quite reminiscent of the Desian bases from (what little I've played of) Symphonia. So do some of the human enemy designs. I'm guessing that's probably deliberate.

Surprised the game's making such a big deal out of certain revelations that it had already spelt out fairly clearly.

Vaclav's a dick, but Shirley's permanent state of kidnap is even more annoying. Jesus woman, stop being such a peril monkey!

This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.

Shirley stops being imperiled after the main story is completed. Mostly.

Spoilers are not to be read unless you wish to be spoiled, which, knowing you, you do not.

Heart of Stone

Man, I'm watching a Legendia LP and it's making me want to play it. I agree with you on 'Shirley is annoyingly helpless' when she is not destroying things in battle... which won't be often. EDIT: I was semi spoiled about the Merines, and I am forced to change my opinion about her. Here goes.

I believe Shirley had the same issue as Richard from Graces. An evil godlike being was pissed off at humanity and possesed one of them to extract revenge. Richard because of his hard upbringing (and his uncle) and Shirley because of her non-reciprocated love. All in all, both gave up and let themselves be possesed. But were later reedemed and joined the party. So that's it. And I see no one hating on Richard for being in the exact same situation, right? Shirl, accept my apologies. (Oh god, I'm apologizing to a fictional character)

Innocence EDIT: Game: BEAT! Mathias: big fat HP tank. Infernal Overlord: spammed. Ending: beautiful. Coda: f*cking useless. Dungeons: Ctrl + V a million times. Would play again (with a guide on my lap)

Wait, one more thing. Am I right assuming that the list of most hated characters goes like this? (From most to least)

Shirley - Anise - Emil - Patty - Coda - Luke - Others (Suggest)

edited 2nd Feb '13 3:43:16 AM by FlightMaster

Copying from one place is 'plagiarism'. Copying from several places, 'research'.

Emil gets quite a lot of hate on both sides.

Personally I just dislike the little bastard overall and think Richter is also a pretty overrated borderline Villain Sue and Tenebrae's a poor man's Jade Curtiss. Marta's the only vaguely tolerable one out of TOS 2.

My opinion of that game's probably soured now that I've played the much better Tales of the Abyss.

People hate Patty?

Heart of Stone

Probably because she's loli bait or for the whole PS 3 controversy thing.

Likely due to the PS 3 thing.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13239183440B34964700 Alfric's Fire Emblem Liveblog Encyclopedia!

Probably that, stemming from bitterness towards Namco.

Personally I always preferred Natalia over Tear since Nat gets the Star of Malkuth Holy Tits That outfit Is Awesome costume/

I keep Natalia in her Beloved Princess costume. Because I worked hard for that thing, and I am going to get as much use as I can from it. Same with Guy and the Dashing Gent outfit.

Heart of Stone

I read about the princess outfit. Jesus it sounds like too much work for a costume she shoudl already have earlier.

I've gotten neither of those costumes before, even though I know they are both cool. Rather too bad, I'll admit.

Also, my personal favorite team in Tales of the Abyss is likely Guy (played by me), Natalia (my pal), Tear (CPU), and Luke/Jade (CPU). Guy is amazing on the frontlines, Natalia has some good support arts, especially her permanent stat buffs with Fo F's and the Revive spell, Tear is a more efficient healer overall, and Luke or Jade handles different situations, depending on the enemies.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13239183440B34964700 Alfric's Fire Emblem Liveblog Encyclopedia!

Mine's Luke, Guy, Jade and Natalia. Tear I sometimes have. Fuck Anise.

My preferred team is Guy (Me), Tear, Jade and Anise. Ant Lion Doll means Anise is basically impossible to kill. Tear brings Fortune's Arc to the field, which is the best Mystic Arte in the game, and Jade and Guy are just good at killing stuff.

Anise and Jade are also the two best characters for setting up FOF attacks.

edited 4th Feb '13 2:07:38 PM by asterism

Heart of Stone

Fortune's Arc is clutch as hell. Saved me more than a few times, and deals some solid damage to boot. Still, Natalia gets props for being able to spam her Second Order Mystic Arte, since Noble Roar is mad powerful, and she is the only party member who can use it more than once per fight, if I remember right.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13239183440B34964700 Alfric's Fire Emblem Liveblog Encyclopedia!

Funnily enough I only ever got a game over on the first L Egretta fight. POWER COME TO ME! ECLAIR DE LARMES

funnier if you remember an eclair is a sweet.

Eclair de Larmes is French for 'tears of lightning'.

That first Legretta fight is a monster, mind. On my second playthrough I was playing on hard, and thus was not expecting her to pull Prism Ballet out of nowhere.

edited 4th Feb '13 2:20:16 PM by asterism

Heart of Stone