Tales Series

Well the story does mention Pure Is Not Good a couple of times. Symonne's uncorrupted despite being around malevolence all the time and she even managed to convince a Priest to go on a murder spree and he believed so justly in his cause he remained human.

Right, which is nonsense because Fortran believed the same thing, and Symonne should have been corrupted because what drove her to darkness was the anguish, anger and fear from being hated and feared by both humans and seraphs.

No they actually mention in Alisha's DLC that she joined Heldalf because he valued her abilities.

And what seems to create Malevolence is having doubt of some kind when doing these things. Like on some level you know it's wrong. That Priest 100% believed in what he was doing. Even after beating her she literally does not comprehend their actions. If she did she might have actually felt malevolence in her own heart for once.

But that doesn't jive with Martran, who seemingly takes pleasure in taunting Alisha's failures and more or less dies laughing after she forces Alisha to kill her. If she and Fortran had doubts, then they should have been open to purification, but both had to be killed.

Part of the problem is that defilement is definitely a physical poison, not just a mental state (though it encourages mental states that breed more defilement). It's shown a few times (the demon-elephant Lord of the Land, for one) that defilement can corrupt and transform seraphs regardless of their mental state, unless they have a vessel. I would have accepted the explanation that Symonne had a vessel; instead, her immunity, and Sorey's ability to stay pure despite feeling doubts and uncertainty, makes it seem like there are some people who are just born immune. This despite the fact that a big deal is made of how Sorey can only see seraphs because he was purposefully raised pure in Elysia.

I dunno, it's just not consistent from where I stand.

edited 6th Jan '16 12:21:05 PM by RedSavant

Not everyone is the same. This is true for even Seraphs. That's why some people are "pure" and others are not. They are more susceptible to corrupting influences than others.

Seraphs are generally weak to the corruption that's just around them.

Also they made it very clear why it didn't work. Maltran didn't want to be uncorrupted and forced herself to stay that way to remain loyal to Heldalf. Forton had her worldview shattered so thoroughly she was left an Empty Shell who just stands there unable to even think anymore. Thus they couldn't purify her cause her mind was gone and death was her only salvation.

That's fair enough, I guess. Thanks for clearing that up. =)

One thing I find interesting about Sorey and the Shepherds is that there is no real 'force of Light' behind his actions. There's the power of purification, but as far as I remember it's never detailed who exactly Lailah made a pact with to gain that power. (I thought it was implied that her pact was not to speak of Camlann, Maotelus, or the previous Shepherd, but that only works if the Sacred Sword Festival is about twenty years old.) There is no element of The Special Chosen One Who Will Save The World in the truth of the Shepherds; they're just people with, essentially, latent magical sensitivity who can talk with spirits. If Sorey was "chosen" by anyone, it was Lailah's personal judgement in the moment, not due to a prophecy or divine will or anything. Heldalf's the same; he chooses to make himself the avatar of defilement once he's cursed, but there's no capital-D Darkness attempting to destroy the world, just the natural entropy of resentment, despair, anger and so on. It always takes more effort to fight against sliding into that mindset than it does to just let it happen, but no prophesied one is going to just show up and fix everything. You have to work for it yourself, and carry the light you want to spread with you.

That said, (and this is going into personal-opinion druthers, so I won't be offended if you TL;DR), I would have liked to see Symonne and Heldalf redeemed, even if it was Redemption Equals Death for Heldalf. Not magically completely purified or anything, but some indication that he didn't die cursing the world - perhaps recognizing in Sorey a spirit of selflessness he thought didn't exist in the world anymore, or something. *shrug* It also would have been interesting to see Symonne played as someone who desperately wanted to hate the world and destroy it, but who stayed pure because she couldn't let go of a last thread of hope for the world, and couldn't throw herself into the blind rage and hatred of a dragon. Maltran taunts Alisha and Sorey because she's comfortable in her knowledge that the world is rotten, and likes it that way; she knows that they won't succeed, and makes Alisha kill her to drive home the fact that she cannot be purified because she doesn't want to be. But Symonne seems like she could have been talked around from the idea that Heldalf's world is the only one in which she could be happy, if Sorey and the others didn't have to hurry onward. What she wants at the core is to be accepted and to be reassured that people don't hate her for who or what she is, and since her ideology isn't backed up by physical defilement, she could probably still be saved. Both she and Heldalf had legitimate reasons to hate the world, but reasons that could be addressed, I feel like - they're both presented sympathetically. Maybe it's too idealistic of me to hope for.

I dunno. Just my thoughts. =)

edited 6th Jan '16 1:17:06 PM by RedSavant

I really doubt Symonne could've been talked out of anything right then and there. My impression was more that she might be able to find something else to live for, but that it'll take a long time, and I don't think it's something anyone else can do for her. And that's a best-case scenario. We don't know what she went through to make her the way she is, but it screwed her up really, really badly.

edited 6th Jan '16 1:34:25 PM by SapphireBlue

Yeah, that's not so much a thought that they should have done that in the game as that I would have preferred it, myself. I'm a sucker for the power of redemption and all that. I do agree that it would have been too much too fast for her to just get over it right then and there, but maybe if they had introduced her before the pacing started to squish and focused a mini-arc on the group dealing with her, they could have managed it.

There were hints that there might have been a DLC planned for her since the arc really didn't complete but not after Japan's reaction to the game.

Maybe in the anime.

I am still shocked they are making the thing especially since the biggest source of the bashing of the game were the ones most likely to spend the ~90$ for 2 episodes on Bluray required to actually make money on the anime.

edited 6th Jan '16 2:09:35 PM by Memers

I worry I'm putting too much hope on the anime. I'd love to see them cut out the pacing problems (especially all those let's-chase-Heldalf-back-and-forth false endings in the latter half of the game) and focus on character exploration and so on with the time they save. I was pleased with what they did with the Dawn of the Shepherd OVA in terms of that, so I hope it keeps up.

I think we can also expect to see some Berseria cross-promotion in the anime, and perhaps more detailed links between the two. Not only do we have Mysterious Cape Guy in the anime trailer, but the confirmation of Berseria being a distant prequel and the anime being called 'Tales of Zestiria The Cross' makes me hopeful.

How many times did we have to backtrack to Glaivend Basin only to be turned away? We should only have to go there twice; once for the war segment, and again for the dragon fight.

The constant copouts with that place felt like a bad joke.

Right; I'm hoping that will be streamlined. Most of what takes up time in the game, specifically the monster battles and exploration, can be cut very handily, as they were in the OVA. They should be able to streamline all the false endings, too.

I feel the game could have been streamlined better too. It feels big JUST for the sake of being big, not cuz it holds a lot of content (chests, NPC, etc) And Fast Travel costs money?! I can feel for the ones actually playing the thing.

I am a sucker for redemption as well... I wanted Emeraude redeemed and playable (as it probably was intended... add Richard and you have the standard 8 character Tales party) But Symmone got on my nerves. As you said, she couldn't be redeemed right there and then because lack of development + good guys were in a rush at the moment. Namco, explain her or CUT her from the plot completely. She took Evil Is Sexy TOO FAR for a child character *AHEM*

You know, Symmone, Rose and Dezel could have been totally cut from the game and not a lot would have changed. Alisha would have stayed, saved Sorey from the first Heldalf encounter, met Mayvin and gained Armatus at Tintagel Ruins (thus making her not The Load + curing Sorey's eyesight problem) Sergei would ship Ali/Sor (Jap players: I am OK with this > game's not bashed!) Zaveid would have joined early and maybe explained how he got his Evoker > more backstory on him, Edna and Eizen, and finally... Maltran as as villain would not have come out of f*cking nowhere if we got several encounters with her.

Man, the idea is so good that I feel bad for Dezel, since he is decent... if a bit of a jerk. Rose is neutral (but damm, girl! You just have the shortest attention span this side of Lloyd Irving. She falls asleep during Lailah's gameplay lectures!)

edited 8th Jan '16 4:18:26 AM by FlightMaster

Don't deny it. You zoned out during Lailah's lectures too. Zestiria's skill system needs a PhD to understand.

Yeah I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the weapons skills thing too. Its like a more obtuse version Mass Effect 1's weapon mod system.

The skill system isn't THAT hard to understand (stacking multiple skills or related skills gets you bonuses), but the system wasn't well-implemented. The best way to get gear with a certain skill is to equip a Normin to that area's Lord, then farm, but by that point you're done with the area, and farming for a copy of the item with the skill you want in the slot you want sounds like a pain in the ass.

Anyway, I kinda like the fact that Alisha isn't with Sorey all the time; one of the messages of the story is that you can't just sit and hope for someone to fix your problems for you. Having a character who is inspired by Sorey's journey even though she's not a part of it was important, I think.

I haven't even unlocked the Normin yet. But I do have one Lord of the Land available.

I don't understand the point of NG+ in Zestiria's case, outside of access to higher difficulty and doubling of the already-very-low drop rate for equipment (and even then, only certain equipment). There's hardly any point in leveling up, considering that most fighting ability comes from equipment anyway, and equipment other than the unnamed weapons doesn't even carry over. There's not even an option to accelerate growth in weapon proficiency levels. Why would anyone replay the game in that manner, except to relive certain cutscenes that they could access by other means?

Leveling actually can increase your stats a lot if you do it right, with the right gear augments to increase a certain stat.

NG+ is the only way to get 55 weapon slots instead of just 20.

Yeah this is all starting to sound dumb. No wonder there's Level Up DLC..

Next thing will be Unlock All Cutscenes DLC (even the final battle + Credits.) Now you don't even need to PLAY the game! *sarcasm*

This is a similar complaint to the one I have about Graces: Its NG+ only serves to earn the 'beat these bosses in 60 seconds' trophies (I think Zestiria has something similar?) You already have done everything else in the game by that point. And equips DONT transfer either, so you can platinum the game without EVER touching the Dualize menu.

Zesty / Graces' wep systems are... pointless. You pimp your Wooden Sword to +10 with some spiffy effects, then you hit the next town and the Iron Sword sold there has as much power as your chunk of wood and then some. 'Okay, I will not bother until the last town / the Infinity +1 Sword' you say. And then you notice such weapon can kill pretty much everything at base power and that equips DONT transfer, so you only get to enjoy it for the last 5% of the game.

Geez. Team Symphonia games had better NG+, that's one thing you have to admit. You could even make your next run HARDER: Combo EXP option is as close to a lvl 1 run you will get (But in my case I would never replay Symphonia 1 without it. Or 2's monsters... or Abyss' C.Cores, Vesperia's equipment or Xillia's exp multipliers.) Those DO allow you to feel powerful right at the start, which is THE point of NG+. (Well, that and bonus routes or endings.)

edited 11th Jan '16 7:28:50 AM by FlightMaster

^This, pretty much. They spend a lot of time in-game talking up the skill combo system, and you can get some pretty nifty boosts from it (+percentage elemental or void damage, anyone?), but generally, boosting a piece of gear to +10 is a waste of time and money since you'll reach the next gear set, with better base stats and the same skill potentials, by the time you get your item to +3 or so.