Tales Series

He should have had a third victim that was just a little harsh and then later find out that he was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and just caught him on a particular bad day. That would've certainly drove the Sliding Down The Slippery Slope point home.

Edited by Kiefen on Nov 1st 2018 at 1:48:27 PM

I actually agree with that...

But technically, he was going to have a third victim, he just ended up not having to pull the trigger.

Hey, does anyone know how to tell when Suzu's successfully stolen something? I'm trying to grind for gald and it's very hard when I have no idea when I can stop dicking around with the enemies and just kill them.

So there is a huge Steam sale for the Tales games right now, 75% off. I wanted to try Zestiria but the $50 price tag was a solid turn-off. But for like, $15? Sure, why not. Dunno when I'll get around to playing it since I just started a run of FFX but I hope this will be the Tales game to win me over. I like the trailer

Unless I'm grossly misremembering, Zestiria is widely considered one of the worst Tales games. It at least seems to be the most hated.

It does have its fans, but yeah, a lot of people hated it. Personally I liked it, but it definitely has its issues.

I'm interested to see what you think of it.

It's got a lot more fans in Japan to be clear, since the games are character driven stories and Tales actually has festivals with popular characters and their V As doing skits of them. And these things are packed.

Meebo and Sorey have been consistently invited since Zesty with Edna sometimes popping up. Course theyve had No Export for You side materials that goes into their dynamic better than the game itself does as well.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 2nd 2018 at 1:38:58 AM

I got Zestiria largely because I heard it get so much hate. I'm contrarian that way. I'm a person who likes to be part of discussions - that's why I love fiction so much. I got into WRPG's like Dragon Age and Skyrim to discuss Mages vs. Templars and Imperias vs. Stormcloaks. And I play unpopular or controversial games so I can be part of that discussion as well.

Besides, it's very rare for me to hate a game outright. To hate a game, I need to go in with super high expectations, like Metal Gear Solid 4. If I go in with the attitude "okay,this game isn't so great, let me see if I can find something good about it" I might end up liking it a lot because I'm looking for something enjoyable and pleasant. It definitely doesn't always work out = I've played several bad video games - but it's just how I am.

I got Berseria too though since they we both on sale and are part of the same world and the latter is supposed to be super amazing. I seek out popular games to see if they live up to their rep, too.

Berseria is a prequel by the way. Takes place 1000 years before Zesty.

That tends to be my approach, too. When it comes to polarizing or otherwise controversial games, I prefer to play them myself and decide for myself whether I like them or not.

Sometimes I've ended up enjoying them, other times they really weren't my thing, but I don't think I've ever regretted trying.

What about this Alisha DLC? Is it story stuff? Or should I only get it if I like the character? The description says it should be saved for after completing the story.

It's story stuff, but 90% of it is one long, annoying dungeon. It's really boring to play, honestly. If you're interested, I'd find the cutscenes online and watch them after you finish the game.

But definitely finish the game first. There are ending spoilers in there.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Nov 3rd 2018 at 10:09:40 AM

Oh, so I managed to defeat Odin the other day. I was Level 48 and didn't use the cheese strats. Hot damn, that's a tough fight. One mistake and I was pretty much dead. But now I have True Gugnir so that's cool. It's a shame I didn't get the chance to use Cless' Hi Ougi, though. I met the conditions several times but keeping myself at that low HP was a bad idea.

What are the cheese strats? (?_?) I thought 'corner the enemies > stunlock with Cless + Arche atomizes them with spells (a variation is: Arche quickfires Fireball + Cless pulls the longest melee combo he knows) is how you normally fight in Phantasia. And Destiny, for that matter, since it inherited its super-rigid battle system.

Hey, that one would be a good topic for an essay... Outrageous requirements for Mystic Artes. I will start:

• Presea PS 2 exclusive MA: All party members dead, be in Overlimit AND LOW HP. It's like... geez, you have practically (and morally) lost already, if the enemy has managed to bring you to such state. And for what? A super strong attack that will shave off maybe 10% of the boss' total HP? Ooooh, I am trembling in fear!

When you fight Odin, you're by yourself. The cheese strats, if you do it as soon as possible, is to equip a Mythril Mesh and two Resist Rings to give yourself a 90% to nullify Light damage which is what most of Odin's attacks are. From there, victory is easy. If you don't mind making the reward not that useful, you could even wait until you have better armor and come back with 100% nullification to elemental damage (or at least the two elements Odin uses).

Ah, that's interesting too. Duel Boss examples. They can be fun, challenging or totally ridiculous from game to game. I will remember some.

• Eternia's Valkyrie: This one is ridiculous... in the sense that NOTHING hurts her except for Demonic Chaos, whose ripples somehow bypass her shield but it blocks everything else. Aside from that, she is annoyingly fast and strong too.
• Symphonia's duel VS Kratos: Amazing plot moment, and goes a lot smoother when you know his moveset. Jump over him with Tempest, smack him while he charges a spell and backstep if it is Grave, magic guard if anything else. Lots of FUN! (on contrast, Sheena VS Kuchinawa is harder cuz Sheena is a lot less mobile and versatile.)
• Rebirth has many, and one of them is The Lancer agaisnt your own hero!
• Legendia's Senel VS Chloe is another thrilling plot moment, but there is not much to say because both are pure meleers without any gimmicks. If you are particularly cruel you can enjoy the 'grab and splat her around like a rag doll' thing... I guess.
• Abyss' duels VS Asch: EPIC. Both of them? The first less so, but works as a wake up call for when you will need to do it for real. Except the Jewel of Lorelei counts as a 'cheese strat'. Perfectly doable without it though: Freerun > anyone.
• Graces has once again many duels, most important being the plot mandated Asbel VS Hubert and most funny being Cheria VS Pascal. BATHE ALREADY!
• Vesperia's VS Flynn has Abyss levels of epicness and fun factor... except you need to LET him use all his artes once for the Secret Mission. Mystic Arte included. (Further proof that Secret Missions were crap and that's why they were never included in more games)
• Xillia's Jude VS Ivar and Milla VS Muzet: these are aaarrrggghhh levels of not fun! Ivar has some kind of counter for everything Jude can do except for Pivot Snap, so.... boooring. He is weak to wind and at the point the duel takes place Jude only has a weak Wind arte with a second of start-up and another second of lag. Don't bother.
  • Muzet is the main reason that stops many fans from finishing Milla's Route. Surprisingly durable for a mage, a homing arcane arte that chains into her Mystic... and she laughs at your vain attemps of blocking her physical strikes since her tentacle hair pierces guards. Nothing counts as a cheese strategy agaisnt her, more like... evening the unfairly unbalanced odds.

There... is not much to say about new Tales games recently, huh... geez, this place is too quiet.

Edited by FlightMaster on Nov 5th 2018 at 8:26:22 PM

Just spam Radiant Rondo and stop blowing any slightly harder one-on-one boss out of proportion

Ivar wasn't even that hard to me either. Why do people over-exaggerate how hard some bosses are? Am I too good or something?

The only one of those I had serious trouble with was Milla vs. Muzet, which I never did get around to finishing. There were a few others that were frustrating, but nothing at that level.

Heya, I am not blowing anything. The fact that I DID beat Ivar first try (and my partner got the short straw by having to deal with Muzet, but on his second try he spammed Efreet and Undine and destroyed her in a minute) doesn't reduce the fact that they ARE incredibly annoying and cheap.

On your point about her Light weakness... it's true that Light artes cause Confusion and it can shut down any threat... but fact is, I have NEVER seen my dudes cause status effects on enemies. On the 70 hours I spent on friend's Xillia 1 file (either playing or just observing) double that if we count Xillia 2. How the heck do people do that?

(I may have an idea how... on an exhibition video about Jude Solo VS Golden Knight I saw a 9999 stat Jude cause Burn on the boss roughly on 75% of his hits. Goldy has about 4000 points in Mg.Defense. So you need a Mg.Attack around double the enemy Mg.Defense to have a noticeable chance of causing status effects? Unpossible on a normal game... unless you do hardcore Lillium Orb Sequence Breaking to get all Int. nodes first, I guess.)

Of course Ivar can't deal with snap pivot, the fight is basically a tutorial on how to use the damn thing

I wish for Rebirth's you got to pick whether to be Tytree or Veigue because man I would have picked to beat up Veigue in that moment in a heartbeat.

That scene's not really a proper Duel Boss though, it's more like an interactive cutscene. The real Duel Boss is vs Milhaust.

well this is a thing

Add that to the “mashups that shouldn’t work but manage anyway” list.

I finished my first playthrough of Berseria (clocked in at around 91 hours) and am currently going through New Game+ on Chaos. It definitely is a better game than Zestiria and explained most everything I was confused about. The battle system vastly improved with the camera actually working, and I find it cathartic to fight enemies when I'm in a frustrated mood. The only bad part of the gameplay was that I enabled the camera to auto-adjust when on the geoboard and got really motion sick as a result. I was able to figure out the settings and the sickness went down.

I only have one complaint, and it may be the tv setup I have to work with. For some reason, the audio levels are not even in battle and out of battle. The first time I went into battle, it felt like an EDM dance party b/c the bass was so high. My housemate had to turn off one subwoofer to fix that problem. It was just so weird; it doesn't feel like Zestiria's bass was turned up that high. It doesn't help that I have to constantly adjust the volume according to whether the heater is turned on or not.

Playing Berseria made me wonder what Zestiria could have been. It felt like the first third and the last third were connected, but the middle was when it went way off the rails. I think it was one crucial plot point that I couldn't get over: When Sorey and company decided to go to Rolance without going back to rescue Alisha. Lailah and Edna kept emphasizing that Sorey should help Hyland because if Sorey didn't, he would feel guilty if something happened to Alisha. So why emphasize that point when they're just going to forget about it? I was also confused when Alisha went back to her duties when it wasn't explained why they would just let her go.

This thread link sums up my main problems with Zestiria, but another comment below that had me wondering. Was Lailah acting so weird in the Japanese version that she would turn on the party? I can't imagine that was the original intent of Lailah's character, solely because of the "Arma Dylan" skit.

Lailah acts weird because she makes unnecessary Vows and is bad at her job. Like this an actual In-Universe thing they intended.

She sucked so bad at it a corrupted Maotelus sent us the Earthern Historias that showed Heldalfs past to get Sorey on the right path. Literally that is the intention. If she didn't have the Power of the Silver Flame she'd likely be out of a job.

The whole thing with Alisha just relates back to them not being able to commit until it was too late on Alishas importance to the story as a party member or an ally that occassionally fights with them and realizing too late when they also had Rose to add that she wouldnt fit as a major character (And the Anime only emphasized that yes she's not really main character material)

Zesty had quite a few issues involving the implementing of those human girls.

The Writers got a lot of what they intended for Zestirias lore made clear in the story for Berseria, and Zestys World Guidance Book goes over a number of lore points intended for Zestiria were added to Berseria as a result.

Likely what they intended was there to be a balance betweem Reason vs Emotion that is the heart of Berserias story of Revenge and Velvets rejection of Artorius path.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 25th 2018 at 12:19:05 PM