Tales Series

Yanno with the blood and Velvet's outfit and the tiddy flying about.

...random thought:

What do you think would have happened if Pharaoh had actually succeeded in killing Estelle?

I mean, I suppose that would have been the end of Alexei's plan (unless the idea that Zagi might have also been a child of the Full Moon was made canon), but I'm not sure what Yuri would have done after that.

It would have also spared Belius, who seems reasonable enough that maybe she would have explained things, even if she likely wouldn't have been happy about it (since Estelle isn't exactly evil and all).

The plot would have stopped. *Bad Ending screen*

I mean, you need certain characters alive for the plot to progress, and as much as it pains us, some have to DIE for the plot to go on (hello, Aeris...)

But lets suppose it happens. Alexei would still have gone to Zaude, or at least the heroes would have caught up to him there, and they would have stumbled upon an underground city full of Children of Full Moon. Thanks to... Pattys's special gem. Hey, that means she is not plot useless! (that is if you consider postgame and sidequest content to be 'canon'...)

As an aside, a Zesty question: I know you can only fit 20 skills into your equips (5 pieces, 4 slots each for skills) so is it more useful to go for Group unions, Element unions or simple Stacks?

Is is preferable to have equips with strong stats but 'meh' skills, or dinky stats with OP skills?

Joke weapons 'can be fused with any other'. Does the order matter? Unnamed Sword + Iron Sword = Unnamed sword +1. Does it work the other way to get an Iron sword +1 or not?

Edited by FlightMaster on Mar 1st 2019 at 11:14:30 AM

Wait! What? is that a thing?

Yep

It's the entrance to the bonus dungeon, even (also the only place in the game where it's explained why Patty looks like a little girl)

Huh. I never heard about that.

Guess that's something to check out when I finally pick it up for Switch...if that ever happens that is.

Apparently (?) Vesperia DE is gonna receive a 1.2 update that patches the bugs and those random-as-fuck freezes people was noticing. Yay!

I saw it being commented on Game FAQS. Really, the freezes happened in the weirdest places according to witnesses. Hope they are actually solved.

So hey. I was reading different topics and some of them looked fun. I think these are cool:

• Most (in)famous example of Difficulty Spike? What did you personally do to surpass it? Whole series.
• Examples of good / badly done romance? Do you like developers 'trying' or they better stay away from it in a shonen anime game? Again, whole Tales Series.

Edited by FlightMaster on Mar 8th 2019 at 4:44:17 PM

Worst difficulty spike: Of the games I played, I found Tales of Rebirth got much more difficult slightly after the halfway mark. Bosses develop counterattacks to smart strategies, monsters get harder to hit or just hit you a lot harder, and you lose the ability to just purchase/find strong gear and are supposed to upgrade your weapons (good luck when you don't speak Japanese and have no idea what they actually do).

Best (intentional) romance: Kyle and Reala, hands down. It feels organic and well-developed in a way I don't think most other Official Couples in Tales do. I personally feel like Tales in general is really bad at their intentional romances and usually succeed a lot better when they're not trying. Unfortunately it takes up most of the plot of Destiny 2 to make it work, I wish the game had been a tad longer so it could focus on the others more.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 8th 2019 at 10:32:58 AM

Difficulty Spike, I can't really think of any unless you try to do Symphonia 2's job things as soon as since they require you to be higher levels than expected, its pretty bloody wankery.

As for romance I don't give a crap, mostly because most of the time it feels a bit...forced honestly. I mean I guess Stahn and Rutee since they actually had sex and a kid out of it unlike all the other romances which can get almost embarrassingly chaste and twee.

Well, when I said Difficulty Spike I should have phrased it as That One Boss. Then again we would get the usual mentions of fans' recurring nightmares such as pre-Tethealla Sylphs, Mt. Roneal's trio battle, fack*ng Kurt, fack*ng Gattuso and Milla-route Muzet. The old games were more 'consistently' hard, and bosses were just a part of it.

Hah, it reminds me of an example of That One Boss I surpassed recently. The infamous Battle Couple at the end of Valkyrie Profile 2 Chapter 4. Those fuckers are said to be harder than the Final Boss!

About romance... I guess my favorite is still Emil-Marta. They get to know each other better and argue like real people would! My runner up would be Shing-Kohak, even if she is basically emotionless for over half the game. Luke-Tear was very decent.

Bad couples: Cless-Mint are of the 'embarrasingly chaste' variety (it's Fujishima, so you know the drill) Asbel-Cheria doesnt' work (he is dense as a rock, she cannot spit it out) and Jude-Milla feels more like hero worshipping than love. Too... one sided.

Interesting opinion here. Whileas you can't deny Veigue is hopelessly in love with Claire, he is put to test when Agarte does her switch magic. Both were convinced that physical looks are irrelevant, but Veigue is anxious and desperate to 'restore' Claire whenever he looked at her face and went A CAT IS NOT FINE URGH. This sounds a bit hypocritical.

2nd interesting tibdit: Senel-Shirley. I dunno why, I really wanted these two together. Less cuz Senel being dumb almost causes the Great Flood of Hyrule and more like... I felt the same kind of 'hopelessly in love' in Shirley as in Veigue.

Edited by FlightMaster on Mar 9th 2019 at 12:44:10 PM

Still, with Tales romances you're lucky if even one of them even says "I love you." I think only Tear ever managed that and come on, its Tear.

I think it more has to do that they're genuinely flat characters. All Cless has got is vengeance and puns, and Mint's THE White Magician Girl. That's it.

Like I said, the best romance is Stahn and Rutee because unlike most, the sequel to their game basically said "Yes they fucked."

We know Asbel and Cheria fuck also because we meet their kid and/or descendant at the very end of the game

I mean not that they ever say compared to Destiny 2 straight up saying. But yeah, fair enough.

Shame the Asbel/Cheria pair (AKA Barnes And Noble, the superior shipname) is basically a huge case of go-nowhere ingame. Shit there's more chemistry between Asbel and Pascal for christsake.

Oh my god Barnes and Noble that's actually great. But yeah, they're pretty stagnant pairing wise throughout the game. Tbh I'd say they're the weakest members of the Graces cast. Not terrible, but only so-so compared to everyone else.

I’m replaying Graces right now, and yeah, they’re not as interesting as the rest of the cast. Doesn’t stop them from bouncing off everyone else in skits, though. Or everyone else bouncing off them.

Heard the Barnes and Noble joke before, and it’s brilliant.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Mar 11th 2019 at 7:38:16 AM

I mean to be fair you'd still look bland as oatmeal next to Pascal so

Cheria may be bland as tapioca but I really love her playstyle. Knife-throwing spellcasting healer maid.

At least Cheria's buxom in her own right though. And she's Laura Bailey, that's always pretty neat

Its just Pascal's so much more entertaining its ridiculous

Alright, seeing their descendants is proof of couples 'having fucked'. That does not mean their relationship was well done. Both Asbel-Cheria and Stahn-Rutee are duos no one would bet a penny for during their journey. Well, I wouldn't want to trigger Kombat, but there is a crucial difference: The former couple announcing their marriage was surely met with a collective 'fucking finally' while the latter probably caused cries of 'WHAAAAT? But-but they couldn't stand each other...!'. Rutee was much less agressive during the second half of Destiny, but Stahn never gave players an impression of 'man, I would tap that ass' when interacting with her.

I mean, if we go by canon sequels we know that Sheena fucked too... because Suzu bears the Fujibayashi name. Now, guessing who was the lucky guy in this case is interesting... Lloyd? Zelos? REGAL? (Eeer, they spend a lot of time together in the sequel...) And yes, we know Arche and Raine fucked (I mean with their boyfriends! Geez!) because of the Unicorn being a living virginity detector.

Man, why did this devolve into discussing who is a virgin and who isn't?

Edited by FlightMaster on Mar 12th 2019 at 2:06:29 PM

Because with how this series does romance we kinda have to.

Its kinda refreshing that Berseria lacks that kinda thing. Sort of. The closest we have is Oscar and Theresa and that's basically incest.

.*is a sucker for Tsunderes and oblivious idiots*

At least the F arc gives them massive amounts of progress compared to 99.9999% of the couples.

Raine may have been lying to avoid going in the water

There is that, yeah. Raine's younger than she seems and I don't think she's had relationships of that sort since she had to make time not just for being a teacher but looking after Genis.