Tales Series

I don't dislike Velvet as a character. The over the top edge is fine for me. I just don't like that the game seemed noncommittal to me about whether or not to go for a Villain Protagonist. I certainly like her better than Milla "Shill" Maxwell.

Edited by PhiSat on Jun 3rd 2019 at 12:27:00 PM

Because she is an Anti-Hero who started out early on edging to Villain Protagonist until she opens up and becomes a more heroic but still ruthless Anti-Hero.

The party members and standard Tales antics get her to crack a bit but she is solidly on the anti-hero side after you meet like your third party member.

People who call Velvet 'solo protagonist' need to remember malak Laphicet, his Morality Pet effect on her is what keeps the girl from going full blown Villain Protagonist. I liken her case to Ludger's, because if not for Elle maybe he would have really gone the way of Victor. The difference is that Phi is playable, but the simile is there.

I do need to play the actual game, since I only watched videos until the Final Boss is revealed and felt 'whoa there, friend... maybe I should keep all these feelings for when I am the one with the controller in hand'.

Have some Hearts progress while I am at it:

—Until Innes joins: oh, I already confirmed that Overlimit increases your stats... it's there in the manual. In-game. LOL. But yeah, I am only 8 hours in and I feel the plot goes too FAST. Dungeons are not long or super hard, yet I remember the puzzle in the Ander mines was not like the DS one. Back then you could step out of the tiles and the puzzle didn't reset! The only weird rule today is 'you can't press the same tile you just were on before'.

I am just outside Lion Park, where I know Kohaku will become playabe at the end of its arc, and fans claim this is the end of 'act 1'. I suppose when Chalcy joins would mark the end of act 2. For those that don't know, I will make a review:

The Hearts' siblings run from an ugly evil witch called Incarose. Idiot Hero Shing Meteoryte meets them both, having just inherited his grandpa's Soma (magical weapon that lets you peek inside people's hearts.) Witch catches up to them, kills the old man and injures Kohaku, prompting Shing to enter her heart... where a green-haired Mysterious Waif lives. She gets scared and breaks Kohaku's heart in pieces [Spir runes] turning her into a emotionless doll. Now, the journey's main goal is to heal the girl via Gotta Catch Them All!

Plot until end of act 1 will be posted here when I actually finish it.

Edited by FlightMaster on Jun 4th 2019 at 1:28:34 PM

Basically Act 1 is "Son Goku goes on a journey to gather Butt Girl's scattered emotions."

Basically that. I hated Hearts R till you actually get Kohaku as a fully fledged party member intact.

As a party member though she is really freaken good to play and can combo like nobody's business. She might be my fav Tales character.

Edited by Memers on Jun 4th 2019 at 10:55:31 AM

She really is great fun yeah. At least, when she gets her emotions back.

I forget which emotion she needs to join the party. Is it courage?

Yes. Read below for a refresher.

G-good sir, her butt is not THAT b-big! I'd say Kohaku's best part is that Shes Got Legs.

I compare Kohaku's ordeal with Colette and her Journey of Regeneration... but in reverse. Colette loses emotions the further you go. But yes, both act 1 plots seem too plain and simple to engage a new player. Tales fans already know it gets better later.

—END of act 1: I noticed that no, there aren't any subquest lists anywhere. And why can't you change equips in battle? Why are the Tactics and Formation tabs separate? And the battle gimmicks are obtuse. I haven't been able to Counter except by accident, and I haven't been able to do a Cross Chase period.

At the end of the starting arc, Hot-Blooded sistercon Hisui grabs Shing by the ear and forces him to join the siblings in his quest. Out of all emotions scattered, just one remained: the spirune of Kindness.

Cynos: shady merchant Innes lends Hisui a crossbow Soma after he wages his life (and Shing's) as collaterals. A astronomer is hiding in the nearby caves because he fears the moon will fall. After expelling the Zeroms in his heart he spits the spirune of Fear.

Twilight forest: we meet Foxy Grandpa Galland Gruner here, who has been curing aching hearts for 20 years. We fight a grim reaper with the help of Knight in Shining Armor Chalcedony. Shing refuses his help because he is determined to help Kohaku himself.

Hanselar: a town is full of con artists. Heroes visit Guild leader Ultra Marine. Cute Witch Beryl barges in and tries to kill the guy. She was scammed by him after bandits stole cargo she was protecting. Your party makes her spit the Spirune of Trust.

Mt.Grimm: Peridot, Chalcedony's lady crony, kidnaps Kohaku to learn the secret of why her heart affects whole towns. The heroes fight her and after saving Kohaku she starts trusting Shing.

Guz Spa: Some kids push Beryl and Kohaku onto the river, so they take a bath at the hot springs. We learn that Peridot is in the bath too and Hentai-kun rushed in. Hijinks ensue. After both teams meet we learn that the town had been unnaturally ashamed... until Chalcy saved them by extracting the Spirune of Shyness from a local girl.

Anders mine: we go through this place to ambush Chalcy and friends. While inside, we learn from a mural that the Zeroms (code name for The Heartless.) are 2000 years old. At the exit we fight the knight, pinkie and Big Guy Pyrox for possesion of the spirune.

Straga: here the Church and the Army are butting heads constantly. Shing is caught and imprisoned for owning a Soma ilegally. Innes acquaitance Garnet helps the party save him, and later Innes herself joins them after admiting that her chance to do business there is ruined.

Shoalhaven: town full of depressingly sad folks. After some Red Herrings with a blind painter and a maid we learn that the Spirune of Sadness is inside Stepford Smiler Lady Tourmaline. A lost love made her embrace the sadness that the spirune emits, and we stop her from opening the sluice gate and flooding the town.

Lion park: this place sports lots of cocky overconfident chumps... because of a spirune that fell on the coliseum's trophy. Shing and Hisui sign up to earn it... and the 100 MILLION gald prize! The final round involves climbing a tower. Resident champion Amethyst is a dirty coward that cheats via airship, but our heroes beat him. Some dragons come and want to eat both Idiot Hero and Big Bro, but Kohaku grabs the spirune of Courage and shows everyone why she's the Kick Chick Playing with Fire. The effort is too much though, and she passes out.

(During the night, Incarose comes and attacks Beryl while she is suffering a jealousy fit. Shing gets very angry and emits a creepy aura... Kornerupine of the army interrupts them and shows his 'zerom boosted' soldiers. He offers to teach them about Zeroms in exchange for Kohaku, and while the heroes reject, they WILL try to sneak into Lignatore fortress. But that's for act 2...)

Edited by FlightMaster on Jun 5th 2019 at 12:14:36 PM

Tell that to Namco. They gave Kohaku a mirrage pic in Rays where she's hugging Shing...while randomly thrusting her ass out. That and all of her leg movements and jumps have got to tone it up a lot. That and the miso.

Kohaku's legs are quite the meme in the game. They are probably the most lethal things in the game but man Kor loves em, in addition to getting him in trouble more than once.

So I recently finished Berseria and absolutely loved the game. After two playthroughs, all I really have left are the trophies you kind of need to plan the next few years of your life around, but yeah, that was a lot of fun. Though from the sounds of things, the gameplay wasn't exactly very typical for a Tales game? What little I've played of Zestiria shows it's nowhere near as fun as Berseria's combat at least.

I'm one of the few people in this thread who liked Zestiria and I'll happily acknowledge that Berseria is by far the better game.

Compared to Zesteria, Berseria's combat is more like a return to form, since the formers combat was way weirder with forcing two party members into your party and the armatization mechanic.

But every Tales combat has a gimmick, it just kinda varies to what degree you are forced to use it. E.G: Symphonia's gimmicks were unison attacks and styles, where the former was rather optional and you could pretty much play the whole game not knowing what the other even is.

On the other hand not using Xillia's Linking would severely gimp you as the game is clearly balanced around it.

Between the story not clicking with me at all, and the menus and upgrade system being complicated for no reason; Zestiria stands out as the only game in the series that I've played but haven't been able to get into.

Symphonia 2 was the only time that's ever happened to me.

Hasn't happened to me yet, although there are some I didn't get very invested in, or had trouble getting myself to finish. I had a hard time getting invested in Xillia 1 for example, and didn't really get attached to any of the characters until they got those sidequests in the second one, which has its own set of issues. And Legendia had that annoying thing going where the first half has a really generic plot, but when it gets better in the second half, it starts reusing all the dungeons. Plus, the combat felt like a slog in that one for whatever reason.

Symphonia 2 is anther one that had a lot of issues and, while I liked it despite them, I can totally see why so many people didn't.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Jun 5th 2019 at 11:34:07 AM

Symphonia 2 I had many issues with but I still beat it in the end.

More than I can say for Zestiria, whose issues I let get the better of me and I sold it off. H Earts R I grew bored of outside of Kohaku/Amber and Beryl. And yeah Kohaku's got nice legs or butt but how old is she anyway?

So then what would anyone say...to a Tales game set in some sort of post-apocalyptic world? Not something tha tlooks greeny and pretty but is some other world in the future, I mean something out of Mad Max, Fallout or Fist of the North Star.

She is 16! Not legal yet, but not a kid at all. Contrast Beryl, who is legal but is a flatboard shorty. And very huggable.

Symphonia 2 had flaws. That's an universal truth. The issue is if you liked everything else enough to push to the end and even enjoy the game. I totally did.

Zestiria's gimmick vas very intrusive and limiting. Another universal truth. But it is also true that it plays closer to Graces than Bersy, which works more similarly to the Xillias in battle system, world map navigation and sidequest format.

Speaking of gimmick: I am getting better at Hearts' Countering. The enemies always counter after about 10 normal hits, and if they haven't suffered Knock Down / Push Back on the last hit. Press 'block' a split second after you see them Turn Red. Good!

But the other half, the Cross Charge (push a party member portrait on the touchscreen to do a X thrust while in Chase mode) still has not triggered. So I researched and learned that you need MUCH higher Friendship values with your mates. DOH!

Edited by FlightMaster on Jun 6th 2019 at 10:59:33 AM

Ah. Well then yeah I'm a bit worried about how Kohaku was portrayd in tha tmirrage pic then. Beryl's an odd case tho.

And yeah the Cross Charge wank was pretty wank, yeah. Barely got it to work due to, well, how it works.

EDIT: BTW Marta cute.

Edited by MightyKombat on Jun 6th 2019 at 11:33:36 AM

I couldn't really get into Zestria either, and a big part of that is that I just don't like the setting. It carries over into Berseria for me honestly, though at least it had characters I actually came to like, so big improvement overall for me.

Beyond that...I guess Abyss is the only other one I still don't care for. I don't have much of a reason for it either, there's nothing in that game the clicked for me I guess.

Symphonia 2 had some serious flaws, but I'll go to bat for Emile and Marta.

Edited by SkormSnow-Strider on Jun 6th 2019 at 12:06:04 PM

Agreed. The new characters were just fine. I mean, they probably could’ve made Marta a little less stattelite-y, but she’s likeable enough once the game gets going. And Emil is just adorable.

Yeah, they're both pretty damn adorbs. Especially Marta

I dunno, I cared for Emil more than Marta, but didn't care about either one very much.

Weirdly enough I felt Tenebrae wasn't that funny and just a poor man's Jade. That and Richter was massively overrated and hamstrung by how he shared a first name with a Belmont that was five times his better.

and here we go