Tales Series

Alright. I just learned Dragon Swarm for Yuri.

Gone enjoy that flipping goodness.

Need to learn to use taunt more as well.

Also fought Zagi on the boat...and he's still destroying me. It's ridiculous. He's just all over the place constantly. I couldn't even try for the secret mission to knock him off. I couldn't pin his ass down at all.

I'm on normal, but I'm not sure if lowering the difficulty would help. Enemies are too weak too. They die before I can really practice most moves, and I still suck at actually using Overlimit. I keep getting jumped when trying to make full use of it.

But I'll get it eventually I suppose. I'm looking forward to the mystic artes. I never knew they were even in Symphonia until years later, because I mostly focused on ending battles with Unison attacks.

Now I can finally start giving them a try.

...one thing I don't get: How does Ragou still get away when he essentially kidnapped one heir to the throne, and tried to assault another. There were multiple witnesses to his crimes, and yet he makes up a bullshit Evil Twin story and just walks? How does that even work?

Double Post:

Fatal Strike learned....and all the enemies keep dying before I can try it again, which makes it impossible to practice.

Man, unless it's a boss, I'm either too strong or too weak. And by boss I mean that asshole Zagi.

Anyway, going around Caer Bocam. How many password clues are there? I got three, but that doesn't seem to be enough...to say nothing of all three clues not fitting in one thing.

Geez, lots of Vesperia stuff. I will try to help.

Plot stuff: The knights are doing their job, yeah, but just like Flynn (for 60% of the plot) they are Lawful Stupid. Yuri is all Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!. They don't see 'a thief hid away in the mansion' only 'Yuri broke into a mansion' so in their eyes Yuri is a criminal.

Ragou is let go free because, as most Ace Attorney prosecutors say, 'lack of evidence'. But Yuri knows the bastard is guilty and will try to solve matters by his hand. Its this game's famous 'Law vs Vigilatism' theme.

Gameplay stuff: Mystic artes require 2 things: OVL 3 (lvl 2 you will get by story, 3 is synthed with materials found in the 3rd continent's desert.) and the Special skill (some mid-game weapons carry it.) Karol gets the skill in a sidequest, Estelle, Raven and Judy will leave temporally and rejoin with said weapons equipped.

Zagi is fought FIVE(!) times in the game, not counting Bonus Dungeon or the arena. He focuses on lots of hits and piercing, so hitting him from the front is ill advised. Are you... trying to hit him from the back? Freerun exists for this!

This will blow your head... you DONT need to use artes to reduce the enemies' Fatal Strike gauge! Holding the stick in the appropiate direction with normal hits works too, even if its slower. By using the enemies' weakness you will trigger it faster: Birds and Bugs are weak to the 'down' FS (being grounded / squashed) Plants or Fishes to 'up' (being uprooted / fished out) and Beasts and Humans to 'forward' (weak to being shot?) And when the FS glyph appears, don't push R too fast... let the glyph be totally formed.

Three hints are enough. What is hot, round and in the sky? Its the SUN! It was much harder in PS 3, where you had to type it in Japanese even with the translation patch. (Tales of Rebirth uses three such passwords during its story!)

@ Kombat: glad to help. Some of the free DLC are costumes obtained in the game, and much easier to get this way (one of them is Yuri's knight armor, which requires every Secret Mission)

Edited by FlightMaster on Aug 17th 2019 at 3:05:21 PM

Really? I didn't realize that. I should have read that battle book more carefully.

And the clue...right that makes sense. I was so focused on putting them all in, I never thought of combining them in that way.

I already mostly know how the characters gain their Mystic Artes (at the least I know Yuri learns his when he receives Dein Nomos and I remember Carol getting his in a side quest). I'm mostly just afraid of wasting them like I have Overlimits. The advice on Fatal Strikes is helpful though. I'll try to remember that.

As for the Knights being Lawful Stupid...well while I acknowledge that (and yeah Adeccor and Bocos already kinda looked down on him, but at the same time, it feels like the Knights being Lawful Stupid is just a cheap way to make Yuri look more justified too. It happens a lot with Lawful Characters from my point of view, so I'm kinda meh to it. But I'm also not sure if there's any other way to have the argument because without it, you just have Yuri being an asshole to authority figures for no other reason that because.

Kinda like Rita.

I like Rita, and she develops pretty well in this story (she goes from being enraged when Blastia is destroyed to valuing Estelle so much she was willing to destroy one herself, which is a big moment for her), but her jerkassery towards Karol (who can be a bit of a dumbass to be sure) can get irking. And then there's Raven, who while mostly acting like a goof on purpose seems to at least partially be that way so she can hit someone who deserves it which is the modus operandi of a grand number of Tsunderes. The males need to be jerks or idiots so they have an excuse to hit them. And that's on a good day.

Fortunately, she's got blah blah blah TIDAL WAVE! going for her. Can't wait to do that!

Raven and Flynn get their Mystic Artes automatically; Repede's is, IIRC, also from a sidequest; the rest come from treasure chest items.

Edited by asterism on Aug 17th 2019 at 3:50:01 PM

Alright. Just learned about Burst Artes. Still killing enemies before I can actually do Fatal Strikes though, except for with the boss in the vault (I can't remember his name, but he becomes Gnome later on I believe). The reticule came up, but I either pressed the button too late, or was too far away.

Anyway, Burst Artes mean I'm gonna have to start using Overlimits more often I guess.

Edit: One more question: If I can both synth a weapon and buy it, which is better?

Edited by HandsomeRob on Aug 17th 2019 at 4:09:47 AM

Sounds a bit weird, them.

So I answered my own question: Synthing weapons or armour, if you have to chance to do both, costs much less, so from now on, unless I don't have the materials / have money to spare, I'll be doing that.

Been able to make some sub weapons for Estelle and Rita finally. Nothing for Karol, Yuri or Repede yet though. More to the point, I've been able to pull off one Fatal Strike, and have the other character set to do them in Strategy, and I'm doing burst artes now as well (since I can taunt to re-raise my over limit gauge quickly).

Feel like I'm starting to really get the hang of things now.

Still wish someone would smack Rita whenever she mouths off Karol for nothing. She gets to smack people for annoying her all the time, but when she's an unjustified jerk (though we're at the point where she starts getting much better), she just gets away with it.

Every cutscene seems designed to prove why Edna is wonderful. I am quite okay with this.

So was this war with Rolance a big thing I just forgot about? It took me a few months to work through the beginning, but I swear no one was really talking about it until immediately before that invasion, and then it felt like it jumped into quite a ways into it. Pacing just felt really weird for this section.

Meanwhile, I'm guessing Alisha is now gone forever.Bit of a shame, I guess.

Alright. Made it to Dahngrest. Gonna break off from the plot to learn some abilities, and grind for new weapons to synth. Do some more practicing as well before I get back into the plot proper.

Getting the hang of both Fatal Strikes and Burst Artes now, though I still need to work on now accidentally going into Over Limits by accident, cause I some times forget that you don't press the arrow buttons for it.

Beyond that, I'm getting a bit better at stringing together combos. Should be able to do some neat ones soon.

She’s playable for a boss battle late in the game, but otherwise yeah, she’s not in your party from that point on.

There's her DLC scenario at least. Too bad its a bit wank from what I hear.

The story’s alright for the DLC, but it’s a huge slog to play through. I’d recommend just watching the scenes and skits.

The recommendation was mostly for TropayXion, since they’re the one playing Zestiria right now.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Aug 18th 2019 at 3:26:19 AM

I'm not touching anything with Alicia.

She's way too much trouble. Her and Rose are the same to me.

Alisha's lame. I mean, that's Zesteria's entire shtick, but her and Rose fall extremely flat to me.

Also I know Alexis Tipton's thing is that she's the replacement Laura Bailey but I feel Alisha was where it kinda started to hold her back. I prefer V As at least trying their own thing as well. Between this and being the new VA for Lucina and Kid Trunks I wonder if Tipton's just gonna be "replacement Laura Bailey" from now on.

That and Alisha felt pretty weak willed to me.

Alisha needed to stop playing Knight and do what gave her power: being a goddamn princess. As a knight the nobility could boss her around because they have that kind of damn authority.

As a princess she'd have the actual authority to deny them when they abuse power.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Aug 19th 2019 at 2:58:26 AM

Basically she's kind of an idiot.

And that's why even the spirits laugh at her and say Rose is better.

It says a lot when a Sociopath is looked upon more favourably than you are.

Kinda funny to hear how being a Rebellious Princess is a shitty idea and being an actual princess lets you get more done.

Sorry Rob, I have a reviewer version of Zesty I got completely on accident (the fact that is a 'promo not for sale', I bought it on purpose.) so I will play it after I end my Vita backlog. I'll be seeing a LOT of Ali & Rose.

Alisha is not the throne's heir, like Estelle, she is only second / third in line (confirm?) so just like Estelle, she plays knight to feel like she can solve shit faster and better than sitting in a room full of corrupt geezers who hate her anyway.

And the seraphs are kind of right: a companion who can use Armatus > one who can't + hurts the Shepherd's sight. From a pure utilitarian view, I mean.

Question for those who know: how does equipment transfer work? I concluded that you can recover the gear equipped on your guys by fighting their dark versions but nothing transfers EXCEPT blessed gear (raise to +10 then offer to a Lord) Is it right?

Edited by FlightMaster on Aug 20th 2019 at 2:19:03 PM

That actually does give her more clout than being a knight does, ironically, enough she can even work to end the fighting between both countries.

Whereas a knight is told to "go here and kill this person" or "this person is a spy" when they aren't and she gets used against her will by those corrupt geezers because Knights have to obey them.

So by trying to take the quick and easy way to feeling loke she's getting stuff done, she ended up doing the opposite.

YMMV on that. If I'm not mistaken, the political situation in Zestria sucked, and if you try to play the lone wolf in those kind of environments, you'll probably just see yourself shunted out of power unable to do jack and shit unless you start playing the same game. Even then, its easy to lose sight of things while you're protecting your own hide and dealing with political opponents, so the whole thing just sucks all the way around. Hoping into the military frankly would sound like the better to anyone, even if its not going to be effective.

Granted, I haven't played the DLC and I know nothing about what takes place in it, so I frankly don't know how she goes about things post game.

Edited by SkormSnow-Strider on Aug 20th 2019 at 5:03:00 AM

Random question:

How am I actually learning attacks in Vesperia?

Is it Level? Is it using certain attacks more often? Is it a combination of both?

For basic and advanced artes, levels, and sometimes sidequests

For altered artes, you need to equip a skill/costume then use said arte a set number of times

Vesperia is really shitty about missable sidequests so definitely play with a guide of some sort to consult.

Anyway, just finished up learning everyone's new weapon skills, earning money, and testing out the Burst Artes of the other characters.

It took multiple tries to get Estelle's, but Rita, Repede and Karol went well.

Of all of them, I think I did the best with Rita. Outside of Yuri, I expect to have the easiest time pulling off her Burst Arte because it doesn't require me to go anywhere near the opponent. That's useful. Plus, since Overlimits lets her quickly cast spells, I can do multiple ones easily, which is way too useful.

I might try using her a bit more actually. Blah blah blah Tidal Wave!