General JRPG topic

I don't think there's any "point of entry" in the Tales series. Each of them stands on its own, and while playing a number of them might reveal some similarities, none of that actually matters to how you enjoy it. On the other hand there are some... cosmetic issues that I feel might be relevant. Mostly voiced skits.

In case you weren't aware, one of the selling points of the series is the "skit" system where events in the plot, or meeting certain conditions in battle, or just doing random weird stuff will cause a "skit" to occur where your party talks to each other in a mini-cutscene. This is in fact ridiculously awesome and honestly I don't know why more games don't do it since the overall effect is to make all the characters feel much more fleshed out than equivalent games. It's not even like the plots are that good, or the characters that well-rounded, it's just that they're constantly talking to each other. They're joking around, pondering recent plot twists, revealing unexpected sides of themselves... So you become attached to them, you understand them, or maybe you even hate them, I don't know, but you care. Because they talk to each other. I'm not sure how to describe this properly but it's basically the greatest thing ever.

Anyway, they've been doing skits for a while now, but with Abyss and earlier they didn't bother voice acting them in English. They're voice acted in Japanese, but they didn't have the time or budget to do it in English so you end up with these silent mime acts where the text advances on its own at an arbitrary rate. This wasn't a complete gamebreaker when I first played them, but after experiencing fully voice acted skits I just can't replay Abyss. It's impossible.

edited 19th Aug '13 7:02:18 AM by Clarste

You can't just... not watch the skits in Abyss?

What exactly would the point of that be?

...to play the rest of the game?

What a silly idea. Did you not just read my big rant about how skits are the greatest thing ever and turn mediocre games into great ones?

edited 19th Aug '13 6:02:40 AM by Clarste

A game that needs to rely on skits to be above average probably isn't a very good game.

edited 19th Aug '13 6:24:12 AM by PhysicalStamina

A game that doesn't have skits sucks, so the Tales series is my favorite series.

It's a core storytelling mechanic. It "relies" on it in the same way that a story relies on dialog or a battle relies on attacking. You can't just cut it out and have the same thing.

edited 19th Aug '13 7:02:56 AM by Clarste

Skits are not necessary to make a game good.

Nothing wrong with preferring a game with or without them. Let's cut the defining statements and keep them solely as opinions, please.

I don't mind them either way. They aren't always that funny, and I prefer the text, not the voice acting. I can certainly read fine, after all. I also like having to press a button to continue the text.

Well, I don't mind text in general, and honestly skip through most dialog in most cutscenes of most games faster than they talk, but for Tales skits in particular they were clearly designed to be voiced. They proceed at their own pace accompanied partially animated portraits (they kinda hop up and down and stuff). Seeing them go by in complete silence just feels weird. I definitely feel like something is missing and it bugs me.

So, do you, like, come across every skit naturally in these games, or do you have to actively seek some out? Can you miss one by accident and have it be Lost Forever and be like speedrunners when they screw up and go "AGH gotta start whole game over again"?

Run-on sentence is run-on.

Wait, you were judging them without even experiencing it?

You're fairly unlikely to come across all of them naturally, and many of them are missable. Some of them have weird conditions like "never use a healing item until point X in the plot" which causes your characters to chat about why they never use items, or "go to this particular place at a random point in the plot" which causes your characters to chat about how you really should be doing something else. A lot of Easter Eggs. Which is half the fun, honestly.

However, if you're a completionist most of the recent games have had "unlock all skits" as a New Game Plus option.

edited 19th Aug '13 6:58:08 AM by Clarste

You were making it sound like a Tales game without skits is instantly bad.

Oh, so it's kinda like going after the red rings in Sonic Colors and Generations. I see.

Oh. That's good.

edited 19th Aug '13 7:19:20 AM by PhysicalStamina

Well, it's a pretty big series with a lot of games, so they can't all be winners. But they make the lesser games bearable and the better games great. Win-win all around.

Essentially, the skits help characterize. A lot.

And Xillia's pretty bare-bones on skits. Booooo, rushing titles for anniversaries.

Has anyone played Dark Cloud?^note  Ancient, I know. I began the Moon Sea, but for some reason, every single floor until the 3rd one has been a limited zone that reduces Abs. Is that supposed to happen or have I run into some sort of bug? I normally wouldn't care about any other kind of limited zone, but lack of Abs means no leveling.

My copy doesn't run half the time, but yeah, I think the limited zones are fixed. The first game really isn't very good. It has a lot of good ideas, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It was Level 5's first game and even now most of their games have some sort of major flaw.

It was the game that got me into RPGs, so it gets sentimental value. I love the weapon system~ (and I think Dark Chronicle was solid without any crippling flaw). I'm just concerned because I've gone 3 consecutive floors that are all Abs limited zones. Which is just bizarre. And considering the amount of bugs and exploits in this game, I sure hope I haven't hit anything that makes the game unwinnable.

edited 24th Aug '13 9:15:42 AM by lu127

Three Abs limited zones? I don't remember encountering that. Not sure if that's a bug... Anyway, wasn't there a glitch you could exploit for limited zones so your Abs don't decrease?

I love Dark Cloud and all Level 5 games I've played. I haven't beaten Dark Chronicle yet because that game is hard. I did get pretty far in it, though.

I really like Level 5 too. They just tend to have questionable choices in their RP Gs. Like Rogue Galaxy having the stamina meter and White Knight Chronicles wonky battle system.

Oh? Do tell?

I got up to the Bonus Boss and then my dad accidentally broke the disc.

I thought Rogue Galaxy got the mechanics down well. The big problem I had with it was that the cast was too generic. Not Dragon Quest 8/Dark Chronicle traditional nostalgia, but bland generic revisiting of the same tropes.

Something about switching before the enemy disappears. I forget the specifics.

Project Phoenix has almost reached its third goal.

Hiroaki Yura's second interview.

Party member artwork!◊

edited 25th Aug '13 2:50:54 AM by lu127

lu127: That's terrible, I'm sorry to hear that.

That party artwork looks nice. I see we have some kind of tough chick, a samurai, a stout dwarf, a little mage girl, a dude that looks like a knight, and a lady archer.

edited 26th Aug '13 1:50:54 AM by BearyScary

The only Level 5 game I really played was Rogue Galaxy back in the day. Luckily I have a PS 2 again with the game (yes!) and I'll get around to playing it sometime. Just got to finish Persona 3 and 4 first.

What were Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle like anyway? They're both of my list of games I would like to try and/or buy.

I got up to the Bonus Boss and then my dad accidentally broke the disc.

How did that happen?