VCent
Half-Elf
When's Destiny iOS
Posts: 26
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Post by VCent on Nov 11, 2015 17:34:07 GMT -5
It has been about 3 weeks that Tales of Zestiria was first released in the US, so I guess this is a good time to create a Spoiler Talk/Thoughts thread. So I'll start by talking about my thoughts in the game: -Story: I did not like it at all lol Sure, there was some good parts, and I felt it had a darker theme to it, some thing that I didn't saw in the other games; but, overall, I did not like the progression of the plot, the Shepard and the Lord of Calamity roles, the way they choose who had Malevolence (Pure Hearted Assassins Kappa) and how they always pressure the player saying stuff like "There has to be another way!" and "Are you sure you wanna do that?!?" and theres only one choice (the final scene with Heldalf, some side quests like the Eizan sidequest and creating the bridge to Marlind comes to mind) -Characters: Character growth is well done and the cast is ok, tho I don't like Lailah's oath shenanigans and Sorey's sudden change of personality (from a merciless killer on the battlefield to a guy that hesitates to kill Medusa (forgot her name lol)). -Music: Loved the music, towns play happy and sad music when they're supposed to, field/battle music doesn't become boring... -Gameplay: It felt lacking: the camera was bad (tho I will not talk much about it), the universal and weapons skill systems felt grindy, It had serious balancing issues (90% of my battles I was using Chromatus Armatization) and the AI wasn't that smart (always got 0 grade in fights because the AI kept dying lol). -Graphics/Framerate: The game looks beautiful (I played on the PS4) and the framerate is, for the most part, stable (except for some far away enemies on the field). -Final Thoughts: I wouldn't say this was a bad game, but I just didn't have that much fun with it. It did a lot of things right, and, unfortunately, a lot of things wrong. I ended up rushing through the game and finished it with about 40 hours (I never spent less than 80h in a first playthrough of a Tales game) and at level 44. I also played the whole game on moderate, but had to lower the difficulty since I wasn't able to damage the final boss enough to stagger him during his "Super attack" sequence lol ----- ----- ----- So, what do you guys think of the game? Do you have something in particular about the game you want to talk about? Please share your thoughts!
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Post by Pássaro on Nov 11, 2015 18:35:11 GMT -5
I'll follow a similar format based off of your touched points.
Story: For me, playing the game in English changed my opinion considerably. I do not find myself caring for Tales plots, so my understanding of the plot was based on what I heard around the way. I did lose interest in the plot around the time they really started dwelling on the "Find your answers" saga; essentially, the trials is where I began to lose interest. The plot felt a bit rushed and shoehorned a few random concepts that I felt did not need for happen. For example, Lailah's whole oath excuse to pull a Jade, Alisha leaving the party, and Rose joining just did not make much sense to me.
Characters: I actually enjoyed the dub from the beginning. The voices were a bit...strange, but they oddly fit their respective characters so I can't complain there. The characters themselves were...strange together. All of the character quirks just did not add to a relatively solid party. Normally, in Tales there is an underlying sense of growth in the relationships of the characters as the plot progresses. Abyss is a solid example of the party having no trust in one another, growing into a rather solid team by end-game. Here, it just felt like no one truly grew as a character.
Lailah's quirk of faking absentmindedness whenever a question was brought up really began to grate my nerves early on in the game. Edna's edginess was a tad annoying when she was first introduced, but I grew to enjoy her snarky demeanor. I will say that the skits were very will done. The party's shenanigans there were a solid positive note for me. It's just that plot-wise I did not feel much happened to the characters.
Music: I understand Sakuraba's position with Tales, so I do not find myself being as critical of his pieces as I use to be. Shiina's return was definitely a positive point.
Gameplay: Eh.....truthfully, Namco needs to leave the Graces battle-system alone or try a blend/formula ala Innocence/Hearts R as foundation. The graces system is just by design a limiting experience from the jump, and they did not make it easy on the player to expand upon it. The mechanics themselves are alright, but I find it hard to enjoy playing Zestiria. I've never liked the focus on linking or fusing since they detract from the overall party experience; and turns half the cast limp. I could go all day about my dislike for the battle system, so I'll chill here.
Overall, it's not a bad game as you mentioned, it's just not a good Tales game. It's one of the entries that I'll be shelving once I finish the few projects I have with it.
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Miraclechao
Half-Elf
Planning another challenge run for Estellise ( •w•)
Posts: 5
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Post by Miraclechao on Nov 15, 2015 8:34:34 GMT -5
Story:It started off promising but became boring extremely fast. Interesting concepts introduce themselves, but they are not used to their fullest potential. Two kingdoms, a war, a world where humans and seraph can be affected by malevolence. Seems good until they start to go half-way with the plot. An interesting idea would have been Rose killing others and becoming a [playable] Hellion . The story keeps saying there's possibilities and whatnot, but again, it goes half-way. Supposedly, Alisha is pure-hearted and Lailah [the sword] literally rests in her home kingdom. With the way things are explained, could Alisha have possibility ended up like Rose? Sorey convinced Edna about helping her brother. If her brother really is a priority, then she's not doing a good job at convincing me. Tales of Vesperia's Wandering Skeleton was more important than Aizen . Character:I found it to be lacking. In Tales of Vesperia, the team feels like a family. In Tales of Xillia, the team feels like a group of best friends. In this game, they feel forced. Sorey and Mikleo's relationship is understandable as they are long-time friends. Once Alisha joins, things are still fine. It is almost like Yuri, Flynn, and Estelle in a way with Sorey and Mikleo's friendly rivalry and Alisha's reaction to the world around her. Lailah, as a character, I can not stand. Her way of keeping secrets runs its course before Edna joins the team. Edna is just terrible. Unlike Elize and Karol, Edna can be replaced with an Earth Seraph and there will be little to no difference in story. She is rude and she wants to help her brother, both of which I would be fine with if it was not done terribly wrong, and it is the moment she joins when the party's relationship goes downhill. You'd think with Sorey's claims of helping her and her brother's situation, that she'd be the no non-sense type like Rita. Her " trolling" is mostly miss, no hits. Rose is the closest Edna gets when it comes to something good regarding her pricks. Mikleo rarely (if ever) falls for her tricks, and so he only gives a reaction. Alisha doesn't understand she's being played like a fool and most of it is because she respects the seraphs. Moments like Elize being tensed by Alvin/Rowen is funny because she tries not to get tricked but she's gullible enough to get tricked, which ends with her having different reactions to the trickster. Rose, Dezel, and Zavied are fine as characters (story aside), but they would be better off with a different cast of characters. Music:Nothing to say here other than I enjoy it and I fine myself listening to the songs from time to time. Of course, I said the same thing about Sonic 06. Gameplay:Horrible. Some of the ideas are nice, and there are somethings that was done right. That said, given that games like Tales of Vesperia, Tales of Graces, and Tales of Xillia existed beforehand, Tales of Zestiria's execution is horrible. I will say this however. My dislike of this game's mechanics may come from me expecting better from a game carrying the Tales name. Based on Tales of Xillia 2 alone, Tales of Zestiria has booty AI, a booty strategy menu, booty combat system, a booty kkill system, a booty leveling system, booty camera, booty multiplayer, and that's just some of the top of my head. My challenge run mentality aside, those things that I just mentioned can end up as a problem for even casual players. I'd take further on these matter, but I'll keep it simple since I'd probably ramble on to long. The AI can't survive at all would be better off dead. They are a complete waste of Grade. The Strategy menu is damn near useless and lacks additional options. Even when you turn off specific artes, the AI is still completely dumb. The combo system is absolutely trash. Combos drop in this game are worst than a player trying to combo Khroma Dragon from Tales of Vesperia. The rock-paper-scissors mechanic will be ignored from time to time to give the enemy a fighting chance. The SC meter is basically a poorly-done GUTS meter from Star Ocean 3. The skills are universal. Sounds helpful, except skills like Appealing Guard, once equipped, applies to everyone. Leveling up is only useful for artes and titles. The game, for some reason, drops your EXP growth at higher difficulty levels. Ignoring the Double/Triple skills, you can play on Hard Mode and higher for good item drops and switch an easier difficulty to get your normal EXP growth and obtain artes and titles faster. I don't need to say much about the camera. Even Dezel can see how crappy it is. It only gets worse with multiplayer, which gives you the ability to control the camera manually. Graphics/Framerate:Graphics are not really important to me. Frames are somewhat different. Truth be told, I can survive with dropped frames. As long as the frames are not dropping like a laggy online match or the characters are not moving like Bubsy on the norm, then it is all fair game. By the way, if the camera is zoomed out far enough, the characters move like Bubsy. In conclusion, this game would be fine if it was NOT a Tales game, but in my opinion, it is mediocre at best. As a Tales game, it has standards to live up to as it is part of the series that brought us Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, and Tales of Vesperia. This series reminds me of a certain game's Conquest Ending. Without competition, there can be no growth. Maybe this series needs competition. Hopefully Star Ocean is good, because if it is, then maybe some serious zest iria will be brought back into the series and we can get another Tales game around the level of Tales of Vesperia PS3.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Nov 16, 2015 7:52:38 GMT -5
I've not finished the game yet, but I mostly agree with the flaws you have pointed out. I've really liked the micromanagement aspect of the game though. Combat's fine, the idea of skipping through the combo chain with quickstepping was a good one. I'm too busy to go too in-depth with the feesback but I might give my thoughts on the story/characters/world building and about the game as a whole, when I'm done with these assignments, which I should be doing instead of postibg here.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 7, 2015 3:45:39 GMT -5
The following will probably be an essay. One typed rather quickly at 1:30 in the morning, because I just finished and feel the need to vomit out my thoughts. I apologize. Let's get to it then.
Story: I really have never cared much about the stories in Tales games. They're the light-hearted, feel-good silliness that I enjoy as a break from reading. I play video games to relax, so for the most part I couldn't care less that it's poorly written or falls apart in the third act or whatever. So on that note:
This was a mess.
Really, I was on board with it until about the moment when Rose came along. I'm not blaming Rose, but it was around that point that things started to fall apart. Malevolence sort of made sense, but then Rose came along with her, "I can be an assassin AND be pure" shtick that threw the whole thing out of whack. Further, almost everything that occurred pre-Rose: characters, events, and so on - just cease to matter. At first it seems like it's going the Abyss route: two warring countries offer the political human side, while also providing the driving force for the evil that's threatening the world. Okay, I have no problem with that, but the whole political thing just falls by the wayside in favour of exploring ruins. Seriously, you never even got to go inside Castle Pendrago!
But okay, I could complain all day, and as I already said, I don't care much about the story. At least it had a beginning, middle and end. That's not to say it's complete, just that it didn't end half-way through like Xillia.
Characters:
I liked Sorey. He might have been pretty generic Shounen protagonist, but his energy was just a fantastic relief after Jude, Milla and Ludger. Plus, I will give special credit for having everybody in the party seeming to have a reason for being there! THANK YOU! No Maliks, Pascals, Leias, or other tagalongs who don't have any roll other than to fill out the party's roster. I actually enjoyed the characters, though I won't say that certain personality quirks didn't get on my nerves (Lilah).
But. Nobody. Changed.
Part of the reason I like epic fantasy is because there's so much character change by the end of it that everyone really feels like different people. I loved it in Abyss and Vesperia (excluding Yuri, but that's a discussion for another time), and I think it could have worked out really well in Xillia in the original draft. Here it just does not happen. The cast is largely the same at the end of the game as they are when you first meet them, and that's kind of a bummer.
Also Rose is utter BS. I don't hate her character - I hate that the writers made it so that she's never wrong and has more agency of the story than the freaking hero. Honestly, Sorey cannot have a single shining moment without Rose there to set it up for him, and whenever things seem to be going wrong, Rose will show up and make them right. Not sure where to go next? Don't worry! Rose'll figure it out! Even the 'night before' scene in Lastonbell put its primary focus on Rose and Lilah. The eff? I dunno why Rose wasn't the Shepherd. Honest to god, the way the story presents her, Sorey didn't even need to be there for this whole thing to work.
Music:
For all people rave about Shina, I continue to dislike all of his songs that use vocals. Also I thought that Sakuraba's tracks were really good here. I especially loved the field tracks, and "Essence of Adventure is Exploration" is among my favourite period. Battle themes, on the other hand, were really forgettable.
Gameplay:
Zestiria's combat is extremely repetitive. Once I realised that I could armatize and spam O, O, -> O, Calamity Flare and end everything, it became stupid simple. Further, once I figured out I could use normans and dangerous encounters to put enemies at level 100+ and get Adamantine gear from them pre-earth shrine, the game might as well have been over. I played all the way through on hard, and I didn't want to bump the difficulty up because I understand it places more emphasis on the fusion system, which seems like the most grindy pants-on-head mess.
Seamless battles never interested me from the start, but in this case they suck. They force all the dungeons into the same mixture of hallways and open-spaces, because you NEED open spaces to accommodate this type of battle system. As such, it makes the dungeons layouts resemble something more like a randomly-generated rogue-like dungeon than something that a person actually designed.
I'm glad the environments have evolved past the blobs of Xillia, but they're very bland. I'm not an expert on what it takes to make a world interesting, but the landscape needed more of a sense of personality to really make it stand out. I was stoked that it was going back to pure fantasy, but the environments really are generic European architecture and design. I know they were going for the Arthurian legends thing, but good god did it just manifest in the most boring towns, which is almost a feat when there are so few of them to begin with.
Graphics:
Sure were.
Other Thoughts:
Sadly, I think that even if Zestiria was given say, an enhanced port that fixed the camera, changed/removed the equipment system, and added more scenes to better flesh out the story, I still don't think I'd rate it a lot higher. The combat and bland environments really hold it back. For the first 10 or so hours, I was enjoying myself, genuinely perplexed as to how anyone could hate the game. But as it went on, the gameplay didn't change, and after a while the flaws became noticeable through repetition. It does some things well, but these fundamental things cripple it really badly.
Maybe Destiny R or Graces just tickle people the right way, but I pray to god Udo doesn't come back for Berseria. In fact, on the note of Berseria: I really don't think Zestiria deserved the hate Japan gave it. It definitely lacks in terms of a 'Tales' game, but as just a JRPG it's actually quite good. But, at the same time, I'm almost glad it happened, because sometimes 'good' isn't enough. I enjoyed my time with Zestiria, and I'll probably pick it up again at some point, but relative to the other games in the series, it's just not enough. However, with the massive outcry (and competition from Star Ocean 5), they just might deliver on the pressure to create something truly great. So that's how I'll walk away from Zestiria: a flawed game that nonetheless leaves me optimistic for the future of the series.
Wait, wasn't Berseria the one with the emo pirates?
Well, shit.
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lynnie
Oracle Knight
Posts: 124
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Post by lynnie on Dec 27, 2015 20:22:17 GMT -5
Really, I was on board with it until about the moment when Rose came along. I haven't finished the game but...my major issue is with some characters...especially Rose. I've never had legit problems with TALES characters but christ I dislike Rose and her writing. But not as much as my brother's gf- she hates her a lot. The entire gameplay (since we play with her) is her dragging Rose. For the characters in general........they're weren't outstanding but I did like a few of them. I really liked Mikleo, Alisha and Zavied.
The multiplayer aspect is crap. That camera hates me and my family.
Story wise? It's alright. But like the bae I quoted said, I was on board until ....yeah.
I'm hoping the emo pirates will be better tbh- I was hoping for a bara 2nd lead but lmao we got a shota.
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MIDI/Analysis
Half-Elf
Negrosaki is underrated.....So is Nujubes and Shing02.
Posts: 23
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Post by MIDI/Analysis on Mar 17, 2016 15:01:34 GMT -5
I have a long review of my final thoughts of this game coming sooner or later this week. I have played all versions of the game but I will be focusing on the PS3 version(thats the one I played way more).
But I will say this, it's better than Graces Wii, I'll give you that.
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MIDI/Analysis
Half-Elf
Negrosaki is underrated.....So is Nujubes and Shing02.
Posts: 23
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Post by MIDI/Analysis on Apr 10, 2016 14:26:23 GMT -5
Okay, Here it is. It's not a long review but lets bring down the hamma son.
STORY:
Hmm....This was something I struggled a bit on this. It started off strong, then started to drop. The point where it started to fail for me was after the trials. Personally, certain plot points for me just didn't do it. The one with Maltran and the sword was never brought up again, like wut? You just left it out? Anyways, the story was "ok" for me. Despite the flaws, I did enjoy it much more than Hearts(both R and DS). I think it's an average story but nothing terrible to me. It's decent enough and it has it's moments. Best moment for me was the ending. Really well done IMO.
Oh yeah the story is kinda a mess, lol. Like for real doh, it can just go crazy for no reason.
MUSIC:
Shina and Sakuraba really did well on this track. For one, I think the vocals are a great addition to Zestiria. Not to tales as a whole but to games like Legendia did a wonderful job with vocals. It made the game have more of an "Umph" kinda feel. Best theme is Zaveids And the fire temple. Such hyped up and exciting themes that it just kept my blood pumpin. Honestly, Zestiria and Legendia have my favorite OST in tales. They give this "Big and Epic Thematic" feel to it. I would love for a return to something like this again in tales. Another thing about the music is it's implementation. Since Zestiria is seamless, the music doesn't even cut to battle BGM in certain places. Like in Fire temple, how the music stays in place was a nice little thing. So yeah, music was perfect for me.
Characters:
Aight, so the characters....They were good. They had great interactions with each other. I liked that. One thing that was kinda annoying was Laliahs little "can't talk now" cliches. But she did it at least in a much more charming way so I guess I can give it a pass... Another thing I noticed were how the characters liked to joke with each other a lot. I thought that was nice to see them always toying with each other and the occasional Laliah's Brain Virus" moments were always a joy to watch. My favorite characters were Dezel, Laliah, Mikeo, Alisha, Edna and Zavied. Sorey was cool, he was a bit generic but at least he wasn't the dumb farmboi trope("Kor"). Rose was a good character but just not written into the story all that great. I didn't like her chippy attitude so much really. Especially since she's an assassin but she had great interactions. My least favorite, still good doh.
GAMEPLAY:
Ehhhh....I'm with Clip on this one. I think now with Berseria, I would like to see some Innocence R like LMBS(not Hearts R, that game was vanilla) or something of a return of the strategic tales games like Rebirth or Destiny 2.
Now for the gameplay, it was decent as a tales game. For a JRPG, I thought it was good. The gameplay was still action packed, slower but still at a fast pace. What I disliked about it mainly was the artimization despite it being fun, it took away from what moves other characters could have had and have been MUCH more unique(See Frubams video with Kamui artes on Edna) BTW Mik-Boi's Kamui is just spammy. Least liked Kamui form. So to continue, the gameplay to me was better than Graces Wii(F gets a free pass because it got some buffs) I could get to Arte tiers easier just by sidestepping, which was a big plus for me and spells had less end lag after cast(from my memory of Graces) and spell canceling became a bit more relevant and helpful early game, restarting your combo. Side stepping was also better here than Graces was and free was was well, free. The SC meter is a hit or miss. I like it but CC is a little bit better.. With SC, keeping the meter high and not wasting it gave you certain buffs like having more attack strength, meter fills faster and status effect towards enemies are more prominent. I liked that, but the game doesn't make it seemingly apart of the games mechanics and is a little ignored.
I also enjoyed the Martial arte>Arcane arte thing. It was an interesting mechanic and saved my life multiple times using the mechanic. It was a bit difficult to get used to but the pay off was nice.
The BG. I really liked it. It was such a relief that I can use MA's on my own account and not by the Eleth meter(yeah I know, you can use combos but it can only be used once per battle) or Link meter. The "Blast Combos" was a nice feature. Extending combos was an aspect I thought helped the flow of battles. Now I know it know adds this "4 action limit" which I was confused why it was implemented because graces didn't have this but I think they did "okay" with it. It's not something I agree with but the BG extension and skipping arte trees did keep it from being a total fail.
The Skill system was something I don't want again if it's gonna be flawed like this. I do however, like some of the aspects of it. Like the skill board being tied to the periodic table was cool and I liked adding on skills and getting different results. What was just terrible was the RNG. I very much disliked the RNG factor and did make the skill system almost not worth doing but I really liked the skill board and I wanted to give it a chance. It was a very creative system, just surrounded by flaws of obtaining them. Also, the fusion was okay. Nothing amazing but nothing bad to me.
Battle actions were the only thing I felt that was perfect in execution. Wasn't complicated to where they didn't have time to fix it and wasn't hollow to feel like it doesn't do much in battle. It adds more gameplay variety.
My last and main gripe were how little the spells were. It was a real downer, because I know Kamui has the other cool spells on them them but it takes away from the other characters. The spells themselves were good actually. Was surprised to see the Freeze Lancer from Rebirth, that was interesting. Favorite onse was Edna's Trigger artes. Gotta say, that was really unique. Could really do some nice set up combos with her.
GRAPHICS:
They were pretty good for a PS3 title. The character models were in much more detail than the past few tales games like Xillia and Graces F. Environments had a much better color than Xillia and contrast and the Mo-Cap wasn't awkward like in DOTNW and Graces.
The open areas thing that is now in tales is something that needs improvement. I think they did okay here. It's a step up from Xillias areas and graphics and a step up from Graces but there is still some blandness in it and a bit hollow. Still, there was stuff worth exploring.
Graphics were good in my case and there were some really nice architecture and enemy designs(Thanks to Team Destiny).
FINAL VERDICT:
The game suffered from story elements, mechanics, iffy camera and characterization but I really felt that Zestiria wasn't rushed like Xillia was or a pander product like Xilla 2 I did feel that the developers really wanted to make this a comeback, but sorta fell flat and/or whoever was in charge of the decisions of Zestiria's development, really didn't have all that good direction(of course, this is just from what I feel, I could be very wrong). I felt that this was a step forward in tales, just a very flawed one. Very good creative concepts, some were good but a lot of them were really meh.
All in all, I think this is a good game. It's just as a tales game, it really needed some more work. Especially for an anniversary title.
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