Support NeoGAF

[belgurdo]

I had a convo with a guy who always takes the road not taken. He argued that the story was pretty good from what he saw of it, but the characters and dialogue sucked. He said it wasn't realistic, like when Collete got wings, that they just accepted it and moved on. Or when Kratos joined the party, nobody questioned why the Merc. should be there.

I argued that the Z skits made it even more realistic since people usually have doubts and hold things back and strike up conversations in the middle of travelling to discuss something on their minds, but he disagreed.

That's something that also bugged me too, how the party will just shrug off things like Angel Toxicosis and the rampant racism in Tethealla, but go nuts over stuff like Regal touching Presea after making it more than clear that he wants to see what's wrong with her and possibly wanting to help. :\ I also REALLY hated how black and white everyone in the game is about EVERYTHING...ALL half-elves have to be evil; every plan is certain to work on the first try; Dirk or Raine can solve everything, and other stuff like that. It's not realistic.

But the Z skits help the story immensly, since we don't get a hell of a lot about the characters' motivations from the main plot alone.

 

[AniHawk]

Well I pointed it out because he didn't seem to mind in FFX where everyone was just okay with whatever happened to Yuna, except for the main character (and Rikku). Raine seemed to be like Lulu in the game- didn't want to tell Lloyd exactly what was happening, Kratos knew what was gonna happen, and wouldn't tell Lloyd, obviously, and Genis didn't know. Lloyd had to figure it out himself, and he did. I think the way it was revealed to him was very realistic, and for the rest of the game he's kicking himself for all the suffering Collete had to go through.

I don't get you comment about how all the half-elves have to be evil. The Pope is the one who put all the Apartheid-like laws on the half-elves and made all the humans think they were worthless mutts. The elves had their own reason for hating half-elves too, but I only have it in theory.

Plus, not all the plans did work on the first try. They screwed up a LOT and got sidetracked a LOT. They had to go through several things until they finally got a chance to regenerate the world.

 

[Vargas]

I had a convo with a guy who always takes the road not taken. He argued that the story was pretty good from what he saw of it, but the characters and dialogue sucked. He said it wasn't realistic, like when Collete got wings, that they just accepted it and moved on. Or when Kratos joined the party, nobody questioned why the Merc. should be there.

I argued that the Z skits made it even more realistic since people usually have doubts and hold things back and strike up conversations in the middle of travelling to discuss something on their minds, but he disagreed.

This guy also HATES SoA and LOVES KH and FFX.

I actually agree with him about Kratos though. It never made sense to me that he just popped up out of nowhere to join the party. I think that they could have handled his introductiona bit better.


One thing that I want to know though, how I remove this pirate outsit that Lloyd is wearing? It looked cool at first but I just don't like it any more.

 

[belgurdo]

I don't get you comment about how all the half-elves have to be evil. The Pope is the one who put all the Apartheid-like laws on the half-elves and made all the humans think they were worthless mutts. The elves had their own reason for hating half-elves too, but I only have it in theory.

Plus, not all the plans did work on the first try. They screwed up a LOT and got sidetracked a LOT. They had to go through several things until they finally got a chance to regenerate the world.

I was talking about the characters' state of mind...until they were told the reasons, they automatically assumed that all half-elves/Desians were evil and never thought about any reasons as to why save for a Z skit or two, and they never seemed to have a backup plan for anything until something actually went wrong, like they were so cocksure of success initially that they just left everything to chance instead of having a readily available "plan B" at the onset of their ideas.

 

[AniHawk]

I actually agree with him about Kratos though. It never made sense to me that he just popped up out of nowhere to join the party. I think that they could have handled his introductiona bit better.


One thing that I want to know though, how I remove this pirate outsit that Lloyd is wearing? It looked cool at first but I just don't like it any more.

Change Lloyd's status to something other than "arggh, me hearties."

And you agree with Magus on something? There's a first.

 

[Stele]

How far would I be in the game if I just got to the part where

Spoiler

Rodyle kidnapped Colette

? Lloyd for me is around lv. 43 right now.

 

[AniHawk]

I was talking about the characters' state of mind...until they were told the reasons, they automatically assumed that all half-elves/Desians were evil and never thought about any reasons as to why save for a Z skit or two, and they never seemed to have a backup plan for anything until something actually went wrong, like they were so cocksure of success initially that they just left everything to chance instead of having a readily available "plan B" at the onset of their ideas.

Spoiler

"Just in case the tree turns into a giant monster and tries to kill everything, we should have a backup plan to revive the giant seed"
"Okay!"

They were pretty much playing it by ear. I don't see people bitching about FFX or KH because the main characters never had a plan B for stopping Sin or KH's villain (I know the name, but it's a spoiler so I wont say).

 

[AniHawk]

How far would I be in the game if I just got to the part where

Spoiler

Rodyle kidnapped Colette

? Lloyd for me is around lv. 43 right now.

70%-75% complete. You're almost there. For me, it was an extra 23 hours from that moment though since I ended up taking my time.

 

[Jupiter Jones]

How far would I be in the game if I just got to the part where

Spoiler

Rodyle kidnapped Colette

? Lloyd for me is around lv. 43 right now.

I'm a few dungeons past that and I'm still on disk one.

 

[Stele]

Yeah, lol, is the second disc real short or something?

 

[AniHawk]

Yeah, lol, is the second disc real short or something?

It's roughly 20-30% of the game.

 

[Gruco]

I also REALLY hated how black and white everyone in the game is about EVERYTHING...ALL half-elves have to be evil; every plan is certain to work on the first try; Dirk or Raine can solve everything, and other stuff like that.

Like AniHawk, I just totally don't get where this is even coming from. There was a ton of skits about the characters second-guessing themselves, and being challenged of their various assumptions.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I think he's talking more about the characters outside of the party thinking that all half-elves are bad. I found it to be heavily realistic. Just take Zelos' quote from a skit for instance, about his personal prejudice against half-elves:

"Knowing that it's wrong yet not being able to shake it off is what discrimination is all about."

And that's completely correct. The discrimination in the game is really an accurate representation of how it was in the real world up until the last 50-100 years or so. And even now, it still exists like it does in the game, though on a smaller scale.

The theme of discrimination in the game is serious, and accurately portrayed.

 

[Shouta]

Discrimination was a theme in the game but I didn`t especially latch on to it (nor did the game seem to make it a strong focus) not like I did with Arc The Lad: TotS.

That said, Tales games are often notorious for not asking questions of big issues and shrugging it off for the standard anime spiel like X person accidently touching/kissing/hugging person Y and thereafter overreaction.

 

[AniHawk]

Anyone who's seen the extra endings... are they worth it? If they aren't could you tell me in spoilers, please?

 

[Bebpo]

Anyone who's seen the extra endings... are they worth it? If they aren't could you tell me in spoilers, please?

If you have a save before the snow scene then yes it's worth it for the differences. But if you have to start from far back than probably not worth it unless you have free time.

 

[AniHawk]

If you have a save before the snow scene then yes it's worth it for the differences. But if you have to start from far back than probably not worth it unless you have free time.

I have a save

Spoiler

way back to when Rodyle kidnaps Collete.

I'll be replaying it with my sister soon because she stopped to read Jane Eyre at that point, and didn't return for the rest of the game.

So what do I need to do?

 

[Bebpo]

I have a save

Spoiler

way back to when Rodyle kidnaps Collete.

I'll be replaying it with my sister soon because she stopped to read Jane Eyre at that point, and didn't return for the rest of the game.

So what do I need to do?

Spoiler

It's been like a year since I've played ToS, so check a FAQ to be sure but I think if you don't answer the knocks at the door in the snow town you get the Zelos ending, but if you do answer the door you get the Kratos ending. Although I may have that backwards. It's actually best if you save before the door knock scene anyway because it's fun to go through the scenes with each of the girls.

 

[AniHawk]

Spoiler

It's been like a year since I've played ToS, so check a FAQ to be sure but I think if you don't answer the knocks at the door in the snow town you get the Zelos ending, but if you do answer the door you get the Kratos ending. Although I may have that backwards. It's actually best if you save before the door knock scene anyway because it's fun to go through the scenes with each of the girls.

Thank you.

 

[Socreges]

I played about the first two hours at my friend's (who rented the game). Very, very meh.

+ beautiful outdoor environments
+ dialogue is decent
+ some of the music was nice

- not fond of the character design. some of the "adults" (deep voices and treating other characters as kids) look like children. never been a fan of standard anime, either
- combat is very uninspired (of course it gets deeper, but from what i played it was very boring and repetitive. btw, can you pan the camera out for multiplayer battles?)
- why are the dwarves scottish??
- story was uninteresting.
- the voice acting is definitely good, but its dubbed poorly or something. was not engaging - hurt the cinematics.

I'm sure I would have come to enjoy it if I invested more hours, but that's the case with practically any RPG. I need to be pulled in from the beginning.

 

[siege]

I'm 9 hours in and I still don't like it. There isn't one redeeming quality in the game I can think of. However, the game has recieved so much praise on here, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and sticking with it.

I hope it gets ALOT better.

 

[Mirk]

I am 32 hours in. I haven't made it to disk 2 yet.
This is a great game. Has to be the first RPG this year
I have really got into, that and I have mono right now
so I got lots of time. I have 1 question thou can you do
things in any order you want?

Spoiler

My bro went to the Mana Temple and the
wind one before ever sailing off
to palamwhatever.

 

[AeroGod]

I dont see how people complain about the game at all. Im about 2 hours into the second disk and its already one of the best RPGs ive played in awhile. Especially once you get into it and the combat really gets intense with all the high lvl attacks.

 

[satterfield]

Just finished myself. I have to admit, it's the first RPG I've polished off in quite a while. But man, I took a lot longer than many of you. I was around 60 hours without using a guide of any sort. I fought over 2000 encounters and by the time I finished the game I had enough money and potions to fight 20 end game bosses. I guess I was overly cautious.

I loved the combat. I can't handle turn-based stuff much anymore and this is a nice compromise between action game and RPG. It's what I thought Virtua Fighter Quest was going to be when it was first announced. The weapons and magic were just deep enough without going out of bounds and the game balance was deadly addictive. I also disliked the summon system, though.

The story, while pretty good for a video game, was still fairly retarded. Which is a testament to the failure of video games in general to tell a decent story. The premise was fine and I have to admit that I would have never guessed a few of the plot twists, but damn, the lines were delivered so poorly that it ruined it. The sappy writing didn't help, either. It also suffers from the Metal Gear Solid syndrome where it beats you over the head with morality until you want to commit a felony. My bass guitar has a sticker of a KKK dude hanging from a tree, but if I have to hear one more line about elf persecution I'm gonna vomit.

Another nitpick I have is with the presentation. The art in this game was generally butt, and despite many of the worlds consisting of simple platforms suspended above bitmaps the game would still stutter at times. Why wasn't there more FMV? The second disc is barely half full, but then the characters looked so different in the anime that I had problems identifying them, anyway.

Despite these qualms, this game is completely carried by its gameplay and I enjoyed it to the very end. If there were a game with this battle system with improved presentation and a theme targeted at adults, you might create a whole new generation of RPG players.

 

[duderon]

but if I have to hear one more line about elf persecution I'm gonna vomit.

It's half-elf persecution

Anyway, i thought this game was great and i think people should not take it as seriously as they seem to be. Sure the story is not great and the writing is poor, but the game does have it's lighthearted moments. For god sakes it's a video game, not a big budget movie. The battle system is solid and the dungeons are fun, plus there are many, many sidequests. The last reasons are why i'm going through this game for a second time, and why others should look closer at the attention to detail for some things in the game.

 

[Prospero]

I'm now 15 hours into this game, and I keep going back and forth with it. There are good things about it, but damn it, it has so many serious flaws that every time I go back to it I feel like I'm wasting my time. Just yesterday I'd said I was going to stick to it and finish the game off; now I'm back to thinking I can't be bothered.

The battle system is interesting for a while, but by a certain point in the game it's pretty clear that there's not going to be a whole lot more strategic complexity than what you get from the Unison Attacks. Like another person said above, you're just "mashing out combos," ultimately, and the combos in the game aren't exactly VF4 quality. Fiddling around in the Tech and EX Skills menus is supposed to give you the illusory feeling of working up a strategy, but when one strategy works just as well as another (I don't think I've lost a single battle since the very first boss at the Seal of Fire, even when I tried to come up with strategies to deliberately cripple my own AI), why bother.

What's worse than that, and what makes me think of shelving the game until I can put it on eBay, is the shaggy-dog-story gameplay. It's clear that the bulk of the 60-80 hours of gameplay comes from backtracking, through areas that weren't all that visually interesting in the first place. There are needless detours and fetch quests all over the place that add nothing to the narrative, are mandatory to move the narrative forward, and are just artificially created timesinks. Not to mention that one of the dungeons actually has a teleportation puzzle, which involves trial-and-error warping through a number of almost identical rooms--I didn't have time for that, and it was straight to GameFAQs for me as soon as I saw what that was about.

This would've been the perfect game for me if I were fourteen years old and killing time during summer vacation. But with three hours of precious free time each evening after I get home from work, pay the bills, and make dinner, and Fire Emblem and Combat Mission 2 waiting to be played, it's getting harder and harder to justify giving more time to ToS.

 

[AeroGod]

I actually liked the story alot, even if it was cliched I thought it was great, one of the better ones infact. I guess it helps that im a gigantic anime fan, but whatever. The little Z scenes were great I think and made me really wish that they would make this game into an anime series The one scene where everyone tries to use Genis' kendama and they end up hitting Raine in the head. LOL I had no problems with any of the script or lines either, and I though the voice acting was spot on. I didnt hear one thing I didnt like. All the summon spirits VA's are really great and each different pertaining to their personality. Zelos and Regal are also great characters. Zelos' pimp like character was a great little comic bit and the mystery surronding Regal and Presea I liked also.

I really liked the art and design also. The weakest I thought actually was Llyod, but it was at least passible. 99% of the enemy design was fantastic also, I would even say its some of the best Ive ever seen. You have your plain stuff like the hawks and bunnies wolfs and stuff, nothing special. The summon spirits are really great though. Efreet and Shadow are awesome looking. Some of the regualr enemies also just have so much detail to them. Like the human magic casters like the Sorcerer and later in the game the Druids. They have dons of detail to them with little side weapons and all kinds of things, the VA's for their character when they cast spells really are great also. The monster design overall is just amazing, the only thing that felt weak were some of the plant based monster, nothing really interesting going on there.

I didnt really like the summon spirit system, they could have thought of something better to keep it from being too powerful. I mean, you hardly even use it because Sheena(at least for me) rarely hits her over limit and when she does it might be at a totally useless time. Its totally out of your control.

Awesome game, and im not even finished yet. Id definatly rank in among the top 5 RPGs ive ever played. I loved pretty much everything about it.

 

[AeroGod]

The battle system is interesting for a while, but by a certain point in the game it's pretty clear that there's not going to be a whole lot more strategic complexity than what you get from the Unison Attacks. Like another person said above, you're just "mashing out combos," ultimately, and the combos in the game aren't exactly VF4 quality

Thats the thing with most RPGs like this. You dont have to make a strategy, just keep up with the leveling and you'll be strong enough to take on most things without and real challenge or strategy needed.

Its not a strategy RPG though, so what were you expecting. Maybe you should try playing on the harder difficult setting and that will require you to think about what each characters role should be more and more. In general though, all of these types of RPGs are like this. Run in to battle throw down your most pwer attacks and heal with your spells and potions untill the battle is over.

It doesnt sound like you like the game very much either

 

[Scott]

I have 1 question thou can you do
things in any order you want?

Yeah, but only at certain times in the game.

I actually made a post about it here, and the example I gave about the port town is exactly what you're talking about. So if you want to know where/when that path branches, there ya go.

 

[Prospero]

Thats the thing with most RPGs like this. You dont have to make a strategy, just keep up with the leveling and you'll be strong enough to take on most things without and real challenge or strategy needed.

Its not a strategy RPG though, so what were you expecting. Maybe you should try playing on the harder difficult setting and that will require you to think about what each characters role should be more and more. In general though, all of these types of RPGs are like this. Run in to battle throw down your most pwer attacks and heal with your spells and potions untill the battle is over.

It doesnt sound like you like the game very much either

It's not so much that I don't like the game, as that the flaws it has keep me from enjoying the things I do like about it. I like the character designs and voice acting, for example, and even though the story isn't Dostoevsky or anything, it's reasonably interesting and not as bad as some would have you believe, once you get to the parts that aren't exact duplicates of similar plot points from

Spoiler

Final Fantasy X

. The optional Z-skits help a lot here--you get the feeling after a while that the characters are somewhat more complex than your average RPG characters, even though they fit into standard stereotypes.

It's true that in the past few years I've played every SPRG I could get my hands on, and relatively few RPGs by comparison, so I might be prejudiced toward those. But even Skies of Arcadia Legends and FFX required at least a little more strategic planning in order to progress--there were bosses that weren't beatable unless you used specific spells in a certain sequence, e.g. Level grinding was definitely a big part of both of those games, but it wasn't the whole game, as I often feel it is with ToS.

 

[MrCheez]

Too much back-tracking? When you get the Rhehairds it takes all of 2 seconds to cross

Spoiler

BOTH

maps. And I don't reacall fetch quests at all, it was constant new dungeons and areas for 60 hours, for me. =P

And yes there isn't much strategy, but I'm sorry, 90% of RPGs do not have any startegy at all really. You offer FFX and Skies as examples, but I found myself gliding through those battles half-asleep (though I still like both those games overall). At least with Tales real-time battles you're having fun (or at least you should be) instead of mindlessly choosing stuff from a menu over and over. SRPGs are a different animal, as you said, but I can't find anything about Tales' setup that isn't superior to almost every other RPG out there, IMO. 8)

 

[GaimeGuy]

Mania difficulty.

1/2 EXP

Low HP


Now let's see you guys talk about lack of strategy.

 

[MrCheez]

Been meaning to try that actually. 8) Looking forward to it.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Seriously, you'll get owned by the guys you fight led by Botta before you even enter the martel temple, if you aren't careful. It's that hard.

 

[Diomedeskun]

I read most of a book while repeatedly mashing the A button during Skies of Arcadia (DC, not Legends) every time I got into a battle. Later on, I could open the battle with an attack that hit all enemies for about half of the HP they had at that point and then tap A while waiting for my characters to run around.

RPGs like Valkyrie Profile require strategy. Even Legend of Dragoon, which I dislike above all other RPGs I have ever played, had more strategy (attack, block to heal, repeat x3, attack, swear at the attack gauge) Unless Skies of Arcadia Legends is vastly different from Skies of Arcadia, there is no strategy to be found in the game's foot battles. The ship battles, though poorly executed, do have some strategy.

 

[Socreges]

FFX's battle system had lots of strategy. But it often wasn't challenging enough to force players to use it. Unless, that is, you did some of the sidequests. Which were extremely difficult and intense, for the most part.

One of FFX's biggest flaws was the poor difficulty balance.

 

[Prospero]

Too much back-tracking? When you get the Rhehairds it takes all of 2 seconds to cross

Spoiler

BOTH

maps. And I don't reacall fetch quests at all, it was constant new dungeons and areas for 60 hours, for me. =P

Oh, come on. There are parts of this game that have as much backtracking and fetch-questing as Wind Waker. I just finished going to the Thoda Geyser for the third time--

--the first time to get the

Spoiler

Spiritua Statue

--the second time to

Spoiler

break the Water Seal

(and at this point Lloyd says, "If I'd noticed the

Spoiler

oracle stone

here the first time, we wouldn't have had to leave and come back!" Ha ha, Lloyd--what a funny fellow!)

--and the third time to finish

Spoiler

Pietro's

shaggy-dog fetch quest. Because in order to

Spoiler

heal Pietro

you have to get the

Spoiler

Boltzmann Book

in the

Spoiler

Tower of Mana

, but once once you have it, you find out that in order to use it you have to get the

Spoiler

Unicorn Horn

from

Spoiler

Lake Umacy

, but once you get there you find out that in order to get that you have to go back to Thoda Geyser to

Spoiler

beat the new boss that could be bothered to show up the second time you were there.

And you don't have Rhehairds for any of this, either. (And at this point Kratos has the nerve to say, "This is quite a detour!" Hee hee, Kratos--what a funny fellow!)

Sure, you can argue that fetch quests and backtracking are a convention of the genre, but that doesn't make them good conventions, and the better RPGs tend not to have them.

As for the difficulty--I'll accept that the game may be more challenging on a harder difficulty.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Well, I had to go to the Thoda geyser only two times: I got the Spiritua statue, went through the dungoen while I was there, and then came back to get Undine later. Since all the routes were already opened, reaching Undine took like 30 seconds.

Hardly THAT much backtracking.

If you missed the oracle stone, that's your fault.

 

[Orin GA]

Yea, the only places you really had to back track were the seals, and then it took like 30 seconds just to get to end of the damed thing because all the puzzles were already done. Jeeze some of you complain about every little thing. WHAT! Backtracking in an RPG. Welcome to decades ago

 

[Buggy Loop]

Finished the game tonight at 59 hours

Would've of liked to play and lvl further but with the grade points, i've bought exp x2 and more grade points, Abyssion will be mine on the 2nd playthrought I also missed tons of stuffs originally, like the sword dancers.

Awesome game, I'll be holding this as one of my favorite RPG this gen, a definite keeper in my collection. Battle system had me hooked from beginning to end, unlike FFX, xenosaga or Skies of arcadia when when i had to lvl, i would just repeatedly smash the action button through the menus and fighting the same enemies over and over with the same technics, overpowered as hell, boring like you cant believe, for all 3 of these games i took a few months break near the end boss too, must have been a good 5 months before i went back in FFX to beat sin, and its not because it was hard, Anima wacked the final boss with a couple of 99 999 dmg attack, yawn.

Voice acting in SoA was better than i expected, its mostly bad in the first few hours, its as if the actors didnt know exactly what was going on in the scene, the emotions were off for some of them. But i found it to be getting better and better. I was expecting much worst, it doesnt hurt the story or dialogue in any way. Story was full of twists, yet cliche and with some really cheesy lines, especially when it gets into the subject of fairness and how everyone has the right to live, blah blah, still overall, better than any japanese RPG i've played this gen.

Heck, it must be the first RPG in years that i've played for so long in a matter of days without dropping it toward the end, and im actually looking forward to playing it a 2nd time rather than putting it back in its case and put it alongside games i havent played for a long time.

Its not flawless by any mean, but it offered a really fun experience to me.

Now for my revenge on Abyssion..

 

[GaimeGuy]

Abyssion, on mania difficulty, at level 70 = MINE! >)