Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
It's just weird-looking.
And Tales threads on GAF are always so serious! C'mon. The series isn't meant to be taken so seriously. It's the equivalent of RPG junk food. (And I'm saying that!)
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Sonic the Hedgehog Community Thread: Green Hills and Laughing Iizukas
- Thread starter Professor Beef
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It's just weird-looking.
And Tales threads on GAF are always so serious! C'mon. The series isn't meant to be taken so seriously. It's the equivalent of RPG junk food. (And I'm saying that!)
Nocturnowl
Member
Is the thread really that serious? looks pretty chill to me, sometimes I think some of you have got some sort of elevated hostility/creeper vision going on that heightens unpleasantness by like 50%.
I admit this sounds a bit rude but this is becoming a frequent event around here I feel.
I admit this sounds a bit rude but this is becoming a frequent event around here I feel.
I most certainly have this. If I look on youtube comments I break out in hives.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
This is more of an observation of multiple Tales threads than that one. The current thread is fine.
I'm just observing that people view Tales narratives differently. It's just kinda interesting because Tales narratives and characterizations are typically poor. Half the time I crack jokes about them because I don't really take them seriously, but other people genuinely discuss as though the narratives are seriously written when they're truly a series of anime tropes woven into a narrative. Even Xillia 2's narrative is like that, despite being one of the best Tales narratives in a while. That's why it's sorta interesting that people loved Symphonia's characters despite some of them being... well... characterizations you've seen in anime and other games before.
YT comments are the bottom of the barrel.
Nocturnowl
Member
Even a master of mindfulness with the capacity to forgive the worlds worst horrors would wince at youtube comments.
Well that makes more sense then.
The best thing about discussing Tales narratives is how middling they are, that's what makes picking them apart fun, plus you can still debate which plot gets to be the one eyed king in the valley of the blind.
Shadow Hog
Member
Clearly, we need to give them Tales Doll.
Its eyes go "schllluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurpy"
Its eyes go "schllluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurpy"
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
The series already has its own "Tails Doll" equivalent. It's a mascot called Viva-kun that's used for Tales Channel specials.
PhantomOfTheKnight
Member
Hazardous to your health and only meant to be snacked on every once and a while but no one cares? No wonder obesity is such a big problem!
PhantomOfTheKnight
Member
Me neither, and I could honestly care less about the series.
Shadow Hog
Member
^ So you do care! 
I own Symphonia, but it couldn't hold my interest. Got up to (or through?) some kind of desert area before I stopped playing it. It didn't seem bad, though...
I own Symphonia, but it couldn't hold my interest. Got up to (or through?) some kind of desert area before I stopped playing it. It didn't seem bad, though...
Why does Sonic always gotta look angry?
Omg I want these
I haven't played a Tales game either but I'm following an LP of Tales of Eternia and Tales of Graces at the moment and that's got me in the mood to try one. I think I'm just gonna go with Xilia whenever that comes out since it's the newest one.
Aaron Strife
Banned
I always liked playing as Tails Doll.
He would just glide across the course.
He would just glide across the course.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Aha, well, kinda. It's certainly not the metric I'd use to judge the genre overall despite the battle system being really good and the diversity of its sidequest content. Narrative-wise, depending on the game you're playing, it really is like junk food.
The likes of some of Idea Factory and Compile Heart's games are just bad food in general.
It gets better; I wasn't feeling it at that point either. In fact, I don't think I even liked the game until the second half of it. I'd played SFC Phantasia and PSX Eternia first, and neither worked well with me until I'd played Symphonia MP. I like the presentation, the music, and the dungeons (which, believe it or not, are some of the better dungeon designs in the series).
Depending on the player, MP can probably make Tales games worthwhile. I tried to play Tales MP with my boyfriend and it didn't work out so well because I kept telling him that he was playing the game wrong. :x
...Choose Vesperia as your first over Xillia, mostly because Xillia is rather barebones game-design wise (the sidequests are basically fetch quests or extra dialogues, and since they made many of the normal costume rewards for sidequests paid DLC, there isn't much to the game to begin with), and everything and everyone is broken in that game. I wouldn't use it as the first Tales game for anyone at all. It's very streamlined. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that it wasn't localized, I'd use Tales of Destiny R as the perfect entry point for the series. It's soooooo goooooooooood.
Oddly enough, Xillia 2 might be a better fit for a first Tales game than the first Xillia despite its cruddy pacing.
I think I should just start Tales of Innocence R because I keep getting questions about it.
I don't see how these are bad things.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
There's a reason why some importers called it the "Final Fantasy XIII of Tales". I don't, for reference (though Xillia has a point where the game was obviously rushed and you're left wondering they left a lot of stuff on the Cutting Room Floor--which they did apparently), but a lot of people seemed to have done so the year it was released.
The negative streamlining in a sense has more to do with the ability system. I really disliked the Lillial Orb system in the long run because it's... a lot like the Crystarium System where you're offered the illusion of choice. You need to get the abilities that are surrounded by status upgrade nodes. You'll look for the most useful abilities and get the stats around them to acquire them. The abilities are going to change position as you go through each tier, and even if you skipped the previous tier where you didn't get the status you're still going to get every node to your disposal anyway because the best abilities are going to change positions with every tier. Coming off of the likes of Destiny R and Graces, I feel like it's incredibly boring and lacks variation or player choice.
The positive streamlining are the ability to quick travel after a certain point (which is really early in the game) and you may now quick save. I guess switching members in and out of battle would count, but this is something I happily embrace and was genuinely disappointed when Xillia 2 took that freedom away.
Anyway, I really dislike it when games are unbalanced in anyone's favour (even the player's--shit I hate grinding because it makes boss battles too easy so I don't do it). I want to retain a challenge on even the hardest difficulty setting available at the time. When you learn how to use the characters to your advantage, you may be able to dodge any attack at will (Jude), freerunning no longer has much of a penalty, solo the game with the entire character if you wanted to (Jude), (errrr, just noticed that these videos have a HUGE endgame spoiler in the related videos section so don't look at the sidebar if you click; maybe don't even click at all) get higher combos with little to no effort (with possibly a turbo controller in-hand... even going into overflow errors), and in turn the game become easier despite having broken/bad boss design. Everyone is broken in that game, right down to some of the bosses who use their OVL/hi-ougi at will just because they feel like it (this takes some pages out of Tales of Hearts's boss design, and honestly, boss design since then in Tales hasn't been that great at all). Tales really needs to work on its balancing because as of now, it's quite unsatisfactory.
So what, then, would I be coming to the series for if the main attraction is not very satisfying to me in terms of balancing? I certainly don't come to Tales for the story. I never have. Broken characters are fun to use sometimes, but then they make the game boring (and it doesn't help that everyone is broken to some extent). At least they gave Xillia 2 a speed/physics nerf to make the battles a little harder.
Speaking of physics/speed, Dimps made a Tales game. It was bad.
EDIT: Regardless, it's up to your discretion to choose whatever Tales game you want to start with. Xillia might be okay, but you'll miss some of its positive streamlining features like swapping people in and out of battle in other games if you wish to go back to them (like I do... ;__
.Nocturnowl
Member
Woah that critical post there is mean, but it's fair, in fact I and others will no longer be picking up Xillia anymore, the sales will suffer and the blood will be on your hands Schala.
and hopefully you get this is a throwback to that post you made a few days ago here, that said I don't have any plans for Xillia myself, £15 or bust!
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
I will be at fault for Namco Bandai's demise because I obviously hate Tales. I buy the games just so I could say I hate them. Take that, Namco! I'm giving you 8400 yens because I loathe you!
Nocturnowl
Member
Your yen wont save its future in the West!I will be at fault for Namco Bandai's demise because I obviously hate Tales. I buy the games just so I could say I hate them. Take that, Namco! I'm giving you 8400 yens because I loathe you!
Online? Beef would buy it just to grief people, running in and abusing Chao, getting banned and coming back under the moniker of Professor Horsemeat from the UK to repeat offend.
Professor Beef
Banned
That DOES sound like something I would do...
Nocturnowl
Member
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
D'ya want to give Beef more reasons to hate Chao?
He'll use his current avatar as his profile picture and make children cry. (They'll also wonder what an Agumon is.)
I think if they were ever to go that route, it'd be along the lines of a f2p browser game or a game for GREE/cellphones. The way you kinda worded it makes it sound like a quick cash investment, and those games are generally on these platforms. I'm not against the idea at all, because I'm pretty sure there's an audience for it.
If they were to make it a fully online game, it'd follow the f2p model, right? I don't see them ever going with subs. I don't think anyone's going with sub models anymore, are they? Except for SE for FF14.
Now you're just reminding me of how it was for Suikoden.
*sigh* God, I miss Suikoden so much. So much. *cries in corner*
nintendoman58
Member
People do raise a lot of good points when it comes to Tales narratives like Graces and Abyss, and that mostly comes from experience from other anime games (or just plain anime in general) and they really feel that they need to compare their stories to them.
While Graces F is my game of the gen with its incredible battle system, its story is really nothing much compared to Xenoblade's incredible narrative with what I think is one of the most perfect endings that anyone could ever give to a JRPG.
To be honest, I easily get interested into any anime story that sets up its stakes quick enough to make me care about what happens next and I usually end up liking them on my first run. I'll admit, I wasn't really dissapointed after seeing Graces' horrible ending at first, but after seeing the complaints and watching it again, I can see where the hate is coming from. Seriously, from what I've played from the series, it needs a lot more good memorable moments like in Xenoblade. As good of a set up the narrative of Graces was, it's really unfortunate that they screwed it up. The story really needed to make better choices on where to go.
I could make a thread with how good the set-up to Graces was and what directions it should have taken.
PhantomOfTheKnight
Member
Now you're just reminding me of how it was for Bomberman.
*sigh* God, I miss Bomberman so much. So much. *cries in corner*
Fuckin' Konami...
Nocturnowl
Member
D'ya want to give Beef more reasons to hate Chao?
He'll use his current avatar as his profile picture and make children cry. (They'll also wonder what an Agumon is.)
"Agumon? oh is that one of those fake pokemon?" and then Beef will be the one crying.
Now you're just reminding me of how it was for Suikoden.
*sigh* God, I miss Suikoden so much. So much. *cries in corner*
Hey i'd like to try Suikoden but Konami don't want to put the first one on EU PSN and apparently the second isn't arriving anywhere.
But hey they finally got SotN on there late last year 5 years after the rest of the world so maybe there's still hope!
Regardless the series would still be dead but then I could join the grieving.
Considering I have never played a Tales game and the total of my experience with FF13 is an LP where the two guys playing didn't care or pay attention when levelling up, I don't understand any of these words.
How would a standalone Chao Garden even work? Would you just have unlimited animals/drives or would you have to win races/karate to buy them?
Either way sounds shitty.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
To be fair, in general, Tales game narratives tend to fall off a cliff in their final acts. It's no surprise Graces turned out the way it did.
How Graces' concentration on narrative has a lot to do with Team Destiny design. Their narratives aren't their strongest suit (and sometimes their character interactions are decent), but their general draw used to be the game's battle design and ability acquisition systems. So... when it comes to TD games (and Graces was the last game of that kind), I don't really pay attention to the story. For this reason, despite them having poorly-told narratives in the first place, Rebirth and Graces are two of my favourite Tales games, with Destiny R rounding it off (and I don't think that game's narrative is terrible).
tbh, I'm kind of tired of some of the Japanese anime tropes in games because I've seen it a lot. That sort of quality has lost its lustre and it's become tiresome and predictable to see some of that stuff.
That last game I played with a story that genuinely drew me in intensely was Sora no Kiseki the 3rd, and I loved its ending (and SC's ending) because it felt like it completely wrapped things up for most of the characters involved (but the game's overall narrative and side content) and introduced the potential for even more. I wish Tales could have a narrative like the Kiseki games, but it won't because Tales games are shooting for a certain audience. It's a shame, really. I wish they'd just make what they wanted like Falcom does rather than adhere to what's popular or trendy.
What are they doing? I must've missed something on gaming side.
Konami's terrible. They don't even know who they are anymore.
Killing Hudson was the last straw.
That's a pretty good way of looking at the level up system, actually, lol. In other words, you don't have to care what you do because you're going to end up with the same outcome anyway.OMG Aero said:
Now you're just reminding me of how it was for Suikoden.
*sigh* God, I miss Suikoden so much. So much. *cries in corner*
Look at it this way, at least you have multiple Suikodens to go back and play with one of them hailed as best RPG of all time. All I have is one underrated game and one awful sequel with alright music.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Chao Garden ios app.
Real Chao Garden in Sonic Adventure 3 for Durango and Orbis, then transfer your Chaos on your phone and carry them around with you, play little ios minigames to raise your chaos, get fruits/animals/whatever. Oh, and of course, microtransactions to make your Chao a god faster.
Just hire me now Sega.
D'ya want to give Beef more reasons to hate Chao?
He'll use his current avatar as his profile picture and make children cry. (They'll also wonder what an Agumon is.)
I think if they were ever to go that route, it'd be along the lines of a f2p browser game or a game for GREE/cellphones. The way you kinda worded it makes it sound like a quick cash investment, and those games are generally on these platforms. I'm not against the idea at all, because I'm pretty sure there's an audience for it.
If they were to make it a fully online game, it'd follow the f2p model, right? I don't see them ever going with subs. I don't think anyone's going with sub models anymore, are they? Except for SE for FF14.
Now you're just reminding me of how it was for Suikoden.
*sigh* God, I miss Suikoden so much. So much. *cries in corner*
Of course it'd be F2P. As nice as FFXIV 2.0 looks, I can't justify a subscription.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Oh, remember when Digimon were called Fake Pokemon? Oddly, Monster Rancher didn't get that distinction when I was a kid.
KONAMI WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
does your game play like this
I am one of the very few people on GAF who don't dislike that game. To its credit, it fixed some of the issues I had with GS3 but introduced other problems. Also, the soundtrack was sooooo much better than GS3's, it's ridiculous.
WOOPS my bad, I meant to type "one of them named the best RPG of all time" but typo'd hard.
I was referring about a completely different series on the second sentence!
But not Wii U? I hate you!
I was about to post about how bullshit Sky Fortress Act 1 was in Sonic 4 Ep 2, but I had forgotten the name of the stage. Booted up the game and... Finished it.
Ummm... I'm kinda impressed, SEGA. I wasn't having that much fun with the game at first, but then they tugged at the nostalgia strings in the last level and I really enjoyed it. Went from just being ok to kinda sorta good. The music got much better too, holy crap. The Death Egg mk II and final boss music were awesome. The remixed Stardust Speedway was great too!
I wouldn't mind if they made more of these, just get some competent level designers next time (aka not Dimps). My other knock against this game were the virtual controls, as I was playing on my ipad. I think I might have liked it better on a console. Maybe I'll wait on a sale. I'll wait on a sale for Ep 1, as I'm kind of curious how Episode Metal turned out. Still mad I got shafted for purchasing Ep 1 for the Wii. Though I got Ep 2 for free, so justice!
So that's one game down from my 4 for February.
Ummm... I'm kinda impressed, SEGA. I wasn't having that much fun with the game at first, but then they tugged at the nostalgia strings in the last level and I really enjoyed it. Went from just being ok to kinda sorta good. The music got much better too, holy crap. The Death Egg mk II and final boss music were awesome. The remixed Stardust Speedway was great too!
I wouldn't mind if they made more of these, just get some competent level designers next time (aka not Dimps). My other knock against this game were the virtual controls, as I was playing on my ipad. I think I might have liked it better on a console. Maybe I'll wait on a sale. I'll wait on a sale for Ep 1, as I'm kind of curious how Episode Metal turned out. Still mad I got shafted for purchasing Ep 1 for the Wii. Though I got Ep 2 for free, so justice!
So that's one game down from my 4 for February.
Oh it's coming to Wii U, it just got delayed to launch with the other platforms.
Sky Fortress Act 1 was sooo lame. Dodge the same projectiles for 6 minutes. Fun idea, Dimps!
Act 2 and 3 were decent levels though, and the music for them were great!
Then doesn't get as much support as the other versions.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
So Microsoft's making Kinect mandatory now? I'm going to guess it's going to have scanning/lockout systems or something.
As for Episode Metal, I'd probably advise against it, since its difficulty scaling is all over the place, Metal doesn't really control that different from Sonic, and the game itself is relatively short. Unless you want to get it for narrative reasons, you probably shouldn't bother with it. Especially since you'd have to buy Episode 1 on another platform for it. It doesn't make sense to do that.
Oh, d'oh! Better yet! Watch the RunButton LP of Episode Metal.
Bah, it took me a bit to realize you were talking about Musashiden. It goes to show that almost everything I loved in the past is dead or on life support. Shadow Hearts, Breath of Fire, Valkyrie Profile, Arc the Lad, Suikoden, Quintet games (EVERY Quintet game), Ganbare Goemon... :|
I don't think Sky Fortress was really that bad in the end (though I might have to replay it because it's not fresh in my mind). Act 1 really could've used work. I truly think the stage that was the biggest dud of the event was Winter Park (Hold Right To Win, Walruses, etc). After a while with it, Oil Desert is pretty manageable.
As for Episode Metal, I'd probably advise against it, since its difficulty scaling is all over the place, Metal doesn't really control that different from Sonic, and the game itself is relatively short. Unless you want to get it for narrative reasons, you probably shouldn't bother with it. Especially since you'd have to buy Episode 1 on another platform for it. It doesn't make sense to do that.
Oh, d'oh! Better yet! Watch the RunButton LP of Episode Metal.
It would be on Wii U without smartphone support, only gamepad support.
And the core game would be identical to the
shittier
If you can hold out until 3D Mario drops in November, I honestly believe Wii U will be $50-$100 cheaper at that time. So unless you're a Pikmin or Wonderful 101 fan... you're probably better off holding out.
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