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[SatelliteOfLove]

Think like it's a fighting game with elemental weakness mechanics and stats. Moves have both real-time properties (frames of invulnerability, wind-up frames, dash cancelling, beats lows) and abstract (is effective against enemies weak to Burn, Slash, Beast, etc, but strangely no actual elements).

Check the User's Guide item. Your artes are grouped by how much CC they cost and you must use them in order: 1CC -> 2CC -> 3CC -> 4CC. As you press the X button use the control stick to choose which attack you use next. So, for example, when playing as Asbel in the childhood arc, after your 1CC arte press forward + X for Bell Ringer, left/right + X for Tornado Blade, or don't touch the stick for Tah-hah! or whatever it's called.

Moderate is fine. If you die to a boss you can change your party, equipment, difficulty, etc. and immediately retry. Don't get lazy about saving though because if you get wiped by a random encounter you will have to reload.

He said he wanted to learn.

 

[kiyomi]

So this came out in the EU today, got my Day One edition all ready and waiting to be played later on. Can't wait.

 

[Danj]

So this came out in the EU today, got my Day One edition all ready and waiting to be played later on. Can't wait.

I think mine's just arrived. I'll have to wait till I get back to my desk though, currently stuck in another building providing support for new student IT Inductions.

 

[hamchan]

Just bought the day one special edition. Why did they bother including Tales of Destiny 2 DLC when said game isn't even in English? :-/

 

[Finalow]

those pre-order costumes are ugly as fuck.
btw am I wrong or you should save shards for ng+?

 

[Bladenic]

those pre-order costumes are ugly as fuck.
btw am I wrong or you should save shards for ng+?

No, you don't need to save them.

 

[Dark Schala]

those pre-order costumes are ugly as fuck.
btw am I wrong or you should save shards for ng+?

If you're not planning on platinuming the game (ie: dualization for EX dungeon, dualization of inn requests) in one playthrough, save the shards for NG+ when you're in late-game and future arc/postgame. However, when you're going through the game, use up shards as much as possible by dualizing or else you'll get less and less shard drops as your inventory of them increases, leading to shittier quality and shard drops.

 

[Sagitario]

Just bought the day one special edition. Why did they bother including Tales of Destiny 2 DLC when said game isn't even in English? :-/

So, you would rather have less free and optional content? What kind of logic is that?

 

[Esura]

So, you would rather have less free and optional content? What kind of logic is that?

That's not what he meant.

 

[BatDan]

So, you would rather have less free and optional content? What kind of logic is that?

That's not what he's complaining about.
He's mad because they included DLC related to a game that people outside of Japan never got to play. It's like when Nintendo put Lucas into Super Smash Bros. Brawl even though Mother 3 isn't available outside of Japan.

Also, I got this game a week ago or so. I'm liking it, it's better than a good number of JRPGs I've seen lately.

 

[Dark Schala]

It was the preorder DLC in Japan, so I guess they figured that they should be consistent. (Even though they removed some of the costumes in the US version anyway, because of licensing issues.)

I still find it quite laughable that it's such a big deal even though the west has never gotten ToD2 before, though.

 

[Finalow]

If you're not planning on platinuming the game (ie: dualization for EX dungeon, dualization of inn requests) in one playthrough, save the shards for NG+ when you're in late-game and future arc/postgame. However, when you're going through the game, use up shards as much as possible by dualizing or else you'll get less and less shard drops as your inventory of them increases, leading to shittier quality and shard drops.

fine, thanks. didn't see any trophy about doing all the inn requests, I'm trying to finish what I can but it shouldn't be too hard anyway when you can travel where you want.

btw what's the title with the ability to don't get interrupted during a combo from enemies attacks.

 

[Dark Schala]

The trophy for getting all of the Inn Requests done is the

Spoiler

Gentleman Defeated

trophy.

You don't need to equip a title to prevent staggering if an enemy attacks you. The game will tell you this sometime in a battle tutorial/in the in-game tutorial handbook, but defend until you get to a Green Aura, and then attack with a combo. It's called "Iron Stance".

There are titles that prevent stagger below certain damage (ex: won't stagger when damage is below 70, etc.), but you'll have to wait a while to get them (ie: when you get more artes).

 

[BatDan]

Does there exist a full list of titles and how to get them? I see a bunch of lists that are incomplete.

 

[Dark Schala]

Does there exist a full list of titles and how to get them? I see a bunch of lists that are incomplete.

The Japanese wikis have them in full.
MMO Station
Tales of Graces atwiki (this is Asbel's)

But if you need help, ask away. The lists compiled at the Tales wikia seem to be pretty good at a glance, even if some of the stuff is still in Japanese.

 

[BatDan]

The Japanese wikis have them in full.
MMO Station
Tales of Graces atwiki (this is Asbel's)

But if you need help, ask away. The lists compiled at the Tales wikia seem to be pretty good at a glance, even if some of the stuff is still in Japanese.

Thank you so much. This helps a lot.

 

[bigmit3737]

The Japanese wikis have them in full.
MMO Station
Tales of Graces atwiki (this is Asbel's)

But if you need help, ask away. The lists compiled at the Tales wikia seem to be pretty good at a glance, even if some of the stuff is still in Japanese.

Thanks! Those links are really useful for my Japanese studies as well. =)

 

[Danj]

Just got to the end of this! Great game, though some of the level designs left a little to be desired - I especially hated Wallbridge

Spoiler

Ruins, with that maze of platforms and teleporters and whatnot

. Also the bits where you had to backtrack because

Spoiler

oh, here's a thing that needs a thing that you passed about 3 floors ago! But you can only carry one at a time, so you gotta go back and get another one the next time you find a thing!

annoyed me. Finally, why the hell do the characters take so long to realise

Spoiler

Richard is possessed

?

But other than that it was great. Fights were fast paced and over pretty quickly (except for boss fights of course, but even those never usually took much more than 10 minutes) and with enemies visible on the field I never felt like I was having to grind, which is a problem I have with a lot of other RPGs. I also liked that it wasn't just straight fantasy, there was a significant SF component as well. A big problem I have with games like Star Ocean for example is that you get this cool SF opener but eventually you end up getting stuck on some bog standard fantasy planet.

 

[Bladenic]

Just got to the end of this! Great game, though some of the level designs left a little to be desired - I especially hated Wallbridge

Spoiler

Ruins, with that maze of platforms and teleporters and whatnot

. Also the bits where you had to backtrack because

Spoiler

oh, here's a thing that needs a thing that you passed about 3 floors ago! But you can only carry one at a time, so you gotta go back and get another one the next time you find a thing!

annoyed me. Finally, why the hell do the characters take so long to realise

Spoiler

Richard is possessed

?

But other than that it was great. Fights were fast paced and over pretty quickly (except for boss fights of course, but even those never usually took much more than 10 minutes) and with enemies visible on the field I never felt like I was having to grind, which is a problem I have with a lot of other RPGs. I also liked that it wasn't just straight fantasy, there was a significant SF component as well. A big problem I have with games like Star Ocean for example is that you get this cool SF opener but eventually you end up getting stuck on some bog standard fantasy planet.

Star Ocean is a terrible series, and yes,

Spoiler

the fact that the main characters, but Asbel in particular, are so oblivious to Richard was annoying as hell.

And yeah some of the early dungeons were annoying, but they get better later, surprisingly.

 

[Finalow]

The trophy for getting all of the Inn Requests done is the

Spoiler

Gentleman Defeated

trophy.

You don't need to equip a title to prevent staggering if an enemy attacks you. The game will tell you this sometime in a battle tutorial/in the in-game tutorial handbook, but defend until you get to a Green Aura, and then attack with a combo. It's called "Iron Stance".

yeah I always do this instead of dodging but it didn't seem to work well.
for the trophy guess I missed it, reading what you have to do now and it seems pretty long since there are a lot of requests after the first ones you see available.
.

 

[Riposte]

Is this game harder or easier than Tales of the Abyss?

 

[bigmit3737]

Finally finished the child arc it seems.

Spoiler

That whole sequence was crazy. The game was pretty slow and easy going, and then all this craziness happens. And is there no blood? I'm playing the Japanese version, don't really know about their policy with blood but Asbel gets flung pretty hard a few times-I'm surprised he didn't die instantly as it was pretty violent. I saved the game at "7 years later", so I can't wait to see what happens next.

 

[Bladenic]

Is this game harder or easier than Tales of the Abyss?

Harder.

 

[Finalow]

mh what's a good way to farm grade? Also I'm at the final dungeon (not future arc) at level 50, not sure if it's enough tho.

 

[Sagitario]

mh what's a good way to farm grade? Also I'm at the final dungeon (not future arc) at level 50, not sure if it's enough tho.

You can't really farm grade in this game. You have to learn skills, master artes and titles, complete sidequests and books (among other things) to earn grade.
Also, your higher combo number = extra grade earned... so, if you do a 999 combo, you will get 999 extra grade.

And level 50 seems a little low, IIRC.

 

[Finalow]

You can't really farm grade in this game. You have to learn skills, master artes and titles, complete sidequests and books (among other things) to earn grade.
Also, your higher combo number = extra grade earned... so, if you do a 999 combo, you will get 999 extra grade.

And level 50 seems a little low, IIRC.

yes, I saw on gamefaqs how you get the grade but I thought that there was some method to farm it.

 

[Dark Schala]

yes, I saw on gamefaqs how you get the grade but I thought that there was some method to farm it.

You can probably "farm" all of the titles to try to get 1000 or so grade. You can also use artes 9999 times for a max of 300 grade. Complete your book for a max of 1200 grade. Dualize often. Get many Soul Orbs. There is no typical grade farming in this game like there is in Symphonia/Abyss/Vesperia/etc.

The only way you can get more grade in general at the end of the game is doing more stuff to contribute to your final grade count at the end while you play the game. Meaning: clear more of the EX dungeon, don't die often, don't use gummies often, clear the game on a higher difficulty to increase the clear multiplier, get as many titles as you can, complete your books, etc.

As a note since I know people are interested anyway... Xillia, for example, gets grade distributed through titles/trophies (ex: have two characters use link artes often, use your special skills 150 times, cook 800 times, kill 1350 enemies with attacks they're weak against, fight x amount of battles, upgrade your shop to the max, etc.).

 

[Sagitario]

You can probably "farm" all of the titles to try to get 1000 or so grade. You can also use artes 9999 times for a max of 300 grade. Complete your book for a max of 1200 grade. Dualize often. Get many Soul Orbs. There is no typical grade farming in this game like there is in Symphonia/Abyss/Vesperia/etc.

The only way you can get more grade in general at the end of the game is doing more stuff to contribute to your final grade count at the end while you play the game. Meaning: clear more of the EX dungeon, don't die often, don't use gummies often, clear the game on a higher difficulty to increase the clear multiplier, get as many titles as you can, complete your books, etc.

As a note since I know people are interested anyway... Xillia, for example, gets grade distributed through titles/trophies (ex: have two characters use link artes often, use your special skills 150 times, cook 800 times, kill 1350 enemies with attacks they're weak against, fight x amount of battles, upgrade your shop to the max, etc.).

That one is SOOO not worthy, time consuming and stupid for the amount of grade you get.
Only 1 Asbel arte got to that count... can you guess which one?

Glad to hear Xillia seems easier in that aspect, though a mix of both grade methods would be perfect.

 

[Finalow]

Only 1 Asbel arte got to that count... can you guess which one?

nimble fang? But yeah, that's fucking long and not worth it.
I just finished the game and I have only 1k grade, I even made some sidequests. ;-( It's bullshit tho that I can't load the future arc save for the ng.

 

[Dark Schala]

nimble fang? But yeah, that's fucking long and not worth it.
I just finished the game and I have only 1k grade, I even made some sidequests. ;-( It's bullshit tho that I can't load the future arc save for the ng.

Beat the Future Arc, load the future arc clear save to get back to the main game, then beat the final boss again for NG+.

 

[Sagitario]

nimble fang? But yeah, that's fucking long and not worth it.

Nop, it was Quick Slash. Nimble Fang is a [IIRC] distant second, though.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Nop, it was Quick Slash. Nimble Fang is a [IIRC] distant second, though.

Seriously not

"Maou Engekiha!"
"Maou Engekiha!"
"Maou Engekiha!"
"Maou Engekiha!"
"Maou Engekiha!"
"Maou Engekiha!"

???

 

[Dark Schala]

That one was mine, next to Hadou Meppuu... >.>

Sakurai did such a good job with his reading, imo.

 

[FSLink]

Maou Engekiha/Infernal Torrent is one of my favorite artes in the series, so it was very awesome seeing it be pretty broken in this game, haha.


I think I always maxed or near maxed Quick Slash, Nimble Fang, Whirlwind Fang, Infernal Torrent, Diabolic Rage, and Incineration Wave in my playthroughs. >_>


GENMA SHOUREPPAAAAA

 

[Sagitario]

I think I always maxed or near maxed Quick Slash, Nimble Fang, Whirlwind Fang, Infernal Torrent, Diabolic Rage, and Incineration Wave in my playthroughs. >_>

Add Phantom Pulse and Concussive Bolt and that's me.

Infernal Torrent and Concussive Bolt are my most used B-artes.

Hubert's Rolling Thunderbolt and Asbel's Concussive Bolt are awesome.

 

[Bladenic]

I really need to get back to and platinum this game.

 

[Ydahs]

Finally completed the main story (48hrs) and the Future Arc (10hrs).

Loved it from beginning to end. All the characters were great, with my favourite being Pascal. Absolutely loved

Spoiler

the scene where Hubert tried to propose but Pascal thought he was asking her to shower for the wedding.

Woke up the whole house after that.

A great game and a great cast of characters. The battle system was top notch and it kept things challenging from beginning to end. Other Tales games I've played have had a much simpler battle system which made it a lot easier to dominate opponents once you get the hang of it. Also, difficulty levels should be in all future Tales games.

Sad it's all over, but hopefully there will be an eventual sequel which

Spoiler

involving Lambda and Sophie in the future on Fodra

or even a prequel

Spoiler

taking place on Fodra.

I doubt it, but it'd be nice if a future Tales was connected to this one, similiar to Symphonia and that SNES titles.


Hopefully Xillia is as good. Well, onto FFXIII-2!

edit: also didn't realise how fun it was to play with all characters (except Malik). Pascal and Hubert are more enjoyable than Asbel, powerful too.

 

[Dark Schala]

A great game and a great cast of characters. The battle system was top notch and it kept things challenging from beginning to end. Other Tales games I've played have had a much simpler battle system which made it a lot easier to dominate opponents once you get the hang of it. Also, difficulty levels should be in all future Tales games.

edit: also didn't realise how fun it was to play with all characters (except Malik). Pascal and Hubert are more enjoyable than Asbel, powerful too.

Difficulty levels are in every Tales game, but the problem is that in a lot of the other ones you have to play through the game until NG+ to unlock them. Here, it's not that painful to unlock the rest of the difficulties.

All of the character in Graces are really fun to use, and Xillia gets even better for that, imo. Xillia is basically the first game where I genuinely liked using the Magic Knight class, and using the mage characters manually, and everyone is pretty fun to use in that game because they all have their own assist/attack modification moves when you're manually using them, or when they're assisting you via a link.

Anyway, for some reason I'm kinda surprised that I'm seeing a comment this positive about the game. :lol There have been positive impressions in this thread, though, but not so much on Gaming Side.

 

[Bladenic]

Difficulty levels are in every Tales game, but the problem is that in a lot of the other ones you have to play through the game until NG+ to unlock them. Here, it's not that painful to unlock the rest of the difficulties.

All of the character in Graces are really fun to use, and Xillia gets even better for that, imo. Xillia is basically the first game where I genuinely liked using the Magic Knight class, and using the mage characters manually, and everyone is pretty fun to use in that game because they all have their own assist/attack modification moves when you're manually using them, or when they're assisting you via a link.

Anyway, for some reason I'm kinda surprised that I'm seeing a comment this positive about the game. :lol There have been positive impressions in this thread, though, but not so much on Gaming Side.

Really? I loved using the mages in Rebirth, but also Vesperia and Graces of course. Good to hear Xillia continues this way though. They've come a far way in making mages fun to play since Symphonia and Legendia.

 

[Sagitario]

Difficulty levels are in every Tales game, but the problem is that in a lot of the other ones you have to play through the game until NG+ to unlock them. Here, it's not that painful to unlock the rest of the difficulties.

They did this for the 3DS port of Abyss (it wasn't like this in the original, IIRC).

All of the character in Graces are really fun to use, and Xillia gets even better for that, imo. Xillia is basically the first game where I genuinely liked using the Magic Knight class, and using the mage characters manually, and everyone is pretty fun to use in that game because they all have their own assist/attack modification moves when you're manually using them, or when they're assisting you via a link.

Can't wait for Xillia!!!

 

[Dark Schala]

Really? I loved using the mages in Rebirth, but also Vesperia and Graces of course. Good to hear Xillia continues this way though. They've come a far way in making mages fun to play since Symphonia and Legendia.

Nah, mages aren't really my thing because you've gotta stand a little further back and cast (even if cast speeds in Rebirth aren't as long as they are in other games). People like Mao aren't bad (it's just that he gets 8 skills and 6 ougis, which is a bummer compared to some of the other cast members), neither is Hilda (Annie, though, I'm not very good with her). But I like getting up close and personal, and comboing and dodging a lot so I generally like to handle the physical fighters a lot. With Milla and Rowen, though... well, I wrote this up a while ago, and modifying their spells is pretty neat. I never liked the Magic Knight class much in the 3D games much until I'd played as Milla.

And I feel like Jude is more fluid than Tytree.

They did this for the 3DS port of Abyss (it wasn't like this in the original, IIRC).

iirc, they did that in the original. Xillia continues this tradition where you unlock Unknown after beating the game once (but you need to do two playthroughs for the platinum anyway). It also has missable sidequests. >.>

 

[Bladenic]

Nah, mages aren't really my thing because you've gotta stand a little further back and cast (even if cast speeds in Rebirth aren't as long as they are in other games). People like Mao aren't bad (it's just that he gets 8 skills and 6 ougis, which is a bummer compared to some of the other cast members), neither is Hilda (Annie, though, I'm not very good with her). But I like getting up close and personal, and comboing and dodging a lot so I generally like to handle the physical fighters a lot. With Milla and Rowen, though... well, I wrote this up a while ago, and modifying their spells is pretty neat. I never liked the Magic Knight class much in the 3D games much until I'd played as Milla.

And I feel like Jude is more fluid than Tytree.


iirc, they did that in the original. Xillia continues this tradition where you unlock Unknown after beating the game once (but you need to do two playthroughs for the platinum anyway). It also has missable sidequests. >.>

Oh I mean I would never choose to play a mage over a physical member. I am excited to play as Jude though, he looks incredibly fun. I didn't even like Tytree that much honestly, Veigue and Eugene were more fun and better.

 

[Sagitario]

iirc, they did that in the original. Xillia continues this tradition where you unlock Unknown after beating the game once (but you need to do two playthroughs for the platinum anyway). It also has missable sidequests. >.>

I remember playing in higher difficulties with Guy in the extra dungeon for grade farming on my first playthrough.

And stupid missable sidequests :\

 

[Gvaz]

Have some actual ps3 screenshots!

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Finally completed the main story (48hrs) and the Future Arc (10hrs).

Loved it from beginning to end. All the characters were great, with my favourite being Pascal. Absolutely loved

Spoiler

the scene where Hubert tried to propose but Pascal thought he was asking her to shower for the wedding.

Woke up the whole house after that.

A great game and a great cast of characters. The battle system was top notch and it kept things challenging from beginning to end. Other Tales games I've played have had a much simpler battle system which made it a lot easier to dominate opponents once you get the hang of it. Also, difficulty levels should be in all future Tales games.

Sad it's all over, but hopefully there will be an eventual sequel which

Spoiler

involving Lambda and Sophie in the future on Fodra

or even a prequel

Spoiler

taking place on Fodra.

I doubt it, but it'd be nice if a future Tales was connected to this one, similiar to Symphonia and that SNES titles.


Hopefully Xillia is as good. Well, onto FFXIII-2!

edit: also didn't realise how fun it was to play with all characters (except Malik). Pascal and Hubert are more enjoyable than Asbel, powerful too.

Pascal was consistantly good. She was an eccentric nutcase and the VA played the part flawlessly without deviation. Her and Malik were never wrong.

I remember playing in higher difficulties with Guy in the extra dungeon for grade farming on my first playthrough.

And stupid missable sidequests :\

Guy on the higher difficulties was amazing, period.

 

[Bladenic]

Pascal was consistantly good. She was an eccentric nutcase and the VA played the part flawlessly without deviation. Her and Malik were never wrong.



Guy on the higher difficulties was amazing, period.

Malik and Pascal are the best (and perhaps only really interesting) characters in the game.

 

[Finalow]

Beat the Future Arc, load the future arc clear save to get back to the main game, then beat the final boss again for NG+.

oh! Then it's all good, thanks.

 

[PKrockin]

I remember playing in higher difficulties with Guy in the extra dungeon for grade farming on my first playthrough.

And stupid missable sidequests :

All the new game plus bonuses are unlocked for all files when you make a cleared game save. It's not tied to a certain file. So you could just beaten the game and then loaded a save from right before the final boss to grind grade on unknown.

 

[Sagitario]

All the new game plus bonuses are unlocked for all files when you make a cleared game save. It's not tied to a certain file. So you could just beaten the game and then loaded a save from right before the final boss to grind grade on unknown.

Yes! Thank you! I didn't remember how exactly worked, I just knew it was possible to play on Unknown.

I believe they changed this for the 3DS version, unless I missed something

 

[PKrockin]

Yes! Thank you! I didn't remember how exactly worked, I just knew it was possible to play on Unknown.

I believe they changed this for the 3DS version, unless I missed something

I'm pretty sure the difficulty still unlocks the same, but I don't know about the ex dungeon. Maybe you missed the sidequest that opens it? I don't know why they would change this considering how little else they changed.

On a more related note, Expiation is absolutely glorious. I never get tired of seeing it.