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[Esura]

That's on the list of terrible anime cliche.

Don't see how it's terrible.

Writing a character who has little knowledge of anything in the world so that you can write about how wacky and hilarious it is that they just don't get it is basically the problem here, yes.

I don't think they just did that so they can shoehorn in funny elements.

It happens after a battle and it's actually quite cool, because it's obviously intentionally cheesy.

Sophie is inoffensive come on, Limle is just wow... That had to be done on purpose.

I can't really quite comprehend how they are getting compared. Lymle doesn't have that much in common with Sophie.

I thought the "Never Give Up" thing was cute, especially with Sophie doing it as she has the tendency to emulate a lot of thing Asbel does cause she looks up to him.

 

[durrrrrrrrrr]

fist bump to op. guess i'm the only didn't finish Vesperia because i thought it was garbage.

Graces
Rebirth
Destiny Remake
Eternia

would be my top games in the series.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Don't see how it's terrible.

It isn't exactly terrible but overused.

 

[Error]

It's too bad Namco USA was so anti-2d and never localized ToDr, I would've played the shit out of that one.

 

[Jeremy092387]

This is the only Tales game I can not really bring myself to start. I am a little ways into it but I just can't seem to like any of the characters. Based on a lot of opinions, their character development doesn't turn into anything special. I will give the game a fair shot one of these days.

 

[PedroPanache]

Still hoping someone translates Cross. Itching to try the new phantasia battle system.



Come on dude, that's always been the case with handheld games

I had to import Dragon Warrior Monsters on the gb

No idea, never been big on handhelds, so never delved much into that market. I play the occasional game, but my interest in JRPG's has always been geared towards consoles.

 

[Stuart444]

I love threads like these, such a big difference of opinion with people. JRPGs (as evident by some earlier posts) also seem to cause a big difference of opinion.

Everyone should play Destiny DC.

YES YES YES! Destiny DC is one of my favourite Tales games, I love it <3 (Destiny on PS1 was my first Tales game, Destiny DC improved it and was just great in general)

I love the Characters in Destiny <3 also I really enjoy the Characters in Tales of Xillia and ToX2. Jude is awesome

Spoiler

and gets more awesome in Xillia 2

and Ludger is great considering he is mostly silent.

I like the characters in Graces f but Stahn/Rutee/Phillia/the whole Destiny Cast are much better. <3

 

[Esura]

It isn't exactly terrible but overused.

Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Rpgmonkey]

Worse than Star Ocean 3? Is that even possible? Can someone post a spoiler of what it is in Tales of Rebirth? It's not something I'd go back to and play.

Been a while since I've played it, but I remember some stuff going down that

Spoiler

releases negative energy and makes a race in the game (or both races?) really racist.

Like if you talked to the other race as a human they'd usually say something mean or snarky, but if you switched your lead character to your party member who's one of their race they would behave normally (I thought the attention to detail was a nice touch, despite the dumb idea).

It's like the SO3 plot twist in that the presentation of it in the game isn't that bad, but the idea itself isn't that good and comes across as an absurdly heavy-handed way to portray a theme.

No, it wasn't on the same level. Sophie was way worse than the girl from SO4. The nadir of what's-her-name's awfulness is where basically that she has one incredibly bad scene where she starts talking about "nappy time" and falls asleep on the main character's arm.

Sophie, on the other hand, had 20+ hours of actually being significant to the game's plot, having a whole awful, awful amnesia/'she's more than she seems to be' story thread, tilting her head to the side in confusion when anyone says fucking anything to her, and looking at one character raising her fist and saying "yay", before mimicking the action and saying "yay" herself.


I don't even think the girl from SO4 had dialogue at all for half the game, outside of basically saying "hello" when a new character joins the party and a couple of non-story scenes that don't involve any characters besides her.

Eh, whether you think the tropes are similar or not, the general presentation and how much thought went into the main plot, side events, and dialogue is definitely worse in Star Ocean 4.

Opinions will vary somewhat on how well you think they did, but they generally tried to give Sophie screen time and some kind of character arc. Lymle's not better than Sophie because she has less screen time, maybe she's less grating, but Lymle's still worse because she's an empty character that for the most part goes nowhere, not in the main story, not in side events. She's among several other characters in that game in that she's just an hollow and awkward creature that bobbles (or jiggles) around. No peaks or falls, no twists or turns, just a straight line the entire way through.

Sophie, and the other Graces characters, are certainly not the most original people you can find, but while these tropes could be considered the core, there's usually an attempt made to ensure that there's at least other tolerable qualities around that core. The same thing they usually try to do with like...all Tales characters, though how well it's done varies. It's extremely easy to see the anime tropes for each of Vesperia's characters and these tropes get shoved in your face several times over the entirety of the game, but most people don't call them SO4-tier or whatever because the overall presentation and the fact that they made some kind of attempt at depth at least brings it beyond that level.

Some (all?) SO4 characters are basically just the trope. There's nothing interesting to find about them because all they do in the game is enforce the stereotype through their animations, voices, and dialogue, or they contribute so little to the game in the main story or side events that there's nothing to find there but that trope.

 

[7Th]

Eternia isn't perfect but it has the best main character in the entire franchise:

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

No idea, never been big on handhelds, so never delved much into that market. I play the occasional game, but my interest in JRPG's has always been geared towards consoles.

Basically most of the cool rpg's for gb/gbc/gba/psp/ds only got released in english in the us.

thankfully until the 3DS(sigh) they've all been region free, so it's never been a problem. In fact, during the dubya dollar devaluation, they ended up being cheaper then buying them here

 

[grandjedi6]

This is the only Tales game I can not really bring myself to start. I am a little ways into it but I just can't seem to like any of the characters. Based on a lot of opinions, their character development doesn't turn into anything special. I will give the game a fair shot one of these days.

Here's the game's character development:

Cheria follows the same path as Asbel while everyone else is usually (at least) decent.

 

[PedroPanache]

Basically most of the cool rpg's for gb/gbc/gba/psp/ds only got released in english in the us.

thankfully until the 3DS(sigh) they've all been region free, so it's never been a problem. In fact, during the dubya dollar devaluation, they ended up being cheaper then buying them here

It's the reason I got a modded PS1 and, later, imported an NTSC/US PS2, so many amazing PS1 JRPG's, and yet so few made it to Europe. So glad I didn't miss out on the likes of Xenogears, Parasite Eve etc. at the time.

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

It's the reason I got a modded PS1 and, later, imported an NTSC/US PS2, so many amazing PS1 JRPG's, and yet so few made it to Europe. So glad I didn't miss out on the likes of Xenogears, Parasite Eve etc. at the time.

Oh man, I wore out my first psx disc swapping.

and who can forget the fun of "will this snes game work on this version of action replay/passport/etc"

 

[Coxswain]

I don't think they just did that so they can shoehorn in funny elements.

That's exactly why that trope is used, every time it's used. Nothing about her story requires that she be as dumb as a sack of hammers, except for the cringeworthy attempts at "humour".

The things that are necessary for every single bit of Sophie-related plot to work:
- Sophie isn't an ordinary human being, and has some sort of innate magic capability.
- Sophie does not immediately understand what her exact origins or purpose are.
- Even after 'death', Sophie can eventually re-materialize herself.

The things that are in no way, shape, or form necessary for any of the game's Sophie-related plot to work:
- Sophie is dumb as a sack of hammers, and despite springing forth into the world fully formed, knowing how to walk upright on two legs, how to speak and understand perfect English, the difference between food and dirt, and how to kill people with her fists, she arbitrarily does not understand a tiny handful of extremely simple concepts that all just so happen to be along the lines of "friendship".
- Sophie is eternally about 14 years old.


The first is done entirely so that they can make all those 'hilarious' jokes where someone says something that is in no way confusing, and Sophie is still confused ahahahahaha, and so that they can have Very Tender Moments&#8482; when her friends teach her how to be happy. Barf.
The second is done for the exact same reason that Lymle is arbitrarily in the body of a small child in Star Ocean 4: To fetishize little girls, because their gross otaku audience eats that shit up.

Sophie, and the other Graces characters, are certainly not the most original people you can find, but while these tropes could be considered the core, there's usually an attempt made to ensure that there's at least other tolerable qualities around that core. The same thing they usually try to do with like...all Tales characters, though how well it's done varies. It's extremely easy to see the anime tropes for each of Vesperia's characters and these tropes get shoved in your face several times over the entirety of the game, but most people don't call them SO4-tier or whatever because the overall presentation and the fact that they made some kind of attempt at depth at least brings it beyond that level.

Some (all?) SO4 characters are basically just the trope. There's nothing interesting to find about them because all they do in the game is enforce the stereotype through their animations, voices, and dialogue, or they contribute so little to the game in the main story or side events that there's nothing to find there but that trope.

That's the problem, though. The characters in Graces are nothing but just the trope, and nothing else. They're just more of it. When the premise of a character is 'monotone girl who doesn't understand the world or emotions', and the "character arc" is 'the rest of the characters make friends with her and she learns about the world and how to understand emotions', that's not character development. That's just the trope in long form, rather than shorthand. And that's all that either game does; neither of them are better at it, and Graces is scarcely even better at the presentation of it (shit, the 'childhood friend' character in both games actually literally has the exact same English voice actor). It's a stinky fart of a story, either way, but one of them is a little stinkier and sticks around for a minute or two, while one is slightly less stinky but is part of an evening-long gas attack that just never lets up.

 

[YAWN]

I thought Abyss and Vesperia are both superior, mainly due to having better, more unique casts, interesting lores, and far, far, far, superior stories. Graces f had a better combat and sub system though, plus it did have Pascal and Malik, both of whom are some of the more fun JRPG characters I've seen this gen.
Tales is my favourite series, but I've only played Abyss, Eternia, Graces f, and currently playing Vesperia. I'm sure I'll prefer Symphonia and Xillia more than Graces too, but I still liked the game regardless. It actually made grinding fun! Definitely my GotY last year.

 

[Vazra]

Symphonia and Vesperia eat this one up any day of the week.

 

[CielTynave]

Definitely agree with OP, and even though I didn't understand what I was playing for the most part, I'd rank every Team Destiny game that I've played (basically all of them but Destiny R/DC) higher than every TS game in the game play department.

I didn't full get around to playing Vesperia until a few months after I'd beaten Graces, so I actually found it a complete chore to get through, especially with the skill system being unenjoyable. I pretty much avoided fighting as much as I could afford to, whereas Graces I probably fought every enemy I could every time I saw one.

While I do have a tendency to really like story driven games, it's a little bizzare how sometimes people say about Graces battle system and such is "the only thing it had going for it" as if that were some barely significant detail while placing way too much focus on story/characters as if they're the only thing that matter in the quality of a game.

 

[bigmit3737]

No Dark Schala post? I'm disappoint.

HAha, I actually came in here looking for Dark or Aeana.

 

[Esura]

That's exactly why that trope is used, every time it's used. Nothing about her story requires that she be as dumb as a sack of hammers, except for the cringeworthy attempts at "humour".

The things that are necessary for every single bit of Sophie-related plot to work:
- Sophie isn't an ordinary human being, and has some sort of innate magic capability.
- Sophie does not immediately understand what her exact origins or purpose are.
- Even after 'death', Sophie can eventually re-materialize herself.

The things that are in no way, shape, or form necessary for any of the game's Sophie-related plot to work:
- Sophie is dumb as a sack of hammers, and despite springing forth into the world fully formed, knowing how to walk upright on two legs, how to speak and understand perfect English, the difference between food and dirt, and how to kill people with her fists, she arbitrarily does not understand a tiny handful of extremely simple concepts that all just so happen to be along the lines of "friendship".
- Sophie is eternally about 14 years old.


The first is done entirely so that they can make all those 'hilarious' jokes where someone says something that is in no way confusing, and Sophie is still confused ahahahahaha, and so that they can have Very Tender Moments&#8482; when her friends teach her how to be happy. Barf.
The second is done for the exact same reason that Lymle is arbitrarily in the body of a small child in Star Ocean 4: To fetishize little girls, because their gross otaku audience eats that shit up.

Sophie not being an ordinary human is exactly why she has no knowledge of basic stuff and her being "dumb as a sack of hammers" is necessary to making Sophie's development work. Even when Sophie gets her memories back she still lacks knowledge of that stuff unless the gang tells her. It's more than just tiny handful of stuff. She didn't know what peaches was, nor royal crablettes or most food in general. Her entire purpose was to stop Lambda so other than fighting, basic communication, and of course walking, she had no reason to know anything else. You seem to just missed the point of Sophie entirely.

 

[farnham]

i played and beat the wii version and liked it a lot.

 

[GayForMaster]

The combat definitely blew every other tales game's battle system out of the water, but the story wasn't as great as vesperia. I do love the skits in this game though.

 

[doemaaan]

Tales of Graces f is the worse Tales of... game I've played

 

[TWILT]

While I thought the battle system was decent, I pretty much disliked (or thought was okay at best) everything else. From the terrible cast of characters (I hated and could not stand Asbel), to the forgettable story, to it's...okay music I suppose, I thought the game was pretty mediocre.

Still, I did managed to finish it (did not touch the future arc though), so it probably did something right for me. And to be fair, it's the only Tales of game I've played, and I wouldn't mind trying another one.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I completely agree with the opinion that the game is full of typical anime tropes/cliches, but that this is in no way detrimental to the enjoyment of the game.

People really rag on the characters in Graces, but I honestly didn't see how they were bad at all - Pascal, the most highly praised of the characters, actually got on my nerves more than anyone or anything else in the game. I love Malik as a character, and watching Asbel and Hubert's strained relationship was genuinely interesting. The skits in this game were also great - better than Vesperia's, in my opinion, and the fact that they used Team Destiny's superior portrait style really helped. Thank God we get dubs for these, now. Playing Abyss on my 3DS was depressing after playing Graces because of those unvoiced skits. Especially after having last played Abyss in Japanese, where the voices breath so much life into the skits...

ANYWAY

Yes, Graces is a good game. One of the best jRPGs that I have played, and especially this generation.

 

[FINALBOSS]

The combat system is absolutely awesome.

But I thought the game was hot garbage.

 

[computers putin']

Tales of Vesperia was my favorite, and it has one of the most endearing cast of characters I've encountered in an rpg. Loved it.

 

[Esura]

I completely agree with the opinion that the game is full of typical anime tropes/cliches, but that this is in no way detrimental to the enjoyment of the game.

People really rag on the characters in Graces, but I honestly didn't see how they were bad at all - Pascal, the most highly praised of the characters, actually got on my nerves more than anyone or anything else in the game. I love Malik as a character, and watching Asbel and Hubert's strained relationship was genuinely interesting. The skits in this game were also great - better than Vesperia's, in my opinion, and the fact that they used Team Destiny's superior portrait style really helped. Thank God we get dubs for these, now. Playing Abyss on my 3DS was depressing after playing Graces because of those unvoiced skits. Especially after having last played Abyss in Japanese, where the voices breath so much life into the skits...

ANYWAY

Yes, Graces is a good game. One of the best jRPGs that I have played, and especially this generation.

I look forward to typical anime tropes/cliches in my jRPGs, especially if they are my favorite tropes and themes.

I'm surprised a lot of people liked Pascal. I liked her but I figured she'd be ragged on a bit more considering how goofy she can act despite being the smartest character in the group, or possibly in the entire Graces f world.

 

[Rpgmonkey]

That's the problem, though. The characters in Graces are nothing but just the trope, and nothing else. They're just more of it. When the premise of a character is 'monotone girl who doesn't understand the world or emotions', and the "character arc" is 'the rest of the characters make friends with her and she learns about the world and how to understand emotions', that's not character development. That's just the trope in long form, rather than shorthand. And that's all that either game does; neither of them are better at it, and Graces is scarcely even better at the presentation of it (shit, the 'childhood friend' character in both games actually literally has the exact same English voice actor). It's a stinky fart of a story, either way, but one of them is a little stinkier and sticks around for a minute or two, while one is slightly less stinky but is part of an evening-long gas attack that just never lets up.

I don't get how starting blank and taking on more humane thoughts and behavior traits isn't some kind of development, though, ignoring how much of it there may be. There's traits of a mentally-repressed little girl, but I kind of thought she had taken on a more human mindset by the end, and more importantly, there's an attempt made within the game to alleviate this issue and bring some kind of development or personal closure.

I don't remember Lymle ever becoming more than a severely mentally repressed little girl, and like many characters in SO4, there's like no attempt made in the game to ever fix this.

I'm not arguing that Graces is good, but to me that's what separates Graces and other Tales games with easily noticeable and prominent tropes like Vesperia from Star Ocean 4: SO4 just throws characters in randomly. There's no motivations, or personal issues the game at least attempts to fix, they just threw in half-finished anime stereotypes, and these characters don't seem to have any "ending". Personally I give them credit for making something where the premise is at least coherent, even if the execution leaves something to be desired. In Star Ocean 4 both the premise and the execution are incoherent and bad. I don't think anything about the game should be excused because they attempted to put some crap in a less noticeable place, if it's still in the game and it's still crap, it counts for the game as a whole or the part it pertains to, in this case the characters.

 

[Footos22]

Platinumed this at the end of last year. Loved it. Well the combat system. If it wasn't for that then I wouldn't of bothered going back to it. Not many games can keep me for 120 hours on just the battle system. Everything else was pretty mediocre though. Not tried vesperia yet and doubt I'll have a chance to but I cant see the battle system topping graces.

 

[Poyunch]

I'm so conflicted about buying this game. If I found Dawn of the New World's story acceptable will I enjoy Graces F?

Spoiler

But then I doubt the game has a Tenebrae to make up for anything.

 

[Jathaine]

I have to say... Tales of Graces is easily one of my least favorite in the series that I've played thus far (and trust me, I've played a lot of Tales of).

The thing is, none of the changes made were welcome changes in my mind.

The title system makes EXP seem pointless, its just redundant to have EXP levels increasing your stats and have titles that also increase the same stats that EXP levels increase (and do a far better job at it too, hell a 0 EXP run isn't even that much harder than a normal run from my understanding).

Dualizing is just tedious. I found myself just giving up on it shortly after wallbridge all the way til the end of the game and just lowering the difficulty (I had been playing on Hard => Evil => Chaos and after a while I just took it back down to hard since I hadn't been upgrading my gear).
Then there's the boss fights, honestly... the boss fights in this game are the WORST.

There's only one strategy for every boss, ZERG RUSH. You need to just burn them down asap so they don't continually summon monsters or something equally stupid. Kurt is definitely the worst offender here and he also seems to get a power up at low health for no reason.
Emeraude is just the worst boss I've ever fought in any game. Pushback for no reason any time she moves and she just randomly breaks out of combos for no reason whatsoever, etc etc.

Ugh, this game is a mess compared to other Tales games. I pre-ordered it and I'm only just now getting around to finishing it because it left that bad of a taste in my mouth. I'm only even bothering to finish it because I'd feel I wasted my money if I don't. Coming back to it with much lower expectations... I'm actually starting to enjoy it somewhat but its still far less enjoyable than anything I've played barring GBA Phantasia or Destiny remake (yes, I know a lot of people loved that one but... not me.)

 

[3Kaze]

Graces' battle system is good but the Style Shift is kinda shallow. Most characters have only spells as B artes and are very boring (yeah I know Hubert and Sophie has some physical artes but my point still stands). The Xillia (2) cast felt more unique to me, Ludger can shift between 3 weapons and can use up to 48 artes

 

[Error]

Dualizing is great specially when it comes to equipment the amount of passive effects you can get via dualizing make the battle system even more fun.

frankly I don't see how it's not fun unless you are going for specific qualities when dualizing shards with equipment.

 

[grandjedi6]

I'm so conflicted about buying this game. If I found Dawn of the New World's story acceptable will I enjoy Graces F?

Spoiler

But then I doubt the game has a Tenebrae to make up for anything.

yes

 

[Coxswain]

Sophie not being an ordinary human is exactly why she has no knowledge of basic stuff and her being "dumb as a sack of hammers" is necessary to making Sophie's development work. Even when Sophie gets her memories back she still lacks knowledge of that stuff unless the gang tells her. It's more than just tiny handful of stuff. She didn't know what peaches was, nor royal crablettes or most food in general. Her entire purpose was to stop Lambda so other than fighting, basic communication, and of course walking, she had no reason to know anything else. You seem to just missed the point of Sophie entirely.

No, I get the point. It's just a stupid one.

The game is fictional. There's absolutely no reason why her non-human nature goes hand-in-hand with having to be clueless about basic concepts. It's not like there are actual being like her and they're just being realistic in their portrayal. The writers made up the rules. She could have known exactly as much about the world as anybody else. She could have known what all the 'things' in the world that an average person would know are, but not been familiar with specific cultural concepts like who famous people are, what the name of a town is, local geography, etc. She could have known nothing except how to fight and the rest of the cast would have had to teach her how to talk. It was entirely up to them and every single one of those scenarios is not one tiny bit more or less plausible or realistic than the one that made it into the game.

The only reason she was written to be as clueless and dumb as she was is because they wanted to write in a bunch of 'jokes' or places where she could be 'cute'. If they don't have a joke or a little moment ready to go, then she has no problem just intuitively understanding the situation without comment.


You can't justify stupid writing decisions by saying "well actually she's [such-and-such], so she has to be..." when [such-and-such] is also a completely arbitrary thing that the writers came up with which has no real bearing on any part of the writing other than the initial stupid writing decision. It doesn't fly when Disgaea or TERA says that it's okay to have eight year olds in bondage gear because they're actually 3000 year old demons or whatever, and it doesn't fly here.

 

[dakkumauji]

Graces was pretty amazing when I started playing it. The battle system was pretty fun and I really enjoyed that they didn't use TP which means I didn't have to spam normal attacks to save on using Orange Gels.

Though the battle system really started to bother me once I started going into the higher difficultly levels. The lack of giving your AI party members proper directions, the fact that enemies could easily just one combo KO you along with how deep and puzzling the dualizing system was.

The game was still fun, just that I can't bring myself to playing it any more.

 

[-NeoTB1-]

I thought Abyss and Vesperia are both superior, mainly due to having better, more unique casts, interesting lores, and far, far, far, superior stories. Graces f had a better combat and sub system though, plus it did have Pascal and Malik, both of whom are some of the more fun JRPG characters I've seen this gen.

Agreed with all of this, and especially the bolded part. Pascal and Malik were far and away my 2 favorite cast members of Graces.

 

[fader]

.... uh.... ok...
have you played Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny 1 & 2, and Tales of Eternia?

 

[Jathaine]

Dualizing is great specially when it comes to equipment the amount of passive effects you can get via dualizing make the battle system even more fun.

frankly I don't see how it's not fun unless you are going for specific qualities when dualizing shards with equipment.

When would you ever not go for specific qualities..?

 

[noffles]

It's not hard considering the entire series is awful.

Spoiler

I've never actually been able to get into one and Graces f was actually incredibly tempting. They're obviously good games, but something about them doesn't gel with me.

 

[YAWN]

I didn't find Graces characters bad per say, just hella generic. That's why Pascal often gets singled out as the best, because she was refreshing and kooky.
Asbel - "Protect, protect, protect, friendship, protect"
Sophie - Already been addressed. Trope has been done millions of times. Didn't help they designed her as Otaku bait, though thankfully she wasn't sexualised, barring her swimsuit.
Cheria - Generic female childhood friend. Nothing unique about her at all.
Hubert - Pretty decent actually. His VA got on my nerves though. Sounded like an elitist nerd.
Richard - Generic good guy prince. Just wants whats' best for his country. His trolling in the Future arc was fun though.
Malik - Badass, wise, and cool design. He's not all that great compared to other Tales Old guys, like Jade and Raven though.

Like I said, they're not bad, but nothing new and exciting either. Most Tales casts have backstories linking to the over arching story, which helps them develop due to it, but I don't think a single member of Graces party changed all that much since you first meet them. Hubert kinda did, but nothing to the degree of other parties.

 

[Supermanisdead]

I can play JRPGs just for the battle system like FF13, but when the characters are so offensively bad and poorly designed like in this game and Star Ocean 4, it's just too much.

I'm beginning to think Vesperia was their one-off achievement, since I've never played a Tales Of game that even comes close the heights of Yuri/Raven/Judith.

 

[Jathaine]

Hubert - Pretty decent actually. His VA got on my nerves though. Sounded like an elitist nerd.

That's accurate though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwuiin85CYA

 

[Coxswain]

I don't get how starting blank and taking on more humane thoughts and behavior traits isn't some kind of development, though, ignoring how much of it there may be. There's traits of a mentally-repressed little girl, but I kind of thought she had taken on a more human mindset by the end, and more importantly, there's an attempt made within the game to alleviate this issue and bring some kind of development or personal closure.

It's not development because it's so trite and twee that you know, literally within 10-20 seconds of Sophie having a speaking role, exactly where that character is going. There's a gaping, obvious character flaw (which doesn't speak anything to anybody, because it's so far removed from anything resembling the actual human experience), which is almost exclusively played for laughs, and then she gets over it later on, and instead of her personality being defined by a gaping, obvious character flaw, she simply doesn't have a distinct personality.

It's simply disingenuous to give that a pass and call it character development, even compared to other video game character or even a fair number of other Tales of characters. People don't like Yuri Lowell just because he's a sarcastic cool guy who sometimes kills bad guys.

 

[Jucksalbe]

Rebirth is #2 for me, I just like Graces's auxiliary systems more.
The people who hate Graces because of its story/characters would DESPISE Rebirth, though. It does have the worst plot point in gaming.

There's no fan translation for Rebirth planned, is there? You often mention the horrible story in it, I'd really love to experience that first hand (just for the fun of it).

 

[Chronoexe]

Dualizing is great specially when it comes to equipment the amount of passive effects you can get via dualizing make the battle system even more fun.

frankly I don't see how it's not fun unless you are going for specific qualities when dualizing shards with equipment.

Hey dont forget to play Lineage and Legacies after you beat

Spoiler

Richard final form

 

[Error]

so basically what I gather from this thread is that people can put up with a shit game with shitty gameplay mechanics, just as long as the story and characters are good?

Hubert is a beast btw, in battles he can dish so much damage alone that puts to shame the other characters. Only drawback is his low defense, but he is designed to be a hit and run character that can quickly switch to long range attacks to avoid getting gang-banged by enemies.

 

[HawthorneKitty]

I think it is always going to have my favorite battle system.
I'm dumb and usually don't like blocking at all, but in this game, it's so critical and shifting around the target is just so fun.

I'm going to miss CC... and Lelouch.

 

[Jathaine]

so basically what I gather from this thread is that people can put up with a shit game with shitty gameplay mechanics, just as long as the story and characters are good?

Lots of people, but not me. I'm the opposite, I just don't find Graces to be scratching that gameplay itch.
I'd probably like it a lot more if I didn't enjoy what the series had to offer prior to this game so much as many of the differences between this game and other games that I vastly prefer are pretty large.

Eternia, Destiny 2 (my favorite), Abyss, Symphonia and Vesperia are more my style.