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[dakkumauji]

Ah, finally AmiAmi asked for payment! Now my game will finally come to me.

Though I cheap out and picked SAL Registered so I really won't get this until like mid February. At least it gives me more time to finish up Xillia 2 EN.

 

[Rhapsody]

Sheesh. Someone mentioned GameFAQs so I decided to go take a look. I wonder how many of the people complaining so loudly even understand the language.

This bugged me back in Xillia too. Some people vaguely (or not) knowing Japanese and complaining about that one Jude scene in the Tales forums. Then it just snowballed. Turns out when the game's in english and people played it, a lot of people didn't even care.

 

[dramatis]

Sheesh. Someone mentioned GameFAQs so I decided to go take a look. I wonder how many of the people complaining so loudly even understand the language. In particular, there's lots of people talking about how shallow the combat is...

Even the Gfaqs Tales regulars complained about the sudden influx of random people posting on the board, if I'm not mistaken the ones playing the game are holed up in the spoiler thread hoping everybody else will just go away.

 

[RangerBAD]

OK seriously, Superfly's OP for this sucks. I like her singing but this style of song is turrible for her.

At least have her do something like Tamashii Revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2tedgbqJJs

You will learn to embrace the White Light... You will...

 

[Datschge]

So I'm done transcribing the BN Studios staff listing. The "event creator" and "map model artists" sections are not done yet, but as I failed to find any familiar faces there I just don't care enough.

Knowing who's involved made me think about how Zestiria could be promoted based on the staff, this is the result (thought that sounds pretty tasty this way):

Tales of Zestiria
Produced by Baba
Scenario by the "Team Symphonia" leader and the writer of Xillia 2 (Takashi Hasegawa, Naoki Yamamoto)
Orchestrated Music and Vocal Songs by the composer of Legendia (Go Shiina)
Art Direction by the creator of Vesperia (Minoru Iwamoto)
Game Design by the lead planner of Graces (Tatsuro Udo)
Music by the series composer (Motoi Sakuraba)
Directed by the planners of Hearts and Graces (Yuuta Hase, Yoshimasa Tanaka, Mari Miyata)
Animation by uftotable, Concept Design by RED Entertainment, Character Models by flightUNIT

Regarding the staff, Baba claimed at the Taipei Game Show that the Tales team is actually understaffed and not working on another project yet. Based on this game that would mean a lot more former Tales Studio staff gone, but I'll file that under the usual Baba humbuggery for now.

Oh, and BN Studios was moving to another building very recently. Now (aside that such moves often result in some staff loss) I wonder if tri-Crescendo (having done ToSC and been heavily involved in programming Zestiria, aside doing the recent Digimon Reigitize games and generally being close to BN) is moving close to them again. <_<

By the way, if anybody wants to see the skill system all laid out, check out this post, I think it does a pretty good job.

Great, thanks for the link!

 

[Shouta]

I pretty much avoid Gfaqs until I'm done with most games but Tales in particular because you get a lot of folks that don't know the language or have a little bit and act like they know everything, it's pretty annoying. It's super frustrating.

Anyway, I put a few more hours in last night and I saw the dreaded "Double prompt choice" lol. "Do you want to do this now?" "Do you REALLY want to do this now?"

Fun. I got Edna too and she's basically Fie from Sen no Kiseki but with an umbrella. I thin k the VAs are the same too!

 

[Finalow]

^that's a pretty hype staff list. my game is still somewhere, hopefully not lost. :[

 

[famfrit]

I pretty much avoid Gfaqs until I'm done with most games but Tales in particular because you get a lot of folks that don't know the language or have a little bit and act like they know everything, it's pretty annoying. It's super frustrating.

Anyway, I put a few more hours in last night and I saw the dreaded "Double prompt choice" lol. "Do you want to do this now?" "Do you REALLY want to do this now?"

Fun. I got Edna too and she's basically Fie from Sen no Kiseki but with an umbrella. I thin k the VAs are the same too!

Who is the Jade/Rita Mordio char from Zestiria ?

Anyway, awesome the new look of Alisha DLC !!!!

 

[demonkaze]

Wheres the best place to order this from, sending to the UK? I've only really used play-asia and yesasia before.

 

[R_thanatos]

Do you want power ? YES
Do you want to be the saviour ? YES

Hum i think i really like this main character

^^^this isn't spoilers by the way.

Anyway i've continued playing , i'm getting into more and more camera problems during battle. And i'm quite confused by the skill system and how to optimise what i pick.
Story is good so far, there are some subtle things i like in the way the story unfolds ( and is told ) and some moments where i'm wondering why stuff is presented that way.

-Lady lake ( the city ) reminded me a lot of a very similar city with water that was in tales of abyss.

-You guys weren't kidding , go shina tracks are awesome.

The more i play , the more i realise that this game is going to be destroyed by critics once it will release on US/EU.
So many things it does well , the game goes down with very simple missteps that let's face it shouldn't exist in 2015. It's too bad since Zestria so far still took some clues from xillia regarding pacing ( i hated the pacing of graces ) and it's nice to have dialog choices once in a while. ( xillia 2 was too much on that aspect ).

It's nice to tell me where i need to go with the character speaking , but why can't i have a star on the exit area when my next objective is in another area ? I mean i'm not lost since i'm paying attention to the blanter between every character because they do tell me where i need to go but still....

 

[FSLink]

It's nice to tell me where i need to go with the character speaking , but why can't i have a star on the exit area when my next objective is in another area ? I mean i'm not lost since i'm paying attention to the blanter between every character because they do tell me where i need to go but still....

I think Xillia and Xillia 2 had this, or at the very least, you could press the confirm button to change the map to the next area if you hover over an exit point.

 

[Sakura]

Wheres the best place to order this from, sending to the UK? I've only really used play-asia and yesasia before.

amiami and www.hmv.co.jp are good sites.

 

[kayos90]

Wait... Zestiria sold 340k? lol.

Also, this conference at work is killing my game time. I have no time for it this week. lol. T_T

 

[Bladenic]

Who is the Jade/Rita Mordio char from Zestiria ?

Anyway, awesome the new look of Alisha DLC !!!!

According to I believe kayos in this thread, that's Lailah.

And yeah Zesty sold about the same as XILLIA 2. Wonder if BN is happy.

 

[Rainy]

Wait... Zestiria sold 340k? lol.

Also, this conference at work is killing my game time. I have no time for it this week. lol. T_T

is 340k good or bad?

 

[Falk]

It's a little low for a mainline Tales game. 500k seemed to be where most entries hover.

 

[ULTROS!]

It's a little low for a mainline Tales game. 500k seemed to be where most entries hover.

Well... PS3 is kinda in the dying stage now so it's not really surprising.

 

[Aeana]

It's a little low for a mainline Tales game. 500k seemed to be where most entries hover.

First week sales:

Tales of Vesperia (360) - 101,272
Tales of Vesperia (PS3) - 227,506
Tales of Graces (Wii) - 143,309
Tales of Graces (PS3) - 219,921
Tales of Innocence - 106,733
Tales of Hearts - 141,610
Tales of Xillia - 512,544
Tales of Xillia 2 - 331,533
Tales of Zestiria - 340,891


Tales of Xillia is the outlier here. Zestiria is doing just fine by any other metric.

 

[Dice//]

First week sales:

Tales of Vesperia (360) - 101,272
Tales of Vesperia (PS3) - 227,506
Tales of Graces (Wii) - 143,309
Tales of Graces (PS3) - 219,921
Tales of Innocence - 106,733
Tales of Hearts - 141,610
Tales of Xillia - 512,544
Tales of Xillia 2 - 331,533
Tales of Zestiria - 340,891


Tales of Xillia is the outlier here. Zestiria is doing just fine by any other metric.

Bleh. Xillia did not deserve that quantity of love. Beteween the first and second game, I think I've had enough of Reize Maxia to last a lifetime

 

[Falk]

First week sales:

Tales of Vesperia (360) - 101,272
Tales of Vesperia (PS3) - 227,506
Tales of Graces (Wii) - 143,309
Tales of Graces (PS3) - 219,921
Tales of Innocence - 106,733
Tales of Hearts - 141,610
Tales of Xillia - 512,544
Tales of Xillia 2 - 331,533
Tales of Zestiria - 340,891


Tales of Xillia is the outlier here. Zestiria is doing just fine by any other metric.

Derp, I stand corrected!

 

[Shouta]

Who is the Jade/Rita Mordio char from Zestiria ?

Anyway, awesome the new look of Alisha DLC !!!!

Do you mean the snarky char?

 

[Sandfox]

First week sales:

Tales of Vesperia (360) - 101,272
Tales of Vesperia (PS3) - 227,506
Tales of Graces (Wii) - 143,309
Tales of Graces (PS3) - 219,921
Tales of Innocence - 106,733
Tales of Hearts - 141,610
Tales of Xillia - 512,544
Tales of Xillia 2 - 331,533
Tales of Zestiria - 340,891


Tales of Xillia is the outlier here. Zestiria is doing just fine by any other metric.

I may be wrong but isn't the 340k MC while the other numbers are from famitsu? Not that it makes much of a difference tbqh.

 

[Bebpo]

A lot of game sales fluctuations for major franchise have to do more with the market than the game quality. Xillia was the first non-port "PS3" Tales after years of getting second hand entries from X360 and Wii. Zestiria sales seem more back to the norm and maybe like with FFXIII, making sequel entries turns off a section of the buyers and they lose interest in the franchise and don't come back for the next game.

Either way, a 300-500k selling game is the norm for Tales and the games are budgeted appropriately with that in mind so I'm sure it's fine, though we probably won't see any budget increases for the series in the coming years.

 

[Fisico]

First week sales:

Tales of Vesperia (360) - 101,272
Tales of Vesperia (PS3) - 227,506
Tales of Graces (Wii) - 143,309
Tales of Graces (PS3) - 219,921
Tales of Innocence - 106,733
Tales of Hearts - 141,610
Tales of Xillia - 512,544
Tales of Xillia 2 - 331,533
Tales of Zestiria - 340,891


Tales of Xillia is the outlier here. Zestiria is doing just fine by any other metric.

Hum, I think you mixed Zestiria's Media Create number with Famitsu numbers.

In both trackers Zestiria is below Xillia 2 (which stands at 364.439 in Media Create).

But yes considering the software's sales on PS3 the game is selling fine.

 

[Link1110]

Did I just play a scene from Final Fantasy 3?

Spoiler

climb the mountain, meet a new party member and get attacked by a dragon, that I actually have to run from in a battle? I died to it because I didn't think they'd be THAT blatant about it

 

[kayos90]

Because these sales numbers are roughly the same as the others makes it bad. It sold in a month where there was not much coming out. The PS3 has a huge install base. It's an anniversary title. It should've done as well as Xillia.

 

[dramatis]

There's been no PS3 game that had that number of launch sales for the entirety of 2014, man. Honestly I think it couldn't have done as well as Xillia, and Bamco probably wasn't expecting it to either.

 

[Soriku]

Because these sales numbers are roughly the same as the others makes it bad. It sold in a month where there was not much coming out. The PS3 has a huge install base. It's an anniversary title. It should've done as well as Xillia.

PS3 has a huge install base, but it's not going to be as active as when Xillia came out when the 3DS and Vita are more popular now, the PS4 is out, and it's just late in the gen anyway. Not to mention there were a bunch of other PS3 Tales and not everyone is going to have caught up or be quite as interested in yet another one. Do you really think Namco expected Xillia numbers when that was the first exclusive Tales on PS3?

 

[Rpgmonkey]

I think they may have tried to tap into some of the stuff they think played a factor in making Xillia so appealing, such as the multiple character designer thing, but repeating Xillia's numbers was gonna be tough, especially at this point in the PS3's life.

Seems like every generation there's that one "right place at the right time" Tales game that's an abnormally big hit (Destiny, Destiny 2, Xillia), and all the rest top out around 200-300K less than that.

 

[Finalow]

yeah, I'm sure that they didn't expect this game to sell as much as Xillia. nonetheless it's still doing fine, at least for this first week.

 

[Mendrox]

Did I just play a scene from Final Fantasy 3?

Spoiler

climb the mountain, meet a new party member and get attacked by a dragon, that I actually have to run from in a battle? I died to it because I didn't think they'd be THAT blatant about it

Lol its actually three battles in a row that you can escape from begining with

Spoiler

Zaveid, ending with ansatsu girl

 

[Soriku]

I think they may have tried to tap into some of the stuff they think played a factor in making Xillia so appealing, such as the multiple character designer thing, but repeating Xillia's numbers was gonna be tough, especially at this point in the PS3's life.

Seems like every generation there's that one "right place at the right time" Tales game that's an abnormally big hit (Destiny, Destiny 2, Xillia), and all the rest top out around 200-300K less than that.

I think you could make that case for lots of game series tbh.

 

[alexein]

i was browsing amzaon fr when i saw this! Tales Of The World Reve Unitia
http://www.amazon.fr/Namco-Bandai-Games-Tales-Unitia/dp/B00KGU1N3W/ref=sr_1_15?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1422640704&sr=1-15
i never heard anything about the localisation.
Is it possible?

 

[Aeana]

Hum, I think you mixed Zestiria's Media Create number with Famitsu numbers.

In both trackers Zestiria is below Xillia 2 (which stands at 364.439 in Media Create).

But yes considering the software's sales on PS3 the game is selling fine.

I pulled all of the numbers from garaph.info. The exactness of the numbers is irrelevant to my point, however.

 

[Bladenic]

There's been no PS3 game that had that number of launch sales for the entirety of 2014, man. Honestly I think it couldn't have done as well as Xillia, and Bamco probably wasn't expecting it to either.

I dunno, I recall reading something about them not being happy with Xillia 2's numbers cuz they expected more, probably got cocky after Xillia.

 

[Falk]

I guess they didn't expect response to Xillia 2 to be somewhat

Spoiler

muted

Spoiler

help

 

[dramatis]

I dunno, I recall reading something about them not being happy with Xillia 2's numbers cuz they expected more, probably got cocky after Xillia.

If they overestimated Xillia 2's numbers, then that would likely make their estimates for Zestiria more conservative.

 

[Fisico]

I pulled all of the numbers from garaph.info. The exactness of the numbers is irrelevant to my point, however.

Yes overall it doesn't change anything, I just wanted to point out that no matter the tracker Zestiria is performing below Xillia 2.

I dunno, I recall reading something about them not being happy with Xillia 2's numbers cuz they expected more, probably got cocky after Xillia.

Bamco is know to often have ridiculous expectations, it was the same for ToS UP and Reve Unitia for the Tales series fairly recently.

 

[LuuKyK]

Given the timing of the release, and even considering PS4 isn't really flying off the shelves in Japan, I think its not really a surprise that Zestiria is selling less than Xillia, right? Even as an anniversary/commemorative title.

I guess they didn't expect response to Xillia 2 to be somewhat

Spoiler

muted

Spoiler

help

If it makes you feel any better, I thought it was funny. lol

 

[Bebpo]

Being an anniversary title doesn't mean anything. That's like every other game now.

Xillia was 15th anniversary title in September 2011
Zestiria is 20th anniversary title in January 2015

How that even makes sense is beyond me. 11+5 = 16.

 

[Big Green Anus]

How is the music in this game? I really like Go Shina musical works, so I'm hoping he did majority of the soundtrack.

 

[Bladenic]

Being an anniversary title doesn't mean anything. That's like every other game now.

Xillia was 15th anniversary title in September 2011
Zestiria is 20th anniversary title in January 2015

How that even makes sense is beyond me. 11+5 = 16.

There was no new title released in 2010, so I guess they just called Xillia that even though it was a year late. At least Zestiria is released in the 20th anniversary year, barely.

 

[dakkumauji]

Being an anniversary title doesn't mean anything. That's like every other game now.

Xillia was 15th anniversary title in September 2011
Zestiria is 20th anniversary title in January 2015

How that even makes sense is beyond me. 11+5 = 16.

They were late with Xillia

At least they were on time with Abyss.

 

[Bebpo]

How is the music in this game? I really like Go Shina musical works, so I'm hoping he did majority of the soundtrack.

It's great! Though I think he only did a minority of the tracks with Sakuraba doing the majority (but provided good tracks as well).

 

[3Kaze]

My first impressions are :
- Very poorly optimized game. It almost prevents me from enjoying the game. Textures normally don't look bad but they look like blurry vomit most of the time because of the lack of AF. It also lacks AA, there are a lot of pop in, framedrops in cutscene and battles... A ps4/pc port would really help but I assume it would be poorly optimized as well.
- 30fps battles with framedrops. It's much worse than the Xillia games.
- The camera is shit.
- Field and dungeon design are better than Xillia's, but still empty. And why does the personal skill for discovering chests not mark them on the map permanently?
- Grade system is really weird, nushi blessing for marking monsters on the map sounds like a joke.
- OP sucks, both the song and animation.

+/- I don't know whether I like the auxiliary systems (equipment, skills, food, battle act) or not. It's alright I guess.
+/- Sakuraba music is still annoying, Go Shiina music is still amazing.
+/- Story and characters are fine so far (first dragon)

+ I like the battles (shame about 30fps), even if it's a bit easy on hard mode. We can assign only 3 ougi though?
+ Having played Innocence R just before, I'm glad the game doesn't throw dozen skits at your face in each map.

 

[Aeana]

+ I like the battles (shame about 30fps), even if it's a bit easy on hard mode. We can assign only 3 ougi though?

About this particular point, there is a battle action that lets you hold the arte button to transfer into a higher level arte, which helps with the arte slots. It is a bit odd that they don't seem to have anything like the artes ball in the game though.

 

[Bebpo]

About this particular point, there is a battle action that lets you hold the arte button to transfer into a higher level arte, which helps with the arte slots. It is a bit odd that they don't seem to have anything like the artes ball in the game though.

Ok, yeah I saw that battle action and enabled it but I had no idea what "higher level arte" means in this game. Is it something that comes later? I'm lvl.20 now and have about 5 artes/ougis + hi-ougi.

And yeah I don't really get why they merged left/right together for assigning artes since they seperate the left/right directions for standard attacks. Doesn't make any sense and you just lose one slot.

Otoh, at this point the battle system is really kick-ass. Now that I've got more BC, longer dash, lots of good artes/attacks with every element. Can really move from one enemy to another chaining everything. I really really like the battle system concept that you only have to hit once with a weakpoint attack and then everything in the combo from that point does weakpoint damage regardless of the element. It really lets players freely combo and chain however they'd like in battles.

Been doing some exploring and like that there's still hidden caves and dungeons around. Wanted to go back and try out some of the high level enemies from the earlier fields but the game is smart and locks fast travel to spots that story-wise you shouldn't be at.


Btw, I loved the part at the 4th town/city where

Spoiler

all the tenzoku are moving around Sorey's body and telling him what to say to get past the gate inquisition with Rose. The humor and sillyness and full party interaction was a great example of why Tales can often be a fun series and something different from other rpgs.

 

[Bebpo]

My first impressions are :
- Very poorly optimized game. It almost prevents me from enjoying the game. Textures normally don't look bad but they look like blurry vomit most of the time because of the lack of AF. It also lacks AA, there are a lot of pop in, framedrops in cutscene and battles... A ps4/pc port would really help but I assume it would be poorly optimized as well.
- 30fps battles with framedrops. It's much worse than the Xillia games.
- The camera is shit.

I don't know, I don't really remember any of the 3d Tales games ever being super polished outside ridiculous budget Vesperia and 30fps is the norm for 3d Tales (or less) outside of battle, so it seems pretty much what I expect from Tales graphically.

And I don't understand everyone's beef with the camera. So many people are raging on the camera but I've never had a problem with it on the field and in battle it's only a problem every once and a while indoor or small areas where it glitches and you can't see your character. That's happened to me like 5 battles out of 250 or something so far, so it's really not that big of a deal. When I think shit camera I think Ninja Gaiden or something. Not this game.

 

[è£ ç”²æ‚ªé¬¼æ‘æ­£]

Finished the game and thought it was pretty good. It was weirdly unremarkable when it comes to story & characters, barely anything that can qualify as a big twist, no assholes, idiots and betrayers in the party

Spoiler

Dezel doesn't really count

. It's just a simple adventure of Tales Jesus and his decent, sympathetic companions. I think this almost qualifies as uncharted territory for this series. Lailah and Edna were definitely my favorites, these girls are hilarious. Edna constantly bullying Mikleo was good fun.

The gameplay systems as a whole are a mixed bag. Battles themselves are fun and fast paced, and the dynamic between humans, Tenzoku and the Kamui forms makes for some interesting fighting. The 4-artes combo limit is very annoying though. The methods to extend combos are either not worth it (spend BP), late game (higher leveled titles) or a total hassle (bonus equipment skill).

And speaking of skills and equipment: holy fuck this system is shit. All of it is annoying to the extreme. That sword you found has no attack value but provides lots of defense, that's ok though, it complements the armor that has no defense but gives a lot of attack. The skills on that sword that functions as an armor are pretty good too but oh no! They break my precious Union 1 bonus skill so I better keep using that shitty sword that I've been using for an eternity without upgrading because fusing it would ruin EVERYTHING. And look at those Dirty Peasant Boots +9, not contributing anything to any bonus skill but still providing better stats than anything else I've found in the last 10 hours. No way to check the skill map in the fusion screen either, so god help you if you want to plan any of this shit without losing your mind in that clusterfuck of stats, skills and arrangements.

This skill nightmare, the constant support talent switching, no sprint button, battle camera going crazy in narrow dungeon hallways....there sure is a lot of annoying stuff in this game but the package as a whole is mostly entertaining. A non-TP combat system combined with non-horrible themes and characters for once + a couple of awesome Go Shiina tracks were enough to make this game worthwhile to me. I'm definitely burned out on Tales again though, no sequel next year plz.

 

[Falk]

That sword you found has no attack value but provides lots of defense, that's ok though, it complements the armor that has no defense but gives a lot of attack.

LOL