Not playing the DLC until I finish the game so I don't have much to say on that, but in the main story I've made it up to Pendrago. My current, non-final impression is that I'm enjoying it a lot more than Xillia, a bit more than Xillia 2, around the same as Vesperia (give or take some "points"), and a bit less than Graces. Story's getting more interesting, battle system's picking up, and I'm starting to get the hang of the sub systems. I think the real test will be the last third or so, that's usually the low point of most Tales games imo.
I actually like the equipment system somewhat, but I don't like that you need equipment of the same name to synthesize, and like other people have mentioned you can't really figure out how this affects your bonus sheet unless you know where the skills already go. I think the former problem would be less annoying if it were easier to get equipment of the same name, sometimes you luck out and the shop has two or you find two, sometimes it's tough and you're stuck for a while.
Maybe this is a good thing to some people, but I feel like they nerfed the side step too hard in this game. On one hand it feels more like an achievement when you pull it off a perfect dodge, on the other it's made me more hesitant to attempt it and I usually just resort to getting out of the range of attacks since it's safer. But the game doesn't have anything as crazy as Eleth Burst and the other ways to fill BG aren't too slow, so I feel less compelled to use it anyway. Somewhat related to this, I got the Free & Free skill and it's weird to play a Tales game where Free Run is the default, if I played on semi-auto it'd almost be a Star Ocean game lol. It actually feels a lot more natural than I expected however.
When it comes to the framerate I've seen Xillia and Xillia 2's framerates go much lower than anything I've seen in Zestiria so far, but to be fair I would also say they maintained an average that was equivalent or likely higher than Zestiria's. At the moment I found the Xillias' framerate drops more noticeable and annoying, but I'm the type that's really annoyed by sudden and severe drops but can usually bear with a game that fluctuates within the 20-30 fps range. Pick your poison I guess... Either way I think the series really needs to pull another Vesperia and give the ambitious ideas a break for a game or two so they can prioritize fixing the mounting technical issues and making a cleaner and better-optimized game. Hopefully Zestiria is the last part of some foundation they wanted to establish before going into next gen and the next game will focus on iteration over innovation.
I actually like the equipment system somewhat, but I don't like that you need equipment of the same name to synthesize, and like other people have mentioned you can't really figure out how this affects your bonus sheet unless you know where the skills already go. I think the former problem would be less annoying if it were easier to get equipment of the same name, sometimes you luck out and the shop has two or you find two, sometimes it's tough and you're stuck for a while.
Maybe this is a good thing to some people, but I feel like they nerfed the side step too hard in this game. On one hand it feels more like an achievement when you pull it off a perfect dodge, on the other it's made me more hesitant to attempt it and I usually just resort to getting out of the range of attacks since it's safer. But the game doesn't have anything as crazy as Eleth Burst and the other ways to fill BG aren't too slow, so I feel less compelled to use it anyway. Somewhat related to this, I got the Free & Free skill and it's weird to play a Tales game where Free Run is the default, if I played on semi-auto it'd almost be a Star Ocean game lol. It actually feels a lot more natural than I expected however.
When it comes to the framerate I've seen Xillia and Xillia 2's framerates go much lower than anything I've seen in Zestiria so far, but to be fair I would also say they maintained an average that was equivalent or likely higher than Zestiria's. At the moment I found the Xillias' framerate drops more noticeable and annoying, but I'm the type that's really annoyed by sudden and severe drops but can usually bear with a game that fluctuates within the 20-30 fps range. Pick your poison I guess... Either way I think the series really needs to pull another Vesperia and give the ambitious ideas a break for a game or two so they can prioritize fixing the mounting technical issues and making a cleaner and better-optimized game. Hopefully Zestiria is the last part of some foundation they wanted to establish before going into next gen and the next game will focus on iteration over innovation.
