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[aravuus]

Okay so am I the only one who thinks this game has incredibly boring skits? I have no idea what it is that makes them so bland. Graces f had a bunch of fun skits and that game's cast is one of the worst in JRPG history, so it's not the cast. They're just dull.

 

[adamsapple]

Okay so am I the only one who thinks this game has incredibly boring skits? I have no idea what it is that makes them so bland. Graces f had a bunch of fun skits and that game's cast is one of the worst in JRPG history, so it's not the cast. They're just dull.

.

 

[Ramza11]

The only Tales game that I have played and finished is Tales of Graces f.

How? That's the strangest "I only played and finished 'x' Tales game" I ever heard since that's the one that like nobody can get into. I beat 5 or 6 of them before trying Graces f and I couldn't get past the first hour...

 

[matmanx1]

I got more time to play my PC copy last night and boy is this game nice to look at and nice to hear. I'm already digging the OST more than Xilia's and having the option for the J-dub is just icing on the cake.

The only technical issue I've had so far is intermittent screen tearing along the middle to top of the screen but disabling full screen seemed to fix it. Otherwise it is a very smooth experience with extremely quick load times on my SSD.

 

[Dragonslayer_023]

I still don't fully understand the battle system. I have a bunch of artes but I don't know how to use them.

 

[Crevox]

intermittent screen tearing along the middle to top of the screen but disabling full screen seemed to fix it.

Yeah, this is a known way to fix it. I believe some people said forcing v-sync in the driver helps too if v-sync in the game options doesn't help.

extremely quick load times on my SSD.

I'm not sure how it is on PS3/PS4, but yeah, this game is really nice because of the non-existent loading. I have it on a ramdisk and it's great.

All in all, I think the PC port is fantastic. I don't even mind the 30 FPS. Sure, 60 would be nice, but it's just the way the game was designed. It feels very Graces/Destiny in terms of style.

I still don't fully understand the battle system. I have a bunch of artes but I don't know how to use them.

Basically, you have a 4 attack combo as soon as you hit the attack button. If you go in your artes menu, you have a... chart of your attack flow.

The first attack will be whatever direction you are holding the joystick in when you first press that button. The second column will be the next, second attack. If you hold the joystick in a different direction in this next attack, you'll do whichever attack you chose there. Followed by that is attack 3 (third column), then finally, attack 4. You learn more of these (and fill out the chart) as you level up, giving you more options for every part of the combo. They all have different effects for killing certain enemies, healing, debuffing, buffing, etc. After the fourth attack, you go back to attack 1 again if you have the battle skills to continue comboing.

Within these combos, you can use the other type of artes. These are performed with the other button than the attack button. You can set these in the artes menu yourself for which ones you want to use. You can use these in any step in the above combo, using it for that step (Attack 1 -> Arte 2 -> Attack 3). If you use attacks before an arte, that arte will cost less SC, and if you mix and match the two, both of them receive increased damage and stagger, among other benefits.

 

[yami4ct]

I still don't fully understand the battle system. I have a bunch of artes but I don't know how to use them.

I assume you're playing Sorey, correct?

Your regular physical attacks (martial artes) that are set to O are preset and unlock as you go (as far as I understand, this is a bit different for a Tales game). Each combo section you're on will have a different set of martial artes. Basically it means it'll have some you can do on your first hit, some on the second hit, etc. You then choose your arte by hitting O and a direction. So up+O might be set to one arte and neutral+O another.

Hidden artes (sort of like special attacks) you set yourself from the artes menu, but they operate a similar way without the combo restriction. You trigger those with X. So, once you set an arte to up+X, or neutral+X, that will always be the command.

It's a bit hard to explain in writing, but take a look at both pages of the artes menu. I think that'll give you a good idea of how they work.

 

[aravuus]

Got a 148-hit combo against a boss

150-hit combo would have unlocked a new battle action

Goddamn it

 

[tauke]

Didn't get to play much for tonight and ended up scrapping off NVenc due to odd frame rate issue in the recording.

So here's a quick 5 mins recording of 8x SGSSAA (all max with the exception of FXAA which I disable). Pretty much eliminate most pixel crawling which GeDoSaTo has trouble even when downsampling from 5K res.

https://youtu.be/xTk1xDrjqRw

Sadly Youtube compression pretty much destroy a lot of fine details but the edges are super smooth temporally.

 

[R0ckman]

Got a 148-hit combo against a boss

150-hit combo would have unlocked a new battle action

Goddamn it

How are you all doing this? I can't do this without almost killing most enemies including bosses, this is even in modorate.

 

[AndrewDean84xX]

I started the game last night, and must admit that I think this has the best opening since Symphonia.

I'm out of the opening and ready to start my true adventure to save the world, again. My only concern is that Sorey might be to simple of a character, and not have as much depth as the rest of the people around him.

 

[Crevox]

How are you all doing this? I can't do this without almost killing most enemies including bosses, this is even in modorate.

Hard would be better.

If you have to, you can use the half damage skill, but I think most bosses should be able to live that long, at least on hard. Normal makes it easier because the enemies stagger easier, but you just have to find an enemy that lives long enough.

I'm currently playing on Intense but my highest combo is only 122 or something. Granted, I only play as the Seraphim, so it's a bit harder to combo because Sorey is usually better at comboing compared to spells.

 

[Ascheroth]

I still don't quite understand how title profiency works.
I know it increases when I level up - easy enough.
But I've read they also gain profiency from battles, but I've yet to see them gain ANY proficiency like that.
I've fought like 15-20 battles in a row and my level 3 Sword Harrier title is still completely empty. I've even made sure to fight against enemies with higher level then myself just in case (Level 13 vs Level 15 for reference).
Is it supposed to be like that? Am I doing something wrong? Am I just stupid?

 

[aravuus]

How are you all doing this? I can't do this without almost killing most enemies including bosses, this is even in modorate.

Optional boss on hard, might have even been strong against my attacks.

But yeah, most of the time they just die too fast. Biggest reason why I was so annoyed, I won't be seeing a boss that can take that much heat in a while, I think.

 

[Arkeus]

I think I am doing something really wrong, as I can't manage to have any long combos at all.

What are you using to keep the chain up?

 

[Big Green Anus]

This map is really frustrating! Where am I suppose to go?! So much backward design decisions from previous Tales games.

 

[Crevox]

I think I am doing something really wrong, as I can't manage to have any long combos at all.

What are you using to keep the chain up?

1. Keep your SC up and work with the AI as much as possible to refill your SC while they attack. Remember that if your SC gets low, it will regenerate slower, so you should aim to not let it drop below half.

2. Use power hits which increases your stagger time on enemies (hit their species weakness and element weakness).

3. Vary up your artes, because if you use the same ones in succession, the enemy won't stagger as long from it.

4. Use skills like Ekseed to boost your combo times.

5. If you're playing as a Seraphim, use persistence spells to hold the enemy while your AI recovers SC/you get ready to attack again.

6.

Spoiler

Mystic Artes

usually stagger the enemy for a good amount of time after they finish, allowing you to soft reset your combo.

7. Use skills like Chain Blast to refill your SC, reset your attack combo, and carry over spell cast time reductions into a new combo.

This map is really frustrating! Where am I suppose to go?! So much backward design decisions from previous Tales games.

Hold R1 and it tells you in the top right. If you don't see a star and are still not sure (this only ever happened once for me and my friend) just ask your human partner and they should tell you, even if the question you ask them doesn't really seem like it would help.

 

[Basileus777]

I still don't quite understand how title profiency works.
I know it increases when I level up - easy enough.
But I've read they also gain profiency from battles, but I've yet to see them gain ANY proficiency like that.
I've fought like 15-20 battles in a row and my level 3 Sword Harrier title is still completely empty. I've even made sure to fight against enemies with higher level then myself just in case (Level 13 vs Level 15 for reference).
Is it supposed to be like that? Am I doing something wrong? Am I just stupid?

Titles don't increase from battles unless you level up.

 

[ussjtrunks]

How does the ps4 version run guys is it a locked 30fps too, are there any pc vs ps4 comparision screenshots somwhere?

 

[Corpekata]

Question about titles. At the start, for instance, most titles have "next arte: Blah Blah"

So let's say I get like 3 levels in Title X, and Blah Blah unlocks at 5.

Presumably this changes the Next Arte: for all the titles that had Blah Blah, So let's call the next one "Whoopdydo"

If I switch from that title X at level 5, when would I earn Whoopydo from Title Y? Is it just like "earn level 7 in one of these titles" or is it like, cumulative?

 

[yami4ct]

How does the ps4 version run guys is it a locked 30fps too, are there any pc vs ps4 comparision screenshots somwhere?

PS4 runs at locked 1080p 30 from what I can tell. I've felt no drops even with tons of enemies or effects on screens.

PC let's you run higher resolutions and downsample, of course. I know the PC has effect options like better shadows, but I'm not sure if PS4 also runs those at max. Someone else will have to answer that. You should be able to get both in the US for around the same price (assuming you take GCU as an option). If you have a decent PC, Downsampling is probably worth going that direction, but with PS4 you get remote play and a physical option.

 

[Dragonslayer_023]

Basically, you have a 4 attack combo as soon as you hit the attack button. If you go in your artes menu, you have a... chart of your attack flow.

The first attack will be whatever direction you are holding the joystick in when you first press that button. The second column will be the next, second attack. If you hold the joystick in a different direction in this next attack, you'll do whichever attack you chose there. Followed by that is attack 3 (third column), then finally, attack 4. You learn more of these (and fill out the chart) as you level up, giving you more options for every part of the combo. They all have different effects for killing certain enemies, healing, debuffing, buffing, etc. After the fourth attack, you go back to attack 1 again if you have the battle skills to continue comboing.

Within these combos, you can use the other type of artes. These are performed with the other button than the attack button. You can set these in the artes menu yourself for which ones you want to use. You can use these in any step in the above combo, using it for that step (Attack 1 -> Arte 2 -> Attack 3). If you use attacks before an arte, that arte will cost less SC, and if you mix and match the two, both of them receive increased damage and stagger, among other benefits.

Oh I see, thanks. I had never even seen the screen that shows the chart with the attack flow.

 

[thematic]

I'm playing with GTX 750 Ti @ 1080p max, only used 20-40% GPU.

i want to try downsampling from 4K, which tool should I use? I believe nVidia's DSR(?) only for higher GPU right?

Thank You

 

[robotzombie]

Can someone explain how the chain blast battle skill works? It says something about holding R2 after doing three combos? And then you can continue with a new combo?

 

[mcz117chief]

I don't suppose there is a demo of the game, right? Can somebody approximate this game to anything else? It is similar to Final Fantasy? I am currently looking around for some nice RPG so I am interested.

 

[jrcbandit]

The overall game design is just so confusing for character progression with gear, titles, various combo restrictions, etc. I went back to playing Wasteland 2 DC for now..

 

[Rhapsody]

Can someone explain how the chain blast battle skill works? It says something about holding R2 after doing three combos? And then you can continue with a new combo?

It's worded weird. They mean the number of hits in a combo. So do it after the third hit.

Okay so am I the only one who thinks this game has incredibly boring skits? I have no idea what it is that makes them so bland. Graces f had a bunch of fun skits and that game's cast is one of the worst in JRPG history, so it's not the cast. They're just dull.

Definitely not as interesting as Graces skits, but they get better as they go on.

 

[Crevox]

I don't suppose there is a demo of the game, right? Can somebody approximate this game to anything else? It is similar to Final Fantasy? I am currently looking around for some nice RPG so I am interested.

It's an RPG, but it's much more actiony than Final Fantasy in the combat system, and more anime-ish.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Whoever anglicized the script did a rock solid job. Zaveid and Edna's lines are good.

I've been thinking this to myself, obviously a lot of the script is not a direct translation as a lot of the characters in English are using obviously English wordplay, there's references to certain things I'm 90% sure weren't in the original Japanese script, and just other things about the dialogue I'm sure was changed/added during translation, but to be honest this is a case I'm not too bothered by it, I actually like the dialogue a lot and think they did a good job translating it but making it enjoyable for English audiences.

 

[Corpekata]

There's some weird translation still if you ask me.

LIke, Leilah says some things to Sorey and Sorey replies twice with things like "You have a mean streak" when she didn't really say anything mean.

 

[vareon]

This might seem lazy and I apologize, but if there any battle tutorial videos? I tried searching on youtube but people seem to put all kind of spoilers in video titles that I'm wary.

I can't get my combo past teens and really want to learn more. People can do 150 hit combos and I was like holy shit?

 

[Cornbread78]

I don't suppose there is a demo of the game, right? Can somebody approximate this game to anything else? It is similar to Final Fantasy? I am currently looking around for some nice RPG so I am interested.

Have you played Star Ocean or Radiata Stories before? The battle system is very similar with an anime style story. It's a jrpg, so it's story and progression is similar to FF.

 

[Crevox]

This might seem lazy and I apologize, but if there any battle tutorial videos? I tried searching on youtube but people seem to put all kind of spoilers in video titles that I'm wary.

I can't get my combo past teens and really want to learn more. People can do 150 hit combos and I was like holy shit?

If you read up a bit, I outlined some good tactics to building big combos.

 

[vareon]

If you read up a bit, I outlined some good tactics to building big combos.

And thanks! I'll try some of that, though I still need to see how people do it. I'm about 6-7 hours in, just recruited Edna, but I feel like I'm missing a lot in the battle system.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Hmm... I'm interested to see how this "you're literally Jesus from the beginning of the game, and you know it, everyone else knows it, and you're immediately expected to save the world" story plays out. It's so cheesy and over the top that's it's rarely laid out this bluntly in JRPGs! There's always at least a short phase of "nobody" or "sorta important" before getting your grand task. But nope. Day 1 here, and it's made blatant even before then. I mean, FFX went this route and the known story from the beginning was its primary weak point.

I think the story in this is more about the journey to our destination than anything. But I am still in the beginning of the game so there could still be a lot of twists

The game about the journey compared to the destination indeed (the game even points this out fairly early, the point of the game is to go on a journey to explore the world and for the Shepherd to stop the Lord of Calamity and find his own answers). But the story does tackle things about you being basically Jesus, how people perceive that, and how wielding such powers can easily change the world, for better or worse.

Okay so am I the only one who thinks this game has incredibly boring skits? I have no idea what it is that makes them so bland. Graces f had a bunch of fun skits and that game's cast is one of the worst in JRPG history, so it's not the cast. They're just dull.

I haven't felt this way, but I also feel I've been getting more skits than other people. I've been exploring, talking to everyone, staying at hotels regularly, going to check save points fairly regularly. I find like, 80% of the skits happen in this game if you do certain things at certain points in the game and then go to a save point, or stay at hotels. Most skits don't appear unless you're at a save point or eat food and rest for the night at a hotel, with more of the entertaining ones happening when you go to hotels. And then another 5% happen if you find a historical destination point to add to your library.

I've been enjoying them, some of them are kind of dull, but I'm like between a fourth and a third of the way through the game and I've experienced something like 40-50 skits, so I feel I'm experiencing higher than average based on what some people are saying.

There's some weird translation still if you ask me.

LIke, Leilah says some things to Sorey and Sorey replies twice with things like "You have a mean streak" when she didn't really say anything mean.

I know the scene you're referencing, I took it that it's because Leilah analyzes other people and says cheerily something about them, even if that makes someone sound worse or better in specific situations. I recall Sorey and her having this conversation when they got out of the first real dungeon and her talking about the conflict between the brothers at the time. But he said it in a teasing way, as opposed to be serious about it.

 

[kayos90]

There's some weird translation still if you ask me.

LIke, Leilah says some things to Sorey and Sorey replies twice with things like "You have a mean streak" when she didn't really say anything mean.

She's teasing him. She actually is being mean lol. It's just subtle.

 

[Ascheroth]

Titles don't increase from battles unless you level up.

You mean this only starts happening after I reach a certain level/point in the story? That would make sense, then.

 

[bigmac996]

How? That's the strangest "I only played and finished 'x' Tales game" I ever heard since that's the one that like nobody can get into. I beat 5 or 6 of them before trying Graces f and I couldn't get past the first hour...

It's not that strange. Graces F is actually my favourite Tales game, and it wasn't my first. I'd played Symphonia and Vesperia beforehand. I absolutely hated the beginning, it gets much better after that first couple of hours.

 

[jorgeton]

I've been thinking this to myself, obviously a lot of the script is not a direct translation as a lot of the characters in English are using obviously English wordplay, there's references to certain things I'm 90% sure weren't in the original Japanese script, and just other things about the dialogue I'm sure was changed/added during translation, but to be honest this is a case I'm not too bothered by it, I actually like the dialogue a lot and think they did a good job translating it but making it enjoyable for English audiences.

That lipstick on a pig line got me. lol.

 

[Beats]

Can you play on the highest difficulty from the start or do you have to unlock it?

 

[Basileus777]

Can you play on the highest difficulty from the start or do you have to unlock it?

You have to kill 300 enemies on hard to unlock intense, and then kill 400 enemies on intense to unlock chaos.

 

[InternHertz]

Can you play on the highest difficulty from the start or do you have to unlock it?

Unlock. 300 battles on Hard for Evil and then 300 or 400 on Evil to get Chaos

 

[Kagari]

How does the ps4 version run guys is it a locked 30fps too, are there any pc vs ps4 comparision screenshots somwhere?

I played a bit of the PS4 version while my fiance played the PC version last night. Both seem like real solid ports. My only gripe is having to completely exit the game to swap languages.

 

[KainXVIII]

So here's a quick 5 mins recording of 8x SGSSAA (all max with the exception of FXAA which I disable). Pretty much eliminate most pixel crawling which GeDoSaTo has trouble even when downsampling from 5K res.

Even on 8x SGSSAA pixel crawl on ground textures is still visible =(

 

[Peff]

You mean this only starts happening after I reach a certain level/point in the story? That would make sense, then.

You only ever get title exp. by levelling up, but you can get some recipes that will give you a small amount of experience provided you fulfill some extra condition (x hit combo, finish before y time, etc.). Not really worth the headache, though.

Speaking of the translation, I caught an oddly straightforward Batman reference, heh.

 

[UCBooties]

Great work on the OP! I really don't like the thread title though. Still, thanks for getting all the information and media together! My copy finally arrived today so I can't wait to open it up and get started!

 

[cwistofu]

How do I get the Alisha DLC for Steam? I'm interested in this game, but I have so much other stuff on my plate and a limited budget that I can't justify dropping $$ for it right now.

 

[Paltheos]

It's not that strange. Graces F is actually my favourite Tales game, and it wasn't my first. I'd played Symphonia and Vesperia beforehand. I absolutely hated the beginning, it gets much better after that first couple of hours.

Indeed. The start of Graces is vile, showcasing the worst the game has: Its poor cast as insufferable kids, a gutted version of its battle system (one of if not the best Tales battle system so far imo), and no Pascal.

The instant I started the adult section, I said, "Oh, nooow, I get it. This is awesome. It all makes sense now,"

 

[Crevox]

Even on 8x SGSSAA pixel crawl on ground textures is still visible =(

After using gedosato, DSR, and SGSSAA, 8x SGSSAA certainly seems like the best of the three. Yeah, there's still some pixel crawl, but the difference is amazing with it on.

I imagine downsampling and SGSSAA would be a good combo, but that is too much for my single GPU right now (and why I'm hoping for some SLI bits).

 

[Kasumin]

Weird on not liking Dezel's design, it's one of the best they've had in years. Even Inomata is running a little stale lately and I usually love her designs.

I do adore Rose, what the hell was all the rage about with Alisha? She was a horrible character, a less dumb estelle. Truly awful. I guess some Tales fans have truly gone insane.

Estelle was great, though. Alisha's just boring.

It's all in personal tastes, I think I have a bias on his design since it reminds me of a BlazBlue character a friend of mine is super fangirl on and she probably sends me pics of him several times a month, so take that as personal bias, and tastes and all that.

The Alisha outrage I don't quite understand either, though I don't think she's awful personally. She's not a favorite, but I think she's a better princess character than some other Tales of entries.

Estelle wasn't dumb in a conventional sense. She was super smart! Crazy smart! ...but only book smart (and super sheltered).

And yeah I don't get the rage for Alisha either. She's pretty, and creatively designed (besides her hair having even more sharp angles than any DBZ character), but she's a complete bore. What little of a schtick she's got doesn't really stick out at all.

Rose at least has a lot more back bone, and I loved her a lot more even moments after meeting her.

You're all making it sound like Alisha being uninteresting is a justification in and of itself. Isn't that the writer's fault? It's like getting a subpar dish at a restaurant and blaming the dish sitting on your plate for not being better instead of, you know, the chef who actually cooked it.

And honestly, I haven't been impressed with Zestiria's main scenario writer (if I recall, his surname is Yamamoto). He was also main scenario writer for Hearts and Xillia 2 from the info I've found. His writing is super sloppy. He'll introduce themes and plot points then throw them out the window as soon as they no longer serve whatever he's going for in the plot. Xillia 2 was particularly bad about this

Spoiler

with Ludger's brother and Ludger's parallels to Victor. The bad ending seems to indicate that Ludger follows Victor's path, but it focuses only on Julius who has hardly been show in the game anyway. Why not refer to both?

It's like the person writing the story can only focus on one main theme at a time. It comes off as sloppy at best and lazy at worst to me.

And my favorite ridiculous element added to the backstory in Xillia 2 from this main scenario writer:

Spoiler

Kresniks are born with pocket watches in the womb! Considering the Xillia world tried at least be somewhat realistic, this detail is so ridiculous that it just killed any chance I had of taking Xillia 2's plot seriously. It's like this guy has no idea how women's bodies work because wow, that borders on body horror territory.

I'm not that far into the game(8hoursish?), but from what I've played so far, they seemed to be really wanting Alisha to seem like she's more important than she is for the first hours of the game. So, I doubt that helped?

The Alisha rage was over marketing in Japan. I blame that on Bandai Namco because it sounds like they didn't have much communication internally when it came to that. It's all about context. Japanese fans' relation to Tales games is in a much different context than Western fans'. The game was marketed much differently in the West. So when people act like Japanese fans must be crazy, I don't really think that's fair as it's ignoring the larger context involved.

It also doesn't help that that's what game news sites in the West focused on when Japanese fans were angry about many other things about the game. They didn't get the better PS4 and PC ports, after all.

And Namco continued to bungle the whole marketing fiasco by pulling stupid crap like making Rose's seiyuu apologize to fans at the recent Tales festival event. Like it's her fault? She was just doing her job. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but not in regard to Japanese fans. It makes me question what the hell Namco is doing with this series.