Support NeoGAF

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

Yeah, I'm kinda struggling at boss battles because I have no idea how to taunt and interrupt. How do I do that?
Anyway, I'm on moderate difficulty.

Haven't seen a taunt Battle Skill yet.

If you want to interrupt bosses you need to hit them with what they're weak against. If they have no elemental weakness then you need to hit them with an arte that targets their monster type (Beast, Therian, Crustacean, etc) in order to get Power Hit combo which will let you stagger.

Check the artes list to find out which ones target what or just check them when you get into a fight with a boss.

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

PS4 streaming is blocked by Namco. I'll have to set up my capture device if I want to stream which is really annoying.

Pretty pissed about this myself. I had put all my streaming equipment away months ago in hopes this new gen would eliminate the need for it.

 

[Kensuke]

Yes, I'm noticing this BS. *Sigh* this is starting to remind me of Tales of Destiny 2 (JP) battle system, I hated the **** out of that one. It's not as bad as that one though because at least it feels like the enemies are penalized for SC meter in this one.

Ah, now that you mention it, I remember hearing that for every battle you fight your initial SC--the amount of SC you start a battle with--goes down by 1. So the game is telling you to restore it by resting at an inn (but the snacks you make with the Snack Preparation support action also increase it).

It's a pain in the butt. Sometimes it seems like this game likes to work against the players. Take the teleport fee for instance, which is basically telling you to waste time (backtracking) or money. Not sure why they needed to do this. I guess they wanted people to see the world they created, instead of teleporting all over the place.

 

[Kasumin]

Yes, I'm noticing this BS. *Sigh* this is starting to remind me of Tales of Destiny 2 (JP) battle system, I hated the **** out of that one. It's not as bad as that one though because at least it feels like the enemies are penalized for SC meter in this one.

For those curious this system is kind of an evolution of an old linear one. In that one there was an SP meter the functioned similarly. Only you basically controlled one side of the field and the enemies another, if you entered their side, your max SP was cut in half or sometimes worse, so spell casting was overpowered in the game. If there were melee units blocking a caster you would have to have your casters attack their casters, everyone had magic (though in that universe it made no sense according to the prequel why everyone could use magic and was never explained) but it slowed down the battle and your melee units would be attacked by theirs if you focused on magic. It also seemed like the system was lenient towards the enemies. All in all it was designed primarily to keep you from going in and curb stomping random monsters, but it was horrible.

Yuuup. My friend who wrote a long analysis based on the import said similarly. I haven't played Destiny 2 (have it for PSP but haven't picked it up yet), but I've played Rebirth and Destiny's PS2 remake and Zestiria reminds me of those games... but not in a good way.

It seems like they were trying to fix the issues Graces had with CC. But I really don't agree with this method... honestly, if we consider Zestiria a "Team Destiny" style game (I know Tales Studio has been dissolved), it feels like a step back in so many ways.

The Skill system and its relation to equipment seems like they brought back the really bad and convoluted aspects from Tales of Rebirth and Destiny's PS2 remake's systems around weapon and armor upgrading. It makes no sense to me whatsoever because Graces' Dualizing was such a nice and comparatively simple system.

 

[PKrockin]

It's a pain in the butt. Sometimes it seems like this game likes to work against the players. Take the teleport fee for instance, which is basically telling you to waste time (backtracking) or money. Not sure why they needed to do this. I guess they wanted people to see the world they created, instead of teleporting all over the place.

It's... really not, though. The snacks alone are enough to keep Initial SC up, the herbs also restore it and I'm sure everyone has dozens of those piled up by now, and you should be resting at inns once in a while anyway for the skits and food bonuses.

 

[texhnolyze]

About 8-9hrs in. The more I play the more it clicks with me. The characters too. One thing I'm noticing is how over my head all of these systems are for me compared to previous titles. Specially the skills, I think I know what I'm doing but I'm not even sure. Same goes for artes, seraphic artes and whatnot. Still I'm having a ton of fun.

I have pretty similar impressions after 10 hours in. I'm enjoying the story so far and loving the characters as well. But I haven't quite grasped the system yet.

Haven't seen a taunt Battle Skill yet.

If you want to interrupt bosses you need to hit them with what they're weak against. If they have no elemental weakness then you need to hit them with an arte that targets their monster type (Beast, Therian, Crustacean, etc) in order to get Power Hit combo which will let you stagger.

Check the artes list to find out which ones target what or just check them when you get into a fight with a boss.

I see.
I totally haven't paid any attention to the monster type so far. I kinda get the elemental thingy though. I guess I'll have to learn a lot this evening then. Thanks.

 

[Rhapsody]

Yuuup. My friend who wrote a long analysis based on the import said similarly. I haven't played Destiny 2 (have it for PSP but haven't picked it up yet), but I've played Rebirth and Destiny's PS2 remake and Zestiria reminds me of those games... but not in a good way.

It seems like they were trying to fix the issues Graces had with CC. But I really don't agree with this method... honestly, if we consider Zestiria a "Team Destiny" style game (I know Tales Studio has been dissolved), it feels like a step back in so many ways.

The Skill system and its relation to equipment seems like they brought back the really bad and convoluted aspects from Tales of Rebirth and Destiny's PS2 remake's systems around weapon and armor upgrading. It makes no sense to me whatsoever because Graces' Dualizing was such a nice and comparatively simple system.

I dunno, dualizing was a bit weird regarding qualities and the number of letters. Definitely simpler than the weird stuff that went on with Destiny 2, but it had its own strange things about it. I actually found Destiny remake to be the simplest.

And I do agree about Zestiria being a step back from Graces. Although I do feel like Zestiria battles felt like what Xillia should've been though (in terms of progression for Symphonia styled games). No CC, while tiers being heavily important, it's much better than the stuff Xillia tried to do along with AC.

I don't find Zestiria's stuff all the confusing though. It's only confusing because you expect more to it, but... that's sort of just it. There's nothing really there to figure out and exploit regarding equipment and skills. You can worry about stacking skills, but it's not really laid out in a way where the player can always take advantage of it to a high degree.

 

[R0ckman]

Yuuup. My friend who wrote a long analysis based on the import said similarly. I haven't played Destiny 2 (have it for PSP but haven't picked it up yet), but I've played Rebirth and Destiny's PS2 remake and Zestiria reminds me of those games... but not in a good way.

It seems like they were trying to fix the issues Graces had with CC. But I really don't agree with this method... honestly, if we consider Zestiria a "Team Destiny" style game (I know Tales Studio has been dissolved), it feels like a step back in so many ways.

The Skill system and its relation to equipment seems like they brought back the really bad and convoluted aspects from Tales of Rebirth and Destiny's PS2 remake's systems around weapon and armor upgrading. It makes no sense to me whatsoever because Graces' Dualizing was such a nice and comparatively simple system.

Agree with you 100%, actually the weapon system is very similar to Destiny 2 as well, right down to the same looking weapons and armor having different stats and you being able to get different skills and combos from them. I never bothered with them though, there were linear weapons and equipments in that game that were in a seperate teir if you didn't want to bother with the system, they were marked with a golden glow on their equipment icons.

 

[BasicMath]

Loving the PC version of this.
Saving system really needs some work, though. Sometimes it doesn't pick up the latest file at all. Got screwed over by this a few times already. The problem seems to be large (more than 20-30?) amounts of saves. I'm assuming the issue is out of laziness too since the PS3/PS4 would use the API there available while PC has nothing.

 

[Beats]

Played for around 8 hours and got to that area across the broken bridge. It's okay so far. The game looks pretty nice and I'm liking the story/characters. The game feels a bit too easy on Hard even though I've only fought the enemies along the way and occasionally skipped a few here and there. Maybe it's my equipment/skills? I'm not sure. I haven't unlocked the higher difficulties so I can't really increase it unfortunately. I'm sort of enjoying the battle system but the regular enemies die really fast, so I don't get a lot of time in battle besides boss fights.

 

[Firestorm]

Wow Zestiria is running perfectly so far with all settings maxed on my PC from 2009. 2.83 GHz Q9550 with GTX 275 and 8GB RAM. I'm using a DualShock 3 with ScpServer.

 

[Kensuke]

Just got my first full horizontal line with the skill nodes. E-Union 10. Not sure if it was worth it though. Got all the earth skills on Dezel and now he reflects back 30% of any earth damage he takes. A monster weak to earth doesn't use earth attacks itself, that's why I put it all on Dezel instead of Edna. Still, it might have been a mistake. E-Union 9 has '20% chance of x4 earth power increase'. That sounds like it might be awesome for Edna and better than this damage reflecting stuff.

It's hard to figure out which unions are worth it and on which characters to put them. What are you guys aiming for?

 

[CertifiedFP]

Just got my first full horizontal line with the skill nodes. E-Union 10. Not sure if it was worth it though. Got all the earth skills on Dezel and now he reflects back 30% of any earth damage he takes. A monster weak to earth doesn't use earth attacks itself, that's why I didn't put it all Dezel instead of Edna. Still, it might have been a mistake. E-Union 9 has '20% chance of x4 earth power increase'. That sounds like it might be awesome for Edna and better than this damage reflecting stuff.

It's hard to figure out which unions are worth it and on which characters to put them. What are you guys aiming for?

As many G-Unions as possible, prioritizing the first and 3rd rows for 20% stat buffs and health increase.

 

[kiryogi]

Yes, I'm noticing this BS. *Sigh* this is starting to remind me of Tales of Destiny 2 (JP) battle system, I hated the **** out of that one. It's not as bad as that one though because at least it feels like the enemies are penalized for SC meter in this one.

For those curious this system is kind of an evolution of an old linear one. In that one there was an SP meter the functioned similarly. Only you basically controlled one side of the field and the enemies another, if you entered their side, your max SP was cut in half or sometimes worse, so spell casting was overpowered in the game. If there were melee units blocking a caster you would have to have your casters attack their casters, everyone had magic (though in that universe it made no sense according to the prequel why everyone could use magic and was never explained) but it slowed down the battle and your melee units would be attacked by theirs if you focused on magic. It also seemed like the system was lenient towards the enemies. All in all it was designed primarily to keep you from going in and curb stomping random monsters, but it was horrible.

Haha I LOVE ToD2j. One of my favorites next to TotA. Such a brutal system that really made you work for those victories and grade. All hail Tatsuro Udo. I should prefer this over Vesperia if anything, even if its lacking compared to Graces.

 

[Mifec]

Sorey's alternate red/black/gold outfit is pretty nice.

 

[Crevox]

Wow, such attachment

http://imgur.com/a/1OqCY

 

[Kensuke]

As many G-Unions as possible, prioritizing the first and 3rd rows for 20% stat buffs and health increase.

The first row is only +20 to stats, not +20%. That would be OP! The first row is amazing in the early game, but after that not so much. I like the 4th and 5th rows (SC and BG recovery speed increase).

 

[TheGreatLugia]

Swapping the inputs for Martial and Hidden/Seraphic Artes and unlocking the Free & Free skill are definitely making me better used to the combat system.

It also feels like nearly half the game's skits so far have been from resting at inns.

 

[aitakute]

Wow, such attachment

http://imgur.com/a/1OqCY

Haha, oh wow. They really did it

 

[Droplet]

Sorey's alternate red/black/gold outfit is pretty nice.

I was going to ask, how do you even get these? I saw that I had an alternate color for Edna and seem to have a bunch of different outfits for Rose and Sorey (not the recolor though). Are they chests? Story progression? I cannot for the life of me figure out where I got them from.

I have to say, I really like the outside-battle effect things that each of the characters has. The only one I was hoping would be useful but instead was totally terrible was the treasure hunting one, which was mostly because it was Mikleo going "hey look there's a treasure chest!" when I was practically heading towards the chest.

On another note, in the fire

Spoiler

temple, I totally missed everything Lailah was saying to the Seraph guy just so I could listen to Sorey and Mikleo talk about cat bears or whatever. Hope I didn't miss anything important!

 

[PKrockin]

Just got my first full horizontal line with the skill nodes. E-Union 10. Not sure if it was worth it though. Got all the earth skills on Dezel and now he reflects back 30% of any earth damage he takes. A monster weak to earth doesn't use earth attacks itself, that's why I didn't put it all on Dezel instead of Edna. Still, it might have been a mistake. E-Union 9 has '20% chance of x4 earth power increase'. That sounds like it might be awesome for Edna and better than this damage reflecting stuff.

It's hard to figure out which unions are worth it and on which characters to put them. What are you guys aiming for?

I'm basically ignoring horizontal groups and going either for stacks of 3 and 4 for BG +1 and combo +1's, or columns if it looks like I can make one. On Sorey I'm also hoping to get a bunch of BG bonuses so I can spam armitization abilities and mystic artes. lol

 

[KainXVIII]

Wow, such attachment

http://imgur.com/a/1OqCY

You can wear this? Show some screens!

 

[Pancakes]

Managed to somehow beat the Giganto Monster outside the second major town, I was level 12 and it was level 26. Took a whooole bunch of attempts and it had cheap as hell instant kill moves but I brought that sucker down. Rewards were kinda meh though so I wouldn't suggest battering your head against these guys like I did.

 

[demidar]

I'm basically ignoring horizontal groups and going either for stacks of 3 and 4 for BG +1 and combo +1's, or columns if it looks like I can make one. On Sorey I'm also hoping to get a bunch of BG bonuses so I can spam armitization abilities and mystic artes. lol

If you line up 4 horizontal skills you get those permanent +1 [stat] at level up and I feel like I'm missing out when I don't get those skills :/

Have to say, I don't really like this game's skill system, too finicky.

 

[adamsapple]

Can someone please link me to a side quests guide ? or please help me with the following:

I'm stuck in a few side quests with no idea where to go.

Spoiler

1. The thief kids from Laketown quest, Rose says the kids might already be released, but I ran all around the town and couldn't find anything.

2. The kids who got attacked near the assassins hideout, it's been on "we'll find something" state for the entire game basically, is it a story timing thing ? or do I need to do something ?

3. There's a new quest something about "Border patrol soldiers", I can't seem to find a progress trigger for it.

 

[aravuus]

Cheated a bit to unlock chaos cause really, who has time to do 700 fights?

Anyway, this is pretty insane. Gonna try keeping it on chaos for now, but I don't expect to get past the next boss lol

 

[Stuart444]

Cheated a bit to unlock chaos cause really, who has time to do 700 fights?

Dedicated people who want to get the platinum asap?

Spoiler

Over 4 playthroughs, I'm at nearly 6000 encounters in Symphonia >.> so 700 would be nothing to me,

 

[Arkeus]

The Skill system and its relation to equipment seems like they brought back the really bad and convoluted aspects from Tales of Rebirth and Destiny's PS2 remake's systems around weapon and armor upgrading. It makes no sense to me whatsoever because Graces' Dualizing was such a nice and comparatively simple system.

... Are you seriously saying that Graces' system was simpler than Zestiria when it comes to Dualizing/Fusing?

Because that's Baffling.

 

[cheesekao]

How's the combat in this game compared to Tales of Hearts R?

 

[aravuus]

Dedicated people who want to get the platinum asap?

Spoiler

Over 4 playthroughs, I'm at nearly 6000 encounters in Symphonia >.> so 700 would be nothing to me,

Fair enough lol

Around 17 hours in and definitely starting to get a bit exhausted. The skill, equipment etc systems never get any better, fights are starting to get boring since all I do is fuse with the seraphs all the time cause they're the best way to go, story is going nowhere.

I'll try to finish the game before FO4 comes out. Currently, I'd say ToZ is tied with Hearts R as the worst 3D entry I've played in the series. It's still okay, like a solid 6/10, but even as a big Tales fan, I'm having difficulties continuing.

 

[Soren01]

This game is soooo good...

Any chances of ToX and ToG coming to PC too?

 

[Arkeus]

Fair enough lol

Around 17 hours in and definitely starting to get a bit exhausted. The skill, equipment etc systems never get any better, fights are starting to get boring since all I do is fuse with the seraphs all the time cause they're the best way to go, story is going nowhere.

My big issue currently are that the maps are too big for what they contain. It makes for really annoying travelling whenever you get to a new map and you go "I need to grab all the save points".

As for the Skill/Equipment system, so far I am loving it.

 

[aravuus]

My big issue currently are that the maps are too big for what they contain. It makes for really annoying travelling whenever you get to a new map and you go "I need to grab all the save points".

Oh, definitely. The areas look nicer than Xillia's, but they feel much, much bigger and faaar slower to traverse.

 

[Arkeus]

Oh, definitely. The areas look nicer than Xillia's, but they feel much, much bigger and faaar slower to traverse.

It's silly, but I think that's one very nasty thing as it really drains your desire to play when you have to to walk forever to get anywhere until you get the savepoints.

 

[Stuart444]

This game is soooo good...

Any chances of ToX and ToG coming to PC too?

Xillia is a possibility. ToG unlikely. My guess is, the best selling Tales games will be the ones up for consideration for a PC port.

And I'm sure Vespy won't happen without a new JP PS4 port since the default English version will just make people angry. I doubt they would dub the PS3 contents without a new version being made for Japan for PS4 >.>

 

[Dice//]

Oh, definitely. The areas look nicer than Xillia's, but they feel much, much bigger and faaar slower to traverse.

That's probably my biggest negative right now. Both Quick Travel and "Windstepping" existed in previous games as a convenience but now they're there as a privilege. It's stupid. Part of Xillia 2's enjoyment (especially from retreadding old ground so often) was you get dash across fields no problem and teleport to no areas the second you needed to for another quest.

 

[adamsapple]

That's probably my biggest negative right now. Both Quick Travel and "Windstepping" existed in previous games as a convenience but now they're there as a privilege. It's stupid. Part of Xillia 2's enjoyment (especially from retreadding old ground so often) was you get dash across fields no problem and teleport to no areas the second you needed to for another quest.

I like the game's implementation of Windstepping. If you stick it on two characters, the boost limit goes from 30 seconds to a full minute, all you need to do is just pick a fight when it's about to end and it refills. Helps traverse a lot of big caves and such in a few minutes.

The percentage gald charge for quick traveling is a bitch though, especially when you're asked to revisit areas for side quests and such and they're 10~15 minutes of traversing away.

 

[Sithlord77]

Cheated a bit to unlock chaos cause really, who has time to do 700 fights?

Anyway, this is pretty insane. Gonna try keeping it on chaos for now, but I don't expect to get past the next boss lol

How do you cheat to unlock chaos?

 

[aravuus]

How do you cheat to unlock chaos?

You can use cheat engine if you're on PC

http://forum.cheatengine.org/viewto...&start=0&sid=0b804f269ca096062fe899d1962a61ae

 

[zakujanai]

Ok I've tried and tried and tried and I cannot get charge cast to work. I hit circle whilst casting an arte (tested extensively with barrier) and it simply will not switch (to healing circle) no matter when I press. Tried ptessing right after casting, during casting and immediately as it ends, never once has it switched.

Can anybody help? It's cutting down the number of artes I can set as I'm just setting the higher form at the moment.

Edit: It makes absolutely no mention of this under charge cast but I discovered if I hold X to charge the spell further then I can press circle at this point and it works. I really don't like this game.

 

[robotzombie]

does free and free allow you to regain SC while free running? Or do you have to still utilize L2 + direction to run in a line in order to get SC?

 

[Maintenance]

Can't even get the game to launch with my headset. And yes, I've tried the fixes but nothing worked except for removing my headset completely. What a fucking mess.

 

[Crevox]

You can wear this? Show some screens!

I can take pics later when I'm at home if no one has.

On another note, anyone know what arte usage does? It adds stars to your artes on the artes menu screen, but in this game, it's not clear on what it does. I have over 3k uses on one of my spells and I honestly can't tell anything different about it.

In previous tales games it usually affected damage, tp cost, stagger time, allowed use in the air, etc... but I have no idea what it's doing right now, and can't find anything on it.

EDIT: Someone posted details from the guide \('.')/ http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/740217-tales-of-zestiria/72697611

Basically, it reduces the SC cost of the arte. In addition, the total stars on all your artes will contribute towards a bonus amount of BG at the start of fights.

Rewards were kinda meh though so I wouldn't suggest battering your head against these guys like I did.

You always get an orb from those things which permanently boosts party max health, which is really good. The exp is shrug and the grade will usually be shrug, but the orbs are good.

As far as I can tell you can always come back to them and fight them later, but sometimes they're in far out obscure locations, you don't want to be bothered to come back, or you forget. ;p I've beaten every one I come across because of that.

You'll find some high level ones, and the AI might get eaten a lot, but you can usually or always power through it with skill. I defeated

Spoiler

a level 55 bat boss

on Intense difficulty at around level 24. Just have to know the weaknesses and play the battle system right.

 

[JustAnotherOtaku]

Are there any good guides for the Iris Gems? Got to the point where

Spoiler

you need to hand them all (15?) over to progress the story and have 3 to go I think, but knowing exact locations and which of these super high level bosses I'm required to beat would be really helpful.

 

[Muffin Awesome]

I know this port has been very good so far and is capable of running on older hardware, but I was thinking this may be the first game I can Downsample. I have a gtx760 and this would be my first ever game to do this, anyone able to pm me some noobie instructions on what they did to get this up and running on their setup? Or here if preferred.

 

[RPGCrazied]

Can't wait to get back to this, kinda busy today, hoping to play all day tomorrow.

Does this game have side quests? I have yet to see any, though I just got to the first big town.

 

[Crevox]

I know this port has been very good so far and is capable of running on older hardware, but I was thinking this may be the first game I can Downsample. I have a gtx760 and this would be my first ever game to do this, anyone able to pm me some noobie instructions on what they did to get this up and running on their setup? Or here if preferred.

You should just follow this guide. SGSSAA would probably be better, but at the bottom (and throughout the post) there are various recommendations.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=5175770&postcount=3204

Does this game have side quests? I have yet to see any, though I just got to the first big town.

Not too many it seems, you'll get some though as you progress. The game world also slowly opens up to optional exploration areas.

 

[Rpgmonkey]

... Are you seriously saying that Graces' system was simpler than Zestiria when it comes to Dualizing/Fusing?

Because that's Baffling.

I don't think it's much simpler because I don't feel Zestiria's equipment is necessarily confusing, just tedious and poorly communicated to players (in the sense of how well the UI makes the structure of the system apparent and shows the consequences of actions), but changing equipment in Graces had less of an effect on your character, which made it less "volatile" to deal with.

The worst thing about Graces' system was if you wanted a particular quality, but that's not complicated, just another tedious element and not really one that's worth bothering with until the post game anyway where you have more shards and equipment available to construct the equipment that has what you're looking for, as before then you still had tons of titles and stuff to fall back on to make you stronger. Zestiria's equipment/skill system is like they took the concept of combining stuff to make equipment with specific properties and made it something relevant to the game the moment you could synthesize equipment, and without anything else to fall back on that's as good or better for character progression.

I can see why the system can be interesting, but this is my impression of why it's probably the main thing about the game players have been reacting negatively towards. People seem to prefer when the main character progression system in a Tales game has more permanence and can be "automated" to some degree. You can't really let the equipment system run on cruise control and expect a bunch of new, good stuff to just pop up on its own (and stay there once you've gotten it) like you could with the progression systems in almost all of the previous games.

 

[sanhora]

Tales of Zestiria v1.2 patch notes

23 OCTOBER - SHOUPINOU

Thank you for supporting Tales of Zestiria on PC. We have been working hard on fixing the issues that have been reported by players since the launch of the title.
Here is the list of the fixes of the Patch 1.2:
o Initial Vsync turned on by default / 60Hz
o Fixed issue that required a game reboot to save the key biding
o Fixed control issue in the Fashion menu to move the character with keyboard
o Fixed mouse malfunctioning issue in the Artes menu when the Control Mode is set to ‘Manual/Semi Auto’
o Fixed issue when Xbox 360 controller icons were not updated after rebind
o Fixed issue with Steam Controller not working when launching the game from Big Picture
o Fixed issues with saves when the Cloud Save is set to ‘Off’
o Fixed camera movements with the mouse moving rapidly along the camera's X axis
o Fixed issue to select equipment with the LMB in the Lord of Land Menu
o Fixed issue to switch item type with the LMB in the Item Menu

We are still working on further issues that are more time consuming to fix. We will update you shortly, please stay tuned.

Thank you for your understanding and your support.
BANDAI NAMCO Ent. Team

Steam

 

[Layell]

Steam appears to be downloading a patch, nothing on the page right now

(inb4 60 FPS)

EDIT: darn beaten