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Tales of Zestiria |OT| - Sorey, Modders did what Bamcouldn't!

Hikami

Member
I wouldn't go that far, but it is actually top-tier tales for me. The story avoids some of the more convuluted nonsense of most tales games. Sorey is a really good protagonist. Romance is avoided. There is little(no?) fanservice unless it's buried in post-game content. Combat system is deep and fun once you get used to how equipment works. The OST is bangin as well.
Yeah, the only real complaint I have so far is traveling through the massive fields. It takes forever even with windstep since you have to get into battles. Wish they had just kept the dashing from Xillia 2..
 
He's basically a fusion of Cless and Lloyd only give him respectable intelligence.

Also so as not to waste this post did the
Earth Temple
feel insanely short for anyone else? Completed it very quickly compared to the others, it felt almost as much of a joke as its representative who felt like he was coughed out of an anime convention. Almost like that guy was at a convention took a wrong turn going to a bathroom and ended up in this game.
I thought it was very short myself, I kept thinking something was gonna surprise me because it was so short.
 

R0ckman

Member
Ohhh one weird thing in the game!

So I beat all the temples and the game tells me to look for Herald or whatever the Lord of Calamity name is, and tells us to go to the desert for clues. Well to do a sidequest I go back to Airfreed hunting grounds. It has the dark domain and I notice Calamity man standing there doing nothing like a normal overworld enemy. WTF? Worst of all I run over to him and the party says nothing? I recall seeing him randomly pop up in other areas doing nothing. This is very weird and makes it feel like instead of planning or taking the Ganondorf approach and hiding somewhere for a showdown he's just mindlessly traveling around the land like a freaking hobo. Lol what's the point if this? Imagine a Zelda game where you just run into Ganondorf just standing in the field doing absolutely nothing!
 
It's interesting how they list your sidequests/mainquest in this game.

In previous ones there was either nothing or stuff like the book in Tales of Xillia.

In Zestiria it's all handled through the second human party member. So you can just talk to them for updates on your sidequests.
 

Saiyan-Rox

Member
Still waiting for them to fix the Headset issue with the game before playing. When i'm on the PC i'm usually in a skype call too but the game still crashes with the headset plugged in (even when using the unofficial patch.
 

PKrockin

Member
I'm enjoying the seamless cutscene -> battle transitions more than the much hyped field -> battle transitions. Several times now I've been watching a cutscene and then OH SHIT I'M IN BATTLE (jumps for the controller)

And the way the seraphim hang around in Sorey makes for a good excuse to have them pop out when they're needed for cutscenes and disappear when gameplay resumes and you don't want the screen cluttered/GPU taxed with a half dozen people following you around. It works really well.

Is it ever worth using Snack Prep? The other abilities seem much more useful to me.
Snacks increase your initial SC which drops by 1 per battle. The lower your initial SC the slower you regenerate SC in battle. I would keep Snack Preparation on at least one person.
 

zakujanai

Member
Got to the final boss battle and there's an attack that completely wipes me out. Managed to cancel it twice on my third attempt at the fight, only to die the third time they did it. I'm out. The game wasn't all bad, but it was mostly pretty crap.
 

Rising_Hei

Member
I'm glad to see that i'm not the only one to see the clever design choices they've made, how this game manages that kind of stuff reminds me of MGS V, only that the design is clever in Zestiria (how everything integrates into the gameplay).

I feel this game deserved much more love than what it got, it didn't deserve such fan outrage, imo :/
 

Ketkat

Member
Got to the final boss battle and there's an attack that completely wipes me out. Managed to cancel it twice on my third attempt at the fight, only to die the third time they did it. I'm out. The game wasn't all bad, but it was mostly pretty crap.

Sounds like you're underleveled. Why not just use an all-divide?
 

R0ckman

Member
Is Bandai just untactful? I'm listening to some of the stuff
after Dezel dies
and its almost so ridiculous how disrespectful they are to the player with the fact that you
lost a party member and almost immediately after a mornful group chat Zavied is cracking jokes about filling the Dezel slot.
"HERE'S YOUR UPGRADE!"

Its like they WANTED to piss fans off for these characters. I wonder what went on behind the scenes with the development of the story, this is a hot mess in terms of how some characters are treated, but it might just be a marketting thing.
 

Kasumin

Member
Is Bandai just untactful? I'm listening to some of the stuff
after Dezel dies
and its almost so ridiculous how disrespectful they are to the player with the fact that you
lost a party member and almost immediately after a mornful group chat Zavied is cracking jokes about filling the Dezel slot.
"HERE'S YOUR UPGRADE!"

Its like they WANTED to piss fans off for these characters. I wonder what went on behind the scenes with the development of the story, this is a hot mess in terms of how some characters are treated, but it might just be a marketting thing.

Yup. It's super awkward and just... bizarre. On the surface, Zestiria and its characters are fine. But you dig under the surface and some if it makes me go wtf.
Not just Dezel. But Alisha being set up to fail from the beginning through no fault of her own. She's literally there to give Sorey motivation and then tossed out as soon as she stops being useful.

Then again, as the main scenario writer for Zestiria is apparently the same guy who was main scenario writer for Xillia 2, I'm not surprised.
He seems to have a bad habit of introducing characters, sort of giving them development, then killing them off before we can really get a chance to know them.
 

zakujanai

Member
Sounds like you're underleveled. Why not just use an all-divide?

I did, and I knocked the difficulty down to the lowest setting. Had no problems up to that point but I guess I'm just bad at this game. Currently watching the ending on YouTube instead.
 

Abylim

Member
I have decided I will be picking this up, probably today.

Read some reviews, asked you guys some questions and did my own research on some of the stuff.

A lot of the complaints the reviewers had dont seem like big issues to me. The story in Tales games can be pretty good, but I dont play them for that.

I was tossing up on this or Disgaea, but I usually grab Disgaea when its cheaper because I struggle getting through the story. I hate it. Looooooooooove the post game though.
 

Corpekata

Banned
Finding it hard to find a good difficulty balance. Hard and above it's a hassle to keep your AI characters alive it feels like on boss fights. Moderate feels too easy.
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
TUe9KiL.jpg


I always chuckle when the tutorials are cheeky. It helps that it's used in moderation, so it's actually entertaining when it happens.

is level 22 a reasonable level to be at after getting Rose and everything?
or am i underleveled?
Sounds alright. I think I was around 20 when she joined and I've been taking my time in each area, exploring and not rushing, but never grinding. I'm playing on moderate difficulty.
 

R0ckman

Member
TUe9KiL.jpg


I always chuckle when the tutorials are cheeky. It helps that it's used in moderation, so it's actually entertaining when it happens.


Sounds alright. I think I was around 20 when she joined and I've been taking my time in each area, exploring and not rushing, but never grinding. I'm playing on moderate difficulty.

It's true too, I've killed bosses very quickly in moderate mode, while in armatize doing that R2 charge attack can take out 90% of the boss' health if in a weakness combo.
 
Okay, maybe I'm a weird outlier but I just got saved by Rose and am having no issues with the story or plot or war scenes or anything. I think they're all being handled well or at least competently. This is rating pretty high on my list of Tales games. It could drop but so far I really REALLY like this game
 

R0ckman

Member
Yup. It's super awkward and just... bizarre. On the surface, Zestiria and its characters are fine. But you dig under the surface and some if it makes me go wtf.
Not just Dezel. But Alisha being set up to fail from the beginning through no fault of her own. She's literally there to give Sorey motivation and then tossed out as soon as she stops being useful.

Then again, as the main scenario writer for Zestiria is apparently the same guy who was main scenario writer for Xillia 2, I'm not surprised.
He seems to have a bad habit of introducing characters, sort of giving them development, then killing them off before we can really get a chance to know them.

Lol OMG
Zavied even stole a personal battle line from Dezel and the way he said it even implies that: "I'LL protect you Rose!"
This guy has no shame. It feels like he's walking on the edge of the fourth wall.
 
Wait, am I being an idiot or is Rose not
the girl in that merchant group? I mean the merchant girl had the same two dagger back holsters and looks the same.
I just got kinda...confused because I thought I figured that shit out a while ago and then Sorey no sells seeing her for the first time and I was like "...does he not realize?"
 
Okay, maybe I'm a weird outlier but I just got saved by Rose and am having no issues with the story or plot or war scenes or anything. I think they're all being handled well or at least competently. This is rating pretty high on my list of Tales games. It could drop but so far I really REALLY like this game
Honestly the only thing I am really seriously disliking about this game is when they block you out of areas, fast traveling to areas, or fast traveling all together.

Like... am I not able to go into the further Rolance areas at all after (Late-game, post 4 temples spoilers)
defeating Tiamat? Like, I hear you can go back to Lohgrin for Sorey's alt color outfit after this, but I can't even go farther than Lastonbell as far as I can tell.
It's seriously funneling me towards a final showdown type thing by blocking areas off for no reason and it's pissing me off.
 

Pancakes

hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Yea, gating off exploration like this is very annoying (it's one of the reasons why I loved Xenoblade so much). On top of that, traversing the giant empty maps is a massive pain even if the wind speed buff. Feels very tedious for seemingly no reason other than to force players down the main path of the story so they don't get lost.
 

R0ckman

Member
Lailah has also explained it via a skit from an inn.
Yes, I like the triangle system. So you're not supposed to blaze through every encounter with Armatization.

But it limits the effects of combining moves. Good and interesting idea, not implemented well, hope it is improved on or tossed in future titles.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
The OST for this Tales game is very different then what I'm accustomed to.

It feels more like a Star Ocean soundtrack rather then the typical Tales soundtrack. In fact I reminds me a lot like SO2 and SO3.

Which there is nothing wrong with this mind you. Sakuraba IS one of my favorite composers.

I wonder how SO5's soundtrack will compare though. Because Zestiria's soundtrack gives me this grand adventure like quality that generally comes from Sakuraba's best work.

Although I'll admit Sakuraba's style changes depending on the game he works on be it Star Ocean, Dark Souls, a Mario Sports title, or even Golden Sun for instance. It's just out of all of his recent works Zestiria by far sounds far more closer then his material in a Star Ocean game compared to what did with Tales series in the past.
 
I'm 26 hours in and I'm loving this game a lot. Seriously it's giving Vespiria competition for my favorite Tales game. I like pretty much the entire cast and I definitely enjoy that Sorey isn't a complete moron. I enjoy how this feels like a more personal adventure since it's just the two human characters with Seraph support. Seraphs as a battle mechanic are also really cool because you get to use your entire party in encounters (I dislike having idle characters in my party).

I haven't had any major issues with the story so far. Sure maybe they take serious issues a bit too lightly sometimes but it's a jrpg after all, they're all kind of like that.

Edna is the best character of course, but I'm enjoying Lailah's terrible puns way too much... I know, I know.

So yeah, as I expected, the negativity surrounding this game was way overblown. Alisha was a typical boring princess character anyway and Rose is wonderful, so suck it haters :p

As for negatives I don't really like the skill equip system. I generally enjoy skill fusing in other games but the way you need to create unions and keep track of a bunch of stuff just to upgrade gear is a huge hassle. So much so that I've pretty much said fuck it and just end up half assing my gear. It seems like with a few tweaks it would be a lot better but the way it is now is not great. I'm sure there's more depth if you're into min-maxing and grinding for the right drops, but I'm not.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
FUCK THOSE PIXIES IN THE MUSEUM, FUCK THEM

I generally hate any enemy that basically phases into you when you are trying to target them outside of battle for the advantage and because of their height advance you wiff.

Those Eagles near Mariland for example are also annoying. And I guess the enemies that seem completely invisible and seem to spawn on top of you in the field like those Marmots.
 
I'm 26 hours in and I'm loving this game a lot. Seriously it's giving Vespiria competition for my favorite Tales game. I like pretty much the entire cast and I definitely enjoy that Sorey isn't a complete moron. I enjoy how this feels like a more personal adventure since it's just the two human characters with Seraph support. Seraphs as a battle mechanic are also really cool because you get to use your entire party in encounters (I dislike having idle characters in my party).

I haven't had any major issues with the story so far. Sure maybe they take serious issues a bit too lightly sometimes but it's a jrpg after all, they're all kind of like that.

Edna is the best character of course, but I'm enjoying Lailah's terrible puns way too much... I know, I know.

So yeah, as I expected, the negativity surrounding this game was way overblown. Alisha was a typical boring princess character anyway and Rose is wonderful, so suck it haters :p

As for negatives I don't really like the skill equip system. I generally enjoy skill fusing in other games but the way you need to create unions and keep track of a bunch of stuff just to upgrade gear is a huge hassle. So much so that I've pretty much said fuck it and just end up half assing my gear. It seems like with a few tweaks it would be a lot better but the way it is now is not great. I'm sure there's more depth if you're into min-maxing and grinding for the right drops, but I'm not.

Indeed. It's easily one of the best Tales of games I've ever played (except if the ending turns out to be a total clusterfuck which I hope it won't). I also love the party system in Zestiria, as you'll basically use everyone in battles. I hate it when JRPGs force you to choose your favorite characters for your main party setup.
 

Droplet

Member
strange, usually its the
Plant
boss thats the first major fuck you moment

The optional
pill bug
boss is the worst. The camera is SO BAD during that fight, second only to
the elephant hellion
.

Wait, am I being an idiot or is Rose not
the girl in that merchant group? I mean the merchant girl had the same two dagger back holsters and looks the same.
I just got kinda...confused because I thought I figured that shit out a while ago and then Sorey no sells seeing her for the first time and I was like "...does he not realize?"

No, Sorey knows who she is. He's asking her if she was using a pseudonym or if Rose is her real name.
 
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