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

Dugna

Member
Quick side quest question (Pearloat's areaish):

We are told to go to the Camelot bridge to find someone. It has a huge domain covering it rending Seraph invisible/etc. Do we need to do another trial or two to access it? Trying to do as many of the side quests as possible atm before doing the main story.

Yeah clear more till the domain is gone, the quest regarding mayvin won't disappear so don't worry.

EDIT: wasn't even thinking and forgot this was posted a page back
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Some bosses are harder than others, but usually if you're having trouble it's a good sign that you should take a second look at your equipment and battle strategy.

Yeah I've only used stuff I find in chests so far, better focus on buying equipment more, game is really fun though. So much new stuff to keep track of, especially when the last Tales game I played was Symphonia :lol
 
The issue is at the start of the game she DID just kind of leave to do her own personal thing. On top of this they had the Chancellor and Friends committee to send her to a village with a sickness. If anything they wanted her OUT of the political drama.

You could really tell that the story was kind of fragmented together towards the end there. Everything just went to poop when they started explaining Dezel's past before he died. Hell, I don't even think Maltran was suppose to be an enemy originally. Everything felt so disconnected, the villains were not very strong at all. It was so sad even fighting Symone. It was like I was fighting a bad guy who didn't even want to be a "bad guy". It felt like she was just doing the personality act of "villain" out of obligation. I'm saddened by the quality of the villains.

Well, indeed. The villains aren't too villainy in Zestiria. I feel that too. Even I think the Lord of Calamity doesn't deserve to die like that.

-----------------------------------

My list of Tales of games that I've beaten (updated Oct 30th, 2015):
- Tales of Phantasia
- Tales of Symphonia
- Tales of the Abyss
- Tales of Vesperia
- Tales of Xillia
- Tales of Zestiria

I've played most of Tales of games, but I rarely finish them, and Zestiria has earned its spot on my list. Totally enjoyed the journey with fantastic characters and great bonding between them (one of the best in JRPGs). Combat is challenging as usual, but kinda hindered with the wonky camera. Story is interesting but still with flaws here and there. I also LOVE the sidequests. Overall I totally enjoyed Zestiria, totally exceeded my expectations.

8/10
 

Stuart444

Member
Some story spoilers after the
Water Trial
:

After the Maltran scene, it feels disconnected in a sense. The princess has "outlived her usefulness" and right after it's like "Let's head to the Wind Trial" "I'm sure Alisha will be fine", etc. Saying that after letting her 'teacher' who works for the Lord of Calamity escape with a sword that is powerful enough to "cleave the world". Just feels very odd and disconnected in a way? Meh. I'm interested in where it's going but that part just feels so off to me.
 
Ended up getting hit in the feels again the other day. This part happens after you c
ollect all the Earthen Historia gems.

STORY SPOILERS BELOW

The part I'm talking about happens after Mayvin shows you the village of Camlann's past and what happened to the previous Shepherd and Heldalf. After this you have to fight Mayvin and prove whether you have the determination to deal with Heldalf.

But as Sorey is about fire a shot at Mayvin he collapses. He's beginning to die because he broke the taboo and directly interfered with the conflict between the Shepherd and the Lord of Calamity. In his final moments Mayvin says something that touched me. I can't remember what he said verbatim but it was along the lines of "I never thought I would die with people at my side..... Thank you".

Those final words hit me, that communicated to me that he must have felt lonely in some capacity, since he was fated to carry on the stories and legends of the past and lived as a lone explorer.
 

Crevox

Member
Ending spoilers:

Underwhelming and not very well explained. At this point, I don't even really care anymore. Story was meh and felt like it was just an excuse. The only interesting part was with Symonne in Pendrago, but even that didn't fully make sense. It was just sort of go from point A to point B, "we're doing this now", not many interesting story events or anything. No real surprises. Even stuff like Heldalf absorbing Gramps was just kind of like "oh, he did that? darn."

So many plot points go unexplained and so many "it works this way just because" situations, like when Dezel broke the sublord pact. "It's not supposed to work the other way around" well then how did he do it? No explanation. The whole final boss felt very rushed and ended very quickly. Heldalf wasn't even built up to be an interesting villain at all, unlike other Tales games. They tried to do the usual "he's not evil, he just has a different point of view" but no, he was pretty much just evil.

Still need to do Alisha DLC, but I have a feeling it's not going to explain very much more, but I could be wrong.

Shrug. Still, I think it was an alright game, but not as bad as people were making it out to be. Final boss was short and extremely easy, got my achievement for Chaos difficulty clear. Was pretty cool to hear
the incantation for Indignation
.

Also, funny that the Dark Turtlez was like literally Ludger.
 

SaintZ

Member
Um... I finished all the trials and instead of continuing the story I decided to do some sidequests. So I reach Zaphgott Moort and Longhrin....
and I have found Discovery sites but they do not trigger any skits (The Teepo Plushie/Oasis in the desert). Is this because I was supposed to have Zaveid in my party? Was I supposed to do this later?

Also, one of the villagers there (with a green sidequest icon) talked about a perfect round thing in one of the caves (my guess is an Iris Gem) but when I talk to Rose that quest is not showing up with the rest... that's weird.
 
Ending spoilers:

Underwhelming and not very well explained. At this point, I don't even really care anymore. Story was meh and felt like it was just an excuse. The only interesting part was with Symonne in Pendrago, but even that didn't fully make sense. It was just sort of go from point A to point B, "we're doing this now", not many interesting story events or anything. No real surprises. Even stuff like Heldalf absorbing Gramps was just kind of like "oh, he did that? darn."

So many plot points go unexplained and so many "it works this way just because" situations, like when Dezel broke the sublord pact. "It's not supposed to work the other way around" well then how did he do it? No explanation. The whole final boss felt very rushed and ended very quickly. Heldalf wasn't even built up to be an interesting villain at all, unlike other Tales games. They tried to do the usual "he's not evil, he just has a different point of view" but no, he was pretty much just evil.

Still need to do Alisha DLC, but I have a feeling it's not going to explain very much more, but I could be wrong.

Shrug. Still, I think it was an alright game, but not as bad as people were making it out to be. Final boss was short and extremely easy, got my achievement for Chaos difficulty clear. Was pretty cool to hear
the incantation for Indignation
.

Also, funny that the Dark Turtlez was like literally Ludger.

You've pretty much summed up my thoughts on how the story turned out. I'd called this a mid-tier Tales game, though right now I feel like I enjoyed most of the PS3 era games more than this one.

Could anyone tell me how long the Alisha DLC is?
 
You've pretty much summed up my thoughts on how the story turned out. I'd called this a mid-tier Tales game, though right now I feel like I enjoyed most of the PS3 era games more than this one.

Could anyone tell me how long is the Alisha DLC is?

It's about 2-3 hours.

A little OT but for anyone who got the collectors edition guide the ps4 theme is up for download now. I have to say I do like it, but it doesn't include Edna, Alisha, Dezel or Zaveid. It only shows Lailah, Sorey, Mikelo and Rose. :/ Given how the ToX2 theme was I was expecting a little more I suppose...
 
Ugh had over a 100 hit combo on that eggplant looking boss on hard difficulty and it had only a sliver of health left (from full to that in like 30 seconds) and I got hit and died ugh. Then it took me 45 minutes to beat it.

Bosses be two hit KO'ing Meebo :(
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Oh my fucking god I hate this church dungeon so much. Whose bright-ass idea was it to design a dungeon with tight as fuck corridors with corners everywhere when the battle camera just fucks up constantly?

Also why is the AI so poor? They die constantly and in the last 3 bossfights it's been me controlling Sorey+whoever is armatized against the boss because the ai is so god damn stupid at times. I read that titles affect their behaviour and it seems to work better and I set two of them up as defence. They seem to heal more, but since I didn't really think of titles affecting the artes you learn no one has any good healing spells so it's kind of...I miss Raine :(, Revitalize was the shit.

Edit: Is it better if I just switch to Normal mode? I mean there's so much shit to keep track of at once so I may be in over my head :lol
 
Oh my fucking god I hate this church dungeon so much. Whose bright-ass idea was it to design a dungeon with tight as fuck corridors with corners everywhere when the battle camera just fucks up constantly?

Also why is the AI so poor? They die constantly and in the last 3 bossfights it's been me controlling Sorey+whoever is armatized against the boss because the ai is so god damn stupid at times. I read that titles affect their behaviour and it seems to work better and I set two of them up as defence. They seem to heal more, but since I didn't really think of titles affecting the artes you learn no one has any good healing spells so it's kind of...I miss Raine :(, Revitalize was the shit.

Edit: Is it better if I just switch to Normal mode? I mean there's so much shit to keep track of at once so I may be in over my head :lol

Oh yeah, I really hate that church dungeon as well. Lots of locked doors and backtracking. Combined with small corridors and messy camera, it's just a perfect worst dungeon in the game. I also hate the last dungeon which is pretty large, but fortunately no backtracking like the church dungeon.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Oh yeah, I really hate that church dungeon as well. Lots of locked doors and backtracking. Combined with small corridors and messy camera, it's just a perfect worst dungeon in the game. I also hate the last dungeon which is pretty large, but fortunately no backtracking like the church dungeon.

Is it the most back-track heavy dungeon in the game? I don't mind huge dungeons, as long as there's minimal backtracking. I liked the Fire Temple, it had a balling soundtrack too, which helped.
 
Is it the most back-track heavy dungeon in the game? I don't mind huge dungeons, as long as there's minimal backtracking. I liked the Fire Temple, it had a balling soundtrack too, which helped.

I believe so, as far as I remember. But then again, I didn't explore every single dungeons in the game. There are several optional dungeons that I've yet to explore, but I'm not into them (yet) for my first playthrough. The temples aren't too long and they have great soundtracks, so I don't dislike then.
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I did. I even have restarted it several times.
But I can't push myself to actually finish it. Always lose my interest around midway in the game.
The game really picks up once you get to
Celestia
, IMO. Did you at least get that far?

Just got to Rolance. Rain zones are always the best and the story seems to be picking up too. It's also kinda weird that Rose gets Alisha's clothes as a costume...? An apology from the devs for the bait and switch? Rose is a great character so far. Not necessarily better than Alisha, just different.
Having the other human be able to armatize is niiiiice, however
 

Alucrid

Banned
man, hard isn't very hard, it's the ai that makes every fight burdensome. sometimes they'll be okay to rack up huge combos, other times they'll take on 4 hits and kill themselves.
 
Yes please. Or at least have them make the battle mechanics

I would love to see their take on Tales of combat.

Eh, not sure if it would work... unless they can make a competent AI system for your AI partners in which case YES PLEASE! >_>

Yeah, really hate how games take this approach to allied AI. That approach being to make them suck. I think some do it because the way they've designed the game, it would be too easy if the AI was competent. But that just comes down to how they design things in the first place. If you design competent AI that doesn't break the game like God Eater: Burst for example then it's not an issue.

It enhances the game because it makes you feel like you are fighting alongside people with similar skill to yourself. Instead you get party members that cannot even reliably execute the mechanics they teach you in the first 10 minutes of the game.

EDIT: I just found this one GameFAQs

Try telling your Seraphim to Engage at Range and Focus on Attacking. They'll only stop casting offensive magic if the fight moves in their direction, either to run away or to do a bit of melee and then run away. Also turn off Lailah's close range spells and Edna's trigger spells if you're doing this. Lailah would run into the boss's attack range before starting to cast those, and Edna wastes time by setting her triggers over and over and over again without actually attacking.

Human AI should just aim at weaknesses. Like...all the time. There's never a reason for them not to be, especially since they can hit everything. Unless you want them to cast spells while Armatized. Then use Engage at Range like with the Seraphim. I always have Human AI's attack frequency on Balanced, since I don't want them right in the enemy's face at all times. They die even more often when doing that.

Tell everybody to Watch HP and use Blast Gauge for defense. Seraphim will heal and Humans will use Armatization when HP falls below 75%. They'll un-fuse when it's higher. There also seems to be a slightly lower threshold for Armatized heals. Like, if they're sitting right at about 75%, they won't heal themselves, but they won't unfuse either. They'll heal themselves if they get hurt too much more though.

Seems nothing can be done about the fact that all party AI can't dodge enemy attacks for crap in this game.


In normal battles I have Edna and Dezel fighting on Close Combat while Mikleo and Lailah balance their melee and spells. (And I have all of Lailah's and Edna's spells turned on since they work just fine in this situation.) All four of them with balanced attack frequency like the humans. The humans set to Manage HP instead, so they Armatiize at 50% health instead of 75%. Other than that, same settings as with boss battles.

I'm going to try this out tomorrow to see if it makes a difference.
 

TheFatMan

Member
I can't find a solid answer to this online, but does it matter which order you do the Shrines in once you get the option to choose?
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
What's odd that if you set it to defensive tactics, the AI dodges attacks fairly consistently. Unless it's a boss, then they act like brick walls.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
I was just thinking after the NieR 2 trailer, how would things turn out if PlatinumGames developed the next Tales games with Tales staff directing.

As long as everything about the series is maintained (sidequests, towns, skits, optional bosses, lengthy story, etc.) and they can develop some decent AI for party members I would totally be down for this.

Get Platinum composers on board as well for maximum awesomeness.

Earlier today though I was thinking about how Platinum could handle Kingdom Hearts.
 

Stuart444

Member
I can't find a solid answer to this online, but does it matter which order you do the Shrines in once you get the option to choose?

Not really but you don't get a choice in the last one you do. (giant domain blocking one).

I did Fire -> Earth -> Water -> Wind (spoilers for the areas you find them in)
aka Fire (the first one you find), Earth (nearest one you can access to since I was doing as many of the side quests in Roland where I came across it), Water (Hyland), Wind (Western Gorge, aka the domain blocker)
 

TheFatMan

Member
Not really but you don't get a choice in the last one you do. (giant domain blocking one).

I did Fire -> Earth -> Water -> Wind (spoilers for the areas you find them in)
aka Fire (the first one you find), Earth (nearest one you can access to since I was doing as many of the side quests in Roland where I came across it), Water (Hyland), Wind (Western Gorge, aka the domain blocker)

Solid answer, thanks man.
 

PKrockin

Member
Yes, Platinum Games needs to develop the next Tales game to help with the one thing the series consistently gets right: the battle system.

Also Zelda should be like Dark Souls.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
Yes, Platinum Games needs to develop the next Tales game to help with the one thing the series consistently gets right: the battle system.

Also Zelda should be like Dark Souls.

Tales gets its battle systems right, but there are lots Tales games now and there will be many more in the future, so there's no harm in getting a developer like Platinum to take one crack at the series.

Also Platinum could help in more ways than just the combat...cutscenes, engine/graphics, music, maybe the script.

And Zelda could learn some things from Dark Souls, yes.
 

Bladenic

Member
Um... I finished all the trials and instead of continuing the story I decided to do some sidequests. So I reach Zaphgott Moort and Longhrin....
and I have found Discovery sites but they do not trigger any skits (The Teepo Plushie/Oasis in the desert). Is this because I was supposed to have Zaveid in my party? Was I supposed to do this later?

Also, one of the villagers there (with a green sidequest icon) talked about a perfect round thing in one of the caves (my guess is an Iris Gem) but when I talk to Rose that quest is not showing up with the rest... that's weird.

I've found a few discovery points that didn't trigger skits. I'm not sure what the criteria are. I guess they'll always be available later when you can unlock all skits (and won't make sense unless you remember the discovery they're talking about).
 

jurec84

Unconfirmed Member
I've found a few discovery points that didn't trigger skits. I'm not sure what the criteria are. I guess they'll always be available later when you can unlock all skits (and won't make sense unless you remember the discovery they're talking about).

It depends on the party members and yes, they are available later :)
 

Mieu

Member
Also, funny that the Dark Turtlez was like literally Ludger.


Oh, that's funny! Haha !
Kohaku's Satsugeki Bukouken was parodied by the same VA through Dark Turtlez in the JAP ver. of Zesti

I think the story is not as bad as what people think or just maybe the story build up is quite good. I'm still at Marlind so it's quite early in the game.
 
Alright almost everything is starting to click. The battle system is fun and sense of adventure is the best since vesperia. I don't like dezel or edna but meebo, sorey, and rose are good.

Are there new composers here? Some tracks are good and remind me of legendia. 20hrs in and at the fire trial. Hoping i can get this beat by November 10th
 

Soriku

Junior Member
Alright almost everything is starting to click. The battle system is fun and sense of adventure is the best since vesperia. I don't like dezel or edna but meebo, sorey, and rose are good.

Are there new composers here? Some tracks are good and remind me of legendia. 20hrs in and at the fire trial. Hoping i can get this beat by November 10th

Go Shiina who composed for Legendia.
 
I really wish Go Shiina had more stuff in the game. All his tracks here are really great, as opposed to Sakuraba's traditional decent to okay.

Zaveid's theme alone...
 

Falk

that puzzling face
I really wish Go Shiina had more stuff in the game. All his tracks here are really great, as opposed to Sakuraba's traditional decent to okay.

Zaveid's theme alone...

Go play God Eater 2 and pass away and ascend to heaven.

it has Go Shiina dubstep
 

bobohoro

Member
Died to camera of doom/caster madness after an hour of exploration and great drops on Chaos. Seriously considered never touching the game again. JRPGs really need to rethink their save/checkpoint system, it's just annoying to lose all progress without a chance to get it back like Soulsborne games.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
There's uh... no lore/mechanic justification for being able to walk up to your corpse and loot all your shit back. Unless that becomes the next JRPG trope to add to the top of the pile.

(To be fair, there wasn't for the original Diablo either,)
 

Alucrid

Banned
Died to camera of doom/caster madness after an hour of exploration and great drops on Chaos. Seriously considered never touching the game again. JRPGs really need to rethink their save/checkpoint system, it's just annoying to lose all progress without a chance to get it back like Soulsborne games.
Isn't there a quick save?
 

Bladenic

Member
Died to camera of doom/caster madness after an hour of exploration and great drops on Chaos. Seriously considered never touching the game again. JRPGs really need to rethink their save/checkpoint system, it's just annoying to lose all progress without a chance to get it back like Soulsborne games.

Quick Save is your friend.
 

Bladenic

Member
The fact that dying once in a battle is half your grade gone already is so annoying.

Story question
do you ever meet this emperor that everyone keeps mentioning?
 

kewlmyc

Member
God I hate the wraths in the dungeon near Lastonbell. There's always like 5 of them, they can summon more of them, and using armazitation against them just speeds up their casting. Super unfun on hard.
 

RyoonZ

Banned
Tales of Zestiria Platz GET!

X4ozTGk.jpg
 
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