Still playing Tales of Graces f. Progress is pretty slow, mostly because of the grind for titles...
Combat is starting to get rough, I don't have nearly enough CC to put off some real combos lol. Recent bosses tend to spam their Eleth Break too, thankfully they don't have a Mystic Arte... yet. Speaking of which, all of my characters have their first one except Sophie, who I'm trying to main, sadface.
The world is
boring. Like, it feels completely empty, the "overworld" is just linear roads going from point A to point B, and the environments themselves are super bland. I get it's due to the game being originally released on the Wii, but even Symphonia felt better.
The strategy settings for your party is basically non-existent. It's especially jarring coming from Vesperia, where everything was super customizable, it's hard to believe Graces is actually more recent with how backwards this feels...
The characters are hit and miss. Not talking about the prologue, since kids acting like kids is nothing new.
- Asbel is... alright. After everything that happened, I get that he feels lost, like he just wasted 7 years of his life (and his life-long dream) and is looking for something to live for... but come on dude, you're not even 18, stop acting like you've seen it all!
- Cheria started off as a bitch (understandable, as she probably feels like all of her friends had abandoned her), but she's starting to mellow out a bit.
- Hubert... holy hell, what happened to you in those seven years to get you that edgy?! Asbel had nothing to do with your parents abandoning you... Well he seems well-intentioned at least for now.
- Malik... oh boy. What kind of "knight" tries to kill the rightful heir to the throne, just because the usurper happens to be the "king" now? Loyalty my ass...
- Richard started nice, then... not so nice. Judging from all the hints (eyes changing colour, Sophie's reaction to touching him), he probably got possessed by something 7 years ago... and he also happens to have way fewer titles than the others, so I'm expecting him to be this game's Kratos' (maybe including the redemption arc, since he's supposed to be playable for a longer time here than in the Wii release?).
- Pascal is definitely a mood. I like that she adds a lighter tone to an overall grim story, but you should definitely keep her away from Sophie. I also can't seem to play her anywhere near efficiently.
- Sophie doesn't really have a personality to speak of right now, but that's part of her charm, like Presea. I mostly use her, but the AI managed to get her first combo title while I was trying out Cheria lol. Maybe I should just put everyone in Auto...
The soundtrack is also very forgettable. Not on the level of Symphonia or Vesperia, and definitely not Zestiria.