Tales of Series Thread

Finally jumped into this gen, got a ps4 pro and a new 4k screen (never buy consoles at launch folks) and now I have 3 years worth of games to catch up to so it'll be a while before I get to Berseria. Game looks cool though.

So long as they don't alter the script or censor my anime girls I'm good. One has to compromise if one wants to live in this normalfag dominated world.

Denuvo isn't an issue on Playstation. Sucks for PC gamers but welcome to corporations. What can you do?

I don't expect the second coming of Vesperia, but the nips at least didn't seem to hate it and the PR guy is SAYING that nothing else is censored so I don't expect complete shit either. Not giving money to censorship practices though, either going to rent it or buy it used. Still barely even started FFXV so I'm in no rush.

I'm all for buying games, but this is a deal breaker. Out of the 735 games in my steam library I can't play two anymore due to DRM. (From Dust and Hunted: The Demon's Forge) So they can just my cock.

It looks better than Xillia, the only other Tales game I played at the behest of a friend. so it has my tentative approval.

game producer says he wants everyone to have equal experience with the game

they make a preview trailer for the west and literally the first thing that was shown in the trailer was all censored, with zero disclosure

if you're fine with that, you can go shit yourself in the dick

...

2 player co-op is fine because you can either main the humans or a seraph each and switch/fuse accordingly. There are a few instances where your second human will be missing, and that will lock you to two single characters (a seraph can't stand alone in battle, which is bullshit).

Right at the start you have Sorey and Mikleo so you can play with a friend from the start.
Things will open up once your second seraph joins, giving you a full 4 member party.

Playing on co-op lets player 1 control the camera with the right stick, which is a godsend. Also, you can switch your currently controlled character and seraphs easily during battle, no special skills/items required.
As long as you don't add a third player the mechanics will work fine, mostly.

I'm not saying it's really right and you should buy games like these and let the devs get away with stuff, but it is not an insane concern as it has some sort of truth in it - having a game flop on one platform, especially one the developers are only recently trying out, might in turn make them unwilling to port more things there. I even gave you an example to showcase that I'm not just talking out of my ass.

It is only one scene if they don't lie though. It's a shitty thing to do, sure, but from what I can see tits are still in, butts are still in, game modes are untouched, girls don't start wearing burqas like in #FE, costumes weren't changed, there's nothing indicating dialogues will get destroyed and put memes into like was with FE IF or #FE (didn't buy those games because of the issues above). It's only the way the boy dies that gets changed, and that's obviously to lower the age rating.

Sure, I'm not stupid enough to not realise it might end up with them radicalising in this regard to turn into something far worse if people do not stand up, but the backlash on the forums/etc should be enough to stop Bamco's potential further censorship plans in this regard. Even one of their devs IIRC said on Steam and/or Twitter they're considering to make the uncensored version an age-gated free DLC, so it's obvious the complaints have at least reached their English-speaking parts who are probably the ones who made the decision in the first place.

Basically what I mean is, if the game is to not sell well, it better do so on all the platforms it comes to, not only PC or I might not see more PC Tales games and that'd be shitty. If it slightly flops everywhere in the west, it probably won't be an issue, it'd just mean Nips would interpret it as stronk female leads not being liked here which is more than fine with me.

Either bring it over uncut or leave it in Japan. I can happily play one of the hundreds of other games that aren't cut. Tales has been pure shit since Vesperia, anyway, with Zestiria being the worst game in the franchise so far.

As much as I'd love that kind of 'fix' to appear, PR people aren't the ones who decide these things.

It does annoy me how they changed the scene, but at least the end product is the same (dead Laphicet… or is it!?). Things like #FE and Xenoblade X are spitting in the face of the players, but so far Bamco has been rather consistent:
>SAO got censorship removed in the West compared to the JP original

…and then there's shit like

I appreciated how Bamco's PR was quick to answer just a mere day after the shitstorm started - it speaks volumes compared to shits like Nintendo Treehouse and NISA - but in the end we know the censored scene will stay, they won't bother to resubmit the rating for the game. Thanks, PEGI! yeah, it's PEGI where the problem is, not USK or ESRB since Bamco mentioned they just had to keep muh 16 rating, USK gave it 12 just like any other Tales game and only PEGI remains with a 16 rating).

I'm still going to get the game eventually, but not at launch. With Yakuza 0, Nier Automata and Nioh coming up I'm going to bleed dry.

It's easy to blame game devs.

One of the reasons why I hate people is that nobody blames society, which includes themselves. To be fair I'm not preparing a suicide run on the ESRB offices either so I'm a whiny little shit as well.

Fuck off shill.

Anyone have that cap of Namco tweeting about Pac-Man on the Ellen DeGenerate show, officially proving they're pozzed?

Mate fucking kill yourself

Yeah, the console itself is the issue

Oh yeah, almost forgot

What games aside from Bloodborne?

Get >>>/out/

Have you even been into an electronics store the last year? I wonder how long Holla Forums thought 1080p was a meme.

Weebshit user, there is more weebshit coming out every few days. I find it amusing how little the people on this board know about games. Probably all PC fags stuck playing MOBAs and Counterstrike.

As far as I know, the combat system used in Berseria is a slightly spruced up version of Zestirias. Since Zestiria's combat was hot dogshit, no matter how much they polish it, Berseria's will, at best, be a polished turd.

I refuse to pay for that. Zestiria was so fucking awful that even having pirated it, I still feel like I got ripped off. I can't imagine Berseria being drastically different, but I'll reserver further judgment for a few months from now, once it's been cracked and I hop into it.

I think, from this point onwards, this will remain a signal for me to spare no further thought of giving them a single cent for whatever game has it in

GOTY

t. woman who has only played one Tales game

Anyone ever tried this game before it died?

>>>/cuckchan/
>>>/NeoGaf/

Try the demo - the system is a vast improvement over Zesty's. In fact, it's the most departed LMBS yet, because now free run is the default, there are no more 'lock on movement to the enemy' elements and the four face buttons are all mapped to artes.
It brings some of Graces mechanics with the Artes tree, but this time you can fully customize said tree.

The only returning element from Zesty would be the SC turning into Soul capacity, which works as your ever-regenerating 'MP'. Oh, and camera control with the right stick, which is handy.

It doesn't bother me much either. But as always said, it's the principle of things and it should always be known to the publishers that the consumers have a problem with it. Become passive about it and they will go all out. Saying they will go full NISA or NoA doesn't seem very likely but I would rather not take the risk.

I like strong women who can beat people up. I think they're very fun to play and seeing their feminine side every blue moon is cute.

Linking is cool when playing solo. But getting locked out of so many options because you don't want to take control of another player sucks.

It's that fear that lets them get away with so much. However, Bamco isn't the type to send games to the west if they don't see profit because they barely take gambles like that. For example, after Eternia (Destiny II in the west when it first came out) didn't sell so well. We barely got any new games for a while. We got Symphonia and Abyss but missed out on Destiny Remake (might as well be a whole new game), Destiny 2, Rebirth, the GBA dungeon games, and some PSP games besides Legendia.

When was the last time a Tales game had a semen demon like this? Vesperia?

If I'm on PC and want to play a Tales game for the first time, which one should I go for? Thanks.

Symphonia's a good starting point for the 3D titles since its mechanics are a bit dated. The PC port is absolutely horrible without the community patches, so watch out.
2D wise, you can emulate Tales-Cless' Phantasia translation of the PS1 version and then move on to Eternia (Destiny II in the US).

For me, the PS4 is simply for fighters, Shoot em ups, and JRPGs with a few others like EDF4.1 (can't fucking wait for the next one) and Senran Kagura. It's no Vita but it has some things to it depending on the genre you're looking at. I see no reason to get a pro though. I got my PS4 for cheap, used.

Actually what games in the series also had hard limits to combos?

Turning the face buttons into artes was a good idea. They could really expand your moveset without changing artes constantly this way.

Eternia (PSX) and Phantasia (PSX) are good places to start. Phantasia's PSX version is the best version that's in english and Eternia PSX has a better soundtrack than the remastered PSP version.

Sadly, with the shortcuts gone as the right stick controls the camera, you're left with 16 arte slots again, just like Xillia's or Vesperia's 16 (with artes sphere).
If there was a Shift button to allow 32 that would've been nice.

Still, this is an interesting addition since your artes are now tiered and you can combine them in various ways. Some of the base artes not only change direction, but even element depending on the point where you use them and which direction you hold down, such as Magilou's kick.

looks like generic weebshit tbh fam

Thanks I'll give them a go.

did they fix the shitty battle system in the new one?

Well, if you want to start from the beginning, you can emulate pretty much any version of Tales of Phantasia, or really any game up to Vesperia, more or less. Some don't have english translations/don't have english translations on their definitive versions, so there's that.

Symphonia is also a good starting point for the 3D games, and you basically have 2 choices there: Emulate the Gamecube version, which runs at 60, or you can get the PC version with the various mods that unfuck the port. The PC version is based on the PS2 version, which means it runs at 30fps, but also has all sorts of extra content that the GCN version didn't have.

You could say that pretty much all of them do, since the symphonia team games made it to where combo's had a specific structure that meant your chain would eventually have to end (Normal attacks > Base Artes > Arcane/Altered Artes, whatever), wacky late game shit not-withstanding, and the Destiny team games put a limit on how much shit you could do in a chain by way of a finite amount of CC, with Xillia 1 and 2 using a sort of mix of both systems.

Zestiria in particular though was incredibly limiting compared to any remotely recent installment. Basically, you got 4 (3 when fused) attacks per chain, period, with the only way to increase that number is to fiddle with the wonky item skill crafting system to get one or two more attacks per chain or burn a resource to reset your chain back to the beginning. At least, as far as I know. I got bored of the combat very, very quickly and stopped playing. Is there anything more to it than just that plus spell canceling cheese?

The directional thing was one of the first features I noticed when playing the demo. It made crowd control much easier and even found myself pulling enemies closer to allies to continue combos. Really helps control the way you move around a boss too so it's easier to dodge.

Any idea what the abilities of the other characters were? Velvet is self explanatory and so was the samurai dude with the counters.

Never played Zesteria. Saw vids and feedback and stood far away from it. During development they said they were basing the combat off of Graces F. But it seems that they had no clue on why GF combat was so good. Anyway I'm liking the combat so far.

I look forward to fresh new sperging threads from the censorshipfags. Always entertaining.

Alright, thanks for the information. Still, even starting with two characters, how far into the game does the fusion thing start being borderline mandatory? That's my main concern since, if it's like the Link system, it's going to remove a character from anyone's control to use.

Maybe I haven't been paying that much attention to it (not real big on monster hunter-esque games), but I thought that had different censorship in both the west and east. Maybe I heard wrong.

The funny thing is that I hear that in Japan Xillia 2 got a higher CERO rating than prior Tales games because of the bleed mechanic, or something. I wonder how Berseria's CERO rating is compared to the rest of the series. That said, I'd think that even if he western rating is a big enough concern for Bamco to censor, other series they own the publishing rights to like Dark Souls sell more than well enough even with warranting an M rating. While Tales isn't as dark or bloody, I'd think that there's likely more customers for it that are adult than teen and thus wouldn't really care if it got an M rating.

No you don't. It's about knowing what your audience actually wants. Looking at Ar Nosurge, that somehow still only got a T-rating, and came overseas uncensored twice. Honestly a bit surprising the usual suspects didn't pitch a fit over it.

It's never forced to use unless you're on a battle tutorial that explains some mechanic about fusion (such as fused Mystic Artes). You can stay unfused as much as you want… But there will be enemies that might be a nuisance. Also, fusing gives an instant sizeable heal, so you can use it for tactical advantage.
There are bosses in which fusing might be almost mandatory if you're planning to beat them (unless you lower the difficulty. I normally use 'Second' which is one step above Normal).

In GE, bloody elements were restored (or added, I dunno…) Something kinda like how it happened with No More Heroes 1 and the blood in the US version.

The fear about muh ratings is all on the publisher's hands. Very few games are bad enough to be outright AO (Manhunt 2 comes to mind) and some are so tame and/or parodic that only backwards-ass countries refuse the classification *cough*Australia*cough*New Zealand*cough*

That's what I meant, since I've heard some enemies are a massive pain unfused. I guess I'm wondering how far into the game those are, whether you have three or more character by that point.

What ever happened to that being called "Hard"? I've heard the current English team has some incompetencies (to be fair, 8-4 seems willfully spiteful left to their own devices, but in the past Namco had gotten them to do good work on the series, Hearts R aside), and I assume in time they might get better, but I'd think making sure names of mechanics are kept intact would be easy enough, and making sure that descriptions for said mechanics are properly understandable a priority (I've seen some analysis of Zestiria's translation at Kajitani's site).

Yeah, Australia, Germany, and now New Zealand seem to be getting pretty ridiculous. Sad as it sounds for people living out there, I wish more companies would opt to do what Pqube and IFI have done, in that rather than having to do edits to the western versions of their games to sate overly ridiculous ratings groups, they just cut those markets out instead for a less compromised product to the rest of the world. Meanwhile Namco was all to willing to cut a Nazi outfit from the entire western release of the latest Jojo game due to Germany's rulings against depicting Nazis (and while I'd think the easiest remedy would be to make anything cut out into free DLC for the rest of the world to let everywhere else get the complete game, apparently that's not an option they considered).

Still hilariously sad that Australia refused classification on MeiQ, which got a T rating here in the US, over some of the outfits for the younger characters.

Don't listen to that other fagmaster. While it's technically true that the game never mandates that you must fuse, the entirety of the combat system revolves around it. Whether it be heals, dps, free-revives, etc etc, you need to fuse and stay fused to do it. The game experience is drastically worse (and that's saying something), if you don't use the shitty fusion. Basically, once you are allowed to fuse in-story, you will be fuse from that moment until the game ends.

I guess it may or may not be different if you play on the babby difficulties, but who would do that.

Second is the name in the the JP versions:
Chaos>Intense>Hard>Second>Normal>Easy
Chaos>Intense>Hard>Moderate>Normal>Easy

Zestiria's translation seems fine so far. They went up and above to make some fitting puns for all the cringey shit Lailah says. Some item descriptions are meme-y, though.
Hearts R had a shoestring budget, but I'm just so damn glad it came undubbed. Reading 'Kor' and hearing 'Shing' is nothing - I went through several NISA games where names were stupidly changed too.

Germany isn't that bad, actually. Their ratings go rocket-high when games have realistic violence settings, such as police work (think SWAT or Rainbow Six) or outright 'crime' games such as GTA or Sleeping Dogs (which had to get a 'German Cut'.
Understandably, though, said games feature realistic human world settings in real or imitation cities.

On the other side of the spectrum, fantasy settings have lower ratings, since they don't mirror real world situations.
Every Tales game has a USK 12 rating. SAO games too, and even God Eater! Dark Souls 2 and 3 do have USK 16, though. GalGun also got 16.

Australia and NZ's ratings boards on the other hand are prudish and patently absurd. MeiQ's ban is fucking ridiculous… At the very least GalGun is available in Australia.

Well, this very own 'fagmaster' plays on 2p co-op on Second all the way through and so far didn't need to fully use two fused characters on entire fights. Handy for a quick Lv2 MA or quick heals using BG, but I manage just fine with four characters otherwise. Granted, it's handy to prevent the AI dumbshits from getting repeatedly killed in some situations, and it saves Life Bottles to use fusion. You can do just fine if you bother to learn the 'rock paper scissors' system the game uses when it comes to arte types (regular phys artes, dedicated phys artes and magic artes).

Fuck off, woman. Come back into the conversation when you try to get through the game on Chaos without fusing.

Can't go through Chaos if it isn't unlocked, you know.
And I didn't say I didn't have to use fusions. I still use them if necessary or convenient to the battle in question. Try reading.

If that leaves her dialogue in-character and the original stuff she says doesn't directly translate over well into English, I can see that as being acceptable. Unlike what I remember about Beryl's dialogue, where I hear that the English script's manner of speech did not fit with the original Japanese one.

If it's carry over items from prior games, I can sadly see why those would get left the same. But I've seen some of the instruction screens analyzed, and apparently there's parts that don't cut it for properly describing what they do in English.

Because Namco didn't even want to bring it west in the first place. That's the main reason I can think of for why they just didn't care to hold 8-4 to any kind of leash.

Here's the thing: If it had been like a lot of other recent Tales games, where you can change the names of characters (at least for the bulk of the dialogue), that wouldn't be an issue. But with Hearts R, there is no option to fix Kor back to Shing. I really have to wonder if the Japanese version had the option to change character names or not, because if it did, then that option was cut out as a "fuck you, deal with it" by 8-4.

You also didn't say lmao, or xd either, you obtuse niglet. Will you nitpick my exaggeration for those as well? I know what you're saying, you hyper mega supreme faggot of the ultimate wispyness. It's just stupid and wrong, and even you admit that I am correct.

I repeat; the game necessitates the fusion mechanic and functions entirely around it. Even on babby difficulties, with another human player to alleviate AI retardation, you admit this. For anything harder than easy mode, it becomes a do-or-die.

We'll see about that. Zestiria does want to shove armatization down your throat, but if you're willing (and crazy enough to do it on Chaos) you can go around without armatizing most of the time. Of course, you can easily break the game and stun everything with it, but that removes all the fun.
Perhaps you just need to learn the system better. Then again, 8-4's translations of the tutorials are stupidly fucking confusing and convoluted so perhaps you didn't catch all of it correctly.

And it's pretty obvious that the system would encourage you to armatize (it's the main gimmick du jour) but if you're going to have more than one guest player that's where the problem starts. It's nowhere near balanced and honestly armatization is the worst LMBS gimmick so far. At the very least the game gives you the freedom to not armatize and die trying. It's part of the challenge. Your so-called 'manly' Chaos mode isn't so much when you can easily interrupt enemies with the dodge-step-attack skill available for armatized characters.

Hearts R's dialog was wildly different compared to the audio. Considering they changed Shing to Kor, they probably were going to dub the game and abandoned the idea later on.
It was careless but free of censorship, however. The 'loli' skit went through unscathed, for example.

The instructions/tutorials are indeed a mess. Either someone else took care of these or they skimmed over them regarding them as non-important, which is a problem as Zestiria has some additional, unusual nuances to the battle system. You're better off checking a FAQ for all the nitty-gritty of combat.

You've never actually played on chaos, have you? Perhaps a single battle, maybe two, and called it quits as you return to babby mode?

All that dumb shit you're talking about is just that. Dumb.

...

Far as I've heard, Hearts R was the last game in the series 8-4 worked with Namco on bringing into English. Xillia 2's a bit confusing though, as looking through the credits, it lists 8-4 under special thanks or whatever and 8-4's wiki page doesn't list Xillia 2, so I speculate they got thanked due to whatever team Namco's using now having borrowed prior terminology and names 8-4 used with Xillia.

I'll admit that sometimes a poor translation or editing job can result in some stuff sliding by without being censored. Like the incest in Wild Arms 2. But there's a difference between unintentionally poor translation/editing and willful fuckery like 8-4 did there. Hell, considering how by Kajitani's estimation (him being acquainted with how the game's script was supposed to be) the English script is only 40% faithful to the original Japanese, I have to wonder if some skits might have been rewritten wholesale from what they originally were. That said though, I don't know moon.

I'd have thought that instructions and menus would be something of a priority focus as far as getting them translated and translated well, since if not it can actively impede ability to play properly (I would assume during play-testing if the tester doesn't understand how to actually play even with built in instructions from the game, that should be noted as an issue that needs fixing prior to release). Admittedly for a JRPG, getting the story and dialogue right is very important, but should still be secondary to making sure people can readily understand how to play your damn game correctly. Hell, if they screwed up, they should at least patch it since I'd expect menus and instructions would be a simple enough fix, yet officially patching text doesn't seem to happen all that much (Ar Nosurge PS3 being an example I know of, where some of the original NPC dialogue apparently had a lot of issues, and TK and Actill retranslated their lines and patched the game after fans complained).

Got a decent one that you know of? I'd like to bookmark it if so.

EDF 4.1 came out ages ago before the PC version. As for shoot em ups, consoles have been slowly getting new ones or remakes while on PC it's been more indie or just remakes again. Cave brings back some games every blue moon but last I checked things like Raiden V are on PS4. Sure you can use something like Shmupmame to play a bunch but I've already played a bunch of those.

Same reason why most movies are PG-13 now, they didn't want to get the R/M rating.

In this case i think it's just tales fans overreactng, because there was a huge ass period of time where it seemed like Bamco didn't want to bring them over at all.

More specifically, they didn't want to get europe's R/M rating, as that would completely fuck them over.

The MUH STRONG WOMYN narrative and the stupid 3D combat system from Zestiria have already made this game dead on arrival for me.

You shouldn't play Tales games anymore. It's like play DmC or the new Silent Hill games, they're not from the same devs so it's never going to be the same experience and you're giving money to scabs+corporate jews. Wolf team hasn't worked on a game since Graces F.

Pretty sure that Wolf Team eventually became Namco Tales Studio after Telenet sold them to Namco. Or do you mean that the original staff has left NTS by now?

Fucking Europe. Did critics out there complain about Xillia 2's impalement or something?

Welp, better go back to Symphonia and piss away the rest of my life trying to 100% it.

They were directly credited in games, just like gamearts and monolith get shoved in to games by their corporate masters and they get credited.

You don't actually play SHMUPS, do you?

I've been wondering about this game. Is it good? The fact that it's pixel art and has a hipster soundtrack makes me think I should stay away because it's pozzed. Also because it's so modern it probably offers random attack patterns like 2hu instead of set ones like classics.

>>>/SomethingAwful/
Handily crafted sets nigger
Pirate it if you're so worried

Not quite. Apparently the impalement scene is more of a "straw that broke the camel's back" kind of thing. Like, Xillia 2(which was PEGI 16) got away with because the game is otherwise somewhat light/inoffensive, where as berseria is more dark/edgy, and this would have been the tipping point.

At least, that's one of the theories, it could just be Germany and Australia getting triggered again, like they're known to do.

Stay pozzed, my nigger-loving friend.

I just wish Bamco was clear on why they do shit like this.
They never do though.

Sorry, but I'm not the one playing FFXV.
Enjoy being HIV positive.

Why is everyone bitching about PEGI? They do their job. They rate games. As objectively as they can.

Hell you can sell PEGI18 games in Europe at any store openly so devs like Rockstar don't even give a shit. Nobody gives a shit. Looking at Deus Ex now and it got a PEGI18 in Europe, nobody cares.

No Bamco wanted a particular rating for some reason which is completely unnecessary. Games aren't for kids anymore. But yeah if you want a PEGI rating you have to follow the rules, surprise surprise.

PEGI is literally a compromise with moralfags and christfags: you can make whatever game you like we'll just slap a rating on it and everyone shuts up. I think it is better than the alternative of banning games or not selling them at Walmart.

Kill me Pete

Never thought I'd see the like. The cucks are evolving.

But how?
They don't breed

If so, I wish they'd just pull and IFI and cut those countries out if it's going to prove such an issue that would otherwise require censorship, especially since the PS3 and PS4 were import friendly anyhow. I mean, it would be annoying for the fans in those areas, but at least then the overall product would less likely be compromised, and fans could know to direct their anger towards trigger happy ratings boards instead.

Inoffensive? Yeah, okay. But lighthearted? Sure it has some humorous moments, but overall I found the tone to range from bittersweet to bleak, the whole trial being about trying to break humanity and see just how much they'd sacrifice to reach Origin.

I'm just saying that from what I've seen on Aselia wiki, Wolf-Team either became or merged into Namco Tales Studio some time after some people split off of Wolf Team to become Tri-Ace. To my knowledge the only main series Tales game not to have a proper Tales dev team was Legendia, which had Tekken and Soul Calibur devs as a guest team.

They won't be though. I assume that leaving things ambiguous is sadly considered a better way of doing PR than being explicit about why they're doing things. I do appreciate it though when a company is clear; if memory serves, there was a game a while back that used an actual phone company's ringtone that the western team couldn't get/afford the rights to, and said in advance it was being changed and why they were changing it.

It's not just PEGI though nigger, though it's bad enough that they have the power to dictate what you can do with your game, how you can sell your game, where you can show your game off, etc, but the USK and whatever aussies use for ratings have the power to straight up ban your game from being sold in their country.

Best of both worlds, baby.

Except you spent hundreds to play Bloodborne and one of the worst Tales games of all time.

Been focusing on Dungeon Crawlers and VNs lately but I don't exactly see how that game counters what I've said.

Hell I have that game myself. Though I have yet to play it.

Can't contradict yourself when you were never clear in the first place.

I'm just glad Baba didn't shit the bed this time nor tried hacking off an entire part of a game's narrative for DLCshit again (never forget that year where hideo lied about Alisha being important) Rokuro and Eizen I like both as playable characters (Rokuro's arc in particular really hits home with me because I hate my older brother too.)

Teresa is a incestual(?) cunt but on god I'd nut

also while the cooler costumes are locked behind DLC paywall bs (FUCKING SCAMCO) at least you can still get other costumes through other means (there's this waiter/waitress minigame where you can unlock some stuff as well as those katz chests you can find pretty easily which give you more accessories.)

it's no Vesperia but it's at least it's a clear improvment from ToZ
Radiant Mythology 4 never, I'm still salty about that april fools

I should be playing this next I guess

It's not the genes that are propagating here. It's the memes.

...

Part of what I liked about JRPG General years back on halfchan; could generally get discussion on JRPGs, day or night, old or new, and recent releases saw some pretty active discussion amidst people also playing older stuff, and usually people had the respect to appropriately spoiler text talking about plot reveals and such. Of course, once asspained moonspeakers started to do spoiler campaigns against games with upcoming western releases (the logic of "EoPs don't deserve a game this good" and the effect to be diminishing interest in people wanting to play them), I wound up leaving the general to preserve the ability to blindrun then-upcoming releases, like Xillia 2. Unfortunately, there's not really a good replacement for that here: JRPG threads can be a bit few and far between (and if they don't get off the right start can be shitpost central), /vg/ here hasn't had a JRPG General of its own from what I can see, and /jrpg/ is a dead board (and one I'm honestly not sure had enough cause to be created to begin with). And even Tales threads here are a bit few and far between as well, whilst years back on halfchan they were really damn frequent. I suppose. Hell, I've even seen "there's no point in discussing it anymore" as the reasoning for why threads about games that anons have traditionally loved and had frequent threads long after they came out on don't happen much now (when was the last time you saw a Ghost Trick thread, for example).

Somehow I'm not sure if anything's sunk lower than Tempest, which I've generally heard was the worst individual entry in the past (so much so that Namco made the series split into mothership and escort designation just to keep it away from the main series).

As they get other cucks to join their ranks, the ideas those fuckups bring in are spread? Just a thought.

Holla Forums at this point has become completely stagnant, if not dying, thanks to Null fucking up, if not completely sabotaging Holla Forums

Yeah, I suppose the site shitting itself hard repeatedly hasn't helped things like retaining the older posterbase (I've stuck through it since coming here though, and some of those times I could barely even get text to go through, let alone images). Wouldn't surprise me if some dropped imageboards entirely during that time period, or just went back to halfchan, problems with management and hotpockets be damned.

well they HAD lied once already.
if there's more, expect hellfire

Great I actually don't get a straight answer if it's any good or not I get this stupid politicing. For fuck sake you know what pozzed means and we all use it regardless where it came from, just like authoritarioan progressives is leftists or whatever even though reddit coined it.

IS BLUE REVOVLER GOOD OR IS IT LIKE IF TUMBLR MADE TOUHOU

Blue revolver is Kill yourself nigger.

Okay then retard: what is the alternative to a ratings board? Because I like to think things through here. I'm old enough to remember politicians talking about GTA and Carmegeddon.

I'd rather have ratings then censorship. Ofcourse countries like the UK and Australia wil ban it anyway but why would you live there?

Berseria is Mediocre at best, it does nothing wrong. except the OST which is shit, but does nothing great either, it's bland from start to finish, play it if you have nothing else to play but you will forget all about as soon as you finish it.

...

Raiden is shit m8.

We used to have ratings before kike censorship boards existed anyways.

Raiden V is Xbone only you fucking retard
You don't know what you're talking about.

No U

Oh yeah not being underageb8 I'd really love to see ratings enforced. Not only it would untie hands to the vidya industry, but also it'll cut down the amount of obnoxious little twats in the multiplayer.

Is there something wrong with me for wanting to play Sorey and Mikleo in a game that isn't hot dogshit? They're both qt as fuck.
Tales of musou/beat'em up game when?

Yeah, I guess I'll wait it to go -75% off.

And i rather have the ESRB, which is completely voluntary and not needed to actually sell a fucking game over PEGI, which is fucking law and you can actually be arrested for fucking with if you live there.

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American retail are cucks who won't sell adult only games. The ESRB has far more power. The ESRB can make your game impossible to sell openly unlike a PEGI18 rating that doesn't matter for anyone who isn't underage.

If Bamco had just taken the PEGI18 rating literally everyone would be happy.

Ufotable fucked up.

That would be Twin Brave, which never came over. And since no one ever mentions it, I'm assuming it wasn't even that good.

Well shit. I thought since IV was on PS3 then V would be on PS4. My mistake.

I think there are plenty that are better but It's definitely not shit.

Yeah, as an enhanced port.

Their decisions only have weight if you decide to sell your game on consoles, Sony nintendo and microsoft will not print your game out if it has an ao rating, period. PC doesn't have either of those problems, the ESRB can't stop, say, mangagamer from printing out and selling their Ao rated games on their own website. At worst you just can't sell porn games on steam, but they're readily accessible anywhere else, and i hear there's a loophole around that.

Bump

Playing through Xillia 2 since I'm itching for a tales game with all the talk of Berseria lately and I'm poor. Why did I never hear about Ludger being basically mute? Does the system where you pick what to say ever amount to anything? Like different routes/ect?

Although I'm only like an hour in, maybe Ludger is just shy or something.

Raiden has always been overrated C-, low budget shumps for thirsty faggots.

I haven't touched this series in 20 years. I liked Tales of Destiny; what games since then are similar?

Phantasia is pretty good. I think that was the first one and its one of my favorites still. I think the Ps1 version is the definitive version? Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I played the SNES fan translated version ages ago and loved it.

You could try eternia (Tales of Destiny 2 but its not really) as well.

Tales of Series is really hit or miss. Ether they are good or they are so mediocre. Tales of Xillia was ok, Tales of Graces f was garbage. wait an see it the policy with all their games. That said Berseria looks aesthetic as fuck.

Endlessly discussing old games is not a sign of board health.

Designs maybe are nice, but the game itself looks abysmal. There's better looking Wii games, or PS2 games, or 10+ year old games. I don't care for graphics much, but I like some consistency. The character models look fine but the environment is horrendous. It clashes very badly. If everything is blocky and badly textured, it's fine, but here it just looks wrong, like the characters do not belong to the game.

Seriously, it feels like some sort of an Oblivion mod with the user downloading a few super-high quality armour/race weeb sets, but forgetting to also download models or texture packs for the rest of the game.

Tales of Graces f was my first experience with the series; it was so bad I refuse to touch any other game in the series.

Graces had the best battle system by far. Nothing else matters unless you are a storyfag.

It's funny. I actually liked zestiria, but I only think it was because there was so much negativity around the game it made my expectations so low. That when I played it and it wasn't nearly as bad as all the negative buzz, it made the game seem like a pretty decent tales of game.

I mean good combat is nice, but it's not the focus of a jrpg. I mean if you're just playing games for muh gameplay only! Then you're better off not playing jrpgs at all.

Tales is one of the only JRPGS I will play because it actually has some semblance of gameplay. Graces F has the best gameplay therefore it is the best in the series. I could care less about the trite cookie cutter plots.

I am the first to say good game play trumps the importance of story but the story and characters in Graces f is so insufferable that it gets in the way of the game play. Moreover story if used correctly is a primarily a puzzle mechanic in good JRPGs as to direct the player through the various environments. Bad RPGs use story to shuttle the player from set piece to set peace ignoring its value as a core game play mechanic. Solve a riddle, find and key, deduce where to explore based on clues given by the towns people etc. Dragon Warrior is a simple example of how story is a puzzle. The riddle was to find the location of the Princess then ultimately the components needed to rid the world of evil and each town provided a necessary clue. When story acts as an impediment to the gameplay then its an issue and in the case of Graces f it is impossible to tolerate that shitty story. Not to mention I prefer the battle system in Xillia

shit I forgot to add

It doesn't look bad from what I've seen, but then again I guess its hard to tell due to youtube compression. Looks better then other Tales of games.

Great, another game we can't about without triggering the goobers.

The wait for a torrent begins.

Fuck off censorship apologist.

I heard it has Japanese VA dual audio so that's a plus.
I also heard the combat is better than Xillia.
I will eventually buy it, to be honest. My bloodborne machine needs more games, and I want to couch Co-op it with my brother

Graces f had a great battle system
Vesperia, Abyss and Symphonia are definitely must plays. The rest is a hit or miss though

Tales of Phantasia X on the PSP (bundled with NDX) is considered the definitive version of Phantasia. It's simply not in English though. Most refined version in English (that doesn't try to eat your wallet like the shitty iPort did) is the PS1 version with a fan translation.

Not to get pedantic, but wording is everything when there's an actual Tales of Destiny 2 on the PS2. Tales of Destiny II meanwhile is the NA version of Eternia, with the roman numeral. There is a difference.

People have mentioned him being mute on a first play through for years. While Elle usually opts to voice what both she and Ludger think, the choices for skits and such are things that Ludger actually says. On NG+, you can opt to voice him for choices. With the choice system themselves, towards the end of the game a few do lead to different endings (the game has three), and some options raise affinity with particular characters (which is signalled by a face appearing below the choice after you've made it).

There's actual plot reasons for why Namco left him mostly mute (to the player) on a first playthrough, but I'm not going to spoil it. You'll find out later.

So some mystic artes and a couple costumes? Doesn't really scream all sorts right there

I will not stand for this. Graces is love. Graces is life. That it is the greatest Tales game of all time is objective fact.

Back to reddit with you.

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He's saged every post he's made in this thread for whatever reason.

Yeah, aside from the "HD" version having native dual audio (something I don't think anyone's found a way to get working for GC emulation/piracy, the way Abyss has a full undub patch), from what I know it's got the pros and cons of the JP only PS2 version (a bit of extra content and bugfixes, with the reduced combat framerate as a trade off for some fucking reason) and a few extra costumes specifically for the PS3/PC version. Doesn't strike me as being as being nearly the definitive version that Vesperia PS3 is compared to the 360 original. Bit silly that the PS3 version wasn't made as a "best of both worlds" thing, having the higher framerate of the Gamecube version and extra content/JP dub of the PS2 one and neither of the flaws between either prior version.

Anyhow, which one is the better version of Symphonia really just depends on what someone wants from it. I myself am more than content with my GC version, but for others stuff like dual audio in the PS3 release is enough of a plus to warrant that being considered better by them.

Reminding me a bit of the old "Suikoden I and II being good is a meme" guy that used to show up in threads whenever either game was mentioned in a good light.

So said the one who just went 'X is love, X is life'.
Tastes aside (because that differs from each person, you div), 'objectively' can be defined properly. Comparing all games in Tales series, Vesperia and Abyss achieved both what they set out to do in spectacular fashion while Graces did fell short. And why that is you need to bugger off and commit suicide for being a dumbcunt.

They might have achieved all they were looking for, but that's only because they were setting the bar extremely low so as not to blow their load as they go on to make the perfect godgame. Graces has some faults as nothing is truly perfect, but it has superior gameplay, skits, and characters. The gameplay alone is enough to elevate it past Vesperia, let alone Abyss, but that it set the bar for all three can not be ignored.

Graces is as pure a Tales product as mankind will ever see. It is the absolute best. I know this. You know this. The audience watching along at home knows this. Even Scamco knows this, which is why they are desperately trying to reinvent the Graces wheel with all subsequent releases.

Graces is sublime.

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Can you stop replying to Ruggarel?
Thanks

I only played Phantasia and it was more than 10 years ago, which one should I play/what are the good ones? Didn't played Destiny at the times because I disliked the characters art, but have no problem with it nowadays.

Symphonia is a good place to start, as is Vesperia. They are usually considered babbies first Tales game, for a variety of reasons.

Whatever you do, don't play Graces. Save it for the last. If you don't, every other Tales game will seem quite lacking.

Shit tastes. Graces f has great gameplay. thats about it

story is shit
characters are mostly shit outside of Pascal and Malik
no cooking
world map is shit compared to other tales
Graces gameplay is what makes it worth a playthrough but vesperia, abyss and symphonia will always be better than graces

Graces f gameplay is easy and hardly deep anyway with the lack of mana pool and easily spammable stuff. i enjoyed the sidestepping, but it had 0 strategy.

U're mums shit
Characters are all exceptional with the exception of Asbel.
Vastly superior Eleth mixer system.
No more shit than Xillia or Zestiria.

My my my, seems Graces truly is the greatest.

I generally prefer Fujishima's art to Inomata's myself, but Inomata's older stuff feels a bit better than her more recent designs, at least in my opinion. Though, hers does feel a bit less functional at times compared to Fujishima's. Anyhow, if you're still kind of getting into the series, Eternia, Symphonia, and Vesperia are generally good starting places. The other games aren't bad in my experiences, but they might give you an off impression for better or worse, and some people do feel it harder to go back to the earlier entries after having started with the later, more refined ones. Also, if you're wanting to look into replaying Phantasia, I assume if it was over a decade back that you played the SFC one with a fan-translation. The PS1 remake has seen two separate fan translation effort; both are serviceable, but Phanatsian Productions' patch includes a hacked in technical ring (thus you don't need to play through 8-10 hours of semi auto just to get the option for manual mode and have to re-adjust). Absolute Zero Translations has the Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X bundle as a work in progress, but currently they're opting to focus on translating the Director's Cut of Destiny's PS2 remake.

What a nigger, you're missing a great series by doing that.

Suck a cock and die.

The story is the same BIG WORLD LEECHING SMALL WORLD shit they've done like four or five times already

asbel is naruto tier clueless dipshit.
Cheria's a shit tier tsundere
Sophie is cardboard
Hubert is a snarky ass without being amusing like Jade
Richard is XxxLinkinParkBoixxX until future arc.
Pascal and Malik are the only two i liked right off the bat.

The graphics in general are kinda meh but it WAS originally a wii game so i don't hold that against it too much.

overall I LIKE the game but calling it the greatest is setting a really low standard.

So has anyone actually played this game yet?

Why does her smile makes my dick hard?

Well shit. I got that game with Tales of Symphonia Chronicles.

I hope your pet runs away from home and your mother finds out your disgusting fetishes.

Graces is inferior to Vesperia, Abyss and Symphonia. This is a fact. If you liked the characters in graces, you're probably an underage kiddie who likes generic anime garbage

oh shit I just realized this faggot is ruggarell
First time I filter someone on 8ch

I hope to god hes the one shilling the Pro every thread I go to.
Goddamn

That is just not true. In fact, of the three games in your post, it's definitely the best the best one.

You should not listen to bangwagoning memers who shit on it just to fit in.

Its truly not as shit as people make it out to be. Gameplay is top tier, easy item synthesis, very different/unique character playstyles. But the plot is definitely its weakest point. Im handled it fine personally because im used to the whole power of friendship schpeel, but Graces lays it on THICK.

Why am I enjoying Xillia 2 so much? It seems like the type of game people around here would make fun of because of

but I'd be lying if I said I wasnt having fun with it. I think I've been playing jrpgs so long that my mind has been conditioned to derive pleasure from tedium.

JRPGs are toxic to good taste.

Back when it was new, the reused assets were a big complaint I saw people have, along with the debt system and party locking. However, while I usually am not a fan of direct reuse, I found the returning sections to actually make for the neat "what-if" scenarios the Fractured Dimensions present, and there's a number of newly added places in Elympios anyhow, which was rather lacking in Xillia 1. Plus, with there only being a year or so time gap between Xillia 1 and 2, it's not like the world could have changed super drastically (compare to the 4000 or so year gap between Symphonia and Phantasia). And the debt system itself isn't a big hassle in my experiences if you know how to earn and manage money well. There's also the fact that the game goes out of it's way to NOT be another "Symphonia 2" to its predecessor.

It also helps though that Ludger's pretty fun to play as, and I know the friend I co-oped it with really liked Gaius' playstyle as far as newly playable characters went.

Graces f is good. The combat is fun (if not the best example of the average Tales game, hence why I don't consider it a really good entry point) and the skits entertaining, but the game does have some notable issues, namely the writing for both the story and Asbel in particular (who I swear is almost willfully dense). I'll also say that I found the A-arte "flow chart" style a bit limiting, and the way the overworld was dropped in favor of skinny routes that offer little room for exploration annoying (Xillia and Xillia 2 also lack an overworld, but it felt like they weren't nearly as cramped and offered more hidden stuff to find in little caves or areas off the beaten path).

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I didn't but I'd like to hear some feedback from someone who did tbh

Berseria? i did. The Story, Characters and Combat are ok but nothing special. The OST, World, Graphics and Content is very bland and generic. It's like Zestiria but with a better combat and story but far worse OST, all in all it's a mediocre jRPG that is better than Zestiria but that's it.