Tales Thread

Mostly Scamco. They used it in Gods Eater 2, and apparently Zestiria.

It must be profitable, because they've been doing it ever since DLC was a thing. Or fuck maybe they just throw it in there because it doesnt cost anything to make. Does anyone actually use it?

Is Denuvo actually intrusive in any way? Because I could see an argument against it if it was anything like Games for windows live, but I've got a sneaking suspicion all this anti-Denuvo talk is just pirates being salty about having to wait a couple of months.

They've been doing it for a number of games now if memory serves. Probably at least profitable enough to keep doing so, be it worldwide or mostly in Japan (given the games come out there first). Not sure how many people people that buy their games don't want to actually earn their levels and gald and other shit by actually, you know, playing the game they paid for.

But Namco's not nicknamed "Scamco" without reason. They might make fun games, but they've gotten greedy as shit with the way systems now have access to the internet and internal stores for paid DLC. Look at the difference in how costumes handle between the earlier entries with them (namely Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia) and the later ones. Used to be that you could get them all for accomplishing particular ingame things, or following certain sidequests, and stuff like the internet wasn't quite as big with the Gamecube and PS2. Meanwhile with Vesperia, while it was on an online console, Namco didn't dabble in costume DLC all that much, though if memory serves you could outright buy some of the ingame ones (the way you could for a handful in Graces f as well); and even with the PS3 extended port having more DLC costumes, they also added more ingame ones as well. But apparently something happened with Vesperia in Japan to change that mindset, since the number of ingame costumes dwindled sharply, with Graces (Graces f anyhow; not sure how Graces Wii might have handled it as we didn't get it here) having only two full sets for everyone not named Dick (a few characters getting a new more non-set costumes) with the rest being paid DLC, and then Xillia took it a step further with a whopping FOUR ingame costumes across three characters and everything else being DLC. Don't like Rowen, Leia, or Elize's default outfits, and the free palette swap ones aren't appealing? Fuck you, give Namco more shekels. With Xillia 2, at the very least acquired (and previous default) costumes from Xillia 1, both ingame and DLC, could be used with it as a sequel as well, and Ludger had a handful of ingame ones for himself too as a fully new character, but Namco pulled some absolute bullshit: While in Japan, the Yuri, Asbel, and Emil outfits were free with purchase as preorder bonuses, instead of doing the same out here (the way they generally had for Graces f and Xillia 1), they were locked as exclusive content to the Xillia 2 collector's edition. A CE costing a whopping one-hundred and thirty dollarydoos plus tax (and shipping I suppose, if you ordered online), I might add. Not sure how things have exactly worked on that end for Zestiria or Berseria. Haven't played my copy of Zestiria yet (got it last month for $6 complete and I'm hoping a friend will make room on his PS3 drive so we can try to co-op it), though a quick look on the PSN seems like costumes are at least in somewhat cheapish sets, probably due to the PS3 being at the end of it's status as a current gen system, but that tells me nothing about the amount of costumes available ingame (especially given the trend for making costumes outright exclusive to the PSN now); as for Berseria I don't have a PS4 and I highly doubt my toaster I'm posting from could handle a game that recent, so I haven't given it much attention other than the fact that Namco's opted to censor an early scene.

Video games having proper internet capabilities (compared to sixth gen) really strikes me as having been more of an overall detriment than a good thing, at least on the consumer end.

I'm a poorfag so I havent gotten Berseria yet, but I have a backlog of Tales games to get through anyway so I'm playing Xillia 2 to scratch the itch. I suck ass though. I don't remember being this bad when I played Xillia a few years ago. I wish there was an infinite training mode or something so I could try to practice combos and shit without fighting a million random battles and getting overlevelled. Or the ability to turn exp gains off.

I wanna get it for console for couch co-op

What exactly are you having issues with? Just how to combo right? The older games had more of a flow of "Normal Attacks (amount per combo depends on character/set skills) -> Base Arte -> Arcane Arte" and (as of Abyss) associated skills that would be needed to alter the flow (stuff like increasing the amount of normal attacks, ability to chain base into base, arcane into arcane, and arcane back into base), and various artes would more readily flow into each other. In the more recent games, the CC/AC/whatever they're calling it these days system determines how many attacks or artes you can combo at once, with playing well, as well as having particular skills acquired/active, restoring some amount of CC mid combo so you can keep going, rather than needing to take a break. Also, depending on the game and whether it uses solely CC or mixed TP/CC, the cost of attacks can vary: in Destiny DC and Graces, artes (Graces doesn't even have proper normal attacks) can cost one or more CC, while in the Xillia games, any attack or arte only costs 1 AC, due in part to still using TP.

Best way of doing so is acquiring and setting a 1 Damage skill for the characters. Makes it really annoying to try to properly kill enemies (unless you're playing Vesperia, in which case Fatal Strikes are 1hko's when a normal enemy has been hit with enough of certain artes; also influences Fatal Chaining which results in hard to get items), but is great for showing off or learning how to combo better.

I think every game in the series has some way of doing 1 damage. You could just equip a shit weapon as well.

You can't play the game if you pirate it and it has denuvo. Are you this stupid?

it's conceivably an inconvenience should your internet go down.
It phones an activation server any time a denuvo game is launched. I have yet to find out if said connection needs to be maintained.
I live on the gulf coast and get to look forward to HURRICANES every fall so I have heavy reservations about it.

I've also heard it squashes script extenders but i can't confirm that myself.

I really don't think the Tales series needs a back-to-back thread, especially when the latest release is dogshit, has denuvo, and nobody is playing it.

Also, Graces F is still the best.

Magilou butt is a mirracle of the Universe

Thats just photoshoped.
Right?

Denuvo is about to be dead.

will trump bring back public torrent trackers too

Denuvo is getting fucked real hardcore right now. RE7 got cracked in like 5 days and thing is, when a dev/publisher makes a deal with the Denuvo devs, a part of the deal is that if the DRM is broken within a month the devs/pubs will be refunded.

Peaches look like little butts

I played it awhile ago and it's entirely possible I missed shit, but from what I remember every character has two different basic palette swap costumes unlocked in game and that's it. There are also free promotional God Eater 2 costumes which change the BGM to God Eater music, but even if it's free that's still technically DLC. That being said if I recall Zestiria also had the least amount of available pay DLC costumes of any recent Tales entry so it was lacking all around in regards to costumes. There are a fuck ton of unlockable accessories in game though.

Again with this? That's completely untrue. Denuvo does not refund anything if the game is cracked before X days… Which means Capcom just shelled out tons of $ for a mere five days of protection.

Forget that post, I just loaded my save there are actually a decent amount of unlockable in game constumes that aren't simple palette swaps. Not Abyss-tier but more than the Xillia games.

I just started it last night. I'm liking it so far. Combat is a bit spammy but it is entertaining. Narrative so far is pretty good though the opening was a bit shaky in explaining things. Luckily they have a plot synopsis in the menus that cleared up some things I didn't catch. Playing this is so nice after FFXV. I needed something to wash that filth off me it was so fucking bad.

This thread needs more Magilou

I decided not to buyit since they censored it.

Wait, really? I was pretty sure it was…
Thats what i get for trusting Holla Forums.

torrentfreak.com/denuvo-we-dont-give-refunds-when-games-get-cracked-161219/
archive.is/RyuPM

Damn.
Thanks for the link man. Thanks for not bullshitting me. I truly appreciate it.
I just hope that if the Denuvo games are gonna be cracked this fast that maybe less companies will bother with it.

If denuvo's servers ever go down you lose your game, unless the dev make a patch to un-denuvo the game. I've heard it destroys SSDs. No idea if that's true or not though. Performance takes a hit. And it prevents any modding. Basically they're punishing paying customers for what pirates do.

Tales of Zestiria is part of the latest Humble Bundle. Is it worth $15 + other games?

+ what other games?

NO

It doesn't have Denuvo.

Pic related.

As it stands the rest is mostly crap.

Well, it ain't really all that crap. For 15 dollars you get Zestiria and Naruto, 2 good games. I hear Enslaved is decent and Project Cars may be good too but i don't know much about it.
I don't know much about the rest of the games, the only thing i do know is that Ace Combat Assault Horizon is awful.
I'd say its worth a shot.

So, more like, say, Graces or Symphonia, where there were at least two or three individual ingame costumes per character?

PCars + DLC is the only reason I want the bundle, but it's really only worth it if you have a wheel. Not as good on controller. AssHorizon isn't good as an Ace Combat game, is barely good as a CoD game, is really only useful to be used for Open Horizon.

I can't find an article saying one way or the other, but it looks like CPY cracked it, so I thought it did?

Is it as edgy as people say or is it just Velvet?

It's the good kind of edgy. Velvet has moments where she shows she's not just a complete monster and has nice interactions with her party.

she's darker than yuri but she's no shadow the hedgehog

The game seems a bit boring to me, so far (I'm about 5 hours in).
The combat's a bit weird and I'm either particularly shit at dodging, or the dodging mechanic is shit: I can't tell.
The environments are super bland and the music is forgettable.
To be honest, I always play jrpg's in the hope that they'll be one of the very few that are actually really enjoyable.
This one seems like another insipid cringe fest.

I've only ever seen these two in a doujin. I don't think I will ever unsee the doujin

exhentai.org/g/946911/0efe2d63fa/

This one right?

I have my cookies self destruct whenever I close my browser. As a result I had to give up exhentai.

Fuck this game.

Elle is not for lewd!

Well yeah thats why I'm confused, thats the point. If it can do that without hindering their paying customers then more power to them. Buy the game like everyone else if you want to play it.

I'll probably try with minimum damage set. I understand everything mechanically, its just when I try to put it into practice it just kind of falls apart. And I try to practice on regular enemies but I end up overlevelling to the point where they die in half a combo or something like that.

Ability to do lengthy combos is more showy than anything. I mean, on harder difficulties, ability to keep an enemy properly locked down well while dishing out a lot of damage is certainly useful, but it's a bit hard to get the counter super high (bosses aside) if the idea is to still wind up not taking for fucking ever to kill them in the end (again, this is where Vesperia's Fatal Strikes are very nice, as they give you a way to properly kill enemies despite 1 damage being set, and reward you for fatal chaining by upping rare item drop rates if I remember; granted, you can't OHKO bosses with them, but fatal striking them does a large amount of damage in a single hit). Xillia also has a slight issue in that bosses can more readily break combos on their own as well; been a while since I played Xillia 2, so I can't exactly recall if it does as well, but I do remember back in the day for Xillia 1 people complained about that aspect being annoying when they were used to how combos worked in prior games.

Some other things to bear in mind: if you're trying to get that hit count up, you have to be careful with what your AI allies do. There's a reason why a lot of high combo videos out there are done solo (though I do suppose that having human controlled allies can also be useful in doing so for various games, provided you coordinate well). Also, artes with knockdown effects are likely to break combo due to enemies gaining temporary invincibility as they pul themselves up, unless followed up by particular artes that are able to force them to their feet. Some characters throughout the series can be easier to combo with than others.

Girls, not even once!

What is behind her book?

A smug girl.

Brilliant plan

Her cute bellybutton with a little of cotton in it because shes a slob.

That an actual skit? I must admit my pace has slowed down since I'm finding the game rather dull but now I'm interested to see the context behind this picture.

I keep seeing these games on Steam. Don't have enough will to pirate them, though. Convince me they're worth the bandwidth.

Tell me Holla Forums, why do birds fly?

Year is now 2017 and you still don't have Unlimited bandwidth?

I'm like a third or fourth into the game, I hate the monsters' stun rate on dangerous encounters but besides that, it's probably better than Zestiria so far though the first 3 hours before the red claw attack is unlocked were pretty shit. I am still displeased Baba ruined the previous game, I bet it would've been at least Berseria tier if programmers had time to perfect the game instead of being forced to change half of the game to put his shit-tier waifu in while scrapping the shit they've already done.

Birds fly according to instinct - no one has told them how or why.

Never played Zestria, what is this about?

Birds fly because they want to.

they fly to reach resources or escape predators, to put it simply

Basically, the story of the game was done, recordings were finished, everything was about to be polished. It was when Baba decided "I rike dat seiyuu, rets put her in the gamu as a major character"… And most of the stuff the Tales team did had to be redone a few months before release to replace Alisha's moments with Rose. Where a replacement of characters didn't make any sense, content was scrapped. Also, IIRC he didn't like the designer of Alisha so he has decided if most of her content can't star Rose, it must be cut. Or so I've heard, and there is a gook website which lists the entirety of stuff. While neither of this is "confirmed", the gooks had some evidence accumulated. Someone might have the link, or just google it. I definitely remember seiyuus being called to rerecord most of their lines after the recordings were done long ago. It's all conjecture, but it makes way too much sense.

Rose is seriously fucking awful. In the Nip popularity poll she was behind literally every other cast character, Normins (tiny collectible seraphs/malaks) and barely got more votes than a werewolf guy who appears thrice in the game and does jack shit. She basically appears out of nowhere, contradicts herself constantly, does nothing but the other characters always praise her for doing everything right when she does nothing, they even apologise if she shits on them. If you've played Berseria, imagine Magilou, take everything good about her away and double the bad, have the rest of the cast always applaud her, have everyone dogpile everyone she criticises and make her have easy access to therion powers without being a therion. It's fucking annoying to have a character who instantly turns everyone else into out-of-character yes men for no reason and that's exactly what she does.

Basically, she's an evil, insane assassin with an incredibly annoying voice who turns paladin-tier goody-goodies into yes men minutes after joining the party. She's literally a fucking psychopath who is worse than most of the villains, but when she does something it's cool, and when it's someone else they're the worst. Like when a priest kills people without generating malevolence, the party calls him a monster and a psychopath, but when Rose has killed random people for money throughout her career without generating malevolence, they never stop saying how awesome, good and pure she is. Seriously, an evil character like this would work very well as the party is composed of only good guys as it is, but that'd work only if the rest openly hated her guts and actually knew she's not a good person. No "you so cool, nice, pure", only "we need you for now, but we're keeping an eye on you very closely, psycho".

That's not the problems, though. Goddamn camera. Item normins ruining everything. Armatisation is way too good. Nips hated Zestiria being a clearly unfinished mess so much, they've returned most of the copies. Instead of spending money, they've decided to spend their time by sending more death threats to the Tales team, Baba and Rose's VA than someone questioning the religion of peace would get in the western Europe. It's no wonder the game was so mediocre and disappointing, they didn't have time to perfect anything because Baba only thought with his tiny dick about the seiyuu despite already having a wife. Thankfully he won't get to screw shit up again.

I'm glad I stopped the game when she started being a thing, too bad, the start of the game was okay.

I appreciate the time you took to write this spergpost. It was great.

While playing that piece of shit game, I never really thought much of Rose. I suppose her bad parts never really registered to me, since I honestly thought the entire cast of Zestiria was boring as fuck, excepting Edna who is love. On top of the story being pure dogshit, it was very easy for me and my bro to just turn our brains off and focus on clearing it for forms sake.

Do you happen to have any of the "evidence" the gooks had accumulated? Not that I really doubt them since that game was just fucking horrid, but it'd be nice to take a gander at it.

Baba needs to be removed, and Tales team and the series need to take a fucking break. Theres hasnt been any remote innovation since Abyss gameplay-wise (save for Graces f), all the games since have just been shit one-off gimmicks. I havent cared about a Tales plot since Vesperia, not that the plots were five star material anyway, but they used to at least try to make you care. The DLC situation is fucking Dead or Alive tier delirious. The whole series is a mess.

I just want Radiant Mythology 4, is that so much to ask?

And this is why they never fucking learn. I'm waiting for it to get cracked and I'm a steam loving buyfag. Fuck Denuvo.

www52.atwiki.jp/tozsougiwiki/pages/14.html
I think it's that one. It's not in English, but you can most of the time realise what the meaning is even with jewgle translation. It's got to be somewhere on the site unless I've found the wrong one or am mistaken. It's hard as fuck to navigate.

Baba is removed from any position of power, he can only make advice now. In Japan higher ups who screw up are rarely fired and are usually just put in a position where they can't do anything. He's powerless to act as others try to make tales great again.

>www52.atwiki.jp/tozsougiwiki/pages/14.html
I'm skimming through with my shit Japanese. I can only bow to the sheer autistic rage the otaku possess. Goddamn, those guys are fucking meticulous in their fury.

I'm jealous, really.

As a publisher, you don't fuck with them. There was a case in a manga where the 'pure' MC girl was raped or some shit by someone and everyone fucking flipped their shit off and were threatening the author so bad that he had to retcon that the rapist was an eunuch, thereby conserving the girl's 'pure' status.

…Sacred Blacksmith?

Just finished it. Despite not having much innovation in its gameplay I liked it more than Graces through Zestiria.
Also despite not doing anything that particularly different the break soul gimmic was at least pretty fun, made it easy to chain combos for better or worse, depending on if you're the more hardcore type that likes to learn to combo without the game holding your hand.
Probably the most redeeming part of the game was the characters and story, it's a welcome change from the bullshit that was Zestiria, being a bad Legend of Zelda or many other JRPG protagonists that are some kind of combination between denser than a neutron star and the dogmatic belief of, "Killing is bad!"
Haven't got the chance to play any others unfortunately, probably going to start on Abyss and/or Symphonia next unless someone has some better suggestions.
Also I see Xillia roasted pretty often for being rushed but I barely remember anything about it, what was it that made it such shit?

God damn it, I'm playing Zestiria because I got the Humble Bundle, and I wish I didn't read this because the game is now actively pissing me off. Because now I can't stop thinking "boy, this scene would make more sense and/or be more emotionally impactful if Alisha were here instead of Rose".

Like, I just beat the Water Temple. It's as annoying as the name implies. When you beat it, you discover that Alisha's mentor and mother-figure is actually a bad guy. This revelation is utterly meaningless, because this is literally the second time you encounter the character, and the only character for whom this would matter isn't present.

And Rose becoming a Squire, too! She just shows up out of the blue and acquires all the powers Sorey, whereas Alisha couldn't. Furthermore, there was a huge subplot about how Alisha being Sorey's Squire was causing him to deteriorate.

The story would have made more sense and be more interesting if it were about Alisha learning that her employ was destroying Sorey, and how she overcomes this problem and as a result acquires the Shepard powers.

And what's the deal with the fox guy from the beginning of the game? Is nobody going to ask about that? Is he just not going to come up again until a sidequest at the end of the game?

I'll def get it after it gets cracked then. I'm sick of any game that is part of the phantasia/symphonia storyline.

My point exactly.

This really, really pissed me off as well. I loved that dudes design and was looking forward to whatever role he served in the story, but I guess the jokes on me.

As far as I remember (at some point I started rushing through the game solely for completions sake then obliterated it from my mind), he only shows up every here and then for seemingly zero reason, gets defeated, and fucks off to do nothing of importance. Rinse and repeat till the end of game. Hell, I'm pretty damn certain you kill him at some point, and then he just shows up later easy peasy, raising questions on whether or not its even the same guy.

Someone with a better grasp of this shitgames canon please chime in. I want to know if this dude had any sort of relevance to the game in any way

For those of you that largely wasted their time like me playing Zestiria, I have good or bad news for you depending on your perspective.
Somewhat minor spoilers for Berseria:
Berseria is a prequel, the only good things about Zestiria make a reappearance. The moments they do show up are made better if you played Zestiria but Zestiria was such a shit that it might just annoy you depending on your outlook.

is it worth 60 bucks ?

Graces wasn't really all that innovative either if you ask me. A-arte/B-arte style aside, it pretty much just took Destiny PS2/DC's CC system and tried to translate it for use in a 3D Tales game (and somehow managed to remove the ability to actually jump on your own). Main reason it seems so different is that as western fans, every prior game we'd gotten had used TP in some format, while Japan had seen various games we hadn't that didn't use TP.

Even considering the unlocalized games, Graces still brought in side-step evading and having weakness exploitation affect the length of your combos. I consider the former to be a welcome addition to the series, adding a more dynamic and rewarding defensive option than just guarding, although the latter is a turn-off if you don't want to memorize all the arbitrary weaknesses your giant list of artes can hit.

Yeah, I suppose there's a point there. But I think Destiny PS2/DC still had that weakness system prior (at least in videos I've seen of it, it looks as if the monster book page have a multitude of possible weaknesses an enemy can have beyond just standard elements). I could be wrong though; haven't played it yet as the game's not English.

Complexity is good. Adds further depth. Besides, the only things you'd ever truly need to use the system for is harder-difficulty bosses, so it's not like you'd be lost without memorizing it all in normal play. It's a safe addition that can safely be ignored for the biggest plebs, but adds depth and fun from the autists who master it.

Just another aspect of why Graces is truly the best.

Laphi a cute.

It absolutely astounds me that every time he asks this question the person responds with some bullshit autistic over-the-top answer instead of saying what any normal person would say, "because they can"

Are you talking about the Definite Strikes? Every enemy in Destiny PS2/DC had a particular combo that would IIRC give you a better item drop chance if executed. There were things like a combination of artes (Bakuenken > Rekkuuzan) or hitting them with certain properties (Slash > Slash > Slash) and enemies wouldn't be able to die mid-combo, such as in the embed. They didn't do anything about combo length– combos only ended when you hit enemies on the ground at 100% Blast, which is why there are so many infinites in Destiny PS2/DC.

Aside from Definite Strikes, I don't recall anything else that stood out in the monster book, but it's been years since I last played so maybe I'm just forgetting something.

Well that's good news I hadn't heard, I still don't have much hope for the series though considering Namco seems intent on making Tales of the Japanese Assassins Creed/Cod with nearly annual releases.
Yeah i know of the two Vita remakes this one is the worst, but it still pisses me off considering Hearts cost next to nothing to localize and sold fairly well.

Don't remind me of Hearts R's localization, please…

The brilliant work of 8-4..

8-4 needs to fucking die.

To steal moves from other characters you Savage Wolf Fury stealing piece of shit

Soo I just played Tales of Symphonia and I found it very boring.

Are all of those games like that? I still want to give them a try, maybe I just picked an odd one.

Symphonia gets lots of love because it's usually the first game people experience Tales with, but honestly it hasn't aged well gameplay-wise. It's one of the better games you'll get story-wise and its battle system is a good introduction to how Tales games generally work, but it lacks polish. Later games handle a lot of things better such as faster fights, making non-MC characters more fun and different to play as, more ways to put combos together, better boss mechanics, flashier Mystic Artes, etc. Take a look at the games Vesperia and onwards and see if they look fun.

I have to agree, even though I love Symphonia. Later games improved on the formula.
I think the rerelease of Symphonia tried to fix that at least

I'll do that. I know better than to abandon a series because of one mediocre experience.

Oh and by the way, what's wrong with Zestiria? I heard a lot of polarizing opinions.

Symphonia isn't very good nor is it made by the team which started the series. It has a lot wrong and overall is very boring. The english speaking world didn't get Tales of Destiny 2 and Tales of Rebirth around that time, which they should have, so you don't see how Tales should have been played. I can't recommend any to you if you can't already speak moon because the best of them were made for the PS2 and never came state side, them being ToD2 ToDR and ToR. I think Abyss got state side and that's good though.

It's another one of the Symphonia games. The art style is bad, the fighting system is babies, and the story is just *UGH*.

what the fuck even is this game my sister bought it a week ago and I can hear this weeb garbage through the walls

Won't deny that. Garen Zesshuugeki and Hien Messhoujin look great.

Good on you, user. Aside from the Rose fiasco in making the story even worse, it tried to rework the battle system from Graces and failed, making people that liked Graces hate it and people that hated Graces hate it even more. Its main gameplay gimmick, Armitization (essentially fusing two of the characters together), is a giant part of the game that made multiplayer more of a hassle than it deserved to be, and was balanced so poorly that it became almost essential to dealing with high difficulty fights. Aside from that, you have terrible camera issues mid-fight which is why one of the first things we saw of Berseria's battle system was how nice and controllable the camera was and an incredibly grindy equipment-based skill system. Zesty isn't actually that low on my list of Tales games, but its flaws do stick out, so if you're still trying to find your way into the series, it may not be the best option for you.

Also, if you know moon, then definitely give Rebirth a try. My favorite game in the series, and Annie is waifu material.

ToR was Holla Forums the game

No, I meant actual character/enemy weaknesses. Maybe I'm wrong, but looking at embed related, it would seem like Barbatos has a weakness against (what I am guessing is) "noise" or "sound", which usually isn't an element in the Tales series (the way that Graces' weakness system doesn't exactly follow standard elements the series uses), and a resistance against Earth; it would also seem that, looking at both areas, there's a possible ten elements to be considered. It would certainly provide reason for why the player in the video, as Lillith, spends so much time banging her ladle on her frying pan. That said, since it sounds like you've actually played Destiny DC, maybe you can clarify on it. I know some games, like Xillia 2, go the "more elements" route, but without it quite being on the level that Graces is about it.

I suspect that Namco simply didn't bother to keep them on as tight a leash, if any leash at all, considering Namco didn't even want to bring the game west originally anyhow. 8-4 can do decent work, but it seems to depend on just how much the hiring company actually gives a shit about what they're willing to let them do. Especially since, according to 8-4's wikipedia page, their favorite projects are ones in which they have little to no oversight and are allowed almost full control of the script (the example given being Baten Kaitos Origins, but I imagine that Hearts R would be one as well).

This is the first Tales game I've played where I've actually had a hard time deciding who to make my main party consist of since there are no clear benchwarmers.

And yeah there's the swap-out system, but the AI rarely uses it.

Man I'm really having trouble getting through this game. The story and combat is alright but I'm just so sick of the "wanna get from point A to point B? Fuck you take a million detours and lose some of your playable characters in the process. In fact take so many detours you forget what your original goal is" formula.

Read the article. Denuvo doesn't "give refunds", they just don't get paid if the game is cracked.

Lillith isn't the once to properly demonstrate Sonic, Johnny is. Sonic element that's present when she uses 死者の目覚め. From what I remember that's the only element added as the rest are light, dark, wind, water, earth, fire, elec.

I should have added there are still blunt, slash, pierce, and aerial effects which some enemies are weak to. If you didn't know that.

I don't think the AI uses the swap at all do they? I keep Eleanor and Eizen on swap since I actually like playing as them so it makes extending my combos easier.

So i was right, the only difference is that they didn't get paid at all.

can someone make a Tier for the Berseria Party? who's the most OP and who's garbage?

Okay.

God tier:
Jizz wizz Magilou
Muh dick tier:
Velvet
Garbage:
Everyone else.

So Magilou is strong in Berseria? interesting.

She explains the purpose of each book on her skirt. The one on the front is her special book about eating.

I see, thanks for the information.

Everyone but Velvet and Rokurou can heal other party members and engage at range with spells.

Velvet is almost useless in the hands of the AI, and Rokurou is heavily defense-focused thanks to his burst.

Yeah and with that being the case I play most JPRGs like I did ToD2 and ToDR. Two casters and two attackers. I can't stress enough that you want Harold and Reala both casting damage spells, while you control Judas and cast 80% of the time, and have Roni attack.

In ToDR I would put Leon in when I can (I bet you can guess why) but both Mary and whoever's swordian would exploit weakness per dungeon using their stuff as caster two while Stahn attacks or Wolf for fun.

Both games are set up with weaknesses in mind and it's so fucking fun just to slam everyone with magic. Wolf Team knew what they were doing, Symphonia continues to make weak imitations. They games will NEVER be the same.

...

In terms of which is most fun to play, I believe it's something like this:

Laphicet > Magilou > Eleanor > Rokurou > Eizen > Velvet

Velvet would be more fun to play if she didn't have such an incredibly low skill floor and the ability to just therionize her way through any damage source.

Well guess I have to play with Alisha for the moment.

Haven't played a Tales game in my life. I heard this series doesn't involve a lot of menu clicking like other JRPG's so that's a plus for me. Where should I start?

does it have the same weird ass combat system as tales of zestiria? if yes i'm just going to put it in my backlog. not having the option to move freely felt really wrong, genuinely pissed me off and i dont get the reasoning behind it.

Jizz wizz or not, Velvet is the fairest of them all.

It's got similarities, but it's plenty distinct from Zesty.
Free Run's been in Tales games since 2005 with Abyss, though it's definitely been toned down to be less important than linear movement ever since. However, Berseria encourages free motion the most out of all Tales games from what I've heard still haven't played it myself, so don't let that worry you.

Asked this in another thread, so I'll ask here now. Should I get Hearts R or Graces F (or both)? I want to give the series another go. Or should I ignore those two and practice my rune reading in Tempest?

It hurts.

Hearts R is still a short and not very well fleshed out game, just like it was on DS. Graces F is Wolf Team's last game so I recommend getting it just because brings on the CUHRAZY like we'll never see again in JRPGS. Tempest and Legendia are the worst of the series I think you should just drop them if you're playing them.

Buy either hearts or graces and pirate the other. If you're really poor just pirate them both.
Tempest isn't that good it also has a translation as well

(checked)
I haven't played Hearts R, despite having owned it since it was brought westwards, but Graces F is the greatest Tales game in existence. I won't tell you to buy it, since giving money to scumbags is for idiots, but you should definitely play it. Play it, and then know the terribly awful feel of dissatisfaction and inadequacy at every subsequent Tales game you play.

Also do your reps.

Played the demo, it has free movement.

And the battle system feels a lot better in other Tales games I've played like Abyss and Symphonia because those games have the camera to the side, not behind/above the character you're playing, and you move your character by pressing left or right, not up and down.

Can you play ripped gamed on the PS3? I can rip my copy and send it to him :s

（チェックしてした）
パチパチ

To the second guy: He needs a CFW-capable PS3, but yes. Graces was ripped way long ago, so you don't really need to send him a copy though.

I agree. to the side camera is better. Zestiria is a fucking joke.

So, she is a real snake eater?

Thanks gang, my friend has a copy of Graces f I can borrow, so I'll go with Hearts R first.

I'll go do my reps now!

Show me the direction towards getting CFW on a PS3 so I can play Vesperia uncut.

Step 1: Have OFW 3.55 or lower
Step 2: Install CFW

Grinds muh gears
At least I don't play the games anymore so I don't have anything to be mad about.

Graces f really rubbed me the wrong way.

The main game is "okay" if you can ignore the disgustingly forced shipping, contrived "romance," Asbel's daddy issues, and constant power of friendship bullshit.

But the future arc? The fanfiction-tier shipping and the Tales equivalent of elementary school girls playing house is absolutely unbearable.

The battle system is one of the better ones, but that matters so very little when none of the characters are tolerable.

Dummy alert. The combat in Tales is the defining reason to play them. Excepting that, the characters and their interaction, every other thing about the games are severely mediocre.

Graces, which had godly combat, great characters and the best skits, is most assuredly the definitive Tales experience. It doesn't get better than that.

Wrew I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Tales use to be, more or less, Slayers: The Game series. It's campy nonsense which you should have understood by 98% of skits being comedy and 2% disposition. It was intended this way and Wolf Team could drive it home harder than all the other teams who made entries in the series. It's about crazy battle and goofy everything else.

Also what said you experienced in Graces was how it was intended.

Wait.
WAIT.
I just realized Tales of Symphonia is all about how racism is bad.
>game implies elves (blacks) come first and humans (ebul white men) showed up later out of Africa theory
This isn't happening, right? My favorite game of all time isn't Jewish propaganda right!?

You should pay more attention; JRPGs very commonly have anti-racist themes. Do you think that's bad? If you do, why?

What's Jin Kisaragi doing there in the middle?

Elves came from the death world, user. And the game never goes so far to say "you need to spread your ass cheeks" because the biggest villains are all half elves that were acting pretty damn Jewish, what with the slavery, sacrifices, and playing both sides of a conflict.

That would explain why Bamco betrayed us so hard, they were too redpilled.

Tales games more often that not have classism or racism as a central theme. Again, Rebirth takes it to a whole new level.

Phantasia - elves/humans
Destiny- Aetherians/Reglarians, cultism
Eternia - Dual worlds
Destiny2 - Same shit, Aetherians, cultism
Rebirth- GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN GAJUMA NINGEN
Symphonia- Elves, Humans
and all the ones since have been translated so you know their themes.

You're only just now realizing this? Here's another for you: all of MGQ is Luka trying to force humans and monsters to live together even though they're at the very least as different as white people and the niggerest of niggers or allahackbars. At several points in the story they even acknowledge that living together is going to be difficult or even impossible, but handwave it away with the standard "lol we just have to work hard ^_^".

No

The game is called Symphonia because not only of the geographical symphony of both worlds co-existing together but also both elves and humans and dwarves and whatever living together, but in symphony and without Forced Globalism.

The game respects elve's culture and they stay in their forest. Same with Humans and their kingdom, however they respect each other and co-exist in a mutual beneficial way without forced race-mixing.

Regarding half-elves, the game even says that they hope there are less half elves so they dont suffer as victims of either side. If Raine is your best friend and you hang out with her in the elf village she says that. Then lloyd tells her its not her fault and as long as she does good its all good, and that made her stronger.

Here's the thing. The game is not diversity propaganda, it attacks both extremes (hating others for color of the skin/trivial identity politics and forcing people to get together Because of identity politics)

even against mithos your party has a speech and they all say their peace of mind. Genis says even if they are all exspheres (even if they all live together) there would still be discrimination. That its natural to fear the unknown, and that that only goes away by setting a good example, being good people and letting them accept them willfully by showing they can be good people instead of just forcing them to be equal.

Which of the Tales games on PS3 are worth playing? I was planning on getting Xillia 1&2 for my brother, who loves RPGs but hates when the weeb gets out of hand.

In short, symphony comes after each party accepts it by their own free will, and not by forcing it or trying to concoct it.
You can create bridges but that doesn't mean people will want to cross it unless needed. And that's fine. There's another transportation channel open if you need it
However you cannot force people to live together and force them to co-exist. There's no symphony in forced assimilation. Most people like Merkel say "lol whatever they'll get used to it in time" and that's true, but that doesn't mean it is necessary. necessity and acceptance. At least one must be present. and both parties need to have at least one. Acceptance is something that comes when the other party is a positive externality.

Honestly Long term education could solve the rapefugee issue so easily by creating a long-term assimilation plan by slowly removing their culturally regressed Sharia Law implementaiton. It would have to be at least a new generation of children educated by western society in order to assimilate rapefugees into western society.

If you have a modded PS3 get that motherfucker Tales of Vesperia.

Graces F is the only one worth playing if they didn't translate Vesperia, fuck I don't even know if they translated Graces F for PS3.

PS3 is rejoin free.

8-4

...

You know what, fuck it with the pointy end of a bundle of rakes. I'm sticking to Xillia and Vesperia. Maybe Zestiria and Berseria too when I get more info.

Both of those were also localized by 8-4. I am pretty sure Zesteria and Berseria were localized in house.

But Vesperia was tolerable. What the fuck.

Their page says they only touched Xillia 1 and Xbox360's version of Vesperia.
these motherfuckers are everywhere.

The 8-4 hateboner should only go to the shitty instances. NieR and Eternal Sonata were handled really damn well, all things considered. Either there's a shit team and a good team or it depends on the leash the devs keep on 8-4 themselves.

8-4 handled the localizations for Abyss PS2, Vesperia, Graces f, Xillia, and Hearts R (Xillia 2 also lists them under special thanks; I speculate it's due to using their established terminology even if the game didn't have the same company localizing); possibly Radiant Mythology and Symphonia 2, but I haven't double checked on those. Difference between the earlier games and Hearts R though is that Namco carted enough to not let them fuck around all that much. With Hearts R they just didn't give a fuck.

Yeah, 8-4 gets a LOT of work easily, probably because despite being known as a rather iffy company (these days they seem to love circling the toilet bowl), they have that big of a track record. Whether or not they do a good job seems to depend on the hiring company (XSEED for example seems to have handled them with a tight leash when they've used them). While it's certainly right to be leery of their work these days, their past stuff ought to be taken on more of a game-by-game basis as to whether they did an acceptable job or a shat it up. I've honestly been wondering if it might be worth compiling an analysis of the games 8-4's handled, the way NISA has that image/pasta of their past sins, but it'd probably take some anons that either really know what the deal with various games are, and/or have played the moon versions for comparison (hell, I think it was only last year that it was discovered 8-4 had removed the entire option to have the player character in BKO be female).

Now that was one big shitty move with BKO. Not to mention it appears to be one of their fave projects according to their blog - and it also seems that it was one of the projects with the least amount of 'leash-holding' by the devs. So basically they fuck up hard if they're not being controlled carefully - just like NISA: Their work with Danganronpa and other titles such as Demon Gaze was solid and free of gamebreaking shit.

Yeah, even NISA seems able to do acceptable work from time to time (whether they're willing to on their own, is another issue). Not that one should be giving them money even when they do, because despite what one might think, they'll never fucking learn. Part of why it's something to be grateful that stuff like Demon Gaze you can at least get preowned copies of. However, with 8-4, I have to wonder more if it's what they can get away with on their own, or if some of the companies that hire them, like NoA, not just don't so much as attach a leash, but outright encourage their destructive behavior.

Personally, I'm quite glad that 8-4's out of Tales (for the time being anyhow), but I think the new team needs to do some studying up on stuff (especially when iffy translation directly impinges on instructions, like I've hard Zestiria has). And in regard to cameos and returning elements, consistency is key. If Namco doesn't outright have a "playbook" of sorts for what artes and skills have been standardized to, I'd say they should at least give Aselia wiki a look; unprofessional as that might sound, that's how you'd wind up with a proper "Final Prayer" instead of "Final Player".

In the past I'd heard from people that the game was one of their better localizations, but then that came to light. Honestly makes me feel leery of giving BKO a go (despite it being on my backlog for years now); if it took that long to discover that having been cut out, what other stuff might have been removed?

Don't forget how Richard Honeywood was their apparent inspiration for how to handle things in general.

It feels good knowing I imported those games of which I wanted to play then, instead of suffering through 8-4 and hearing american voice actors screw up the skits.

NISA before what's his face jumped on board and butchered ArT2 and Nep games wasn't so bad. They were actually one of the better ones and it depends who is on staff that will fuck your game over. A damn shame because I remember some of their earlier PS2 games coming out good and thought they were a nice niche company.

Why is he wearing his Pimp suit? Where are his bitches and hoes?

I honestly don't mind English dubs too much, provided they're not approaching Chaos Wars/Arc Rise Fantasia-tier bad (not to say I consider anything with a dub to be great; there is a difference in quality between merely acceptable and actually pretty damn good, and the time a game released in also factors in), but that's just my own thoughts.

You mean Nick Doerr (guessing since you mentioned Nep)? The credits listing on MG for AT1 and 2 don't mention him, unless he went under a pseudonym the way some VAs in the past had to (for the sake of completion, the credits page for Qoga lists him under "Special Thanks"). If anything, looking between the names involved, it seems like AT2 lost a number of people, including a translator.

You're right that NISA has been an odd beast. You'd expect that as a company got more experienced, they'd get better about not having the games they handle be buggy, but if anything they've gotten worse as time's gone on. And that's not getting into the average translation (or rather, "translation") quality, or the fact that, for a company whose shtick has been bringing niche Japanese games overseas, they sure seem to hate a lot about the games that keep them afloat. Have to wonder what exactly happened over the years there, whether staff or management got switched up, etc.

So, is Tales of Shota bait worth of full price purchase? So far it looks like it's better than Xillia.

I don't play Tales games "for the story," but having a tolerable story and cast of characters is pretty important to my enjoyment of the game.

If it's a campy silly story that's fine as long as the comedy actually hits home every once in a while, and with Graces it just really really didn't.