So Tales Thread anyone?

DEMON FANG
DEMON FANG
DAMN, I MUST BE A GENIUS!
DOUBLE DEMON FANG

Just pirate it you fucking dummy.

I disagree here, in general I did sort of start to like the majority of them a lot overall for a group with a good chunk of evil characters in it for the most part somehow.

Sort of helps that the "good" characters were even worse but yeah I can sort of admit they had to stretch some lines to make them worse I feel. I mean a society only so called built on reason thinking it is ok to kill off the elderly, kill animals, and a few other things is just stupid. I'm mildly shocked they didn't try to kill any blind/death people and/or the mentally retarded as well to make sure that they got shown as the true bad guys in the end. Then again I might have missed parts like that. Of course the god of the world was in truth a 12 year old edge master who for most of his life was stuck in bed and not able to get out much and he was the one putting those thoughts out there so meh.

Velvet getting stage fright was lame? The group in general playing big sis/bro to Laphicet was lame?

opinion much? As for mine I wasn't really bothered by it but I don't think I'll be remembering most of it either so overall its fine IMO.

Meh, said system reminded me of one of Final Fantasy's basic systems for the most part (in this case 9) where u put on new gear as you go. Yeah it was sort of stupid that shit takes forever to learn and you can only learn 5% of a fire resist then you have to learn 10% or so but oh well. I've certainly had to deal with worse.

Posting Best Girl

Vesperia bored me to death.

She loves birds though.

Yes. The skits were incredibly lame. One small exception every here and there does not excuse the whole. On the whole, they weren't terribly funny, they didn't reinforce tertiary aspects of character strong enough, and there wasn't enough CG. And fuck you, Laphicet is a faggot and everything to do with him is bad. Not even the promise of sweet sweet SS can overcome that.

I pirated Tales of Berseria a while back and it was absolute garbage. Seemed like one of those games weebs force themselves to like just because one of the main characters gets their dick hard.

I recently bought tales of xillia. I'm having fun with it. making jude as fucking broken as i can

I thought Berseria was okay. But it was okay in that the characters were better than Graces and Zestiria. The combat was better than Zestiria. I liked Velvet, Magilou and Eizen as characters, but I can barely remember the likes of Rokuro and Eleanor.

I still had a major fucking problem with a single mechanic in the combat. The little soul block thing that pops out, instead of rewarding it to me directly for doing well, it appears as an item on the field for everyone to grab. Why the fuck would you do that; it's just makes me break the flow of combat to run get it, and then there's always a chance someone else on the team could nab it.

It's honestly forgettable in the face of other Japanese games released in English this year. I couldn't even bring myself to play it twice like I usually do most games.

I think I enjoyed Xillia more than it. I also played Xillia 2 once and didn't like it so much; I tend to not like forced sequels with multi-dimensional or time traveling bullshit shoved in. The only thing I liked about it was killed halfway through, and that was the non-robot Milla with actual personality, in exchange for the shittier version.

I want Graces' combat to return. The fluid evasion and combat just makes it one of the best.

The combat is definitely different but not nearly as fun. Also fuck that game inverting which direction moves towards an enemy. And all the characters in it are only meh, with the story being predictable and an OST so forgettable, I wonder if I played with my speakers off. Seriously, it's not that good. I wanted to like it as it's a really different combat system that doesn't rely on spamming items if you want to burn through your skills but overall, it's just not fun. Also a random fucking side quest party wiped me for some reason and I lost hours of progress because I was steamrolling and didn't save. I haven't picked the game up since.

Xillia 1 and 2 are fun if you master the extra moves and Jude becomes super busted if you read every enemy properly. Ludger in 2 is fucking OP as shit though, there's no reason not to only use him.

his *teleports behind you* "nuthin personell kidd" move is just…
like i attack and try to bait the enemy in the middle of a combo and to have my AC go up aftter it is unf

You must have brain damage or something. Graces combat is the absolute pinnacle of all Tales games. There is nothing in all the series that is more fun then being able to fluidly chain together combo after combo with good play, proper evasion, and CC conservation. That it all works fast as lightning as compared to some of the more slow and floaty titles is only the cherry on the top. For the combat alone, Graces shines brilliantly atop the franchises' throne.

Everything else is pretty spot on though. The story is universally regarded as shit and the music is not only forgettable, but almost entirely awful. You're dead wrong on the characters though. Asbel/Cheria a shit, but everyone else is godlike, with extremely good rapport between them all.

The skits were also the best.

Prepare for disappointment come Xillia 2. I know how you're feeling though. I mained him as well in Xillia 1. Nigga wrecks faces like none other.

I admit I like Pascal more than I should but Hubert is an edgy try hard I suppose fair enough given his upbringing since Asbel was away, Malik is okay and Richard seems to be mentally retarded. Granted, I didn't beat the game so I'm still not on the up and up for his motivations when he's willingly possessed by that evil fucker but still. The skits are okay.

I fully admit I never adapted properly to Graces combat and it felt bad to me and everyone that I know that's played a Tales game in my local group. Probably because we suck at video games, but still.

Do you even Hanakana? Sophie was the most godlike. Hubert is cool too. I don't know how far you got before you dropped it, but he mellowed out immensely near mid-game to the detriment, since the buttmad frugal jew aspect of him was hilarious. Regardless, I don't think the individual personalities of the characters is what solely determines how they stack up on the whole. Their interaction with each other is just as, if not more important, and Graces does that better than most Tales. I even prefer them over Vesperia's cast, which has a much stronger individual track record of characters (probably the best actually,) but drastically worse rapport between them all. Skits and byplay are super important.

I can't help you if you dislike the combat because you can't git gud though. Everyone in my group who's played Graces has suffered for having done so, as every subsequent game is constantly compared with it and found lacking. It just works in a viscerally fun way that every other Tales just can't quite manage to grasp.

I havent really played most modern tales games but I remember having a blast with tales of destiny directors cut combat wise.

Allright faggots let's get down to business:

tales tiers

Vesperia > Abyss > Symphonia

Phantasia
Eternia
Destiny/Destiny 2

Xillia/Xillia 2
Berseria

Graces (only in gameplay, rest is mediocre)

Dawn of a new World (Symphonia II)
Hearts r (shit translation)

Legendia (great OST though)

Haven't played Innocence or Rebirth or narikiri dungeons

Agreed. Breeding top-tier wolfmen to stomp everything in sight was great. The ending was pretty good tbh.

wew

It's shit, and you're shit.

Peaches look like little butts.

I despised Zesteria, but I found Beseria somewhat playable. Now I have an urge to finish Zesteria after seeing edna out of nowhere despite me not even getting very far in the beginning of the game. However, I just can't bring myself to do it.

It's the best one you nog. Sure it's bare bones compared to the others, but that's why it works so well.

Gameplay-wise, it's lacking in many aspects. It's slow, clunky, and the only character worth playing is Cress and maybe Suzu, who's optional and only available late into the game. Spells slow down the game a lot since time has to stop to let them happen, and since all of your party members except Chester are magic users you end up with battles lasting frustratingly longer than they should. Cress thankfully gets a lot of different artes as the game progresses, so he doesn't get too stale as you go on.

Storywise, it's a bit of a mess. If you just think of the story as you hunting down Dhaos by jumping all over the timeline to save the world then it's okay, but almost all of the towns and dungeons are unmemorable, and the characters didn't get a lot of space to flesh out (I'm looking at you, Mint). Granted, when the characters DID get a chance to shine, it's pretty good, though I don't remember a lot of times where we get to see that.

It's not bad, definitely, but other Tales games are better. Eternia, for example, does a lot of what I'd have liked Phantasia to do: smoother gameplay, more fleshed out characters even if it only payed attention to the main 4, a stronger story, etc. Phantasia's "bare bones" feel may be its charm point, but I don't know if it works well for Tales.

This is all based on my ancient memories of playing that crappy Phantasia GBA port about a decade ago, though.

revive bump

Can someone actually explain why exactly is Zestiria bad?

Idk I haven't played it. From what I've seen I like the idea of fusing with party members though.

Overreliance on the Armatization "fusion" mechanic, for one. Because the system is geared more towards the humans rather than the seraphs, there's very little reason to play as the seraphs that make up 4/6ths of your party. It's also stupidly powerful with pretty much no drawbacks, with easily spammable screen-wide super spells and whatnot, so you're basically encouraged to be in an Armatus the entire time. It can even revive allies. It's an overpowered, unbalanced mechanic that takes control of the game.

Then there's the armor skills. It's frustrating, overly grindy, RNG-reliant, and a bother to go about doing. Look it up if you haven't, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

There's also Rose, who's Hideo Baba's waifu and the only reason why Alicia isn't playable throughout the rest of the game. She's rather bland and has no real place in the story.

And if you didn't like Graces's combat, then you would definitely hate this one because it works out to be a slower-paced, more limited, simpler version of Graces's battle system. The "A-arte" trees in particular don't feel as nice as Graces's for some reason, probably because they're smaller.

Characters also don't have a lot of artes compared to some other Tales games, which can be a plus or minus depending on the kind of person you are. A tighter artes list that gives you everything you need can be nice, but it doesn't give you a lot of stuff to play with which can make the characters feel stale after a while.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. It's pretty bad but still a bit enjoyable. Although the few Go Shiina tracks are great.

Wow, I forgot to mention that Sorey and Ailcia/Rose have to be in the party at all times so you have two humans and two seraphs on the field at all times. And when you don't have Alicia/Rose in your party, then you can only have one seraph on the field, leaving you with just Sorey and one other character. It's fine from a story perspective because people can't even see seraphs and all that, but it's ridiculous from a gameplay perspective.

Ludger is the single most fun to play character in all of tales

The biggest problem with Berseria's combat for me is that you are locked out of most of the game mechanics for half of the game and it's slowly rewarded to you over time. Most of these mechanics, like the red guard break aura and aerial recovery, should have been there from the start. Another is the lack of ways to regain SG early on. If you get low, you're doing about 2 attacks for ages on end until you get a crit or dodge a lot which can be very boring even on higher difficulties when enemies attack more often.

Last, and the most obvious flaw, it how OP Velvet is. Getting super armor every time you use your claw is absurd. And even worse is that getting hit to 1 HP will never kill you. It makes her mindless and button mashing can be a viable strategy since it takes no thought to chain her attacks like Roku or Eizen. My friend and I had to keep Velvet off the team at all times because she was so broken. She also gets 30% extra damage to stunned foes early on causing her to deal absurd amounts of damage no matter what. Especially since her finishing move for her claw cover's any weakness.

I don't hate Berseria but it definitely had some lame ideas in it. I do enjoy the characters and skits but it really is carried by Magilou. The dungeon maps are very boring and dry to the point that they might as well be reskins of the same dungeon. Most don't have any puzzles what so ever to distract from the constant combat and they're all just a bunch of hallways with maybe a silly door mechanic. All the towns aren't memorable at all compared to some you'll see in games like Vesperia, Symphonia, or Eternia, and there are only about 2-3 memorable tracks like Velvet's and Magilou's theme. They really need to let Sakuraba do what he pleases instead of giving every soundtrack that "Tales vibe". Or just hire someone else.

Graces F's combat took me 40 hours to truly grasp everything around it but once I did it was very fun to play. But what they should have told the player is that accuracy is a very important stat. Not investing in that stat causes the harder difficulties to get frustrating as nothing you do will stun the opponent.

Why they'll never localize that game and Rebirth is beyond me.

I don't recall being locked out of aerial recovery. Still I guess the game did sort of teach you about combat slowly but I thought it was more or less just teaching you at certain points and if you figured it out before then it was ok with that (In that I certainly did find parts where I figured something out but then a few battles later the game made me go though the tutorial for it).

As far as recovering SG though I mean come on the dodge system is super easy to abuse and recover jewels with and you learn it at the start of the prison break where as your only foes you've fought so far are werewolves that won't attack you and pigs. You can perfect dodge any attack to make the gems appear on the battlefield.

Velvet's claw is very op yeah but on the highest difficulty settings the game will make you regret relying on it blindly like anything else IMO. For starters certain foes without SG or low amounts of SG won't let you gain SG easily from spamming attacks. Personally I don't get the hate for this, I don't see her as any more brain dead than a lot of main characters in Tales.

I agree on the dungeons, hell I hate how equipment is set up as well even (you can't just learn how to resist fire fully, you have to learn how to resist fire for 5%, 10%, and 15% and so on).
As far as characters go as well, yeah Magilou is the best but it isn't like any of the other characters didn't have their moments. For example Laphicet telling Velvet to stop her crying, saying that if she eats his arm to save one of them so he can punch the person who was making her cry, and later on he decks god in the face.

As far as music goes though I disagree. I liked Run into the horizon (which is one you hear a good % of the game really), Chance meeting with myself, Eizen's Theme, True will, and certain boss themes.

Sophie is the single most fun to play character in all of tales