And I've been told that my opinions are extremely unpopular and that I should make a topic here to find out why. Uh, sorta reluctant to post here considering I know how people get strangely sports fans-y over JRPG opinions but what the hell. Here it goes.
Didn't like it too much. I was liking it a lot at first and it had some pretty great ideas but I didn't like how it executed them. For example, I love the idea of Luke starting out like a spoiled brat and then slowly becoming a better man. The issue was that the development was...pretty sudden. It wasn't so much character development as two completely different characters linked by a haircut.
He just sort of went Jesus on everyone after that point and it came so out of nowhere it was hard to buy it, honestly.
I liked Jade at first but after a while it was like "...Yeah him being a dick is worse than Luke whining and probably caused more trouble too." It sort of bugged me.
Plus the entire way the party acted towards Luke(save for Guy) was a bit...ehhh. Wasn't too keen on that.
Liked Guy though, he was the best character in the game.
Also the ending "ehhhhhh" is the best way I can describe my reaction to it.
He just sort of went Jesus on everyone after that point and it came so out of nowhere it was hard to buy it, honestly.
What people fail to realize is that Luke didn't become a better man, he became a better child. Luke is seven, he still has the mentality of a seven year old, and his change was so dramatic and over exaggerated in his dialogue because he takes everything to the extremes that a child would.
I disagree with that notion. Luke is childish but at no point in the plot does he act like a literal child. The game very clearly expects us to treat him like an adult.
Your opinions aren't as out there as the start of your post seemed to suggest. For the most part, I can see where your complaints are coming from. What did you think about the gameplay in TotA?
From: tereziWright | #002 He just sort of went Jesus on everyone after that point and it came so out of nowhere it was hard to buy it, honestly.
What people fail to realize is that Luke didn't become a better man, he became a better child. Luke is seven, he still has the mentality of a seven year old, and his change was so dramatic and over exaggerated in his dialogue because he takes everything to the extremes that a child would.
I don't really agree with that. Luke had a developed brain when he was born. There's no way you can reasonably equate him to a child. Comparing him to somebody with amnesia would be better, frankly, and a person with amnesia's maturity is not really...ehhh forget it.
Clone mental health is debatable so hey, let's assume that you are right and that Luke's behavior is perfectly explainable.
...That still doesn't make the story structure any better.
The game expects us to treat Luke like an adult, with him going hormonal on Tear and all. So the game is asking us to treat him differently at times and I just don't feel the game did good enough of a job at that.
Even if there's a reason for his development to be bad...it's like if Michael Bay said that all Transformers had explosives instead of blood. I mean yeah it explains the ridiculous amount of explosions in the movie but that doesn't make it enjoyable. So in short, yeah, I think the writing was pretty bad in that regard. It just didn't do it for me.
From: Team Rocket Elite | #004 Your opinions aren't as out there as the start of your post seemed to suggest. For the most part, I can see where your complaints are coming from. What did you think about the gameplay in TotA?
Liked the gameplay quite a bit. One thing that annoyed me is that I still had Vesperia reflexes and kept trying to hit random enemies before the battle with the ring to get an advantage, but yeah that was totally on me haha.
I liked the gameplay more than Symphonia and didn't see much difference from Vesperia, though I'm sure there were some I just didn't notice.
I would say it's the weakest from a gameplay mechanics standpoint, if only because it's basically Symphonia with free run thrown in, and as a result you end up wiffing attacks at the air a ton if you're not careful.
THat's just the base combat, though. The addition of FoF and all the other little tidbits makes Abyss's combat in general better.
I chalked it up to him distroying a town and causing the deaths of a few thousand people being a sobering experience. I mean the party was telling him he was an awful person and then he looks at himself after Akzerieth and goes "holy crap they're right." Then he decides he needs to change himself. Of course he takes it too far, and that's constantly pointed out to him in the game. By the time he gets to Eldrant or whatever he's become a lot more reasonable person, I thought.
So it's not very subtle but I didn't find it completely unreasonable.
TotA's plot is kind of hit or miss, though. There's plenty of people on B8 who don't like it.
From: Haguile | #001 The issue was that the development was...pretty sudden. It wasn't so much character development as two completely different characters linked by a haircut.
Eh. I don't feel the rest of the party had any business judging Luke so much. Outside of guy they're all terrible at times, they just don't get called out on it. So it bugged me that Luke changed so radically for their sake.
From: SuperAngelo128 | #007 Yeah I can see your complaints as well
I hope you liked REPLICAAAAAAAAAAAA though
also based on your complaints you'll proably like Graces more
what are your thoughts on previous Tales games youve played, if any?
Played Symphonia and Vesperia to the end. Symphonia was cheesy as f*** but I loved it because I love cheesy stories. The dialogue definitely didn't age very well and it feels terrible, but man I still got a soft spot for it. Not too much of a fan of the gameplay now, but I can still replay it once in a while because I liked it so much despite it having tons of flaws.
Vesperia is my favorite Tales game because the gameplay was fun and the dialogue was much, much better than in Symphonia. I don't know, it felt better localized for the lack of a better term.
So Vesperia>Symphonia>Abyss as far as story goes, and Vesperia>Abyss>Symphonia as far as gameplay goes.
Oh I'm kind of blending story and characters in my ranking. I don't think any of the Tales games had a story worth writing home about, but the characters interacting and reacting to the story is what made the stories worth watching/playing.
Character interaction plays a big part in the character ranking. Grace's characters aren't all that amazing, but they work really well together. Otherwise Abyss would be above it for Jade Curtiss AKA best VG character.
Heh, I'm sure the board's tired of reading this by now but my ex and I tried desperately to like ToS back in '04 or '05 but the cheesiness of the dialogue forced us to stop. Really just couldn't do it.
So it's always refreshing to read when someone says that was improved with sequels...
Story: Abyss > Phantasia > Eternia > Symphonia > Legendia > Vesperia Characters: V > A > S > L > P > E Gameplay: V > A > S = E > L >>> P
Vesperia's story wasn't bad, just EXTREMELY boring and bland. However, the characters being soooo good made it work.
Haven't finished Graces yet, although I'm ~30 hours in and I'm not even sure if I'm 1/3 of the way through the game yet. The characters are growing on me, but I'm not very sold on the dialogue. It just seems more cheesy than usual (although I loved how corny Symphonia was so I dunno) and the skits are very hit-or-miss.
Gameplay is absolutely fantastic though, if that's what you want from the games.
From: Jeff Zero | #016 Heh, I'm sure the board's tired of reading this by now but my ex and I tried desperately to like ToS back in '04 or '05 but the cheesiness of the dialogue forced us to stop. Really just couldn't do it.
So it's always refreshing to read when someone says that was improved with sequels...
Abyss is probably Symphonia's polar opposite. There are times when it seems overly dark and seriousness even. Vesperia hits the nail on the head for tone, combining a serious tone with plenty of humor without going too far either way. Graces is designed around not having too serious a plot, and is focused on the characters and humor, so even though it's also cheesy it's designed to be, unlike Symphonia which just didn't know what it wanted to be.
Haven't finished Graces yet, although I'm ~30 hours in and I'm not even sure if I'm 1/3 of the way through the game yet.
I'd say if you want to 100% with all first playthrough sidequests, that's a solid 90ish hours. I ended up at 104, but time runs when you go to the XMB in game so that was maybe 10-15 hours paused.
From: Jeff Zero | #016 Heh, I'm sure the board's tired of reading this by now but my ex and I tried desperately to like ToS back in '04 or '05 but the cheesiness of the dialogue forced us to stop. Really just couldn't do it.
So it's always refreshing to read when someone says that was improved with sequels...
Yeah I can definitely understand why someone wouldn't be able to like ToS. If I was playing it today I probably wouldn't like it either. But I played it back when I was young enough not to give a damn about how cheesy the dialogue was so I'm just left with memorable scenes.
Vesperia was pretty good though because the dialogue actually felt like something a human being could conceivably say instead of something that made me think "Oh dear God this is so cheesy I'm pretty sure I'm becoming lactose intolerant just by watching this."
Abyss's dialogue is kind of stiff in that it doesn't feel natural at times but Vesperia really nailed it. It's like a bunch of really human sounding characters reacting to wacky anime land and that works really well.
I play games really slowly though, especially JRPGs. I just got my sixth party member at ~25 hours or so, and I don't think it's supposed to take nearly that long to get to that point. <_<
I'm not sure if I'll do sidequests since I'm not sure if I'll replay the game, but I'm sure I've missed a bunch already.
From: HeroDelTiempo17 | #022 I play games really slowly though, especially JRPGs. I just got my sixth party member at ~25 hours or so, and I don't think it's supposed to take nearly that long to get to that point. <_<
I'm not sure if I'll do sidequests since I'm not sure if I'll replay the game, but I'm sure I've missed a bunch already.
No, 25 hours there is about right.
Also, unlike other Tales games, missables aren't as big a deal in Graces. Nearly every sidequest unlocks after the halfway point of the final dungeon. Same for the final Future dungeon.
In fact, I think there's only one truly missable sidequest in all of Graces other than the ones that unlock at the end, and it's just for a Malik title or joke weapon or something.
For example, I love the idea of Luke starting out like a spoiled brat and then slowly becoming a better man. The issue was that the development was...pretty sudden. It wasn't so much character development as two completely different characters linked by a haircut.
He just sort of went Jesus on everyone after that point and it came so out of nowhere it was hard to buy it, honestly.
Strongly disagree. Luke's character development was done excellently, and was way more subtle than you realized. Luke didn't change when he cut his hair, which he himself admits later on. He was just trying desperately to make people not hate him at that point. The real change happened gradually later on.
If you want more of people's opinions and a lot of info on stuff you may have missed, go read this playthrough topic by some extraordinarily entertaining and intelligent user here:
I love the idea of Luke starting out like a spoiled brat and then slowly becoming a better man. The issue was that the development was...pretty sudden. It wasn't so much character development as two completely different characters linked by a haircut.
Just finished the game myself, and this was basically how I felt about it as well. And you'd think the fact that I never really considered Luke a jerk (especially compared to every other party member) would make me find his character development a bit more reasonable, but no, it still felt like two different characters.
That said, I liked the game overall.
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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma
Thanks for the replies, yo. I'll definitely have to check out Vesperia sometime. Abyss too, despite your overall impression, Haguile. I mean I might end up there myself, of course! But so many people have been telling me to try it out that... yeah, might as well.
From: Takfloyd_mkII__ | #024 Strongly disagree. Luke's character development was done excellently, and was way more subtle than you realized. Luke didn't change when he cut his hair, which he himself admits later on. He was just trying desperately to make people not hate him at that point. The real change happened gradually later on.
I disagree because Luke wanting people not to hate him to that ridiculous point is a bit of a stretch considering his previous character. Yes, he wanted to be a hero and all, but it still just doesn't feel very natural. The entire thing feels a bit too forced. Which is too bad, because the game really had my attention when that happened. I was like "What's Luke gonna do now? Become Batman?" and really wondering how the plot was gonna progress. Then he cut his hair and went Jesus.
If you think the development was believable that's great, but I personally just didn't feel it.
Also I'll read your topic for sure, I'm sure I missed a ton of stuff since I didn't play it with a guide.
Yeah that's a big fault with the game IMO. The amount of important, story-related missable content is staggering.
I'm very, very thorough when I play, although I don't use guides, to the point where I go back and talk to every NPC in the game after each major story event, and I still missed quite a bit of stuff even though the story took me about 120 hours to finish.