THE BORE

General => Video Game Bored => Topic started by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 02:50:11 PM

Title: Tales of Xillia 2 is out! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 02:50:11 PM
Even though I thought ToX1 was pretty dull I look forward to this. I heard that there are some nice improvements over the first game.

(http://cdn4.dualshockers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Tales-of-Xillia-2.png?42e955)

One more reason to keep your good old PS3!
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 19, 2014, 02:55:41 PM
The first one was garbage. This series is garbage.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on July 19, 2014, 03:02:04 PM
Comes out the 19th, I have it pre-ordered on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E8RVOFG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00E8RVOFG&linkCode=as2&tag=thbo09f-20&linkId=PBZULBNJYN624IDI)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 03:10:57 PM
Comes out the 19th, I have it pre-ordered on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E8RVOFG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00E8RVOFG&linkCode=as2&tag=thbo09f-20&linkId=PBZULBNJYN624IDI)

preordered!

What did you think of the first one demi?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Freyj on July 19, 2014, 04:19:09 PM
Are the dungeons palette swap bullshit again?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on July 19, 2014, 04:20:25 PM
Was pretty boring, but nothing completely offensive. Didnt play Milla since I didnt care to play it twice.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on July 19, 2014, 04:29:01 PM
Was watching my friend play the first one last night. Game seemed pretty decent from what I saw, nice art direction. Not sure if it will dethrone Vesperia yet. Anyways I have the second one preordered as well. Nice to see Namco finally giving this series a chance in the US.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 05:16:54 PM
Was watching my friend play the first one last night. Game seemed pretty decent from what I saw, nice art direction. Not sure if it will dethrone Vesperia yet. Anyways I have the second one preordered as well. Nice to see Namco finally giving this series a chance in the US.

if it is anywhere near close vesperia it will be a good game.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 05:17:40 PM
Are the dungeons palette swap bullshit again?

I think this game got a higher budget than the first one.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Freyj on July 19, 2014, 05:30:00 PM
I think this game got a higher budget than the first one.

I recall something about it using the same areas a lot. I'm not sure I have the patience for that again.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 19, 2014, 05:55:30 PM
Are the dungeons palette swap bullshit again?
Oh not only that, but they reuse areas  from the first game.

And the next one is supposed to be open world! Good luck with that.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 08:36:49 PM
Are the dungeons palette swap bullshit again?
Oh not only that, but they reuse areas  from the first game.

And the next one is supposed to be open world! Good luck with that.

well it is sequel afterall. Did you not expect the same world?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on July 19, 2014, 08:39:28 PM
I imported it when it came out two years ago and while I liked using the new characters a lot, I didn't end up finishing the game because I hated its structure.  There are a few new towns in one area of the game, but you're basically retreading the same towns and same dungeons all over again, and you kinda have to do that to repay the debt you're given per chapter and if you want to do the character chapters.

I probably won't get the English version this time. 

Xillia 2 is probably the game that burned me out on the series.  I don't see myself finishing it for a long, long time.

...meanwhile someone's passing Tales of the Heroes onto me cuz they didn't like it, so I might have to play it one day.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Freyj on July 19, 2014, 08:41:31 PM
All I know is I can't deal with this shit (swap forest for desert, snow, lake area, etc.):

(http://i.imgur.com/oJ7DXJK.jpg)

for half a JRPG again.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 19, 2014, 08:42:51 PM
Are the dungeons palette swap bullshit again?
Oh not only that, but they reuse areas  from the first game.

And the next one is supposed to be open world! Good luck with that.

well it is sequel afterall. Did you not expect the same world?
Um....what? I've played many jrpg sequels that don't straight up re-use the same environments from thier predecessor. These are also sequels to games that didn't have the most bland and copy and pasted environments out there so I guess Xillia is just unique.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on July 19, 2014, 08:45:14 PM
You're basically going through that stuff again for most of the game, especially if you want to get more out of the story by doing the character chapters to unlock the bonus dungeon and be able to tread through it.  I'd recommend doing that one on a second playthrough unless you want to spend some time in the casino poker game earning those items that level up your characters' relationship ranks.

I thought the beginning of it was neat because you do start in the second area and there are new towns/dungeons there, but then you realize that you have to go back to the same dungeons from the first game over and over, and since you did that in the first game over and over, it's a real easy way to burn out. 

The story's alright, though.  Really didn't mind the main story much until I dropped it. 
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 08:51:47 PM
Are the dungeons palette swap bullshit again?
Oh not only that, but they reuse areas  from the first game.

And the next one is supposed to be open world! Good luck with that.

well it is sequel afterall. Did you not expect the same world?
Um....what? I've played many jrpg sequels that don't straight up re-use the same environments from thier predecessor. These are also sequels to games that didn't have the most bland and copy and pasted environments out there so I guess Xillia is just unique.

baten kaitos 1 & 2 reused the same areas and it was fine.

so did FFX and FFX-2
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 19, 2014, 08:55:33 PM
So you were only able to use two examples? Ok? There's a lot of jrpg sequels out there.

Yeah X-2 did re-use some of it's environments, but they weren't shit to begin with.  They also added things to them to make it clear that time had changed and the world was different.

Xilla's were shit and one of the problems with the game. I don't want to go through them again.

Xillia was the breaking point for me. On top of looking worse then Vesperia somehow, it had such a bland look to everything. The world was boring and had no passion in it. Quite honestly it could pass for any generic jrpg world. Generic, thats a good word to describe Tales at this point. They all feel and look the same. From the characters to the worlds, they all start to blend together.

Xillia 2 seemed cool since because of what happened at the end of Xilla, the world could possibly be more advanced. Then they showed all the early stuff and then they looked like they were actually spicing stuff up.

Then you learn you spend a lot of the time in the same horrid environments of the 1st game and any thought that this would be better is immediately squashed.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 19, 2014, 09:21:21 PM
So you were only able to use two examples? Ok? There's a lot of jrpg sequels out there.

was I suppose to list more examples? Ok Tales of Symphonia 1 &2 has mostly the same areas. So it's not even the first Tales game to do so.

Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 19, 2014, 09:26:49 PM
Well I mean you said "well it is sequel afterall" as if that's an excuse. As if most or a large number of them reuse environments wholesale. Dosen't seem like it is the norm. Just for games that are quick and cheap cash ins.

Don't people dislike Symphonia 2 for how crappy and low budget it is?

You're argument is just making the practice look pretty crummy and not a good thing. I mean why would someone want to tread through the same dull and bland environments for a sequel? 
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Freyj on July 20, 2014, 12:01:47 AM
After just playing 120 hours of FFX, starting up X-2 and entering the same zones yet again was enough of a turn off to make me put it down for the time being and I really, really like X-2.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Human Snorenado on July 20, 2014, 06:24:21 AM
I have Xillia and generally like Tales games, but have never bothered to play it. I think I'm just jrpg'd out. Might try to pick it up later this summer.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Human Snorenado on July 20, 2014, 07:13:10 AM
lol

look forward to half-assed mediocre sequels to half-assed mediocre games, brehs

That's like the motto for modern gaming
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on July 20, 2014, 09:12:13 AM
lol

look forward to half-assed mediocre sequels to half-assed mediocre games, brehs

Pretty much.  Should've known better than to hold any sort of hope for the direction of Tales on my part considering it's Tales.  Xillia 2 is a pretty boring bandaid solution to Xillia's missteps gameplay-wise, but I think people will like it based on its narrative since it's darker than most Tales games.

Though that might be my jaded ass not liking the past five or so Tales games released in the last three years talking.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Purple Filth on July 20, 2014, 12:08:08 PM
lol

look forward to half-assed mediocre sequels to half-assed mediocre games, brehs

sounds like all of last gen (and i guess this gen as well).

Also Tales  :beli
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on July 20, 2014, 01:27:38 PM
I've never played Symphonia 2 to know why it's terribad, but the inclusion of monster allies is already a negative. I hate that shit.

I did buy the collection when it was $10 on PSN, so I will replay these games sometime.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 20, 2014, 02:17:29 PM
lol

look forward to half-assed mediocre sequels to half-assed mediocre games, brehs

well yes I like the Tales of series so I guess I must like mediocre games. Gotta support the jrpgs though since they're needed to counter all the western fps games.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 20, 2014, 02:18:15 PM
I've never played Symphonia 2 to know why it's terribad, but the inclusion of monster allies is already a negative. I hate that shit.

I did buy the collection when it was $10 on PSN, so I will replay these games sometime.

symphonia 2 is decent as a game, but terribad when it comes to the cast. Emil and Marta are some of the worst main characters I ever witnessed.

Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Human Snorenado on July 20, 2014, 02:23:06 PM
lol

look forward to half-assed mediocre sequels to half-assed mediocre games, brehs

well yes I like the Tales of series so I guess I must like mediocre games. Gotta support the jrpgs though since they're needed to counter all the western fps games.

I don't say this lightly, but I'm concerned that you're either stupid or distinguished mentally-challenged, or God help you, both. You should get that shit looked at.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 03:21:32 PM
does anyone even know if this is even good
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on July 20, 2014, 04:17:46 PM
Like I said, lacks the flexibility taken in the first game (ie: you can't swap party members at will now and can only change them in towns, and there's a chapter-based system where you can only progress to the next chapter if you pay off the debt listed for each chapter and you mostly do this by doing boring sidequests while you should be doing the character chapters or hunting down gigant bosses that you can just lock into a combo if you have the weaknesses sorted like the previous game). There's also a physics change/stat rebalancing that makes the fights more balanced as opposed to being in your favour like it was in Xillia (everything moved so fast that it was in your favour despite the fact that bosses broke out of combos).

Basically, a lot of the game consists of padding.  And a lot of the time that padding is boring.  I really didn't like the structure at all, and I dropped the game because of it.

But I think people will like it for the story because it's darker than normal Tales stories.  Then again, Tales stories are generally not very good, so it's not like there's a high bar.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on July 20, 2014, 04:19:15 PM
Every thread has Himu asking "if its good" - nicca aint gon play it anyway
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: mjemirzian on July 20, 2014, 04:48:01 PM
Decent gameplay and no sick fanservice, it's about all you can ask these days of JRPGs.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 04:49:57 PM
Every thread has Himu asking "if its good" - nicca aint gon play it anyway

Yeah, I ask that every tales thread because tales games track record is always spotty and inconsistent.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on July 20, 2014, 05:04:33 PM
A lot of fun of the genre to me is seeing what sort of crazy environments you go to next, so I'm not too fond of when RPGs re-use locations from previous games... still, with that being said, Baten Kaitos Origins is one of my favorite games of all time and that game re-uses areas in droves.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 20, 2014, 05:26:41 PM
Decent gameplay and no sick fanservice, it's about all you can ask these days of JRPGs.
Yep, this is sadly the world we live in.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on July 20, 2014, 05:47:45 PM
lol

look forward to half-assed mediocre sequels to half-assed mediocre games, brehs

well yes I like the Tales of series so I guess I must like mediocre games. Gotta support the jrpgs though since they're needed to counter all the western fps games.

I don't say this lightly, but I'm concerned that you're either stupid or distinguished mentally-challenged, or God help you, both. You should get that shit looked at.

wtf this post was really unnecessary.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on July 20, 2014, 06:21:32 PM
Just ignore Triumph... he is probably dealing with some stuff right now.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 06:27:06 PM

Decent gameplay and no sick fanservice, it's about all you can ask these days of JRPGs.

You can tell we're living in the bad future when Tales games' disgusting animu content is considered minimally sick fanservice.

Dude, Tales of Vesperia was the best jrpg of last gen. That tells you everything.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Trent Dole on July 20, 2014, 06:50:28 PM
It tells you everyone else fell the fuck off HARD. That said Vesperia is a really damn good game. A bit surprised by the hate Xillia 2 is getting here sine I've seen like years of Siliconera comments talking up how good it is and how much better it is than part 1.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 20, 2014, 06:53:05 PM
I'll never understand why people think Vesperia is good.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on July 20, 2014, 06:54:45 PM
Dont hurt yourself figuring it out
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 20, 2014, 06:55:23 PM
Dont hurt yourself figuring it out
Too late. I already played Vesperia.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on July 20, 2014, 08:14:54 PM
There were some great handheld games but there were a few console games I preferred over any of the handheld RPGs last gen (Xenoblade, Valkyria Chronicles, Resonance of Fate, and yes Vesperia).
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 08:17:16 PM


Decent gameplay and no sick fanservice, it's about all you can ask these days of JRPGs.

You can tell we're living in the bad future when Tales games' disgusting animu content is considered minimally sick fanservice.

Dude, Tales of Vesperia was the best jrpg of last gen. That tells you everything.

I still can't understand JRPG fans who managed to stay console-exclusive through last gen.  It's like an FPS fan who adamantly sticks with Nintendo-only because Goldeneye was a thing 17 years ago.

Well I was talking specifically about consoles, and you know I agree 100%. But many others don't see it that way.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on July 20, 2014, 09:11:27 PM
It tells you everyone else fell the fuck off HARD. That said Vesperia is a really damn good game. A bit surprised by the hate Xillia 2 is getting here sine I've seen like years of Siliconera comments talking up how good it is and how much better it is than part 1.

It is better than X1, but it's still flawed too.  Part of the hyping probably has to do with the fact that a lot of the giants in terms of the genre seemed to have fallen off the rails and some of the cooler stuff didn't get localized at all/hasn't gotten localized yet.  Not to mention that some of the people simply comment on hearsay without actually playing the game.

Again, it might be my jaded self talking since I haven't liked a Tales game since Narikiri Dungeon X.  And that was 2010.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Damian79 on July 20, 2014, 09:19:21 PM
well yes I like the Tales of series so I guess I must like mediocre games. Gotta support the jrpgs though since they're needed to counter all the western fps games.

I pretty much play exclusively rpgs but this is kinda distinguished mentally-challenged.  I would rather play an fps than trudge through another god awful generic rpg.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 09:59:07 PM
Vesperia is actually that good. It may be hard to believe but it's just a great game. Even a broken clock is right sometimes. As we've seen it's probably a once in a life time occurrence. Verperia is actually that good and if it were on the ps2, would still be considered one of the best RPGs the system had to offer. Tiesto has nothing to be ashamed of in this case.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: larrydavid on July 20, 2014, 10:03:38 PM
Oscar getting to the truth as usual before I get the chance. Honestly I'm not even happy with the way the handheld RPG library worked out last gen when it came to new original releases (take a look at the classics we got every other gen and then laugh at what even the DS and PSP combined gets you) but I would still take Strange Journey and Mario & Luigi 3 over any mediocre as shit Tales game.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 10:06:39 PM
Have you played Vesperia?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: a slime appears on July 20, 2014, 10:10:36 PM
Tales is the only embarrassingly weaboo JRPG series I'm willing to let slide.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: larrydavid on July 20, 2014, 10:10:51 PM
ugh, when is the stupid 360 gonna drop to like $100 or something. I saw my bud play it a bit and it's got all kind of shit I hate in other Tales games but fans are always gonna point to that game as the saving grace of the series until I actually get the chance to play it for myself. Then again Tales fans also told me that Phantasia and Symphonia were both amazing so I don't know why I should be taking them seriously.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on July 20, 2014, 10:15:09 PM
A better question is why does Tales games rustle the fuck out of all yalls panties
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 10:25:49 PM
Vesperia is actually that good. It may be hard to believe but it's just a great game. Even a broken clock is right sometimes. As we've seen it's probably a once in a life time occurrence. Verperia is actually that good and if it were on the ps2, would still be considered one of the best RPGs the system had to offer. Tiesto has nothing to be ashamed of in this case.

Would you say Vesperia was better than every handheld RPG from last gen?

No, I like Sj and DQ9 more. But it's up there.

ugh, when is the stupid 360 gonna drop to like $100 or something. I saw my bud play it a bit and it's got all kind of shit I hate in other Tales games but fans are always gonna point to that game as the saving grace of the series until I actually get the chance to play it for myself. Then again Tales fans also told me that Phantasia and Symphonia were both amazing so I don't know why I should be taking them seriously.

Well, I'm not a tales fan. The only one I really only like is Vesperia. There's a reason I ask "is this good" in every tales thread.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 20, 2014, 10:47:23 PM
I really don't see how Vesperia was good. Yuri being interesting for a few hours dosen't negate the rest of the cast being boring as fuck and the story being typical and yawn inducing nature bullshit. Like they are all almost that, except Xillia 2 with it's alternate dimensions and whatnot. I don't even remember the cast, but I bet I could describe them.

Princess girl who's been sheltered. Kid who wants to prove himself. Wise old dude with hidden backstory. Bratty eccentric mage.

Such an interesting cast. They aren't in every single Tales game.

Thats what they were and they weren't fun or enduring. Plus I'm pretty sure these same characters then appeared in Graces and Xilla again.

And quite honestly, I dislike the way Tales games play. At least the 3d "Symphonia ones". They all feel pretty slow for action rpgs. Even Star Ocean 4 plays better with it's quick and responsive action gameplay. Never mind that blindside is an actual cool mechanic that Vesperia has no alternative to.

I really did not understand why Vesperia got so much praise beyond the graphics. Yet, we don't praise Eternal Sonata for it's graphics.

There were plenty of better console jrpgs. Xenoblade, The Last Story, Resonance of Fate, Lost Odyssey,
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Final Fantasy XIII
[close]
, and hell Magna Carta 2.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: larrydavid on July 20, 2014, 10:53:13 PM
A better question is why does Tales games rustle the fuck out of all yalls panties

I could do a spergy breakdown for you demi but no one wants to read that. So I'll go with seething budget resentment I guess. My panties get less bunched with time though as my backlog of actually good RPGs to play keeps growing.

Also this series is too much fun to talk shit about. Like look at this:

"The game later dives deep into issues of racism which was the result of the work of Hiramatsu Masaki, who wrote most of the main scenario. He sites his trip to Yugoslavia, where ethnic strife is predominant, as an inspiration for the story.[1]"
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 11:30:22 PM
Takes of Vesperia is great because:

The cast is great aside from mallet boy. This means a lot since it's Tales. Yuri is one of the most refreshing main characters in an rpg, western or Japanese. A vigilante who acts on his own accord and comes up with his own gray-ish decisions is great, and a long time coming in RPGs. Yuri is still, in my opinion , the most memorable main character in a game from last gen, aside from vincent in Catherine and Shepard and mass Effect. His character transformation - into someone truly never truly good, nor truly bad - is refreshing and for a jrpg, inventive.

Vesperia does away with a lot of tropes that have been common in jrpgs since FFVII. Namely romance. Usually in a Tales game the main character swoons on the female lead and it becomes one big love story soap opera. Not in Vesperia. In Vesperia, Estelle and Yuri are just travel buddies, or brother and sister and Yuri sticks by her. ToV doesn't fully embrace tropes, but instead warps them. For instance, Estelle is a runaway princess and runaway princesses in jrpgs, especially Tales games, pigeonhole that character as clumsy, stupid, and defenseless. Estelle is smart and has comedic sharp wit. She doesn't give a fuck, and she don't need no man.

The games pacing is incredible. 50-60 hours into the game, you're still getting regular new content to break the pacing up. Once you're starting to get bored, something happens to make the game feel new again. Especially battle-wise. It's battle system feature set pacing is incredible. You're getting new abilities and strategies constantly. The world is also vast. You go through an incredible amount of locations and dungeons. It has old school traditional rpg pacing written all over it.

The battle system, as said, has layers upon layers that continuously build on each other. You go from grades to Overlimits, to burst artes, to mystic artes. The battle system isn't button mashy in Tales fashion because the characters have longer pause animations. Yuri for instance does a really long pause after his animations, which factors into block timing, evasion, combos and basic defense. If you mash you'll lose your opportunity to combo, and in Vesperia you need to block against enemies or they'll chew you up. The environment interaction in battle is also a change of pace for action RPGs and some of them can create for some highly creative battle scenarios.

There's an in-depth weapon customization system.

There's a ton of side quests.

There's a vast new game+ mode.

It's incredibly polished. Most of the jrpgs last generation had awful polish. Blue Dragon had those fucking awful battle frame rates, the game was piss easy. Lost odyssey was flawed as hell. FFXIII, we won't even go there. Ditto to the rest of the genre on consoles last gen. tales of vesperia, however, had the level of polish, creativity, and scope of previous generations jrpgs.

tales of vesperia was not only the best jrpg of last console gen, I'd say it was the best traditional rpg of last gen as well, including handheld RPGs. I'm starting to think I'd put it over DQ9 because unlike DQ9, TOV doesn't have flawed class systems.

And I say this as someone who HATED Abyss, found Symphonia average, hated Phantasia and Destiny. I HATE Tales. But Tales of Vesperia is the real fucking deal.

And that's real talk.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 11:36:56 PM
Why does Vincent suck? I thought the writing for him was unique for games. I like Shepard mostly because of player agency. Shepard doesn't really have a character besides the you create. Which, for obvious reasons, appeals to me.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 11:44:24 PM
God, that post made me have massive Vesperia withdrawal. I haven't played it since 08 but damn, the memories are still there. :lawd What a fantastic game. I need to import. :lawd

Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 20, 2014, 11:52:36 PM
Why does Vincent suck? I thought the writing for him was unique for games. I like Shepard mostly because of player agency. Shepard doesn't really have a character besides the you create. Which, for obvious reasons, appeals to me.

he was unique, but he was a fuck-up that i couldn't relate to.  that whole game's story, for as much as i appreciate it trying something different and more mature than games usually try, just did nothing for me.

I couldn't relate to him either. I also think he was an asshole to Katherine. But I often just enjoy stories for their writing and what they're trying to say even if I don't like the characters as people.

For what it's worth, I think you'd like Yuri. But it depends on whether or not you think super hero vigilante-ism in your jrpg heroes is appealing. If you've sometimes screamed at an rpg at how the bad guy gets away because of stupid reasons, Yuri is for you. If you don't like characters who take matters into their own hands, no tears, if's, or but's about it, Yuri is not for you.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on July 21, 2014, 12:07:22 AM
Yuri's vigliante stuff wasn't good. It felt like "my first grey moral storytelling". He was a lame Batman. It's summed up as "There's no Justice, so i guess I gotta take Justice into my own hand." Ok thanks Tales storytelling for being obvious. It's like ok, so he killed what one or two people and then the entire vigilante thing ended. People made a big deal out of it, but it quickly warps up with him seeing the error in his ways.

Lets compare this to Metal Gear Rising. There Raiden realizes whatever, sometimes you need to kill because thats what solves the problem. So I'll be the dark hero who can make those choices. He doesn't go back from this either, this becomes his lot in life. It dosen't wrap up nice and pretty the fact that the main hero is a killer.

That's far more interesting then the pretty simple and predictable storytelling Yuri goes through. Because after that he just goes back to being a normal jrpg character. The game brings up some cool storytelling and then just childishly wraps it up. That's not interesting.

As for the rest. I don't remember anything about the game. I remember constantly going back to the Guild city for the mallet boy. Never as bad as Baticul in Abyss, but nothing in the game striked me as having good pacing. Because I wanted it to end and it took forever to. Seemed like we were dealing with the main thrust of the story for ever and ever in that game with little of interests ever actually happening.

Yeah there was no romance but I don't see how Estille is some great character. Isn't that the troupe? She's clueless of the outside world and a klutz because of it, but she's still smart? Could have sworn we've seen that anime girl character before.

Nope, I never did the new game plus or many side quests. I just remember being  really disappointed with the game. I remember the plot seemingly taking forever to end and it being really involved with this guild stuff, that just didn't seem at all interesting. People hyped it up as some astonishingly amazing game and it wasn't. Just because it brings up good ideas dosen't matter if they pretty much fall on thier faces.

I really hated Vesperia. But I don't remember anything about it. I know it had an FF9 ability system, but that's about it.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on July 21, 2014, 12:08:54 AM
So back to handheld RPGs, what's everyone's favorites from last gen?

Mine are:
-Radiant Historia
-The World Ends With You
-DQ5 Remake
-Trails in the Sky
-Wild Arms XF
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 21, 2014, 12:11:04 AM
Estelle is not a klutz.

And yeah, Yuri's vigilante-ism doesn't last the whole game. But it takes up a large part of his characterization and it's a major arc in the story. I also wouldn't say that it was "my first grey moral storytelling" either, because it plays as a large part of Yuri's character.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 21, 2014, 12:16:29 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPmftnw3Zj0

I miss this game. :noah

So back to handheld RPGs, what's everyone's favorites from last gen?

Mine are:
-Radiant Historia
-The World Ends With You
-DQ5 Remake
-Trails in the Sky
-Wild Arms XF

- SMT Strange Journey
- DQ9
- Radiant Historia
- DQ remakes
- DQ9
- FFTA2
- Ys 3 remake
- Tactics Ogre LUCT
- Jeanne D'Arc
- Cladun
- Shiren: The Wanderer
- ZHP
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: larrydavid on July 21, 2014, 12:50:06 AM
I guess when you talk about "handheld favorites" you can include whatever you want but I still don't understand why everyone always includes ports and remakes when looking at generations, just doesn't make any sense. I will say the best thing about last gen on handhelds was ports and remakes though, I don't think any other gen can beat em (even though the better DQ5 remake was on PS2).

Also Himu you must really like DQ9 or something cuz you've got it down twice.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 21, 2014, 12:54:56 AM
Because I had never played DQ4 or 6 prior to the ds versions and I had never played Ys 3, and the remake hadn't been released in English yet at that point. Whether it's a port or not isn't relevant because it was new to *me*.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on July 21, 2014, 01:03:39 AM
dissidia (012) counts as one of the best RPGs for me, despite being a fighting game.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Human Snorenado on July 21, 2014, 01:24:25 AM
Guys, Tales games have cooking though.

COOKING.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
I liked Vesperia and actually tolerated Abyss. But, the series as a whole is crappy.
[close]
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on July 21, 2014, 03:28:37 PM
Super-long-ass post that people aren’t going to read, but…

tl;dr Vesperia gud, most handheld rpgs are gud, b-tier rpgs are dead, too bad the actual good shit ain’t getting localized.

Well, if I have to add my two cents in, the only version of Vesperia I’ve played is Vesperia PS3, and since I didn’t have a 360 last gen and am still thinking of getting a refurb, I don’t think I’ve played every console RPG this gen to completely warrant a decent “what was the best console RPG this gen?” opinion.  A lot of people have been telling me that Blue Dragon is up my alley and when I get a 360 that’ll be the first thing I play.

Vesperia should fit into the category Tales games that I don’t like.  I don’t like a lot of the stuff from those Team Hearts/Team Symphonia folks (which doesn’t exist since Tales Studio is now consolidated and a lot of the staff I did like don’t seem to be on every game or don’t seem to be there anymore).  To put it in even more of a perspective, my favourite Tales games are actually: Tales of Rebirth (despite having one of the worst narratives in RPGs), Tales of Destiny R (probably the best Tales game I’ve played), Narikiri Dungeon X (a useful job system and great spritework), and Tales of Graces (the best 3D combat in the Tales series, period, since it isn’t designed to button-spam given enemies’ weaknesses, and you can modify each character’s strings based on different types of artes depending where you are in the combo tree—this works even more exceptionally well if you played the whole thing on Chaos mode like I did).  A lot of these games have several things in common: they’re designed by similar staff (including Tatsuro Udo who tends to fit in a lot of things that I love re: combat/variety/ability gain), their stories tend to not be so good (Destiny R’s story is alright, though), and the dungeons aren’t as aptly designed as Team Symphonia games.  With that said, the strongest aspect about the games I like is the combat system.  Graces was my favourite Tales game of last generation, and that’s because I loved how all of the auxiliary systems tied themselves together cohesively while making combat flow more easily.  It was super-good design. 

With respect to Vesperia’s battle system, I’m mostly a fan of the “Team Destiny” engines so the Team Symphonia engines don’t generally do it for me.  So instead of looking at it as whether or not it’s the best Tales battle system, I’ll look at it primarily as a Team Symphonia branch of combat.  Vesperia’s combat evolves Abyss’s combat and it makes it more balanced.  I like Vesperia’s much more than Xillia’s combat system because you can completely break Xillia’s combat system with the main character almost at the beginning of the game and mostly no-hit the game if you really wanted to even without that damn Free-Run option (and that’s mostly because the speed in Xillia is completely bonkers and in your favour, even on the hardest mode… and thankfully Xillia 2 makes it a little more balanced).  Vesperia has aerial attacks and places a lot of emphasis on them, which is good in my book.  Having played Destiny R after it, I thought Vesperia’s implementation of aerial attacks worked pretty well (ie: using artes in midair if you master them in Vesperia’s case with Judith being the exception).  I also liked that you could have one free attack while Free Running but if you do that, it cancels your Free Run so you can’t take advantage of it and run around the enemy.  Fatal Strikes are cool moves and they work as timesavers in some cases.  I missed them in the Xillia games.  I played the PS3 version of Vesperia, where one optional boss can use Fatal Strikes on -you-, which was neato.  There are Fatal Strikes in Tales of VS, but they’re for the Vesperia characters only in that game. 

I like Vesperia.  It still suffers from what Tales generally suffers from, but to a slightly lesser extent.  There are still some characters I dislike, but there are characters who stand head and shoulders above other Tales characters in the entire series due to not being as annoying or playing an entirely different role in Tales altogether.  Estelle, for example, was a complete breath of fresh air because she isn’t automatically deemed as Yuri’s love interest.  Estelle still has that “sheltered noble” trope associated with her, but that isn’t necessarily an anime trope and more of a general media/literature trope which isn’t much of a strike against her to me.  I actually hated her at first, but I came to like her more and more as I progressed through the game when I realized she wasn’t constantly throwing herself towards Yuri.  They’re more like a brother and sister and the lines don’t cross much from there.  I should hate Karol too, but I don’t mind him much (outside of his Japanese voice and I like his English voice much better based on what I heard from the dub).  If this were any other game, Karol would be the protagonist because he ends up learning what leadership truly means and tries to mature and get over his general cowardice.  It’s not so much subverting that Tales of Vesperia does, but in some cases it subverts, and in other cases it tones some of the tropes down since they’re amplified by a ton in other Tales games or RPGs in general.

So in my case, Vesperia is one of the better Tales games narratively-speaking, and it probably has the best Team Symphonia-esque battle system to boot.  I mean, it’s still a Tales game and is still prone to the stuff that people don’t like about Tales narratives and characterization, but it’s mostly less-offensive than most of the Tales games around.  To be clear, I’m not exactly deeming Tales narratives to be head-and-shoulders above the rest because I don’t think they are.  But on a personal level, I have to wonder if that’s due to my Tales fatigue than anything else.  Vesperia still suffers from the thing that all Tales games do: a last third of the game that clearly didn’t need to be there.

Vesperia is one of the prettiest, if not the prettiest Japanese console-style RPGs on a console I’d played last gen.  It works well with Tales’s general anime look and makes scenes and running through towns look like you’re playing an anime in motion.

And I hate Abyss, myself.  It’s one of my least-favourite Tales games along with Tempest, VS, and some of that browser poop they released.  No idea how people say it’s their favourite even if they played Vesperia which improved on its combat engine in almost every single aspect to make it feel less “lazy”.

If you look at Vesperia as a Tales game, it certainly stands among the best games in the series, period.  It achieves a lot of what Tales does, but also tones down some of the tropes that tend to be amplified in other games in the same series.  I don’t think it has the best battle system in the series, but that has more to do with the fact that I prefer the Destiny-style engines.  That said, it’s the best Symphonia/Abyss-style  If you look at Vesperia compared to a lot of the other console-style RPGs on consoles out there, then it becomes more subjective.

There weren’t a lot of super-good console-style RPGs that I played last gen, though.   A lot of them were games I’d deem as either mediocre to decent to good.  But not games that I’d consider excellent or games that I’d say are really outstanding.   I’m fond of stuff like Arc Rise Fantasia (it had Tales staff on it, and that was before Imageepoch turned into crap; it had a great ability system and a decent battle system with Koshiro/Harada music), Resonance of Fate, and Tales of Graces f, and Xenoblade (despite issues with the battle system and not thinking it’s as untouchable as a lot of others do). 

…and I guess that selection goes to show where the genre seems to be now.  It’s surprising when you actually step back and take a long look at it.  Because devs seemed to move more towards mobile and handhelds, a lot of the bigger console efforts weren’t as great as their handhelds counterparts.  And I guess that’s why some people are more inclined to accept something, anything in terms of a Japanese console-style or Japanese strategy RPG on consoles even if it’s not that great or very balanced at all.  Not everyone moved to handhelds in the west, which is unfortunate because there were plenty of B-tier RPGs that were really good or stood out quite well just like Suikoden, BoF, Grandia, etc. did all those years ago. 

I think it was when I finished Neptunia mk2 that I realized what I was doing and wondered why I even bothered with the B-or-lower-tier RPGs anymore if this is what I’m likely to get served.  I love the genre, but I don’t think I’m going to try to eat up everything anymore because there’s just one plate that I no longer want to touch.  And some of the people who are trying to take stuff from that plate are kinda weird sometimes.

As for my favourite handheld games, I dunno.  I played a lot.  Uhhh…
-Sora no Kiseki the 3rd (though that’s a PC port but it was my first time playing it)
-Radiant Historia
-Fire Emblem 12 (the FE3 remake for DSi, and I’d argue there’s a good amount of new content/rebalancing)
-Bowser’s Inside Story
-Etrian Odyssey games / 7th Dragon
-Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (read: the only KH game I like)
-Strange Journey
-The World Ends With You
-NariDan X
-Growlanser IV OverReloaded
-Nayuta no Kiseki

And I’m still finding new PSP and DS RPGs to go through, so I don’t think I’m completely finished with them yet. 

Sorta sucks that it seems like the era of the B-tier RPG is dead now, though. And whatever -is- considered to be B-tier to some people has… less-desirable aspects to other people.  I’m pretty sure that my tolerance level for anime tropes and sexualization has fallen as the years have gone by to the point of mostly being done with it, so I get where those people are coming from.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: magus on July 21, 2014, 03:43:53 PM
Quote
I think it was when I finished Neptunia mk2 that I realized what I was doing and wondered why I even bothered with the B-or-lower-tier RPGs anymore if this is what I’m likely to get served. 

ah another neptunia victim, i feel your pain brother, i feel your pain :tocry
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 21, 2014, 03:45:44 PM
Suikoden. :stahp :tocry :brazilcry

And Blue Dragon is great. But you need to play on hard mode to get the best out of it.

Magus, speed is a girl.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on July 21, 2014, 03:55:50 PM
I've been trying to finish off Neptunia Victory for at least a year now and I can't do it.  Every time I try to play it, I always wonder, "Why am i wasting time with this?" and turn it off to do something actually productive.  :'(

Similarly, I started Ar Tonelico 3 because someone suggested it as a stream game and I never want to play that game again (http://www.g4tv.com/videos/54081/sexy-awkward-moments-in-ar-tonelico-qoga-knell-of-ar-ciel).
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: magus on July 21, 2014, 04:38:14 PM
neptunia victory is the WORST rpg i've ever played, no exageration, no hyperbole, it doesn't get worse than it
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on July 21, 2014, 06:27:20 PM
And back to the whole 'why do a lot of american RPG fans ignore portables?', probably because a decent chunk of the RPG fanbase likes the visual panache, the over-the-top stories, huge worlds to explore etc. (look why most people would consider Xenoblade the best of last gen, handhelds included) and a lot of portable games feel rather low-budget (not to mention, the prime handheld for RPGs had horrible 3D). Radiant Historia may be one of my top handheld games last gen, but the game reeked of low-budget - terrible animation, ugly jaggy DS 3D environments, lots of backtracking, like 5 music tracks.

Not to mention, I've always felt the genre is something you play in big stretches at a time, like set aside a block of time Sunday afternoon to play... and playing portables for a long period of time can lead to eye-strain, hand cramping, etc. Thankfully the PSP has a TV out.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 21, 2014, 06:41:56 PM
Agreed. DQ9 was the only portable jrpg I played last gen with a large world with scope, not including remakes.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Himu on July 21, 2014, 07:08:04 PM
To be fair, there's not really any jrpgs on consoles I described either aside from maybe xenoblade, tales of vesperia, blue dragon, and ni no kuni. Four games in the longest gaming generation ever is a pretty bad track record.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 09, 2014, 06:36:09 AM
So hyped right now!

Soon
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Mr. Gundam on August 10, 2014, 02:07:22 PM
Himu, you'd like Sen no Kiseki. But it's probably not gonna get localized for a long time, if ever.

Also, any preorder bonuses on Xillia 2? Still need to get this.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 10, 2014, 02:09:01 PM
No
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 10, 2014, 03:15:06 PM
Game Informer game it a 7.75 and says battles and story is improved but lower the score because it is a sequel  :lol
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: cosmicblizzard on August 10, 2014, 03:23:19 PM
Forgot it was coming out soon.  Preordered on Amazon.  Dungeons/fields better be better than the first one.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 11, 2014, 01:31:24 PM
I'd probably give it a 7 if I were being generous too.  Story is better.  Structure kinda sucks and gets repetitive as fuck.

Himu, you'd like Sen no Kiseki. But it's probably not gonna get localized for a long time, if ever.

Also, any preorder bonuses on Xillia 2? Still need to get this.

Dunno if it'll be in this version, but if you loaded up saves from the other PS3 Tales games, you can get costumes/accessories for them too.  This included the Vesperia save, but since Vesperia PS3 didn't come out here, I guess Jude doesn't get the Yuri outfit.

I guess they didn't bother to bring over the Ludger Dawn of the New World outfit preorder bonus in the west.  I took a pic of it when I played the game back in 2012 and it was the worst outfit.

(http://abload.de/img/dnrh2j7uyi.jpg)

Dude who designed Emil and Marta in Knight of Ratatosk designed Ludger, but the outfit is  :lol
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 11, 2014, 01:37:54 PM
Similarly, I started Ar Tonelico 3 because someone suggested it as a stream game and I never want to play that game again (http://www.g4tv.com/videos/54081/sexy-awkward-moments-in-ar-tonelico-qoga-knell-of-ar-ciel).

You stream JRPG? What is your twitch? I usually try to find JRPG speedruns to see any cool tricks, but I'll tune into casual for background noise.

another link to Amazon page for pre-order - Tales of Xillia 2 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E8RVOFG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00E8RVOFG&linkCode=as2&tag=thbo09f-20)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 18, 2014, 11:55:16 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0nbwXdwyXY
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: G The Resurrected on August 18, 2014, 10:16:02 PM
Thanks Xillia 2 now I can't play on the PS4. Why did you have to ship it early Amazon?!
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on August 18, 2014, 11:35:56 PM
Just got the email that the CE shipped to me... I haven't even played the first game yet though. Graces last year burned me a bit out on Tales...
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: magus on August 19, 2014, 09:16:30 AM
Quote
After making it to the next story bit, Xillia 2 gave me my next goal: I had to make a payment on my debt before the plot could continue chugging along. It was then I noticed this new amount was six figures in size, and all the old quests I'd completed before were back, waiting for me to undertake them again. Xillia 2 wasn't ready for me to move on until I killed another hour doing things I'd already done before. 

And this reuse of content goes beyond Xillia 2's "paywall:" After a certain point in the game, Ludger is tasked with a primary mission that involves traveling to alternate dimensions and destroying the catalysts powering them. While this idea isn't inherently flawed, Xillia 2 uses it as a flimsy excuse to feed you old content in a ever-so-slightly-modified form. Remember that open field you spent the last 15 hours traipsing through? Well, now you have to go back there, except things are different colors—because it's an alternate dimension or something.

sounds like a crème de la crème rpg :hitler
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 19, 2014, 09:22:08 AM
Sounds like Puzzle and Dragons
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 19, 2014, 09:24:13 AM
Xillia 1 Story Recap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNCqNl1Vr_w
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Mr. Gundam on August 19, 2014, 05:46:17 PM
Gonna pick up copy today or tomorrow. Need to finish Sen no Kiseki first. Almost done.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 19, 2014, 06:27:31 PM
have to wait till 22nd here.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 19, 2014, 08:00:49 PM
USGamer review text pretty much echoes my thoughts on the game. http://www.usgamer.net/articles/tales-of-xillia-2-review-reduce-reuse-recycle

What happens is that every chapter basically has you doing the story scenario completely straight-through, and when that scenario has ended, you are free to pay off a portion of your debt (so you can move to the next chapter) by doing fetch quests, character subquests, or Gigantos monster hunts.  The way the game has structured it makes the debt portion feel like filler material, and it's made even worse because sometimes you need to trudge through the areas that you've just been to again... and you've been through those areas enough in the first game.  I got tired of doing it in Chapter 10 and didn't see the need to keep playing the game at that point.  The minimum payments are pretty easy to pay off, but when you get to a certain threshold after paying it off and you still want to do the character chapters for relationship points and extra content, they call you for the minimum payment listed again which basically tells you to move on and get to the next chapter of the game if you don't want the debt collector calling you often.  So instead of saving up your money to pay off for the next chapter, you're going to have to keep your money under the threshold if you don't want them calling you all the time.

But overall, I felt like a lot of the content was complete padding when it could have been woven into the game's narrative far better than it already is. Even FFX-2 and FF13-2 does that kind of stuff better because those games are structured and designed in a sense where you have to go to multiple areas for the game to move on as opposed to doing what the game tells you to do first and then being able to do what you want to do.  Free exploration is encouraged as opposed to forcing the player to do an essential portion and still forcing them to explore via the debt system.  Oh well.  :/

The map reuse was the thing I disliked the most. After doing a replay of Xillia a few months before Xillia 2 had come out in 2012, the regular map and then the alternative map (which is just a map reuse) really wore me down, and I didn't even like the maps in the original game.  It felt like the game was doing its best to completely waste my time, and that's my biggest pet peeve in a video game.

it's kind of a shame because I felt like they nailed the difficulty in Xillia 2 even if it still does the Tales of Hearts boss thing with limited combos.  They nerfed the speed and physics, and while the weakness system allows you to exploit a combo, it's harder to string a combo and dodge like a madman because everyone moves slower.  Boss fights are slightly harder on the highest first playthrough difficulty than Xillia's highest first playthrough difficulty. That's a good thing! you can still pull off exploits, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0S_scwTE2Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvwKIvaZZ7Y

(second vid is a gigantos hunt boss, iirc)

I hope that Zestiria is better, but after playing four Tales games that I've just dropped after a while after not liking them much (Hearts R, Innocence R, Twin Brave, and Xillia 2), maybe I got to the point where either the series is not going in a direction I like, or the series isn't for me anymore.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rufus on August 19, 2014, 09:26:21 PM
Sounds like they pulled a Dragon Age 2.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on August 20, 2014, 02:12:44 AM
Well I'm happy I didn't rush out and buy this one. Since the last three Tales PS3 games never got "rare", I'm sure I can wait until this one's dropped below $40 and find it.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 20, 2014, 10:40:34 AM
FREE ITEMS

https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-us/games/addons/tales-of-xillia2-custom-order-set/cid=UP0700-BLUS31397_00-K001Z00000000000
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 20, 2014, 06:14:31 PM
how's the game demi
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 20, 2014, 06:15:45 PM
It wont be here until later this week.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Mr. Gundam on August 21, 2014, 12:30:02 AM
Picked up the game today. Should be done with Sen no Kiseki later tonight.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: JBFire on August 21, 2014, 10:59:10 AM
I received this game on Tuesday and have only gotten to play for a couple hours both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. I completed my run of Xillia back in November of last year. I really enjoyed the first Xillia game, so I have been looking forward to this for awhile.

My initial impression is that it just feels like a DLC extension of the original game rather than a sequel. This vibe is exacerbated by the re-use of areas, music, textures, sound effects (MUTTON! FRESH MUTTON!!), etc. So far I have been enjoying the game but I am concerned that I will become disinterested with it before the end. Forcing my character to go into debt and then constant harassment by an overbearing collector simply isn't fun. Follow that up by subjecting me to a jobs board to help pay off this debt before I can move on to the next section is becoming tiring. I really don't like jobs boards. I didn't care for them in Kingdom Hearts 2. I didn't care for them in Trails in the Sky. I really am not caring for them here.

I'll have to see how I fare further in, but right now I have not enjoyed it as much as the first game.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 21, 2014, 04:31:45 PM
well 8.0 from IGN is strangely enough a good score for a jrpg, so it cant be that bad.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 21, 2014, 05:50:25 PM
"Well this one review isn't completely trashing it, so it can't be that bad."

no review has trashed this game. I know you hate the tales of series, but comon.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: magus on August 21, 2014, 06:02:49 PM
"Well this one review isn't completely trashing it, so it can't be that bad."

no review has trashed this game. I know you hate the tales of series, but comon.

There is one like 10 post above :hitler
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Human Snorenado on August 21, 2014, 08:13:59 PM
Stan for a game series that has had like 1 good entry out of 20 games, brehs :hitler
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 21, 2014, 08:21:36 PM
Graces f is going to be on sale for $10 for a flash sale this weekend
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on August 21, 2014, 08:42:03 PM
Stan for a game series that has had like 1 good entry out of 20 games, brehs :hitler

Hmm, I'd say the majority of games in the series are at least decent... though Vesperia and Destiny Remix are probably the 2 greatest (I loved Phantasia for the time since the production values were insane for a SNES game back in the late 90's)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: tiesto on August 22, 2014, 12:36:01 AM
And you're the one saying how the Kim Kardashian game ain't all that bad :P
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on August 22, 2014, 04:47:05 AM
Not big enough apparently.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 22, 2014, 05:10:09 PM
I've played pretty much every single Tales game outside of some of the mobile/browser games and I didn't play the short-lived MMO, but, well...

Most of the games are mediocre with some good ideas.  Even the ones I like have real bad downsides: they play very very well, but oh my god those stories or characters are terribad (ex: Rebirth, Graces, Destiny R, NariDanX).  Destiny R is probably the best of the three if we take into account both narrative and gameplay, but I've mostly stopped paying a ton of attention to Tales narratives because they're generally not very good and some of the characters live out tropes that I don't like anymore.  I play them for their battle engines first and foremost.   All of the Tales games have a last arc which should've been cut out of the game instead of prolonging it, even if the pacing is inconsistent in these games.

I'm not entirely sure where Tales began to get this newfound prestige (probably this generation since there wasn't that much in terms of console RPGs in general, or whatever was higher-budget was divisive).  Someone made a fairly-intelligent argument a few years ago, essentially calling the Tales games "junk food RPGs", and I think that's a pretty good analogy for them.  The localizations tend to be really good, and the battle engines are pretty good.  I don't think they can fill the gap left by the bigger RPG series, but this is probably a matter of taste on my part.  The reason why I say that is because Tales game typically fall very short in one area and have a tendency to not have all the ingredients required to achieve being all-around-good.

I don't mind Tales, but that's probably because I've basically played most of them.  I think a lot of them are pretty fun to play, but I don't think they deserve a lot of the accolades thrown at them, especially the recent two games released in the west.  Or for me, the last six games I'd played released since (and during) 2011 (didn't have a chance to play Tactics Union) haven't been that great and it either says that the series isn't for me anymore, or the series is going in a direction that is no longer for me.  That probably factors into my feelings in terms of the series getting far too much credit lately than they previously did.

(tbh, I wouldn't equate them with Kemco RPGs, but the one I had played from Kemco was crap from one of their crap teams, so I'm not well-versed!)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 22, 2014, 05:38:33 PM
Got my dick out ready to save the world AGAIN with my wonderful waifus

http://i.imgur.com/hLPIiTf.jpg
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: larrydavid on August 22, 2014, 06:23:33 PM
it's okay speed, oscar is a proud Kemco RPG Fanatic so he's actually giving tales games major props there
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 22, 2014, 07:06:28 PM
This game is making my weeb prostate throb furiously
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Joe Molotov on August 22, 2014, 10:18:52 PM
Got my dick out ready to save the world AGAIN with my wonderful waifus

http://i.imgur.com/hLPIiTf.jpg

 :meeble
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 06:22:15 AM
Ludger Kresnik >>> Oscar

Game is really fun so far. Learning system is way better than in the first game.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 10:43:53 AM
So your initial impressions of the game you set yourself on liking are positive?  Fancy that.

Why are you posting so much in this thread considering you have no interest in tales series?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on August 23, 2014, 10:48:30 AM
 :umad

spoiler (click to show/hide)
He's posting in his usual jovial smug way. To get under your skin. And you're falling for it man. Trust me, I've been there.
[close]
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rufus on August 23, 2014, 10:51:23 AM
Hey, this isn't a GAF OT. :heh
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Human Snorenado on August 23, 2014, 11:43:44 AM
This is the Bore. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it, SantaC.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 12:01:39 PM
This is the Bore. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it, SantaC.

eh segata is the one that always get upset. he cant take that Tales of series is better than any game sega ever released  :ohhh
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Human Snorenado on August 23, 2014, 01:48:35 PM
That is demonstrably false, there are off the top of my head 3 Sega rpgs that are better than the entirety of the Tales series. (PS II and IV, Skies)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 03:57:09 PM
That is demonstrably false, there are off the top of my head 3 Sega rpgs that are better than the entirety of the Tales series. (PS II and IV, Skies)

love skies. Too bad the game is a slow clunky mess battlevise :/
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 05:26:50 PM
omg Xillia 2 is so much better than first one so far. The cat dispatching is hilarious.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 23, 2014, 05:34:22 PM
That is demonstrably false, there are off the top of my head 3 Sega rpgs that are better than the entirety of the Tales series. (PS II and IV, Skies)

You forgot Shining the Holy Ark.  :lawd

Sega's best stuff was, and is, its arcade material like shmups, fighters, etc. But AM7's stuff was so good. Most of Sega's Saturn stuff was really good. I miss Saturn/Genesis-era Sega in terms of their games developed (not so much the office politics and the SoA/SoJ duality).

Tales games were generally consistent until arguably Symphonia, but then then they started doing that "well, this part of the game is really good, but this part of the game is not so good" type of thing. Not sure what happened there. 

I think they both put about as much effort in, to be honest.
Yeah, I can see that.  Especially since they seem to blow their budget on ufotable/seiyuu instead of the actual game these days!  I know I'm coming off as jaded, but fuck it.  It ticks me off to see the series become even more of a cashgrab with even less substance than before. 

I just want my 2D Tales games with no cashgrab costumes and more substance to the combat and maybe a little more to the characters again. Basically put Tatsuro Udo in charge of everything. :(


omg Xillia 2 is so much better than first one so far. The cat dispatching is hilarious.

Oh, try to get better food to feed and stuff. That way you can find rare items more easily and faster.

Um, also try to get the "S.Link" stuff done by making the right decisions for some characters. you could always do it on a subsequent playthrough. There are some items you can win in the poker minigame which can increase your relationship status with the characters. I'd honestly do this stuff on another playthrough since the post-game dungeon can only be done if you've maxed your relationship with some characters (ie: you can only use them in your party if you have max relationship, etc.).  The Japanese wiki was helpful for that but I dunno if there are guides out there for those types of things in English.

I used this wiki for some maps, arousal orb (allium orb, I guess), and cat dispatch stuff. http://h1g.jp/tox2/
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Rahxephon91 on August 23, 2014, 05:47:22 PM
GameTrailers actually said the story this time around was good and that is was different from the usual Tales. Is this true? I mean honestly what interested me about this game was the story premise and the fact that it looked to be taking place in a more modern world. I mean most of the reason I'm bored with Tales games is that the worlds and stories blend together for me at this point. The fact that Xillia 2 reuses environments wholesale kind of sucks. If they were to just modernize places up that would've helped.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 05:53:07 PM
GameTrailers actually said the story this time around was good and that is was different from the usual Tales. Is this true? I mean honestly what interested me about this game was the story premise and the fact that it looked to be taking place in a more modern world. I mean most of the reason I'm bored with Tales games is that the worlds and stories blend together for me at this point. The fact that Xillia 2 reuses environments wholesale kind of sucks. If they were to just modernize places up that would've helped.

story is based around being in huge depth and must pay it back as soon as you can. That and the fact you are helping a little girl (elle) find her lost dad. you also make morality choices on the way.  It's definitely way better then the first Xillia game.

As for being in a modernized world, yes you are.

Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 23, 2014, 05:56:25 PM
Yeah, the story this time around is darker than other Tales games (hence it was rated Cero C instead of A or B like usual because of blood and stuff).  The premise focuses more on the brotherhood aspect and another familial aspect that crops up much later in the game.  I think some of the story segments aren't that great due to some trope use and some of the character interactions are mostly barebones because Ludger's a silent protagonist who grunts, but the overall story was well-received.  If the game weren't so darn repetitive, I would've outright praised it for being "different" since it takes a more chapter-based "vignette" approach.

You start off in the more modern area that you were introduced to in the first Xillia, then you go back to the more rural portion to do other stuff and then switch around for a bit. Quick travel still exists from Xillia 1, but you generally have to have gone to the towns to unlock being able to fast-travel.

I think the most limiting thing is not being able to change your party members outside of towns, considering the first game let you do it mid-battle, to be honest.  That and the constant repetitiveness of the game. It sucks because it has interesting stuff in the story despite some of the character interactions being oddball.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 06:28:02 PM

This is the Bore. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it, SantaC.

eh segata is the one that always get upset. he cant take that Tales of series is better than any game sega ever released  :ohhh

It's so weird that you still base your burns of me on a handle I ditched nearly half a decade ago.

well I have ditched SantaC also...
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 23, 2014, 07:10:01 PM
Right, but it's not like I'm burning you about your love of Santa Claus.  The new hotness in Oscar burns is mobile, my man.  The only SEGA games I buy anymore are the RGG games, and I pretty much bitch endlessly about them post-3.

Oh wait Sonic Racing Transformed was pretty legit, too.

It was SantaC short for SantaCruZer (my old nick at gaf)

basically from Santa Cruz cali.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 23, 2014, 10:24:06 PM
The debt system is unfortunately REALLY stupid and unnecessary as claimed. The job system is making my OCD go haywire. I keep trying to clean the list, but 5 minutes later theres like 10 new ones.

Plus after so long, the Nova cunt will hound you NONSTOP, so much that it will force you to make a payment, even if it is 1 Gald. Yikes.

It seems like the game is just "Ludgar's 10 hour story" plus Xillia 1's individual character stories. It might as well be some sort of OVA non-canon thing. Lol.

I'm definitely gonna have to force myself through this one.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 23, 2014, 11:21:00 PM
I like the battle tune. I dunno why its called "Keep Pushing, until the Sword is Exhausted" -- lol...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HEdkpHxOOE
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Joe Molotov on August 24, 2014, 12:15:14 AM
Keep Pushing, until the Sword is Exhausted :phil
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 24, 2014, 12:54:11 AM
Thank you for the clarification, darling
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 24, 2014, 05:36:30 AM
Debt system is there to limit your travel options
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 24, 2014, 10:34:42 AM
Debt system is there to limit your travel options

Which is... stupid....

Sorry duder, Debt system is poop nuggets.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 24, 2014, 02:02:00 PM
Traveling got better now that I have a World Map -- aka Fast Travel. It even tells you where to go to do character stories and whatnot.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 24, 2014, 04:43:43 PM
The battle song when you're in a Fragmented dimension is cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgWyLcnrdi4
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 24, 2014, 05:04:26 PM
I am hating the jazz music in Trigleph  :yuck

I am about to start Jude's sidestory. Gameplay is fun and all, but man do I wish a tales of game for PS4 soon. The graphics in this game is terrible. (last gen syndrome I guess)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 24, 2014, 05:40:03 PM
Got raped by Chronos, lol. The AI on both sides is dumb as shit.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 24, 2014, 05:44:21 PM
I am hating the jazz music in Trigleph  :yuck

Really? I thought Triglav had great music. :(

Honestly, all of the Elympios music sounded better than the stuff in Lieze Maxia to me just because it sounds different from Sakuraba's usual Tales fare.  So I guess it's not necessarily a case of sounding "better" and more "it's refreshing".

Oh, yeah, do the character chapters as soon as you can so you don't feel like you've missed any. They're generally useful anyway.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 24, 2014, 06:15:03 PM
I really do not like the Allium Orb system.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 24, 2014, 06:41:25 PM
They work similarly to the Capacity Core system in Tales of the Abyss, but not quite (and I think someone had made comparisons to the Graces titles system a while back, but I don't really agree with that assertion). You gain element points (depending on which core you have equipped to amplify the points gained and you get better cores later on), and when you hit the number of that element or more than one element you'll learn the skill. It's quite the timesink sometimes, and I guess the padding facilitates skill acquisition.

The cores just amplify the points gained; they don't have skills associated with them at all, so if you want a skill, just equip the core that amplifies the element that's associated with the skill you want to get.

Related: I think the SP growth system in the game is a complete waste and timesink. 
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 24, 2014, 07:04:03 PM
Why the FUCK do all bosses block every attack? Jesus christ. I can't do anything but run around. I get juggled to shit, and these bosses just laugh at anything I do. "Lol you want to attack me? Fuck you here's a juggle, oops you're dead"
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 25, 2014, 10:05:44 AM
I am on Chapter 8 -- Gaius' Trial (not like jury, more like, testing you). Game has gotten smoother, so here's some quick tidbits:

- Do any red jobs. Unsure if any are missable, but these are UNIQUE and give you goodies.
- White jobs are random, and from what I can tell, neverending. Dont rip your pubes out trying to clear out the list before moving on. Feel free to accept any jobs if you are heading to a certain area.
- Elite Monsters: Drop this shit to Easy when fighting them, since there is a Battle Challenge for beating 18 (!) of them under 2 minutes. Also, they give fat cash and job points. Do them!
- Do character stories, since you get 15k and some goodies as well. Also they unlock extensions of scenes in the story.
- The game is designed to prevent you from hoarding the shekels. Once you reach the required amount to pay, the game will hound you forever. Toss over half if you just want to get them off your dick.
- Allium Orb system is awful. Use discs that have double or more rate. Use it until you get a healthy amount (2000 or so), then swap them to another element. Theres no benefit of dedicating to one, since the amount of skills deteriorates tremendously. Also go OCD and pick up any elemental pickup on the field. Sometimes you can find some fat chunks like 30 (which assumingly double with your x2 disc).
- The game does a good job, imo, in giving each character their fair shake. Most scenarios (character stories, main story) involve using a set party. All characters get the same XP and EP (elemental points), anyway, so there is no uneven playing fields.
- Don't sell equipment, you get shit cash and chances are it'll be used for some custom crafting.
- This is probably the one game where weaknesses matter. In my post above where I was complaining, I discovered that when I actually used the boss' weakness, the bitch crumpled like a bag of fritos. No I didn't drop it to Easy, either.
- Look for those damned kitties.

Ending Talk:

Chapter 13+

- Don't use transform more than 50 times, this gets you a trophy. Used in conjunction with bad ending for quicker results.

Chapter 15+

- Just spam R1 for the bad ending (trophy)
- Spam L1 after final boss for normal ending (trophy)
- Spam R1 after final boss for true ending (trophy)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 25, 2014, 03:14:31 PM
you're going too fast. I am only at chapter 4 :/

Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Joe Molotov on August 25, 2014, 03:17:33 PM
What stuff can be imported into Xillia 2? I saw that you get a doll or something if you had Xillia 1 and Graces F saves, is that all there is?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 25, 2014, 03:24:16 PM
Graces f:

- Having a save file gives you a cute mini Yuri (Vesperia) and a cute mini Sophie accessory

Xillia 1:

- Any DLC is moved over (may be exceptions, unsure)
- Having a save file gives you a cute mini Jude accessory
- Having a clear file gives you a cute mini Milla accessory

Symphonia Chronicles released after this game, so there is no bonuses
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: Joe Molotov on August 25, 2014, 03:27:09 PM
K, I think I'm gonna play Xillia 1, I just wanted to make sure I didn't need to max out my characters or some crap for Xillia 2.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 25, 2014, 04:33:06 PM
demi, elemental ore gives you free "learning" points for allium orb right?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 25, 2014, 04:41:23 PM
Yes, its all for the Allium Orb, so pick up all that shit
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 25, 2014, 05:27:21 PM
the jobs really are addicting. I'll say just one more all the time.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 25, 2014, 09:42:07 PM
demi, did they retain the screenshot option in this version of the game?  Really helpful in the Japanese release when I didn't have a capture card.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 25, 2014, 09:50:33 PM
Yes, I dunno how to transfer pics tho.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SpeedStats on August 25, 2014, 09:59:17 PM
I just saved the pics to a USB drive and transferred them to my PC that way.

I think the latest I got through the game was Chapter 10 but I basically got the story spoiled for me when I didn't ask to be spoiled. :/
The story's all right.  One of the better Tales ones.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 coming out soon! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 27, 2014, 03:13:54 PM
I had some trouble with elite monster Heavy Claw  since it rolled over me all the time.

finally got it on my 3rd try.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 is out! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 30, 2014, 02:45:13 PM
I just beat up a gay spirit.

http://youtu.be/w2KAiPrqvLM?t=5m35s (http://youtu.be/w2KAiPrqvLM?t=5m35s)

Also this cutscene was dope (huge sp0ilers)

http://youtu.be/VfoTU7eITcw?t=26m43s (http://youtu.be/VfoTU7eITcw?t=26m43s)
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 is out! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on August 31, 2014, 10:34:56 AM
Beat it with all endings... working on some post-game stuff. Would like to get the two bonus endings (paying off the debt, arena) before shelving it.
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 is out! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: SantaC on August 31, 2014, 02:28:34 PM
is it better than xillia 1 demi?
Title: Re: Tales of Xillia 2 is out! Finally a new decent Jrpg (suck it lightning)
Post by: demi on September 01, 2014, 11:58:50 AM
Is it better than Xillia 1? Not particularly. I enjoyed the story much more than Xillia 1, though.

Finished the Arena ending and paid off the debt. Shelving this since theres nothing else to do beyond grind and farm.