Tales of Zestiria - PS3/PS4/PC

[Human Snorenado]

Makes you wonder why they keep shoveling out Tales games if they suck so bad... nah, it's cause y'all (and I'm assuming a hardcore Tales fanbase that may or may not exist) will keep burning money chasing a decent jrpg.

[Bebpo]

Graces probably has the best battle system in any 3D Tales game, its a shame that everything surrounding the battle system is gutter trash. 

I had hopes for Zesty thinking it'd be an improvement, but nooooope

Oh yeah, forgot about Graces.  I think Graces is my favorite post-PS2 even if the story sucks and the world is small.  The battle system is just so damn good.  Zestiria is similar but but not quite as good.

[suppadoopa]

Makes you wonder why they keep shoveling out Tales games if they suck so bad... nah, it's cause y'all (and I'm assuming a hardcore Tales fanbase that may or may not exist) will keep burning money chasing a decent jrpg.

tales of the heroes: twin brave best tales game

[Trent Dole]

Makes you wonder why they keep shoveling out Tales games if they suck so bad... nah, it's cause y'all (and I'm assuming a hardcore Tales fanbase that may or may not exist) will keep burning money chasing a decent jrpg.

Tales of games are rarely that great but it's the most consistent series going that appears on home consoles proper at the moment is the story I usually am told.

[demi]

Zesteria next week

[Joe Molotov]

Zestiria today.

[D3RANG3D]

Do you still get Symphonia for free on Steam if you buy Zestiria or is that a limited time thing?

[Joe Molotov]

Do you still get Symphonia for free on Steam if you buy Zestiria or is that a limited time thing?

It was a preorder bonus.

[D3RANG3D]

Do you still get Symphonia for free on Steam if you buy Zestiria or is that a limited time thing?

It was a preorder bonus.

 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Welp in the buy when dirt cheap bin it goes.

[close]

[demi]

Buying it after work tomorrow yesssssssssssssss

[Joe Molotov]

I played the first 30 minutes. You meet a girl and your invisible tsundere boytoy gets mad af. 

[Mr. Gundam]

My Amazon copy shipped via Prime won't get here until tomorrow. That's annoying.

[Great Rumbler]

I was totally not expecting Zestiria's main theme to be so awesome:

[Bebpo]

Did they keep the lyrics?  Yeah it's a great OP.

[Great Rumbler]

Nah, the English version nixed the lyrics. It's still really good, though.

[bluemax]

I don't even like the 2nd half of Vesperia or the battle system all that much, but I'd still say Vesperia is the best Tales game post-PS2.  The series has gone pretty downhill since the PS1/PS2 era.

I beat Vesperia, got most of the achievements and I can't remember shit about it. I do remember getting to the end and not even understanding what I was fighting or why. I guess what I'm saying is unlike most Tales games which are bad, it was just bland.

[Bebpo]

I don't even like the 2nd half of Vesperia or the battle system all that much, but I'd still say Vesperia is the best Tales game post-PS2.  The series has gone pretty downhill since the PS1/PS2 era.

I beat Vesperia, got most of the achievements and I can't remember shit about it. I do remember getting to the end and not even understanding what I was fighting or why. I guess what I'm saying is unlike most Tales games which are bad, it was just bland.

Here's the Vesperia -bebpo rant I do ever few years when talking about Tales:

Vesperia from a story perspective had the chance to be SO GOOD.  The first half of the game is about this guy, Yuri, who sees that shit is fucked up in the world and government is too corrupt to do anything about it so he makes the decision to cross the line and assassinate people Punisher style for the greater good.  Meanwhile his best friend Flynn is a lawful captain of the knights so obviously you're going to have drama where Flynn believes there should be legal justice and sticking to the book even if it doesn't work, whereas Yuri believes there should be moral justice because the legal system often doesn't work.  The concept right there is 10x more mature and interesting than your typical jrpg story and lead character.  I mean when your usual goody-two shoes jrpg lead goes and MURDERS someone...that really throws off expectations.

The problem is that halfway the game decides to abandon this and become a generic fantasy rpg where all the good guys work together to get the elemental spirits and stop the generic big badguy who probably transforms into a winged angel demon or something by the end.  It's totally boring and does nothing with the premise of the first half.

And since the battle system is basically just a slow, traditional Tales battle system in 3d like Symphonia, the story and characters are really the main drive, so it's a shame that such an interesting story and lead for a jrpg is totally squandered for the second half of the game.  I wish more jrpgs tried to do something interesting with the plot like the first half of Vesperia. 

Although to be fair, the premise for Zestiria is pretty good and original.  It's just a shame Zestiria falls apart even worse than Vesperia by the end.  At least Graces remains consistently dumb from start to finish (and has the best battle system of the 3d ones).

[bluemax]

I don't even like the 2nd half of Vesperia or the battle system all that much, but I'd still say Vesperia is the best Tales game post-PS2.  The series has gone pretty downhill since the PS1/PS2 era.

I beat Vesperia, got most of the achievements and I can't remember shit about it. I do remember getting to the end and not even understanding what I was fighting or why. I guess what I'm saying is unlike most Tales games which are bad, it was just bland.

Here's the Vesperia -bebpo rant I do ever few years when talking about Tales:

Vesperia from a story perspective had the chance to be SO GOOD.  The first half of the game is about this guy, Yuri, who sees that shit is fucked up in the world and government is too corrupt to do anything about it so he makes the decision to cross the line and assassinate people Punisher style for the greater good.  Meanwhile his best friend Flynn is a lawful captain of the knights so obviously you're going to have drama where Flynn believes there should be legal justice and sticking to the book even if it doesn't work, whereas Yuri believes there should be moral justice because the legal system often doesn't work.  The concept right there is 10x more mature and interesting than your typical jrpg story and lead character.  I mean when your usual goody-two shoes jrpg lead goes and MURDERS someone...that really throws off expectations.

The problem is that halfway the game decides to abandon this and become a generic fantasy rpg where all the good guys work together to get the elemental spirits and stop the generic big badguy who probably transforms into a winged angel demon or something by the end.  It's totally boring and does nothing with the premise of the first half.

And since the battle system is basically just a slow, traditional Tales battle system in 3d like Symphonia, the story and characters are really the main drive, so it's a shame that such an interesting story and lead for a jrpg is totally squandered for the second half of the game.  I wish more jrpgs tried to do something interesting with the plot like the first half of Vesperia. 

Although to be fair, the premise for Zestiria is pretty good and original.  It's just a shame Zestiria falls apart even worse than Vesperia by the end.  At least Graces remains consistently dumb from start to finish (and has the best battle system of the 3d ones).

I feel like this is a problem in a lot of JRPGs. Like FFXII starts out as a cool political story and then ends up as a boring generic battle against some super demon or some nonsense.

[Human Snorenado]

It's almost like the developers have to tickle a very specific weeb prostate in order to get their games made or something, but I'm sure the audience doesn't deserve any fault in this equation.

[Tasty]

Despite the jackass protag, I thought Tales of the Abyss stayed pretty true to its story the whole way though.

[Mods Help]

I don't even like the 2nd half of Vesperia or the battle system all that much, but I'd still say Vesperia is the best Tales game post-PS2.  The series has gone pretty downhill since the PS1/PS2 era.

I beat Vesperia, got most of the achievements and I can't remember shit about it. I do remember getting to the end and not even understanding what I was fighting or why. I guess what I'm saying is unlike most Tales games which are bad, it was just bland.

Here's the Vesperia -bebpo rant I do ever few years when talking about Tales:

Vesperia from a story perspective had the chance to be SO GOOD.  The first half of the game is about this guy, Yuri, who sees that shit is fucked up in the world and government is too corrupt to do anything about it so he makes the decision to cross the line and assassinate people Punisher style for the greater good.  Meanwhile his best friend Flynn is a lawful captain of the knights so obviously you're going to have drama where Flynn believes there should be legal justice and sticking to the book even if it doesn't work, whereas Yuri believes there should be moral justice because the legal system often doesn't work.  The concept right there is 10x more mature and interesting than your typical jrpg story and lead character.  I mean when your usual goody-two shoes jrpg lead goes and MURDERS someone...that really throws off expectations.

The problem is that halfway the game decides to abandon this and become a generic fantasy rpg where all the good guys work together to get the elemental spirits and stop the generic big badguy who probably transforms into a winged angel demon or something by the end.  It's totally boring and does nothing with the premise of the first half.

And since the battle system is basically just a slow, traditional Tales battle system in 3d like Symphonia, the story and characters are really the main drive, so it's a shame that such an interesting story and lead for a jrpg is totally squandered for the second half of the game.  I wish more jrpgs tried to do something interesting with the plot like the first half of Vesperia. 

Although to be fair, the premise for Zestiria is pretty good and original.  It's just a shame Zestiria falls apart even worse than Vesperia by the end.  At least Graces remains consistently dumb from start to finish (and has the best battle system of the 3d ones).

This is true for jrpgs in general.

Final Fantasy VII starts out being about eco-terrorism and blowing up electrical plants to make a statement. It turns into a game about following an emo goth until the main character is controlled into summoning a giant meteor.

Jrpg stories always have great concepts, and rarely great execution of those concepts. There are few exceptions but they're exceptions, not the norm. jrpgs are great for characters story-wise, not plot.

If ToV followed where its characterization and plot were going, Yuri would have killed Estelle when she asked him to. Instead the writers balked. That's the medium you're dealing with, but it's not any different from any other jrpg besides exceptions like SMT1-3, DDS, FFX, Suikoden 2/3, Tactics Ogre, or something.

[Mods Help]

Anyways, ToZ is a good game.

[Human Snorenado]

superior wrpg writing

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Mods Help]

Even wrpgs aren't that much better in terms of writing. Look at Mass Effect for instance. Mass Effect 2 ended with the player fighting a giant robot skeleton from Contra and Shepherd died at the beginnin of the game and it really amounted to nothing. Look at Bethesda plots. Awful. Even wrpgs are full of exceptions.

RPGs in general have bad plots and writing. It's in the genre DNA. What makes RPGs stories good aren't the plots but the characters you spend 40-100 hours with. This has never changed.

[Human Snorenado]

The only rpgs I can remember in recent memory that has what I would call "good" writing are Fallout New Vegas and Witcher 3. It's not a coincidence that both are sprawling, 100 hour long affairs with shades of grey and repercussions for your actions.

I tend to rate wrpg writing higher than jrpg writing because I find the common wrpg tropes less offensive to my intelligence than your standard weeb shit. I swear, one more fucking hundreds of years old being trapped in an oversexed 9 year old girl's body...

[Mods Help]

Yeah, I haven't played Witcher 3, but NV is the only one I'd put in that category as well.

There's Nier but I haven't finished it. I doubt it's as good as people say it is, too.

I find both wrpgs and jrpgs to be about equally as insulting intelligence wise. jrpgs have 1000 year old uguu princesses; wrpgs have 1000 year old blue alien princesses who you can romance and fuck. Most Bioware romance stuff is all equally insulting as the 1000 year old princess trope in my experience. Wrpgs are also equally as masturbatory, and probably more so, on the "you are the chosen one" shit.

[bluemax]

Despite the jackass protag, I thought Tales of the Abyss stayed pretty true to its story the whole way though.

I got bored doing that stupid match maker sidequest part way through.

I don't even like the 2nd half of Vesperia or the battle system all that much, but I'd still say Vesperia is the best Tales game post-PS2.  The series has gone pretty downhill since the PS1/PS2 era.

I beat Vesperia, got most of the achievements and I can't remember shit about it. I do remember getting to the end and not even understanding what I was fighting or why. I guess what I'm saying is unlike most Tales games which are bad, it was just bland.

Here's the Vesperia -bebpo rant I do ever few years when talking about Tales:

Vesperia from a story perspective had the chance to be SO GOOD.  The first half of the game is about this guy, Yuri, who sees that shit is fucked up in the world and government is too corrupt to do anything about it so he makes the decision to cross the line and assassinate people Punisher style for the greater good.  Meanwhile his best friend Flynn is a lawful captain of the knights so obviously you're going to have drama where Flynn believes there should be legal justice and sticking to the book even if it doesn't work, whereas Yuri believes there should be moral justice because the legal system often doesn't work.  The concept right there is 10x more mature and interesting than your typical jrpg story and lead character.  I mean when your usual goody-two shoes jrpg lead goes and MURDERS someone...that really throws off expectations.

The problem is that halfway the game decides to abandon this and become a generic fantasy rpg where all the good guys work together to get the elemental spirits and stop the generic big badguy who probably transforms into a winged angel demon or something by the end.  It's totally boring and does nothing with the premise of the first half.

And since the battle system is basically just a slow, traditional Tales battle system in 3d like Symphonia, the story and characters are really the main drive, so it's a shame that such an interesting story and lead for a jrpg is totally squandered for the second half of the game.  I wish more jrpgs tried to do something interesting with the plot like the first half of Vesperia. 

Although to be fair, the premise for Zestiria is pretty good and original.  It's just a shame Zestiria falls apart even worse than Vesperia by the end.  At least Graces remains consistently dumb from start to finish (and has the best battle system of the 3d ones).

This is true for jrpgs in general.

Final Fantasy VII starts out being about eco-terrorism and blowing up electrical plants to make a statement. It turns into a game about following an emo goth until the main character is controlled into summoning a giant meteor.

Jrpg stories always have great concepts, and rarely great execution of those concepts. There are few exceptions but they're exceptions, not the norm. jrpgs are great for characters story-wise, not plot.

If ToV followed where its characterization and plot were going, Yuri would have killed Estelle when she asked him to. Instead the writers balked. That's the medium you're dealing with, but it's not any different from any other jrpg besides exceptions like SMT1-3, DDS, FFX, Suikoden 2/3, Tactics Ogre, or something.

True, FFT starts out as a game about political intrigue and devolves into find the MacGuffins and defeat the ancient evil.

Another reason why BoF:DQ remains the Goat JRPG. It never waivers.

[Mods Help]

Dragon Quest IV, V, VII, Suikoden 1-3 and 5, Vagrant Story, Tactics Ogre, FF10, SMT2, SMT3, DDS1,  Valkyrie Profile, BoF: DQ, Shadow Hearts 1, are the main jrpgs that have impressed me story wise.

[Mods Help]

The size of the world and city really seem unnecessary. For all of its size, Ladylake has virtually nothing in it. A lot of the games structure so far seems to be about running from a to b to stars on the map. The space feels wasted. It feels like Tales thinks it's AAA and it's going for an FFXII vibe in terms of scope and size, like comparing Rabanestre to Ladylake for example. But it's really not working and traversing is a chore. You accomplish the same thing, but things end up taking a longer time, and for no real reason other than showing larger scale.

Further, the art has suffered. Comparing to Symphonia, Abyss, and especially Vesperia, something has been lost in the art direction. Much like when FF went from static camera in 7-10 and went full 3d in 12. Except Zestiria doesn't pull off the large scale maps nearly as well as FF12. Instead of filling maps with interesting art, it's mostly just a waste of space of boring houses and stuff. And for all the talk of the cities beauty, the locales and camera angles are exceedingly plain. It fully represents the industry's open-world arms race to see who can create the largest, most boring game world ever, and I'm disappointed that Tales fell victim to it.

Here's hoping the next Tales ditches the full 3d thing and goes back to the art direction in Abyss and Vesperia. I doubt it though.

Because I mean comparing Zestiria to Abyss of Vesperia, graphic wise just isn't fair. I'm playing on PS3 and I'd say the graphics are straight ass.

Night and day.

How a Tales game should look like:

[Mods Help]

Alright, impressions.

- Humurous and natural cast. So far it's easily the games biggest positive. The localization is pretty spot on, and while I disagree with certain localized translations, such as changing Disiciple to Squire, it retains the wit and charm of the Japanese script. The cast feel natural in how they off one another, and each new party member adds to the dynamic. Soreh, is, for intents and purposes Monkey D Luffy. He's a goofy moron with a good heart and adventurer spirit. He sees the best in people and this contrasts with the rest of the cast, notably Mikleo.

- Mikleo and Soreh's bond is pretty good. They have an interesting and dynamic relationship that reflects siblings. At first I thought Mikleo was kind of a jerk to Soreh, but he just does playful jabs. It doesn't help that I feel that in some ways the Japanese voice for Mikleo reflects that more. The two of them have a pretty interesting relationship and I'm curious to see if they end up dating because at this point, it's pretty gay and adorable.

- the dialogue has lots of LOL moments. So far, Lailah has the most LOL moments. You think she may be a generic 1000 year old uguu wizard angel chick but no, she's actually this goofy, quirky character. I can't wait to see how the rest of the party feeds off her because she's absolutely hilarious. The character interaction in general is pretty A+ so far and really tickles my jrpg gland which hasn't been tickled in, well, years.

- Really mediocre art direction that I've already gotten into already. He locations are bland and it doesn't feel like a realized world. It's just boring. It sticks out like a sore thumb because the rest of the presentation is top notch.

- so far the battle system is mixed. It's fast but a lot of the options and stuff feel outdated. Like the targeting system, and the fact you have to hold down L2 for free run even though the game is completely 3d now and not on a 2d plane anymore. It feels forced, and makes the controls feel unnatural and obtuse because of that. I'm not finding the new battle system more fun than the old side scroller battle system, either. So far I'm just mashing and mashing and mashing. I've got the battle difficulty on moderate and I'm considering jumping it up Hard. There's some evasion and defense features here, but so far they seem pointless because the game is so mashy and there's so much shit going on, and you fight so many enemies, and the screen is crowded with so many special effects that it almost seems impractical to wait for enemies to attack and evade. I'm not yet convinced that the change to a full 3d system was necessary yet, but I'm open minded. Still, the battle system for what it is, is fun, and the boss fights are cool I guess. But I remember Vesperia offering far more substance to its battle system far sooner than where I am in Zestiria. On top of that, they've added a lot of battle features that complicate battle but aren't exactly explained. Like they talk about S.C. Meter without directly telling you what the hell the meter is for. Or they talk about Blast Guage and you have no idea what that is. They have all of these battle features and I'm not using any of them. Just mash. Feels like it's trying to create a deep system without executing them well.

- the game stricture could use work. The thing where they put a star on the map to tell you where to go all the time is annoying as shit, and makes the game feel more linear and on rails than it really is and there's no way to turn it off.

- music is REALLY good, as expected.

- cities and locations so far seem big for the sake of being big. World map traversal is boring as hell.

- a lot of stuff about this game (I didn't play xillia and my last tales was Vesperia) seem like they're shaking up the formula just to shake up the formula. Rather than perfecting the Tales formula Dragon Quest style, they're trying to fit things in that are out of their element, which lead to a lower quality game.

At the same time, it's such a good game it's hard to give too much of a shit, and I'm sure it'll get better.

[Bebpo]

The star is a blessing.  With these big empty areas and tons of backtracking later on with no real indication of where you should be going next, the star on the mini-map keeps you from dropping the game completely out of boredom later on.

[Mods Help]

Oh thank god. Thanks for the reassurance.

[Mods Help]

Battle system gets much better with more moves. Can still be mindless, but a particular boss in the sewers gave me a couple of retries.

Character interaction remains consistently awesome. The puns!

The story has ups and downs. One moment you're doing political intrigue and assassins, the next minute you're backtracking and thrown off track to do something completely random. The story pacing is atrociously bad. You're supposed to be headed for a town, and earlier you fought a boss who was in the way of the bridge that was broken. Beating the boss allowed the townspeople time to finish the bridge and your destination is on the other side of that bridge. Guess what, the people still aren't fucking done with the bridge. So now you have to side track and talk to some Earth Spirit. The game regularly throws random shit to pad the game. Barely any of it being remotely consequential. It's just excuses to backtrack or side track and inflates the game length. Terrible.

[Trent Dole]

Sounds like a JRPG to me!

[Mods Help]

The silver lining is that the mountain section of the story owned. Edna owns.

[Tasty]

More like Tales of Breastria and I right? 

[Mods Help]

Battle system gets better the more you get used to it but it's not executed well. For one thing, it uses a system that discourages mashing but it doesn't really matter, at least at this point in the game. On the other hand, the game is much more fun when you apparently play the game right, but playing the battles right takes a bit of practice. And since the game comes with no instruction manual it's not like you can read anything that tells how the fuck to play it until you to the right monolith tutorial. So a lot of information is obscured. It's hard to take advantage of side stepping and quick evades amid the combo fury, but you get there. You also end up counting hits. After a three hit combo, you can burst to allow you to continue the combo. It's pretty badass. Problem is that due to the enemy party sizes and lack of space, battlefields are cramped, which, combined with the sometimes Unstable camera, makes for some pretty tedious battling. It really depends but I'm not seeing how this is necessarily better than the classic side scroller battle system. The lack of space, camera issues, and small battlefields really gives the game issues Tales games never had before.

But it's still pretty fun. its still mashy, and the character interaction is still the best part of the game.

Haven't played Xillia and skipped Graces, but I've played a bunch of Tales games and this could probably have the best overall cast in the series despite the fact the main character isn't Yuri Lowell territory who remains the GOAT. I still like Vesperia cast more but at least Zestiria doesn't have a Karol this time!

Edna owns.

[demi]

Game's awesome. JRPGs rule

[Mods Help]

Jrpgs do indeed rule. goat genre. It's not awesome though. It's just good.

[demi]

I think its awesome and my opinion should trigger you

[Mods Help]

I'm definitely triggered.

Team Edna Gang.

[Mods Help]

I'm starting to think the biggest flaw in this game isn't even the battle system but the skill/equipment system. It is fifty shades of awful.

Distilling jrpg game structure 101:

And of course, I'm being side tracked in the story. Again. It's not a jrpg problem, Trent. It's a Tales problem. Jrpgs have a nice consistent formula that is reasonable. Namely, town -> dungeon -> town -> dungeon. The plot isn't even clear in this game despite racking in the hours. Is there even an ultimate goal besides defeating the Calamity guy? What's the plan to beat him? Where are the villains? Compare Sorey to Yuna in FFX. In FFX, your goal is to journey the entire world and visit all the temples of Yevon to gain the Aeons, which will allow you to amass power to fight Sin. Sin is established early and frequent as what rules over Spira and is a great villain to build up. So far, I've seen jack shit of Calamity, any of his minions, or anything, beyond some politicians, and it makes it hard to care. In FFX, you go from temple to temple. Reasoning for going to places, is formerly explained and gives the world texture. In Tales of Zestiria, there is no such end goal besides destroying Malevolence and Calamity, and this speaks nothing of the complete lack of a plan. Instead, the game just wings it.

As an example, I just took out two bosses, one of which was a drake, in the town of Marlind. Surely, if this were any other jrpg, the job would be done, the town cleansed of evil, and I'd continue on to the next town. Nope. Now, apparently there's a large malevolence force in Southwest of Marlind, and I'm forced to go there because.....I'm not sure. Just more padding, as if the game didn't already have plenty as it is.

Despite being on rails, Final Fantasy X's plot is far more engaging and knows what it wants to do. Likewise, the same is true for Tales of Symphonia and it's not on rails at all.

From a writing perspective, the plot of Tales of Zestiria is already ass and I haven't gotten Rose yet. Plodding and inconsistent, it goes on random side notes constantly rather than keeping its eyes on the prize. Comparing this to Vesperia, Symphonia, or even Abyss really makes the game come off badly and makes one wonder why Tales team has apparently lost their shit.

I can already see that this story is going to be a giant mess in the end game. If the early game has padding and pacing this bad, the late game is going to be tedious as fuck.

And the skill/equipment system will still won't be any less ass.

[Bebpo]

The skill/equipment system is bad, but I just stopped caring early on about retaining skills.  But yeah, 99% of the complaints from importers that weren't dumb Alicia whining were about the equipment/skill system.

[Mods Help]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Last night I got to a point where Rose suddenly kicked everything the game had been doing up to that point and spit on it. Not only does she become a Squire, she has the power to Armetize, an ability that, up till now, was unique for Sorey being the Shepherd. Now there's barely any difference between Sorey and Rose. I just met this chick and now I feel like they undermined the entire story they set up. I thought it was getting better, but I ended up turning my PS3 in exhaustion after that boss fight. Talk about awful writing. And the way the game explains it is so hand wavy and banal. The game is perfectly willing to make shit up rather than fit story nearly into its game worlds own rules.

[close]

I think I may have to take this game back. I don't have time nor patience for mediocre games. I only play good games but I haven't liked a new game in years. I really gave it a chance, but I don't like this at all or the direction the game is going. I bought it because past Tales games I played had a traditional rpg vibe despite the side scroller battle system and that was what I was looking for when I bought it. I loved Destiny, Symphonia, and Vesperia, so I figured it was a good shot in the dark. I trusted it because Vesperia was my favorite jrpg last console generation. I heard plenty of "Best Tales game since Vesperia" and that perked me up a bit.

Despite putting about 16 hours into the game, it feels like the game just started. It's almost as bad as FF13 in a way. Yet this is the "best" since Vesperia? Talk about a low ceiling.

This game fully convinces me that the jrpg fanbase is hungry for a modern classic. Instead, you've got a large segment of the fanbase playing, beating, and discussing mediocre Tales games.

I can only hope GameStop gives me my money back. This game is everything wrong with the modern jrpg and I could only recommend it to die hard Tales fans.

Think I may need to retreat back into my "modern games are shit and a waste of time, don't buy any of them" mode of thought aside from Street Fighter and mobile games. I was much happier there. I stepped out of it to give MGSV and Tales of Zestiria a shot. Both of them have shit stories, one has amazing gameplay that gets more dull the more you play it. The other is a boring mediocre sleep aid. Both feel unfinished. I think that's the general theme of games these days: unfinished and boring. I quit games as a hobby for multiple reasons but a game like Tales of Zestiria is one of them. Feels like every time I play a  new game now I'm disappointed. Not sure why I even bother anymore beyond trying to recapture past magic. This past E3 made me feel so happy that I figured it meant I still loved games, and maybe there was still hope, but every time I play a new game I'm left disappointed. I may have to put off buying a new game again until Shenmue III. Nothing has convinced me gaming isn't a waste of time.

[demi]

Bye Felicia

[The Legend of Sunblade]

If anything, you should go a few steps backwards and give Graces a shot Himu. The story is kinda shlocky and nothing to write home about (though it also never tries to scale up to something bigger, so its consistent), but it has the best combat and subsystems in any of the 3D games to make up for it. It's the only Tales that both speedstats and I have liked in a long time, and she has the same opinion of Zestiria as you do.

[Mods Help]

I'll look into it, but at this point, people tell me titles are great games and I play them and think they're shit. At this point, I'm at the cusp of not bothering and just replaying oldies. saints row 4, samurai warriors 4, tales of zestiria, all of these games hailed as great games and I just end up thinking they're average or shit. i don't have it in me to do another test run. especially on a game that is only apparently half good.

Right now, I'm considering the following:

1. playing trails in the sky
2. not playing any games besides street fighter for the time being
3. replaying suikoden v for series 20th anniv

[The Legend of Sunblade]

1. is a good option. Trails is the opposite in to Tales that the gameplay takes a backseat to the great character/world building, though its more than serviceable and it gets even better in Second Chapter and The Third. I'm due for a replay myself in order to get up to speed for SC coming out this week, but its a pretty long game!

Speedstats herself had warned me about how awful Zestiria was when she imported it, so I passed on it like I did both Xillia games. A shame too, since the early previews for Zesty made it seem like it'd have a more medieval setting like the 2D games. FFXIV continues to be the thing to scratch that itch.

[Mods Help]

I'm in the mood for a good story game. Earlier this year I replayed Chrono Cross and Xenogears. I really enjoyed the experience. For gameplay I merely want something serviceable that isn't full of poor explained features like Zestiria.

Seriously though, don't buy Zestiria unless you're the type that is perfectly willing and capable of getting off on gaming for the sake of it. It reminds me of a game Shouta would like. It's like Xenosaga 2, a highly flawed game but then you'll have someone in the corner of the room going,"Xenosaga 2 is a great game! " Don't be that person. Don't buy Tales of Zestiria!

[Bebpo]

Yeah, play Trails.  It's Suikoden with a bit of Xenogears.

[Rahxephon91]

Too late. Bought it!

[mormapope]

I'm in the mood for a good story game.

If you haven't, play Nier. The first one, on your PS3.

Seriously, play it.

[Freyj]

Trails has a great cast and dialogue, but that battle system

[Bebpo]

Trails has a great cast and dialogue, but that battle system

It's good!  Plus you can avoid all standard enemy battles once you get the mini-map quartz stuff.  You hardly have to fight outside of bosses and boss fights are fun and intense with a good battle system.

[Freyj]

Trails has a great cast and dialogue, but that battle system

It's good!  Plus you can avoid all standard enemy battles once you get the mini-map quartz stuff.  You hardly have to fight outside of bosses and boss fights are fun and intense with a good battle system.

It does a lot of things right. I shouldn't be as down on it as I am. The dungeons are generally great, visible and avoidable mobs. I just wish the battle system was less SRPG and more Grandia.

[Great Rumbler]

It's been a while since I played a real JRPG that wasn't just a moe pantsu loli-pandering sim, so I'm really enjoying getting back into it. It fixes some of the problems I had with Xilia and has a fun cast of characters, combat system is pretty smooth and I like the addition of the armetization mechanic for some added flavor [or did other Tales games have something like that? I dunno.]. Anyway, I don't regret buying it at all, so bring on more JRPGs to Steam, Bandai!