Tales of Zestiria - PS3/PS4/PC

[magus]

well this said "1 day left" 23 hours ago so...

http://next.tales-ch.jp/

wait,why do i even care? tales of game have sucked since vesperia!

[Great Rumbler]

lol wrong

[demi]

Official Website

Low quality trailer here. HD trailer on the 21st (Jump Festa).

Main characters named Slay (CV: Ryohei Kimura) and Alicia/Alisha (CV: Ai Kayano). Slay was designed by Fujishima, and Alicia/Alisha by Okumura.



- Zestiria refers to "Zest", meaning passion or zeal;
- Game has character designs from Inomata, Fujishima, Okumura, and Iwamoto;
- Seems to be more "open-world" and to have "bigger fields";
- Takes place on the continent of Greenwood;
- War between the Highland Kingdom and the Lawrence Empire;
- Baba says that they built the new LMBS based on surveys asking what system fans enjoyed the most;
- The story will revolve around the subject of “dragons,” which is also the reason why it’s shown in the logo of the new title. According to Baba, dragons symbolize fantasy, which is something they’d like to focus on for the upcoming title;
- UFOTABLE confirmed;
- Hikaru Kondo, producer of Japanese animation studio Ufotable, who worked on the Tales of Symphonia OVAs, will also be involved in the development of Tales of Zestiria;

[Cerveza mas fina]

too much uguu

[Great Rumbler]

Will buy.

Edit: I'm glad that added side-step back into the combat. I liked that about Graces F, but was disappointed that it wasn't a part of Xillia.

[Joe Molotov]

You're not fully clean unless you're Zestiria clean!

[MCD]

the battles seem more solo? interesting.

[Himu]

Buy.

[Human Snorenado]

PS3 keeps delivering

[Mr. Gundam]

The system that was thought to be DOA now refuses to die.

[demi]

Apparently it's going to be a "worldwide" release - no more "Fuk I wish I was japanese"


Himuro owned

[Rahxephon91]

Can't be worse than Xillia and Graces. When they say open enviorments well I'm catious. The enviorments in the Xilla games are terribly bland. If they had problems with a smaller world, well I don't know about a bigger more open world.

And disappointed its more generic Tales fantasy. Tales games kind of blend together at this point. Xilla 2 was somewhat of a change. Was hoping they would follow up on that.

[Mr. Gundam]

Apparently it's going to be a "worldwide" release - no more "Fuk I wish I was japanese"


Himuro owned

He'll have moved on to something else by the time it comes out.

[Madrun Badrun]

I'm playing graces now.  Battles are fun but other than that it seems a lot worse than Vesperia.  Will wait and see if I'm tales out after the Xialaiakaa

[MCD]

Graces = best Tales battle system. everything else is shite.

[Mr. Gundam]

I'm playing graces now.  Battles are fun but other than that it seems a lot worse than Vesperia.  Will wait and see if I'm tales out after the Xialaiakaa

I thought the battle system in Graces was awesome, but the story and characters were pretty awful a lot of the time.

[Human Snorenado]

I'm playing graces now.  Battles are fun but other than that it seems a lot worse than Vesperia.  Will wait and see if I'm tales out after the Xialaiakaa

I thought the battle system in Graces was awesome, but the story and characters were pretty awful a lot of the time.

Awful characters and story in a jrpg? I don't believe this news.

[Mr. Gundam]

I'm playing graces now.  Battles are fun but other than that it seems a lot worse than Vesperia.  Will wait and see if I'm tales out after the Xialaiakaa

I thought the battle system in Graces was awesome, but the story and characters were pretty awful a lot of the time.

Awful characters and story in a jrpg? I don't believe this news.

Shocking, I know!

Vesperia is still the best Tales game this gen.

[Great Rumbler]

I like the story/characters in Xillia more, but the combat was better in Graces.

[Human Snorenado]

Will these games ever get to $20? Like, I want to play them. I just don't want to $35+ play them.

[demi]

Xillia was $20 for BF...

[Human Snorenado]

I was drunk!

[magus]

- big open field
- bland looking hero
- heroine that he has to protect
- evil empire plot
- tales

[Joe Molotov]

- big open field
- bland looking hero
- heroine that he has to protect
- evil empire plot
- tales

Sounds like Hyper Dimension Neptunia might be the game you're looking for.

[Rahxephon91]

You're right magus. The mc looks even more bland then Jude. These Tales games need a shake up.

[demi]

Nah, they make good comfort food.

[Mr. Gundam]

Nah, they make good comfort food.

That's a great way to describe them. They may have terrible cringe worthy stories at times, but damn if random battles and stats aren't comforting.

[Himu]

Apparently it's going to be a "worldwide" release - no more "Fuk I wish I was japanese"


Himuro owned

He'll have moved on to something else by the time it comes out.

Seriously? I have been diligent with my stuff since May of this year. This post really hurt my feelings more than it should have. Fuck you.

[Damian79]

I really tried with this series, but i could never have the heart to complete them.   I always get bored half way through.

[Mr. Gundam]

Apparently it's going to be a "worldwide" release - no more "Fuk I wish I was japanese"


Himuro owned

He'll have moved on to something else by the time it comes out.

Seriously? I have been diligent with my stuff since May of this year. This post really hurt my feelings more than it should have. Fuck you.

Sorry man, wasn't meant to be personal.

[Bebpo]

(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)

That field looks so empty...just like Xillia fields... 

I realllly don't think Tales guys know how to do open world FFXII/Xenoblade rpg yet.  They should stick to linear stuff.

[mjemirzian]

Looks decent, I have a feeling I'll be playing my PS3 way more than my PS4 next year. Huge backlog + new games still incoming.

[tiesto]

Looks awesome, love the Tales series... and another reason to put off a PS4 purchase...

[Great Rumbler]

(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)

That field looks so empty...just like Xillia fields... 

I realllly don't think Tales guys know how to do open world FFXII/Xenoblade rpg yet.  They should stick to linear stuff.

If the fields are gonna be empty like in Xillia, I'd rather they do it open world instead of hemming everything in with massive rock cliffs everywhere.

[Freyj]

I'd rather have a World Map back than deal with more "fields" like Xillia (and Graces? honestly I don't remember).

Same boring shit recolored 25 different ways.

[Himu]

Tales maps are atrocious so this is only good news.

[Rahxephon91]

After Xillia. I don't know about that.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, Himuro, did you play Xillia?  Open maps were part of the games problems not improvements.

[Himu]

Not yet.

[Great Rumbler]

2-minute promo:

[Himu]

Love the design of the main chick. The dude is terrible though.

[Great Rumbler]

The dude is terrible though.

This is endemic of the vast majority of anime and anime-style games, the main male lead ends up being the least interesting character.

[Rahxephon91]

Go Shiina is working on some of th music apparently. So that's great news. This one may have an actual good ost.

[MCD]

YAPARIII

[Tasty]

The system that was thought to be DOA now refuses to die.

Weeeooo?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

You do know what DOA means, rite?

[close]

[Human Snorenado]

PS3 was supposed to be DOA, a stillbirth if you will.

Weeeeoooo was a down's baby that the parents found out about and still decided to bring into this world.

[SpeedStats]

Game's out on January 22nd, 2015 in Japan.

Not sure if I'm going to pick it up yet.  But hi, they've made hi-ougis preorder content now because everyone bought costumes for the last few games and they figured they can get away with taking some attacks out and making them DLC instead.

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

It's at the bottom. You get one of the four phone straps, and a code for three characters' hi-ougis if you preorder the game in Japan (going to guess they're going to be secondary to their actual/main hi-ougis).

 

blahblahblah scamco "you should've expected namco would do this" blahblahblah, but I'm just... I dunno.  It feels weird and disappointing when they're actual attacks.  I used to joke about them deciding to do that, but now that they have, it sucks.

[Trent Dole]

Maximum evil!

[Great Rumbler]

PC port and English PS3 version are out in about a week and a half. Anybody try the import version?

[Bebpo]

I wrote a review somewhere, I'll try to find it.  Basically the first half is good and then the game and story completely fall apart and the game feels unfinished like what was the point of the entire story and why do I care?

[Bebpo]

Found it:

Non-spoiler final impressions:

+Graphics - Great visuals hidden under awful IQ and performance issues. Funny story: I never even realized the game had detailed ground textures until a cutscene where the camera was pointed down at the cast from the air and suddenly the ground was super sharp and detailed in design. Because without any AF, it just looks like PS2 ground textures of colored blur while running around. I think this is probably the worst I've ever seen lack of AF affect visuals and seriously I feel sorry for the texture artists who made all the varied and detailed grounds since no one actually sees them in the game! The cell-shading is actually VERY good. they use a style similar to Vesperia that almost looks like anime in motion at times. If you just squint a little to throw off lack of AA jaggies, it's quite impressive. I'm confident that at 1080p with AA that game will look better than Vesperia and be the best looking 3d Tales game to date. Game also has serious performance problems with streaming in enemies/attacks and so you get drops from 30fps all the time. It never really effects gameplay but it's a blemish overall. Plus 30fps battles is a step back for a series that's used to having 60fps. So for PS3 I'd give the graphics a C, but the underlying art is so good that I think on PC or PS4 at 1080p with AA, AF & locked 30fps or 60fps, this will be a gorgeous A quality graphics game.

Sound: I'm seperating this from music, because the sound mix is screwed up for some reason. It always feel like all the levels are off between battle/field/story and you can't really fix it through adjustment. Was pretty annoying! Apparently the team needs to hire a sound engineer! This gets a C ><

Music: 2nd best Tales score behind Legendia. It's a good ost, with some great tracks and a few amazing tracks. Takes after the FFXIII-2 school in some way with vocal tracks that don't really fit the scenes at all, but hey it's cool having vocal tracks. Overall though don't expect Legendia quality. This isn't a soundtrack you'll listen to for years outside of the game. It's just a fairly good soundtrack and that's especially rare for Tales. B here.

Battles: Good, not great. Takes Graces battle system and takes it in a new linked direction (I'm guessing because they liked that aspect of Xillia?) which makes it feel unique and not just a Graces copy. But for all the complexities, too many battles basically consisted of mashing O x 4 over and over. By making the non-ougi O attacks actually real damage attacks means sometimes there's not even as much incentive as the old O x 3, X combos to mix it up. The element system is too big of deal imo because it turns every battle into just doing the 1 elemental combo combined with some ougis to maximize damage. I do like the idea that you only have to start a combo with an elemental hit and then you're free to free-form your own combo, but sometimes with all the enemy blocking and stuff you don't know which hit will actually connect so you just stick to a full chain of elemental attacks in the weakpoint element. But overall, it's a good battle system, not a great one that is a bit boring in the endgame and Graces did it better. B here.

Gameplay outside battle: Fairly good throwback gameplay the PS2 days of Tales. You have lots and lots of skits, tons of optional content from sidequests to hidden ougis and even hidden villages. It's a small world but there's a lot of parts to it from dungeons to towns, fields, temples to destroyed villages. Optional bosses are everywhere. Dungeons are ok, a couple of good ones, one annoying one, and a bunch of ok ones. They're not a linear line and occasionally they do have puzzles, but they don't really require a brain. The fields have a few interesting things, but some traditional stuff is missing like a real Arena (instead split up into little mini-solo challenges around). Cooking is worse than usual, equipment system tries to be original but is pretty terrible; luckily can be completely ignored and new equipment simply gotten through new shops or enemy drops. Overall there's some hits, some misses, but it's a solid B.

Characters: Splitting this from narrative. This group is great, no question. No lame stereotype characters in your party. No emo/angst bullshit in your party. Main character is a good dude who even if he's not dripping with personality, is interesting enough and likeable. Support playable cast is excellent. I'm not going to talk about antagonists here, because I want to give the main cast an A.

Narrative: Yikes. The narrative is awful in Zestiria. And it's not that kind of usual Tales "We're marrying furries" awful concept. The first 20-25 hours are actually deceptively good because the story has a good concept to it and as I said above the cast is great. But when it falls apart, it falls hard. By the end of the story, the story has no idea what the heck it wanted to be. There's contradicting themes left and right, characters who the game doesn't know what to do with, a backstory which is really uninteresting and a group of antagonists that have no real development and are awful. The narrative also has pacing issues after the first half where suddenly the game loses focus and instead of going on an adventure you're forced to run around doing sidequests before getting to the pressing matter at hand. It starts subplots, they'll disappear for 25 hours, and come back for a rushed cutscene conclusion out of nowhere, or just will never go anywhere with them. Something just feels really really off about the narrative. Like as if a huge portion of the game fell onto the cutting room floor aka the 2nd half of FFXII. The game does feel rushed, so maybe the game needed another year or development but the publisher said "we need our bi-yearly Tales game", or maybe stuff was cut out to be repackaged as DLC or a director's cut, or maybe the team just put their bet on the wrong horse and went with a script that wasn't very good. But it's a shame, because the first half is great and engaging and so it's a huge letdown when the 2nd half not only doesn't live up to the potential, but is just flat out bad and confusing. Narrative gets a D.

Length: Good length, the main game is about 35 hours, but doing all the side content will easily make that go to 50 hours and that's not including the post-game dungeon or bonus episode DLCs. The problem is the pacing of the main story is great for 25 hours and then not great for about 10 hours. Pacing issues aside this would get an A, but pacing included it's a C.

Overall Zestiria is an alright game that misses its potential. There's a good B-tier game in there that's unfortunately dominated by the ever present D-tier narrative which undermines the overall experience in the 2nd half. It's sad because the cast is good, the concept is good and if they had a better script it'd be a quality rpg worth playing, especially with the good soundtrack, solid battle system, great cast and good cell-shading. While the game underneath is still a quality game and there's lots of good old-school content to be had, it's hard to recommend the game to anyone other than die-hard Tales fans because it sure as heck won't give a good impression of the series to anyone else.

Honestly, I have to go entirely off my post at the time because even though I just played the game less than a year ago I don't remember a thing about it.  It was a very, very non-memorable Tales game.

[Freyj]

Honestly if the Dungeons, Fields, etc. are an improvement over the PS3 era Tales games I'll give it a go. I can't do another Graces or Xillia style dungeon / field.

As far as the narrative, everything since Vesperia has been a solid D- so that's a wash.

The last couple of games taught me that I can't trust the average weeb's opinion anymore.

[Bebpo]

Honestly if the Dungeons, Fields, etc. are an improvement over the PS3 era Tales games I'll give it a go. I can't do another Graces or Xillia style dungeon / field.

As far as the narrative, everything since Vesperia has been a solid D- so that's a wash.

The last couple of games taught me that I can't trust the average weeb's opinion anymore.

Well to be fair I couldn't make it through Xillia for exactly that reason and I never played Xillia 2.  Zestiria is more compelling, somewhat better fields, somewhat better dungeons (there's a lot of bland dungeons, but there's a handful of real dungeons as well), but the 2nd half of Zestiria is probably worse than whatever is in Xillia/Xillia 2.  Zestiria really feels like the next step, improved update to Xillia which makes each of Xillia's gameplay systems one degree better, but then in a totally separate matter Zestiria has that MGSV Chapter 2 feel where it feels like something went terribly wrong in production and the game is unfinished and just completely falls apart like almost no other game I've ever seen in the 2nd half.  This isn't like Vesperia where the story just gets generic and dumb in the 2nd half, Zestiria gets...weird and unfinished in the 2nd half.  Like I said in my impressions the first half is 25 or so hours and the 2nd half is 10 or so hours.  I'm guessing it was supposed to be more of a 50 hour 25/25 game and a lot got cut and so stuff just doesn't flow at all or make much sense in the scheme of things.

[suppadoopa]

ToZ is an alright tales game.

Nothing too special, I gave up on the main story and I just kept playing Alisha's DLC story.

she has a kicking battle theme

[Trent Dole]

Sounds like this is a 'wait for a sale' type game more than a 'throw 50 bones at asap' type deal.

[suppadoopa]

All tales games are like that imo.

ToZ had potential but it felt a bit rushed like ToX.

[Trent Dole]

I got Vesperia for around 30-40 after the fact from people's raves on here, I'd have thrown $60 at that one but apparently it's the best of the bunch by far. See you next summer Zestria.

[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.

[Trent Dole]

I'll admit at some point 1/2-2/3 of the way through I said the hell with grinding and dialed it down to easy. Ain't got time for that shit no more.

[The Legend of Sunblade]

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