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So, last week I beat Vesperia with my girlfriend, and I gatta say, I feel like it was a huge letdown. The buildup of the plot and the characters for most of the game was pretty dern interesting. Yuri himself was one of the most interesting main characters that I've seen in a long while (I mean, he murdered someone. That's effing interesting.)

And then..........this whole spirit thing happened......and before I knew it....the game was over........ It just seems like this game left so much hanging. It could have been so much more interesting. But instead..........meh...

Overall, outstanding game, and overall the finest game in the series so far. But I just hate it when games give me crappy endings, especially RPGs that I've been playing for 60 hours.

HINT: I WANT EPILOGUES, DAMN YOU.

-jay

P.S. The game was stilll a billion times better than FF12.

I've just started this. I'll be sure to comment once I've finished it (assuming I don't get bored and set it down in favour of something explosiony and murderful, that is. I'm cautiously optimistic).

I'd like to see more final dungeons that actually have coherence to the buildup of the plot. Like in ToS, it was Derris-Kharlan. Made sense. And in Abyss, it was Eldrant, which was huge to the entire second half of the game.

But then in ToS2, not only was it a crappy two-minute final dungeon, but also... it just came out of nowhere; same with Vesperia.

The spirit thing made sense to me though, since the whole Yormgen thing with Duke about those big shiny crystal things (it's been awhile); but the final dungeon, though awesomely designed and fun to go through, was like... wut this has nothing to do with the previous plot..

Aside from that though, agreed on the Yuri thing. A vigilante hero is pretty dang awesome. I think he's one of my favorite Tales of characters.

Also what is it with these games and having some little, generally obnoxious kid hanging out with the rest of the group? Genis, Anise, Karol, etc. [/randomthought]

I also think it was cool the way they left the whole thing about Yormgen totally open and mysterious. Though it would've been nice to go more into depth. Maybe there's a sidequest somewhere or something.

See, my problem with the game is that they built up all of this interesting stuff (Yuri's vigilantism, his relationship with Flynn, etc) and they never really *went* anywhere with it. It was like halfway through the game they forgot to continue developing the characters. We had Yuri murder two people (well, one person, really, the other person was just a moron) and then........it's like everyone (including Yuri) forgot about Yuri's murdering ways. It would have been interesting if they did something with that or developed it a little more..... There was no consequences for later in the story. There were no building climaxes.

Oh, another thing I was bummed out about was the lack of any real plot twists. Besides the whole Raven thing, the game lacked plot twists. I kept expecting to see some twist that never game.

Like I said though...overall fun game. Most polished in the series. I'm playing ToS with my girlfriend now (since Vesperia was her first Tales game) and I keep getting annoyed at how the battle camera won't let me see what I'm doing... (since I'm player two)... heh.

-jay

The story of the game is really the downfall. Jay, tell me, am I the only one who thinks they should have tried to iron a few things out first? It seems almost like they're jumping from villain-to-villain with no real build-up

Granted, Zagi really doesn't need that much. (I should change my avatar to Zagi...he ties with Kefka as my #1 villain because we NEED more serial-killer types!) And Barbos actually did have some build-up into a power-hungry monster who wants to wield a chainsaw sword and take over the Guidls. But Alexei IMO sort of just came out of nowhere. I can understand maybe if they wanted to have it more from the viewpoint of Yuri&Co. Which would make sense, since Alexei really wouldn't have had any reason to go after the party if Raven weren't really Schwann and would have delivered Estelle to him. I felt the guards actually were a very nice touch, since they as well as Alexei were constantly guarding Estelle and she couldn't have forced her way out without getting swarmed (Because you know she can fight, she's probably a little more comparable to a paladin) Especially since Alexei is such a powerful opponent with a Brilliant Cataclysm fetish.

Bonus points do go to Duke though....he's not the first Tales of villain to save the day (Shizel comes to her senses at the end of Eternia) but he still is the first tales of villain to actually survive and not stay with his ideals towards the very end like a specific One who Siezes Glory, Half-Elf in glasses, Disco Lord Yggdrasil, Disco Dhaos, and plenty of others do. Of course you can still tell he was gonna be the villain simply because they want to replace the "Blonde Villain" with the "White-haired villain". (The only villain in this game who had any amount of blonde was Zagi...the rest were either white or grayed with age)

Jay, they actually did do a few things with the murders. Flynn knew Yuri was behind Cumore (and probably Ragou too at first) and in fact the Tweedles came and said that Yuri either had the option of rejoining the knights or getting another bounty put on his head but they really should have developed that more.

And plot twists....they should have at least made Raven's at least be a little more interesting. I mean, seriously, he suddenly goes "Sorry guys, i'm Schwann...BLAST HEART! OH NOES!!! Quick, I must be the obligatory character who sacrifices himself" and then you think he's gone.
...and then all of a sudden, he's back not ten minutes later saying "Hey wazzup guys and pretty ladies?" and they just conk him on the head and he's forgiven. Shouldn't they be especially wary of him, and not just the women because the know he's a double agent for the empire AND the Guilds? oh well but he's with them so there's nothing he coudl do unless he sneaks off at Myorzo.

Regarding the little kids...You know Anise isn't that annoying, she actually still acts like a greedy 13-year-old and grows up, same with Karol. You can tell the writers loved Karol and had plenty of ideas for him. Not so much with Rita though, maybe they just wanted to have her be some kind of researcher with pyromania. Though her temper does subside at the end.

I think the gameplay here is still one of hte best in the series next to Tales of Destiny Remake's, and maybe Tales of Hearts which was made by teh same people. (I wouldn't know how it works though....since Namco Bandai and the companies that make Tales of are hate America and EUrope and no one wants to purchase it and distribute it outside of Japan to those of us who don't know Japanese or want to import it...) Jay, I really don't blame you for being unable to adjust to Symphonia again, because it's really awkward and they really should have just put in Free-run from the start. It was really just an experiment that worked for the time but it hasn't aged well. now I'm addicted to free-run or even Tales of legendia's battle system. (Which is more or less the same as Eternia)
(Just don't try playing Tales of Destiny PSX or Tales of Phantasia...you'd REALLY notice how spoiled you've been considering how chuggy those games' battle systems are)

This is one of my favourite games and it easily dethroned Tales of the Abyss as being my favourite one in the series, and that's even taking out the "first ones I played" effect like what Legendia and Eternia had. The skill system worked just perfectly in this game, you had to actually pick which ones you wanted, and weapons would give you free-skills so there was a reason to actually keep that axe even though that sword is slightly more powerful but you already have those skills equipped and they're cheap. Unlike Tales of the Abyss that just gave oyu all the skills and your characters just wound up being super buffed. It was more like Final Fantasy IX's, though tailored to fit Tales of.

Like I said though...overall fun game. Most polished in the series. I'm playing ToS with my girlfriend now (since Vesperia was her first Tales game) and I keep getting annoyed at how the battle camera won't let me see what I'm doing... (since I'm player two)... heh.

Oh god, second player sucks in ToS. And to top it all off, no free run. LAAAME.

Anyway, about the whole Raven thing... agreed. There was that epic death scene and then suddenly OHAI GAIZ IM BAAAAAAKK. It was just like.... wut.

I didn't mind Alexei as a villain at all. I don't remember incredibly much but I do remember it making sense, unless my brain is failing and I'm dying of premature Alzheimer's.

Duke was fine too. He even posed with the happy squirrels at the end. Aww. :{P

I don't MIND Anise as a character at all, and hell she's money-grubbing because her dad is a retard and got tricked into debt. Still, you have to admit that she can be annoying at parts. Karol, same thing-- really well-developed character, still was obnoxious and made me want to shoot myself. :{P

I loved the battle system for this game too.. it had the free run Abyss and made it a lot less cheap, by slowing the characters down and the AD skills only equippable a few at a time.

This was a really awesome game, though. Woo for fighting doggies. :{D

There was maybe one or two hints that Alexei was going to be evil with how he said "Schwann I have a job for you." He still seems to have just.."...uhhhh where did You come from?"

Eh, I don't remember it bugging me at all. *shrug*

MustacheLady wrote:Anyway, about the whole Raven thing... agreed. There was that epic death scene and then suddenly OHAI GAIZ IM BAAAAAAKK. It was just like.... wut.

Yeah, that did bug me a lot too. Way too quick of a turn-around (from going from Spy -> Dead -> I'm back and in your party yay!). Could have been handled a lot better. Still, it was the only interesting plot twist in the game.

And yeah, the "going from bad guy to bad guy" was a bit strange at times, but overall I feel the bad guys (Alexei, Duke, etc.) were handled a lot better than in most games. (AKA classic Final Fantasy 'OMG, I'm NEO-EX-DEATH-YEVEN-ZERIMUS-IN-THE-MORNING, I'm the REAL bad guy all along! Hahaha!', which pisses me off to no end.)

Duke overall was a fun bad guy and fitting for the final boss. I just loved how he gives Yuri that sword (Dain Nomos?), and then randomly, a while later, he just shows up in some town and is like, 'Ok, give me my sword back', and just takes it, hehe.

-jay

yeah, TAles of has had better villains, they don't usually just pull space fleas out of nowhere or just throw "zomg I'm the villain you gotta kill me now"

Out of curiosity, have you beaten the Radiant Winged one? That was a VERY fun battle...although hard.

Sim Kid wrote:Out of curiosity, have you beaten the Radiant Winged one?

Como?

-jay

The Radiant Winged one is basically this game's version of Culex or Sephiroth or Nebilim. (I'd say Abyssion but it's possible to solo Abyssion with Raine and level 9 colettes he's so easy)
except that unlike those, he shows up right AFTER the first two phases of the final form. If you thought that Duke's 2nd form was hard, then think again. This is going to be the hardest opponent in the game, and the hardest final boss in the Tales of series since Miktran in Destiny Remake.


IN case you don't want to over-level then I would recommend, once you got the 7 fell arms and spoke to Flynn at the final town, to set the game on easy because even on easy he's hard enough. Harder to spell-cancel, very stun resistant, jumps around, heals himself with healing circle, and his mystic artes. At least once he'll use Brave Vesperia, which is basically the deadliest Mystic Arte in the game. (Worse than Brilliant Cataclysm but he at least doesn't spam it like Alexei does) On top of Brave Vesperia, he will also use Big Bang...and not just once or twice like Duke's 2nd form, when I last fought him he used it SEVEN TIMES. (Make sure you have a lot of treats and if someone's controlling Raven, then use Love Shot IMMEDIATELY since it reduces you to just 1 HP. Brave Vesperia on the other hand can kill you since it's not just one big damage burst)


and you'd basicallyw anna look up a game guide to get the fell arms. I don't remember where 4 of them are.

^ I was saving that for my second playthrough because there is no doubt in my mind that I'll play the game again.

Also I hate it when they give the bad guys healing artes. It made me angry in ToS2 when the enemies kept healing themselves, making it impossible to kill them before they'd have half of their HP back again.

That's part of why they didn't. Imagine if Nereid healed in Tales of eternia. (She had 300,000 HP in a game where 120,000 is already a lot)

I love fighting random battles with the gag weapons you get in these games.

Lke the frisbees for Colette, the yo-yo for Rita, the spoon/lollipop for Anise/Tear, the table knife for Guy/Luke, the deck brush/fork for Jade, et cetera.

I was REALLY close to beating Legretta on Eldrant with just those weapons attached too. It took FOREVER and in the end she killed me. Blastit. x{D

(I forgot to unequip them and didn't realize it until halfway through the battle.... when I figured out she wasn't dying.)