Tell me how much more please? I kinda fell out of the loop of these games, since i mean playing tales of symphonia chronicles on ps3 and, tales of the abyss, i did wanna play tales of vesperia, but didn't get to, then i skiped tales of xillia cause umm.... well what the heck was that. So i mean what kind of goodness should i expect from this one?
As i said, i am already impressed how it looks (No i don't mean the woman bears all cleavage to the world) But no fixed camera like old SNES games, 6 peoples battle system and that improved skits conversations as well as 60FPS make me wanna shed tears.
Battle system is like Graces, and zesty rather than the other games. In comparison to zesty, battle system has a LOT more meat for people who play on harder difficulties with little intricacies added the further you get. But by contrast simple/normal keep the battle system, well, simple. Zestiria's problems were that of balance and the extremely long start up for the gameplay to stop being mundane.
Actually, whereas Zesty felt super methodical and repetitive, Beseria feels way more dynamic in it's gameplay, characters feel different from each other and break soul adds to that variety and also changes around the flow of battles. Actually comboing here is far more viable too and is just so much fun to pull off, especially since you can customize arte tree and break souls allow you to continue your combo, so does switching to a reserve character.
Ahh... I could rant about Berseria's gameplay for ages
but that should be enough to give you an idea.
Story wise it's written a lot better, as are the characters. Character interactions feels way more organic this time around like your typical tales game, something I felt was sorely lacking in zesty.
Camera, oh yes, because it's not fixed you dont have camera derps like in zesty, but you can always get the camera infront of your character by pressing the guard button (something that bothers me when watching english gameplay footage since at worst the right stick scrolling feels a little too slow by default).
6 characters plays like Xillia 1, Zestiria or somewhat similar to the likes of Final Fantasy X I guess, in that you have 4 characters (3 in ffx's case) in battle and you can sub one you have out for another, except here it will continue your combo.
Skit's are an evolution of team destiny's style I guess. 60FPS is really nice and the battle system works best at the higher fps since the system in tales has always been pseudo fighting game. Shame that Zesty was locked to 30fps because the game would
glitch up around an npc's event not ending and thus not giving you control outside of movement.
Symphonia Chronicles, or specificially it's symphonia 1 was also locked at 30fps (being based on the ps2 version) but tales of games (at least as far as the main series is concerned) usually ran at 60fps (at least for battles) so it's great to see that here (if we got the ps3 version that one also runs at 30, but I digress).
Vesperia had a slow start but has one of the deeper systems in the series. And Tales of Xillia was Jude backstep majinken spam happy fun time until you got aerial combo happy fun time, while it's bosses weren't too fun normal enemies were.
@Sonic Angel KnightI suppose I'll be preordering the Steam version. Would have waited for a steep discount months later, but
@FrozenIndignatio seems pretty assured of how great this game is gonna be.
And if you don't I'm gonna gift you it
muahahahaha
The maximum combo length defaults at 3, but can be increased during battle by performing certain actions, and picking up the blast soul that appears on the field afterward to extend your combo by 1. Using special techniques, you also reduce your max combo count. Zestiria's weaknesses also appear to be in full effect here as well, with enemies resisting stagger and much damage if the right element isn't used on them. Artes don't appear to have differing hitboxes or special effects like topple or juggling. Free-run is now always active, with the right stick controlling the camera.
All in all... it's pretty damn hard for me to be optimistic about a system so drastically cut-down and simplistic. I mean, Zestiria was repetitive as hell because of its limited arte pool and obtrusive weakness system; now they've kept the weakness focus and further cut down on the arte freedom and I'm supposed to be excited for that?
To go in particulars, it starts off defaulting at 3 but default can be raised later, as can the maximum soul of 5 (common actions to gain more soul IN BATTLE for those who are curious, is defeating an enemy in battle, stunning them, or using a perfect dodge. You actually increase this surprisingly often in regular battles). But that's more or less the combo string, it would be erroneous to say that's what you're limited to for combo potential.
Those special techniques you mention, soul break, are character specific actions that do indeed reduce your combo string by 1, but also allow you to continue your combo with a fresh string (at least in Velvet's and Aizen's case). Velvet in particular can endlessly combo theoretically if you play her right which is quite amusing to do on basic mobs. Weakness system is SLIGHTLY like Zestiria's, (or a nerfed version of graces >_> ) except unlike either of those one needs to hit ALL the weaknesses for subsequent artes to do bonus damage, but the weakness system also behaves differently on lower difficulties, with it absolutely gone on simple mode. Artes DO have differing hitboxes and topple (especially for Aizen) and juggling both come in here but not to the same extent or prominence as the likes of Vesperia, or Symphonia 2, or Innocence (not R) or Xillia 1/2. Free-run is default here but you'll still need to rely on blocking and guarding to not die on harder difficulties, and when you do it plays like Graces.
I realize it's hard to be optimistic after Zestiria, but the arte pool here is far wider (though I still think it's stupid to tie arte learning to leveling) there's far more combo potential and the weakness system that Graces introduced and Xillia 2 reintroduced is refined here. While it does limit your freedom until you break all of an enemies's weaknesses, the temporary bonus works even for artes that an enemy isn't weak to.
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