lumberbaron

Tales of Graces f

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So I bought this game on the strength of my love for Tales of Vesperia, and while I am not disappointed with the mechanics of the game I kind of hate about half the people in my party at all times. The more I think about it, I have started to come to the conclusion that some of the only reasons I play JRPGs is because I like how they play, but not always the story that they push forward (with the rare exception).

Guess I was just wondering how everyone else was feeling about this game.

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A fair warning might be in place that you won't find a huge contingency of JRPG followers in this place.

I've dabbled in the Tales series myself and am currently playing through Tales of Vesperia at a friend's. I'm doing Game+, which amounts to one-hitting all the encounters. I hate random battles, it's such a waste of time. I'm only there to experience the setting and story, which are extremely pulpy, but pretty enjoyable if you're playing through it with a friend and constantly commenting on it.

The friend in question is really big on JRPG's, by the way, but even she isn't too thrilled by Tales of Graces f. It's probably just a mediocre game in a genre that's already not particularly exciting.

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Hey! Hey! I like JRPG's! Sometimes, i mean... It depends on the game. I like the Tales series though.

Anyways, i haven't played Graces and have no real desire to, it's been my understanding that it was one of the lesser flagship outings for the series.

I'm pretty thrilled to hear that Xillia is probably coming over next, the buzz around that one was very positive, people seemed to like that game an awful lot. There's a remake of Abyss out for the 3DS right now too, i've always heard positive things about that game, but never played it.

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What's with the F?

Sorry to be completely dismissive, but this looks like the same shit they've been making for 15 years now. I did always like their combat systems, but when I look at this game... Sorry to say, but I feel too old for this.

Man, I never thought I would ever say that...

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What's with the F?

I don't know specifically what it's intended to mean, but it's to differentiate it from the first version of the game that had been released on the Wii.

Sorry to be completely dismissive, but this looks like the same shit they've been making for 15 years now.

Well, ten years. The same shit they've been making for ten years. The current set of game systems the Tales series is built around was introduced with Symphonia.

I did always like their combat systems, but when I look at this game... Sorry to say, but I feel too old for this.

Man, I never thought I would ever say that...

Graces probably isn't the game to be judging the Tales series by, given what i've been hearing about it.

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I played Tales of Symphonia, the battle system was a lot of fun. Everything else was terrible. The plot was laugh out load terrible, and then I heard people saying that it was lifted directly from FF10!

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Well, ten years. The same shit they've been making for ten years. The current set of game systems the Tales series is built around was introduced with Symphonia.

Which were based of Phantasia, which is well over 15 years ago. My gripes are not with the games' systems, my gripes are with most everything else. The (probably) godawful trope-filled jdrama bullshit story that seems to be the standard in jrpg's since forever, the annoying "cute" characters and just the way the characters look is a huge turn off. It's basically the same reason why I seem to hate all anime nowadays.

I feel a little bitter, because I grew up on these games and they didn't grow up with me. It's a shame, because this one and that Xillia one look gorgeous. Except the characters; they look stupid. Especially her.

tl;dr: It's not for me anymore. :grin:

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Especially her.

I'm probably more tolerant of Japanese character design than a lot of people here, but... man. That screenshot is hideous, and entirely because of that one girl.

They managed to make her stick out like the sorest, most disease-ridden thumb possible.

The guy is wearing something stupid-looking too, but compared to his female companion he looks great.

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I've dabbled in the Tales series myself and am currently playing through Tales of Vesperia at a friend's.

Vesperia is probably the best in the series, plot wise. Around a 1/3 of the way through the game it changes tone pretty heavily.

The f in Tales of Graces is referring to the new "future" story arch that they added at the end of the game. Not there yet but it is said to be 10 or 20 hours of additional content.

I don't hate Graces at all, but I really do have to say that it is a massive step back from most of the other games. It sort of has the feeling that they had a B team working on it while everyone else was doing something else. All of the characters are cliched to hell and back and the plot feels like it was leftover parts of better games.

Strangely I can't seem to stop playing it.

Also I love that image because there are two people in the background acting like nothing is going on in front of them. Got to love well placed NPCs.

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I was a huge fan of Tales of Symphonia and Abyss. I played Vesperia, but I never really got into it. I'm on the fence on Graces. If I didn't already have a huge backlog, I might consider it more seriously.

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I played Tales of Symphonia with 3-4 friends and it was fun, but a lot of that was because of how bad the writing was. I remember one part where they were sitting around the camp fire and Lloyd(?) gives Collette (?) a cup and they have some conversation where he says the cup is hot, then it's cold and then it's hot. The point was she couldn't feel anything, but it was so stupid I loved it. It's the only Tales game I've played and I didn't realize that it was 8 years old at this point.

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It's a shame, because this one and that Xillia one look gorgeous. Except the characters; they look stupid. Especially her.

I have a friend who is way into Tales and has told me that there are basically two primary character designers on Tales, one that people like and one that people don't. The guy who worked on Graces and also designed specifically just that one single character in Xillia is the one that people don't like.

Anyways, love it or hate it, whatever.

The last one i played was Vesperia, and it had this awful meandering core narrative that never properly concludes, it is still just the most generic JRPG shit. I still loved that game though, i enjoyed the characters in that game, and thought the art was beautiful, and that the core game systems were still rock solid. It was one of the few JRPG's i've played in recent years that held my interest all the way to the end.

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I was a huge fan of Tales of Symphonia and Abyss. I played Vesperia, but I never really got into it.

Abyss is pretty decent. I never played it, but picked it up for the 3DS, it is great because I now have a great reason to ignore friends and family when I travel hours to see them.

Vesperia does start off very meh. Sadly the game doesn't get awesome until an unacceptable amount of time has passed, which seems to be an increasingly terrible trend with most JRPGs (Persona 4 doesn't give control of the characters besides advancing dialog for almost 5 hours).

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The last one i played was Vesperia, and it had this awful meandering core narrative that never properly concludes, it is still just the most generic JRPG shit.

What are you talking about?!? They bring the water blastia back to the lower city! They also make sure that thing will never work again at the end, so there is that too.

Yeah, most Tales games seem to revolve around "Mankind is destroying the environment". We just do it in these games with magic and not smog.

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What are you talking about?!? They bring the water blastia back to the lower city! They also make sure that thing will never work again at the end, so there is that too.

I don't even really remember how it ended. I just remember it coming to this world-ending climax and then resolving abruptly at what seemed like three or four steps short of where it should have logically ended up. I had wondered if i got a "bad" ending, and i did, but apparently that doesn't really change anything. (Then there was that expanded PS3 version that was released only in Japan, i wonder if that altered the ending at all.)

Vesperia goes to some unexpectedly mature places with its characters though, i found it quite surprising and entertaining. At times it almost rises above its generic JRPG narrative, but can't quite get there and sort of settles into a rut by the end.

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I don't even really remember how it ended. I just remember it coming to this world-ending climax and then resolving abruptly at what seemed like three or four steps short of where it should have logically ended up.

I think there is only one ending in that game. I may be wrong though.

You are totally right about the plot, as I can't honestly tell you who the main bad guy was. That was a story about the characters, and for the most part I thought that it was really well done. The plot was just an odd way to try and take the characters along their path of growth.

Besides that I think that most of the games are really enjoyable to play, I just wish that they would hire someone who knew how to write a script for most of them instead of shacking a bag and picking whatever stupid suggestion falls out. Vesperia is a great example of almost getting everything right with the game, but screwing up a couple of key parts.

You should really skip Graces, only two interesting party characters and a bunch that make some of the in game skits painful to watch.

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Woah woah woah, spoiler effing alert. Did you not read the part where I wrote I was currently actually playing Vesperia?

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Sorry if that did spoil anything. I should point out that most of the stuff that we talked about isn't nearly as much of a spoiler as you would think.

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Ack, sorry. I didn't catch that you were playing through Vesperia.

:getmecoat

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Doesn't matter that much - it's pretty much a given they'll return the Blastia and save the world. I'm not really expecting the story to surprise me.

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Tales can be a lot like the Simpsons in plot regards; that something happens that causes a chain of events and is either completely forgotten about or resolved quickly but to much other stuff ends up being happening for the story/characters to just stop.

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