Tales of Graces f
Anyone else looking forward to this? I just pre-ordered it a few days ago from Gamestop, for the bonuses. I'll probably have it about a week after the release, since I pre-ordered it from the online store and didn't choose the fastest shipping.
I still need to play Vesperia as well.
I still need to play Vesperia as well.
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Originally posted by: EarthOnline
can you tell us whats it about for those who dont know the series?
The Tales of series is a set of JRPGs made by Namco/Namco Bandai. They're similar in nature to Final Fantasy in that they aren't really related to one another other than common themes seen throughout all of the games in the series.
Combat wise, they are real time battles on a sort of 2D plane in a 3D environment. By this I mean in more recent games, you move on a 2D plane going back and forth with up to jump and what have you. However, there is a "Free Run" button which allows you to move freely within the combat space to avoid enemy attacks etc. It also has a decent combo system in which you can link normal attacks into special attacks known as Artes. There are 3 types of artes, usually beginner, intermediate and advanced for spells and base, arcane and altered. As you level up and gain more skills you can then link basic artes into arcane artes and so on. This allows for flashy combos that deal decent damage without fear of retaliation (except most bosses which can get out of them quite often).
As far as stories go, some of them are fairly run-of-the-mill/ what you'd expect from a JRPG, while others are a little more atypical. In general though, they tend to have some good twists to keep you interested.
There's also a decent amount of sidequests and opportunities to combine items to make better weapons and armour, as well as a coliseum that pits you against varying amounts of enemies.
All in all, it's a very good series and I'm just going to stop this brief explanation here before I go on all night. Definitely worth looking into if you ask me.
Also, there are skits in each game in the series (probably, or at least most of them). When you see a button prompt at the bottom of the screen, along with a title, you view the skit if you press that button. These are short interactions between the characters, showing their portraits with facial expressions and sometimes even their full body. These really help to flesh out the characters, and is something other JRPG series should learn from.
Hopefully it's sooner rather than later, I want to play it now.
I'm currently on chapter 2 in the adult arc, and I'm enjoying it a lot so far. The child arc isn't anything that interesting, and parts of it are cheesy, but the adult arc is so much fun. The gameplay is awesome, and all of its mechanics with things like dualizing make it arguably better than the other Tales games I've played (just speaking gameplay-wise here). SP (or whatever it was called in the other games ) is gone; now you have Cryas Points or something. Basically each weapon has a maximum amount of CP, and each action takes a certain amount. You chain attacks using your CP, and the more Artes you use on the A-Arte tree, the more CP you consume. Things like guarding, evading, and generally just fighting well increase the CP from its base at the start of a battle. It will recover automatically if you don't take any action for a few seconds.
A-Artes are basically just normal attacks, while B-Artes are the traditional type of Artes we always see in the Tales games. B-Artes also take CP, and they're more powerful, but they're slower and leave you open to counterattacks. It's generally best to chain them from A-Artes. And that's just the basic premise of the gameplay. It's pretty good all around. Really enjoying it so far.
Oh, and skits are voiced.