Current Events > Tales of Vesperia is finally starting to take off story wise. Well, a little.

(+) Yeah! (+)

saspa posted...

Are they going to explain "the great war" or not?

yes

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Strider102 posted...

You get most of your important story bits in a huge exposition dump at the end of chapters 1 and 2, with it dumped sporadically through the third chapter.

No spoilers but the game is split into chapters? I don't remember seeing chapter anywhere so don't know what chapter I'm on.

I'm currently going to finally meet Belius and apparently the knights are doing something suspicious at Nordopolica. It's very exciting and I can't wait to test out my new skills.

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saspa posted...

No spoilers but the game is split into chapters?

Informally, yes. They don't show chapter 1/2/3/etc anywhere, it's just the end of certain events that people casually refer to as the end of a given chapter.

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saspa posted...

No spoilers but the game is split into chapters? I don't remember seeing chapter anywhere so don't know what chapter I'm on.

I'm currently going to finally meet Belius and apparently the knights are doing something suspicious at Nordopolica. It's very exciting and I can't wait to test out my new skills.

Yeah 3 chapters, though the game doesn't list them. IIRC you're still on Chapter 1. Easy way to tell is the world map music as it changes every chapter same with battle music.

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They're in chapter 2 since you visit Nordopolica well after beating the tower place, which is where the music changes.

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Kaiganeer posted...

everything about it feels super dated despite it only being a ps3/360-era game, the people who think it's the best tales game are blinded by nostalgia

Been saying this for years, but you don't want to have this opinion on the tales of boards on this site, lol.

I like vesperia enough, but future tales of games like hearts R and especially xillia 2 perfected the "team symphonia" style gameplay imo. Xillia 2 is still my favorite tales of game when it comes to gameplay, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

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saspa posted...

I basically do a base arte and an arcane arte combo of the same color over and over and hope it triggers a fatal strike, especially if my party members happen to do spells of the same color.

Like I'd do Azure Edge and then Dragon Swarm right after and if it gets a fatal strike, perfect. Those are both green. I chose green because in overlimit I do the Divine Wolf burste arte and since that one's already green, I may as well have both my base and arcane arte be green to best trigger a fatal strike.

So it goes base arte, arcane arte, burste arte, fatal strike. Definitely helpful for bosses but I hate when my combo is interrupted because someone hit me.

By now you should have gotten a weapon that allows you to go: Base > Altered

In a few more dungeons you'll get a skill that allows

Base > Arcane > Altered > the rest

And of course even more

For the fatal strike stuff, you dont always have to use Artes to get them setup. If you use basic attack + direction their FS meters will also go down. Then you and simply use a arte > FS to finish it

Leanaunfurled posted...

I started off liking Vesperia a decent amount and then it kept going downhill. The cast I initially liked, I started to get really annoyed with, except for Yuri. The story got intensely boring and I stopped giving a damn. Ended up dropping it 30-40 hours in or something.

Agreed with this. Just played it for the first time a few weeks ago. I did end up finishing it but it mostly out of a sense of wanting to complete it. And it felt like a drag.

Makeveli_lives posted...

Which is what I said back then. But what was told if I wasn't slurping the game endlessly, my opinion is completely null and void until I beat the game.

You were completely right back then. Abyss thumpers are hated in the Tales community. Nobody likes them. Many Tales fans defend the first game they played in the series but Abyss fans are incredibly obnoxious and display elitism about it. Its like they cannot accept any criticism about their favorite Tales game. My favorite is Vesperia but even I can point out the flaws.

Perascamin posted...

What a terrible opinion.

Exhibit A

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The_Scarecrow posted...

You were completely right back then. Abyss thumpers are hated in the Tales community. Nobody likes them. Many Tales fans defend the first game they played in the series but Abyss fans are incredibly obnoxious and display elitism about it. Its like they cannot accept any criticism about their favorite Tales game. My favorite is Vesperia but even I can point out the flaws.

It wasn't because of Abyss, it was because it was, at the time, the best 3ds rpg that they had to offer.

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i like Abyss' cast a lot actually. having a party of characters that basically all hate each other at the start and are forced to work together was a neat changeup from the typical JRPG parties.

but like people said the game has completely indefensible faults, the pacing and backtracking in the latter half of the game is some of the worst i've ever seen. i fucking hate how being padded out the ass is a staple of just about every JRPG

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Ving_Rhames posted...

I fucking HATE Rita.

Absolutely. Rita is one of the shittiest characters I've ever seen in an RPG. She has absolutely no redeeming qualities. She's supposed to be a genius, but very rarely does she actually do anything in the plot that portrays her as smart, aside from going lazy technobabble copouts.

Also @Leanaunfurled is right. Most of the characters start off cool, but end up boring or unlikeable by the end.

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rita is a fairly typical tsundere

anyone calling her "one of the worst characters ever" needs to get a grip

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Kaiganeer posted...

everything about it feels super dated despite it only being a ps3/360-era game, the people who think it's the best tales game are blinded by nostalgia

graces f for combat, berseria for story/characters

Graces f combat is much more limited than Vesperia's. You can't even freely jump, and use real aerial artes or do real aerial combos in Graces f. Graces f's momentum based Overlimit's system is dumb too. Vesperia has better combat than Graces f for the most part if you actually learn how to play the game well. No nostalgia goggles here.

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Delirious_Beard posted...

rita is a fairly typical tsundere

Username checks out.

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I like the tsundere characters. They can be tsundere without being a c*** almost the entire time, imo.

Abyss has the most well written story in the series.

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LostForest posted...

Username checks out.

i don't really understand

do you not know what a tsundere is? and blaming a character for the writers' inability to make them story relevant is kind of bizarre

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Delirious_Beard posted...

do you not know what a tsundere is?

Even for a tsundere, Rita is insufferable 99% of the time. She takes it to the extreme and it's not funny or cute, it;s annoying as fuck.

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Delirious_Beard posted...

i don't really understand

do you not know what a tsundere is? and blaming a character for the writers' inability to make them story relevant is kind of bizarre

Tsundere characters usually have a redeeming quality to make up for them being assholes. Rita's is supposed to be (emphasize SUPPOSED to be) that she's a genius.
Despite that, she rarely ever does anything that actually gives you the impression she's really intelligent aside from some one-off situations of "I've got it! Let me go stand in front of the blastia computer and decode it while you dick around for 5 minutes." situations.

Instead you're supposed to just accept that this dopey kid is incredible nasty and abusive to everybody because the writers wave their hands and say "It's okay! She's a genius!"

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out of all the tales games i've played... Xillia is the only one I've actually finished.

played symphonia, symphonia 2, berseria, zestiria, xillia 2...

how much am i missing out on. never put more than 10 hours into any of them

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Perascamin posted...

Abyss has the most well written story in the series.

Thats not saying much. These stories arent good.

TerrifyingRei posted...

out of all the tales games i've played... Xillia is the only one I've actually finished.

played symphonia, symphonia 2, berseria, zestiria, xillia 2...

how much am i missing out on. never put more than 10 hours into any of them

Not much. I like these games but they tend to be the definition of mediocre.

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rita has an obvious soft spot for estelle and develops a slight one for really everyone except karol and raven

that's the typical development for most tsunderes

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Yeah Rita is fine, I dunno what you're talking about

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Any auto scrolling option for dialogue in cutscenes? Like what the Persona series have

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No unfortunately

I have to say I'm really surprised at quite a number of the posts in this topic. Before it was widely available on all consoles, Vesperia was constantly lauded as one of the best Tales games ever, and I always wished we'd get it localized back during the ps3 gen and even early during ps4 gen.

I specifically remember tons of posts on this board talking about how it was one of the best Tales games ever and that made me want to play it. Now that it finally came out there are all these posts itt of people saying they got bored of it and didn't like it so much? Just kind of blindsided me.


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Act 1 and 3 are terrible story-wise. Act 2 is good.

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I'm guessing Tales of Berseria is to blame

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saspa posted...

I have to say I'm really surprised at quite a number of the posts in this topic. Before it was widely available on all consoles, Vesperia was constantly lauded as one of the best Tales games ever, and I always wished we'd get it localized back during the ps3 gen and even early during ps4 gen.

I specifically remember tons of posts on this board talking about how it was one of the best Tales games ever and that made me want to play it. Now that it finally came out there are all these posts itt of people saying they got bored of it and didn't like it so much? Just kind of blindsided me.

didnt know about it

only got it because is a tales games i havent played and i like the tales games

hope they ll release tales of destiny II in english someday too

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I mean, Vesperia is my favorite simply because of Judiths playstyle. She's far and away the most rewarding character to learn how to play in the series.

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saspa posted...

I have to say I'm really surprised at quite a number of the posts in this topic. Before it was widely available on all consoles, Vesperia was constantly lauded as one of the best Tales games ever, and I always wished we'd get it localized back during the ps3 gen and even early during ps4 gen.

I specifically remember tons of posts on this board talking about how it was one of the best Tales games ever and that made me want to play it. Now that it finally came out there are all these posts itt of people saying they got bored of it and didn't like it so much? Just kind of blindsided me.

Idk, sometimes you just get unlucky with the timing of these sort of topics. Imo the game totally holds up from a gameplay/fun POV but maybe some people more well versed in newer tales games think otherwise.

The story has never been good though

saspa posted...

I have to say I'm really surprised at quite a number of the posts in this topic. Before it was widely available on all consoles, Vesperia was constantly lauded as one of the best Tales games ever, and I always wished we'd get it localized back during the ps3 gen and even early during ps4 gen.

I specifically remember tons of posts on this board talking about how it was one of the best Tales games ever and that made me want to play it. Now that it finally came out there are all these posts itt of people saying they got bored of it and didn't like it so much? Just kind of blindsided me.

This is a thing with the tales of community on gamefaqs in general, lol. I have always called it the tales of cycle...I was around posting or lurking on each board back when each tales of game was getting localized, and on the message boards for the games it was pretty common for dudes (most of the time importers) hyping whatever tales of game that is stuck in japan only as being the holy grail, but when the game is finally localized, some dudes do a complete 180. Tales of graces f, xillia, xillia 2, and hearts r has been through it. Vesperia's ps3 port was definitely crazy hyped over the years. (Although there was still a good bit of us that was telling it like it is when it came to the story, because the story has always been meh/fell off a cliff in the last act. The vast majority of tales of stories is not really that good honestly). The game is still pretty fun to play (at least when you start getting all the passive skills and artes that really lets you have fun), but the hype can get out of hand for vesperia imo.

Tales of xillia 2's situation actually kind of pissed me off when it came to this. If you go back to the oldest topics on xillia 2's boards, the ones from back in 2012, you can spot a lot of praise in general for the game, how it fixed a lot of issues that xillia 1 had, the hype for the three new playable characters, the character development being sooo good, the gameplay being amazing and far greater any tales of game at this point, blah blah etc. etc. Fast forward to the localized release in 2014, and you can spot some of those same importers or whoever else praising the game back in 2012-2013 now pulling a 180 and absolutely dumping on the game. Its now the worst tales of game ever released, the plot makes no sense, the gameplay being absolute trash (with this one making no sense whatever...its actually an evolution of all the "team symphonia" style games at this point. This gameplay style has never been as fluid, combo friendly for every single character for these type of tales of games), the debt cripples the game, etc. etc.

I loved the game myself, with it still being by far my favorite tales of game because of dem combos, but man this game got absolutely trashed for awhile. Ever since tales of zestiria released, the hatred for xillia 2 kind of eased up a little, lol. In general, the hype and dude's expectations can definitely get out of hand when it comes to japanese only tales of games it feels like.


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For what it's worth, I'm actually really enjoying the game and having a fun time.

Met Phaeroh in the desert, he was cryptic and hilarious with his turkey-looking demeanor yet insistence on trying to sound menacing thing.

The game's sort of cel-shaded look is really nice, very similar to Eternal Sonata (which I always felt was a pre-demo for this game) and the environments are fun to go through.

I'm definitely enjoying the battle system so far, having mostly gotten the hang of artes, skills, and fatal strikes. Really enjoy just how well my team work together, definitely like Patty on the team because her artes are either hilarious or downright helpful (restoring HP and TP randomly) and it perfectly complements a team of Yuri, Estelle and Rita.

It's just really fun to go through and I'm happy to be reminded of why I enjoyed Tales games. As my first Tales in over a decade it's definitely one I'm enjoying.

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Thats good

In fact, got all the way to the "plot twist" that commander alexei is apparently a bad guy. Oh gee really.

As hilarious as that was (dude just kind of shows up randomly behind the group during a cutscene and is like "mwahaha I'm a bad guy" and then even more randomly Flynn shows up behind him and is like "commander how could you be such a bad guy" and that's where I took a break, being excited that Flynn is back in my party but disappointed that I have to rescue Estelle, because I want my team of Yuri/Estelle/Rita/Flynn again)

Anyway I can't wait to get to the next story segment and see where they go with it. It's one of those games that without looking it up I honestly don't have a sense with how far I am and how much is left to the ending, but I'm enjoying the ride. I can't understand how anyone would drop it. The battle system alone is worth going through the game and exploring all the environments. Plus I enjoy the skits as is Tales custom.

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the sad thing is alexei is probably the most effective villain in the game.

i think that's the biggest failing point of the game. sure the story can be wack or whatever, but at least give us some antagonists on par with the ones in Symphonia/Abyss

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Do certain skills apply only to character that has it equipped or entire party? For example Not Getting Stunned in Overlimit, Fatal Exceed, Burst Arte Attack Increase, etc.

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Only to the character

There are skills that affect other characters, like Taunting near others increases overlimit gain, or 'certain character in party = higher stats'

Also another hilarious plot point: The Schwann Brigade Captain, Captain Schwann, is Raven. But then he dies as soon as it's revealed so... lol? I mean it could be a fake out. Went to Zaphias since that's where the party said Alexei was heading with Estelle but nothing happened so not sure where to go now, I'll have to search around.

This all being said, the game is proving to me that no matter how generic, uninspired, or nonexistent a game's story seemingly is, it will still seem great and super fun if the characters are likable. The quality of a game's story won't matter if the characters aren't enjoyable to see, and in this case I like them, and have enjoyed the skits they have with each other.

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Thats kinda why I enjoy it so much.

That giant mech that was headed towards Zaphias is where you want to go

MadDewg posted...

This is a thing with the tales of community on gamefaqs in general, lol. I have always called it the tales of cycle...I was around posting or lurking on each board back when each tales of game was getting localized, and on the message boards for the games it was pretty common for dudes (most of the time importers) hyping whatever tales of game that is stuck in japan only as being the holy grail, but when the game is finally localized, some dudes do a complete 180. Tales of graces f, xillia, xillia 2, and hearts r has been through it. Vesperia's ps3 port was definitely crazy hyped over the years. (Although there was still a good bit of us that was telling it like it is when it came to the story, because the story has always been meh/fell off a cliff in the last act. The vast majority of tales of stories is not really that good honestly). The game is still pretty fun to play (at least when you start getting all the passive skills and artes that really lets you have fun), but the hype can get out of hand for vesperia imo.

Tales of xillia 2's situation actually kind of pissed me off when it came to this. If you go back to the oldest topics on xillia 2's boards, the ones from back in 2012, you can spot a lot of praise in general for the game, how it fixed a lot of issues that xillia 1 had, the hype for the three new playable characters, the character development being sooo good, the gameplay being amazing and far greater any tales of game at this point, blah blah etc. etc. Fast forward to the localized release in 2014, and you can spot some of those same importers or whoever else praising the game back in 2012-2013 now pulling a 180 and absolutely dumping on the game. Its now the worst tales of game ever released, the plot makes no sense, the gameplay being absolute trash (with this one making no sense whatever...its actually an evolution of all the "team symphonia" style games at this point. This gameplay style has never been as fluid, combo friendly for every single character for these type of tales of games), the debt cripples the game, etc. etc.

I loved the game myself, with it still being by far my favorite tales of game because of dem combos, but man this game got absolutely trashed for awhile. Ever since tales of zestiria released, the hatred for xillia 2 kind of eased up a little, lol. In general, the hype and dude's expectations can definitely get out of hand when it comes to japanese only tales of games it feels like.

Honestly I haven't played any of the Tales games since Abyss since I wanted to first play Vesperia which never came out until just recently. So I completely missed out on those other ones that came out in between.

I got Berseria on sale because people said it was "one of the good ones" and that it was the successor to Vesperia/Team Symphonia type Tales games.

As for the other ones that came in between those titles, I honestly don't know if they're any good. They don't look particularly good, and the reviews about characters/story are negative, but appearances can be deceiving.

All I know for now is that Vesperia is fun from what I expect a Tales title to be. We'll see how that changes as the game goes on.

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Reading some of the posts itt I guess I can understand "hating" Rita but I find her hilarious especially when the rest of the gang like Yuri don't engage when she's spouting off. It makes it all the funnier.

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Regarding the "Tales cycle", personally, Vesperia is the only one I played through that I didn't like afterwards.

Phantasia, Abyss, Symphonia, and Graces, all I had a good time with and I'll keep having good things to say. Vesperia of the only one that felt like qy crawl.

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I liked Phantasia, Symphonia, and Abyss. Those were fun. I did not like Tales of Eternia or Legendia, and wasn't a fan of the little bit of Destiny I played. Haven't played any since.

Vesperia so far is leaning a bit more towards the team symphonia type games than those other titles.

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So yeah Raven did survive. I'm not sure what the point of him being Captain Schwann was. Nothing came off it besides a conveniently contrived way to hand off Estelle to Alexei. Oh well.

Is there a way to spam Rita's spell attacks? Do skills and items stack? Like if I have mystic mark to reduce cast time but also equipped say light magic which also reduces cast time, do they both combine for even shorter cast time? I can't tell in battle if there's any significant difference.

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I do believe it stacks

I think Rita eventually gets a skill that allows spells to work like artes (novice, intermediate, advanced, etc) where once you cast a spell the next level has less cast time. Maybe

She does seem to have something like that but I don't know how best to utilize those skills. Like if I cast fireball which might take only 2 seconds, she'll immediately cast eruption right after or something?

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So part of my initial post was wrong

Magic Combo from Rita's Glowing Ribbon
No casting time required when casting an
altered arte immediately following the base spell.

Combo Magic from Rita's Rivet Belt
Able to link novice spells and base artes.

Combo Magic 2 Rita's Twinkle Star
Able to link intermediate spells with altered and arcane artes.

The above allows for combos, but generally when you cast magic, your character stays in place for a period of time, depending on how strong the spell is.

There are skills that reduce the time in this state, and there are skills that have a chance to skip it entirely