I never even got to Xillia 2. Xillia 1 started with decent characters and then just beat them into the ground. Mercilessly. Alvin's constant flip flopping was a nightmare.
did you ever finish it? Because if not, he does it at least 3 more times from wherever you left off. I don't even have to know where you are in the story to tell you he keeps doing it
EDIT: I'll be down for this though. I played the first and liked it well enough, but this one came out as I was finishing the first and I needed a break at that time. It's been long enough
I genuinely think there's something up with Namco and Vesperia. Not even the Xbox 360 issue, even within it's own games, Vesperia always kind of gets the shaft in terms of representation in spin offs and merchandise as well.
Xillia though? That has a ton of merchandise, it's world and characters always get put in spin offs and collabs. I can definitely see them pushing it again. Doesn't help that the first one actually was positively received outside of Japan as well. I could see that and a Xillia 2 duology happening.
I'd probably get it still, but these games really are probably some of the lowest ranked Tales games for me, next to Zestiria. It's a shame because where one game fails, the other succeeds in this duology.
Xillia 1 has really boring and underdeveloped characters, mediocre soundtrack, limited battle options, and is very linear with very little exploration.
Xillia 2 is able to fix all of this, but in turn created added in a bunch of awkward gameplay systems (like the debt collecting and silent protagonist), pretty much covered the entire game in a dull pink and brown shade, and had a bloated story that took 30 hours which could've very much been told in 10 (seriously, there's like five key plot points to the entire game and that's pretty much it).
Very much hoping this is an error and we're actually getting a different remaster instead. I honestly don't see why we would get one anyways, it's neither games' anniversary.
Legendia is cool. I like the story, characters and ship setting, also thought character quests being a great way to flesh out the characters. If it had combat system on par with Deatiny DC (best Tales game), it would legendary, pun intended. Almost forgot the music is still series best, even the art style was great compared to other instalments.
Legendia is so slept on because of it's battle system. If it had an actually decent battle system, I would actually rank it as probably the best Tales game.
Really gorgeous and vibrant art direction.
Well developed characters that have great chemistry amongst one another.
Great pacing in a very magical plot.
Probably one of the best soundtracks to grace the franchise.
They probably have something new in the works. If this comes out this summer, we'll probably get the new game next year, because at this point if we were going to get a new one this year, it would've been announced by now.
Graces f's story was definitely basic. Half the characters were great (Pascal, Malik, Hubert) while the other half were kind of annoying (Cheria, Asbel, etc.). Though for a lot of people including me though, the Future Arc made the latter half a lot better (especially Cheria, she became hilarious) as well as adding a not terrible Richard. The rest of Graces is pretty much amazing: a lot of side content, great chemistry between the cast, splendid soundtrack, and the battle system was incredibly fun and in depth.
I'd say the sings that bug me about Graces was the Wii limitation, felt like because of this the environments and aesthetic came off really basic. Which is a shame because the actual conceptual art for Graces is gorgeous, Mutsumi Inomata does an amazing job as always. Really wish she got put on stuff other than Tales though, that's been the only thing she's been working on since 2005.
Probably. But then he dropped the ball very hard, because combat in Graces F is above and beyond. It starts out slow paced, but turns into one of the most combo-friendly combat systems in the franchise.
I assumed it was due to the Japanese base being able to play Vesperia on their readily available PS3s, but that applies to Xillia as well so who knows.
Anyway Vesperia is probably due to a Microsoft exclusivity deal.
That's what makes it amazing it had the balls to set up an ending that either outcome was unpleasant and actually not use a deus ex machina to bail itself out. Most games would totally find a way to weasel out of a bad ending scenario.
It goes in that hall of fame with a game like Final Fantasy XIII 2 for a game that while not that great in many aspects pulled a great ending off.
I'm currently playing through Berseria, and I don't think I could ever give these two another shot. They almost killed my interest in the entire series.
On why Tales of Vesperia (PS3 version) and Tales of Innocence R weren't released in the West:
Actually, the team is working on many titles and they have to release them in Japan, so the timing is very important. And also the localization is a big challenge with many problems for the team. I would love to release those two titles on the western market, but the timing and the feedback from western branches were not very good at that time. So this is the reason why those games did not make it to the West.
On why Tales of Vesperia came over on Xbox 360 but not PS3:
Tales of Vesperia was the first title in the series which was planned to be released simultaneously in Japan, North America and Europe. This was very difficult and it was such a heavy burden for the team. So for the PS3 version, it was decided to reduce this burden and to develop it just for Japan.
I remember seeing another comment saying it was actually the JP branch of Bamco that shot down Vesperia PS3 coming over despite the US branch requesting it numerous times, nothing to do with MS. Thought I can't find a source on that one.
I assumed it was due to the Japanese base being able to play Vesperia on their readily available PS3s, but that applies to Xillia as well so who knows.
Anyway Vesperia is probably due to a Microsoft exclusivity deal.
Just bring Vesperia, Graces, Abyss, and Xillia 1/2 to Steam. There's no reason not to. Vesperia is by far my favorite. I haven't really liked one since they changed the art and ditched the classic overworld. They'e fun but Vesperia was an outight classic imo.
I remember seeing another comment saying it was actually the JP branch of Bamco that shot down Vesperia PS3 coming over despite the US branch requesting it numerous times, nothing to do with MS. Thought I can't find a source on that one.
Knowing Namco, that reasoning has got to be code for "This IP doesn't sell well enough in the west to be worth the effort", right? Just like Gundam and SRWars' perpetual "Licensing Issues", right?
If not then that is some insanely arbitrary reasoning and a pretty good indicator of why Namco was slipping into utter irrelevance before Dark Souls made Namco mainstream again.
Knowing Namco, that reasoning has got to be code for "This IP doesn't sell well enough in the west to be worth the effort", right? Just like Gundam and SRWars' perpetual "Licensing Issues", right?
If not then that is some insanely arbitrary reasoning and a pretty good indicator of why Namco was slipping into utter irrelevance before Dark Souls made Namco mainstream again.
Actually, now that you mention how Namco was back then, I vaguely recall reading that the former President(?) of their US branch saying their JP side wasn't making anything worthwhile, so yeah, their own incompetence was probably part of the reason too.
That's news to me. I remember them saying Berseria would be last game on PS3, but taking time to make a whole new engine sounds amazing if true.
It all comes down to art direction. I liked how Xillia introduced dynamic cutscene camera angles that added some perspective to even smaller dialogue scenes.
If the next Tales game doesn't even match the production values of Xenoblade 2 I will be disappointed.
I'm happy to see anything Tales of happening at all. I've wanted to play more since Berseria, and Xillia 1 & 2 (I'm assuming it's both games) would do fine because I never owned a PS3.
For some reason I always thought they would get remastered. With how much they can improve the games just by shortening load times (because of HDD install) and with how many last-gen games are getting ported over this gen it was a good bet that this would happen eventually.
I'm happy to see anything Tales of happening at all. I've wanted to play more since Berseria, and Xillia 1 & 2 (I'm assuming it's both games) would do fine because I never owned a PS3.
For some reason I always thought they would get remastered. With how much they can improve the games just by shortening load times (because of HDD install) and with how many last-gen games are getting ported over this gen it was a good bet that this would happen eventually.
How bad were the load times with the disc versions? I have the digital versions and I barely noticed the loads in Xillia 1. I also have a SSD in my PS3, though... lol
