TetsuyaHikari
[09] Warrior
^ This
If you don't want to play ToP, then go play Star Ocean: The Second Story instead. Both are certainly better than Till the End of Time.
Just How Bad is Tales of the Abyss? (major spoilers)
- Thread starter Jaxel
- Start date
^ This
If you don't want to play ToP, then go play Star Ocean: The Second Story instead. Both are certainly better than Till the End of Time.
ShinobiBrown
[10] Knight
In regards to story, I agree. In regards to gameplay, I disagree.
SO3's battle system did a lot of things I thought were pretty decent (such as MP damage and MP kills as well as specials canceling into others while increasing damage from cancel bonuses). If Second Story/Evolution has this then I know I'll like it's battle system to the degree I like SO3's. If it's battle system is anything like First Departure than it's not going to top SO3 for me. The only thing I don't like about SO3's battle system is that full active mode isn't available from the start. Instead you need to get all 300 battle trophies :/
Anyway, I'll be getting Second Evolution when it releases for PSP in the US.
As for Tales, the only main ones I haven't played at this point are Destiny 2, Rebirth, Destiny:RE, and Vesperia. I've already played Phantasia.
SO3's battle system did a lot of things I thought were pretty decent (such as MP damage and MP kills as well as specials canceling into others while increasing damage from cancel bonuses). If Second Story/Evolution has this then I know I'll like it's battle system to the degree I like SO3's. If it's battle system is anything like First Departure than it's not going to top SO3 for me. The only thing I don't like about SO3's battle system is that full active mode isn't available from the start. Instead you need to get all 300 battle trophies :/
Anyway, I'll be getting Second Evolution when it releases for PSP in the US.
As for Tales, the only main ones I haven't played at this point are Destiny 2, Rebirth, Destiny:RE, and Vesperia. I've already played Phantasia.
TetsuyaHikari
[09] Warrior
I just think SO3 sucked all around, really..lol. Don't get me wrong, I still played through it, but becoming incapacitated due to lack of MP was probably the stupidest thing I have ever seen incorporated into a battle system for an RPG.
It's like:
Monster A: I'm going to use MP drain on you constantly! Hahaha!
Fayt: Ha! Like that's going to stop me! I have a swo...wh..what's happening...to my..body...? *dies*
Seriously. If I've got a sword, you can take away my MP. It isn't going to fucking matter. If you take away the MP of my magic user, well yeah..they're fucked. Also, if I really need MP that bad, than what's to stop me from just continuing the fight while having say, Cliff, throw me an item?
No no..see..that would have made sense, so instead..you get to have over 4,000 HP, but if you have your MP drained, it doesn't matter how much HP you have. You're out of the battle until someone "revives" you.
Ahem..allow me to say a famous line which should be applied to the battle systems of SO1 and 2, and how it SHOULD have been in 3.
"If it isn't broke, don't try to fix it"
The system was fine. I don't know why the hell they had to go and mess with it. Ah, well..that horrid game is just a memory now. I feel sorry for my friend going through it right now though, lol.
ShinobiBrown
[10] Knight
To each is own. I thought of MP kills as clever for you have more than one option in terms of killing a boss. Also, this meant you HAVE to give a damn about your MP no matter who you're playing as which I liked because it required you to pay more attention in battle. Also, nothing done in battle was without consequence, which prevented reckless button mashing/skill spamming (which is what SO:FD and the Tales Series is full of). It made battles less mindless.
TetsuyaHikari
[09] Warrior
Ummm..I don't know about you, but I don't recklessly button mash/skill mash in Tales games, lol. That usually gets you owned against higher level monsters or bosses. Especially since..take Tales of Destiny: Remake for example (since I can't remember the original's A.I.). If you don't give Rutee the command to cast First Aid and instead try to wait for her to do it, chances are..you're going to be dead before she casts it.
Especially now since we use CC. Even though you may be 83 points away from dying, if she has the points to perform a different skill, she'll probably use that, THEN she won't be able to heal you until her points are restored, so it's best to give these instructions out while there is still a chance.
I had to do this with Tear in ToA as well. If I just went with reckless button mashing or skill mashing, I wouldn't survive. I have to think of tactics as well, plus guarding or jumping (in some cases). The Tales series can be just as complex as other RPGs.
To a lot of people, the Tales games look like they are just a button/skill masher, when true..you do push the buttons quite frequently, but I still don't believe it takes any less thinking than other RPGs since you still have to decide who heals who, who gives an item to who, when should you guard, what skills work best against what monsters, etc.
I just think the whole "0 MP = Death" system didn't really settle well with me. I often found myself screaming at the TV while looking at my HP nearly at full, going, "Then why the hell should we even HAVE HP?!". Sure, it may be another method of dying, but that doesn't mean it can't be a stupid one.
HP and MP have their purposes. Square-Enix just wanted to fuck with a good system since it wasn't just Enix's project anymore. They just haaaaaaaaaad to mess with it.
Eh..whatever. As you said, "To each his own".
Dullyanna
[10] Knight
The one thing that sticks in my mind about SO3 (aside from the horrible voice-acting) was that mini game where you had to navigate those gigantic retarded lizards through the cave, and budget the number of fucking walls and such that they rammed through before turning back. I spent hours trying to get through that damn thing.
iKotomi
[10] Knight
Heaven forbid you look at two numbers to make sure you don't die?
Dullyanna
[10] Knight
It's not really that it was difficult, just that it was rather tedious, considering you had to do the thing multiple times over. The biggest problem is that I was stupid enough to try and look for whatever uber treasure was in there without a walkthrough... so it's probably mostly my fault.
ShinobiBrown
[10] Knight
It doesn't settle with you because it's out of the norm, which I don't have a problem with because it gives you another option to handle your enemies.
In terms of handling your party members in battles in the Tales games, if I don't want a character doing a spell or skill, I don't give orders, I disable the CPU from using the spell or skill entirely and set their tactic accordingly. There is an option to disable the CPU from using spells so I use it. I do the same in SO too. As for button mashing, it's possible while being effective too. I don't button mash in Tales games myself, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a button mashy game since it's effective, way more effective in Tales than in SO3. In regards to Tales of Destiny: RE, the game LOOKS awesome, hence why I want to play it. Though I'm pretty sure they give you the ability to disable the CPU from using skills and spells before battle so I don't see how management while in battle will be any harder.
Edit: It was NEVER Enix's project. Enix and Square-Enix simply publish the game. Tri-Ace are the developers. No point in putting the blame on SE when they have nothing to do with the actual content in the game.
TetsuyaHikari
[09] Warrior
I could look at five different types of numbers to make sure I don't die. However, the fact remains..treating MP like HP was stupid. I'll always feel that way about it.
As for making the computer not cast spells or use skills during battle, ummm..why would you want to turn that off for your magic user (i.e. Philia) and just let them swing instead? It would be much easier to just let them do what they want, then just give out the order to heal when necessary.
Yes, SO3's system was out of the norm, but I can assure you, that's certainly not why I didn't like it. Hell, you're talking with someone who actually enjoyed the Hex System used in Wild Arms 4 and 5. Now that was out of the norm, but..it worked. SO'3 MP = HP system didn't. Not for me anyway.
And yeah, Enix was in charge of Dragon Quest/Warrior, so I forgot about Tri-Ace, but you're right. They were behind Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile. Although, I still believe SE had something to do with this. They always seem to have a bad habit of messing with things which have been fine for a while.
Plus, it's like:
Okay, SO1's system is great, SO2's system is great, wait..Square Enix is a part of releasing SO3. Its system sucks. Where did we go wrong? What happened?
We never had this problem before SE got involved, so even if Tri-Ace did develop the game still, I'm willing to bet they had some sort of hand in creating that..thing.
Dogysamich
[09] Warrior
*reads half of jaxel's post*
my, fuckin, god, my eyes hurt.
It's kinda funny, though. I never thought TotA was a "bad" game, infact it's one of my fav Tales games.
And yes, i noticed alot of the things you complain about, bit by bit.
But when I get assaulted by them all at once in a massive wall of text, it kinda think twice about it.
____
my, fuckin, god, my eyes hurt.
It's kinda funny, though. I never thought TotA was a "bad" game, infact it's one of my fav Tales games.
And yes, i noticed alot of the things you complain about, bit by bit.
But when I get assaulted by them all at once in a massive wall of text, it kinda think twice about it.
____
ShinobiBrown
[10] Knight
El oh el, you misunderstood me about the disabling spells and such. I didn't mean disabling ALL of their spells. I simply mean disabling the spells I don't want them using. Example: When I still had ToA, my party consisted of 2 offensive casters (Jade and Anise), 1 healer (Tear) and one melee (Guy because he > Luke. I controlled the Melee member). Spellcasters were set to the backline with "use 100% TP". Melee's purpose was to get agro from enemies while the magic users pounded away at them with magic as I proceeded to pound them away to keep the boss or enemy in hit stun until the magic casters cast again, rinse repeat. With the magic users, I disabled the "majority" of their spells so the AI could only do the ones I wanted it to in battle. For example, I disabled all of Anise's spells except for Bloody Howling, so she consistently cast Bloody Howling, which was what I wanted her to do. I believe I did the same for Jade with Thunder Blade, and Tear with her healing spells. It's been too long since I've played and I don't have the game on me to check my exact set up but that was the main jest of how my party was managed in ToA for the majority of the game and it's super bosses.
In regards to Star Ocean 3, I'll be honest, I've never really had to worry about getting MP killed unless it was a boss. The main reason being the majority of the enemies in the game only did HP damage. Besides, MP damage was scaled down accordingly in consideration to how much lower the MP value was in comparison to HP value overall. Whenever a move did MP damage, it's always much less than the HP damage. tri-Ace could have implemented the MP boss killing better though as it only really helped for about the first half of the game. The second half and the super bosses weren't really affected by MP kills (as they always had insane amounts of MP). Only regular enemies could effectively be MP killed during the second half. Another mechanic I liked that was in SO3 that I forgot to mention was the Guts bar basically being your stamina this time around. Also, the AAA system when the Guts bar was full. Haven't played Second Story yet so I don't know if those were introduced earlier.
PS: I enjoyed the Hex System in Wild ARMS 4 and 5 as well.
NeoOutlaw
[09] Warrior
holy shit, your ToA hatred knows no bounds. I though after recommending ToP and ToE to you it would calm the rage but i guess not. seriously though i couldn't make it past the first hour of this game, just pretty bad. Oh yeah and star ocean 2 was friggin amazing
7thfonon
[08] Mercenary
I liked Tales of the Abyss... and I've played Symphonia, Vesperia, and Legendia as well... I still found it better. I liked the 3D battle system, but even if you didn't like it, you could always take it off of your skill list.
Also, about Star Ocean 3... Testuya, the MP as HP actually makes more sense than having it the other way. HP is supposed to represent physical health, such as a hit to your body. However, people can die from exhaustion. So if your energy is at 0.... I think it's pretty safe to say you're dead.....
Sorry if any of this was already said, I skimmed through a lot of this.
Also, about Star Ocean 3... Testuya, the MP as HP actually makes more sense than having it the other way. HP is supposed to represent physical health, such as a hit to your body. However, people can die from exhaustion. So if your energy is at 0.... I think it's pretty safe to say you're dead.....
Sorry if any of this was already said, I skimmed through a lot of this.
Well, my issue with Jaxel's assessment is that, in the end, it pretty much comes down to pure opinion. He spends so much time ragging on the minor things (such as the character names, which I found to be more hilarious than dumb) that he only barely glosses over the things that are truly "bad" about the game (for one, I agree about the skits...and he never even touched upon how annoying it was to fly around the world map with all the obstacles during the mid-point of the game). I've played a number of Tales games myself, and Abyss is my favorite. The primary reason for that basically being because of Luke and the main villain. Even if you don't like them as characters (I, for one, hated Luke for about the first third of the game), you have to admit that they're different from most characters in a good way.
Anyone who knows Luke's story (I won't spoil it) can attest that it was very unique as far as JRPG characters go. The game primarily focuses on Luke's attempts to redeem himself after a major error in judgment about fairly early in the game. The only other character who I think even comes close to that would be Cecil from FFIV, but Cecil is nowhere near as flawed and human a character as Luke. For one, Cecil's sin in FFIV was arguably not even is fault (he didn't know what would happen). In Tales of the Abyss, however, Luke is warned repeatedly before he makes his fatal error, but he doesn't heed those warnings until it's too late.
Now, going into the main villain, I'll just state that the main villain has the distinction of being one of the few villains who I absolutely agreed with 100% (the only other ones being Kuja from FFIX and Delita from FFTactics). Once you know what the villain's after and what his plans are, there's a really strong sense that he might not be completely wrong. Sure, his plans will result in the deaths of thousands, if not millions, but he truly doesn't see any other options. And, to make things better, the main villain is very reasonable even though he's a major antagonist. Unlike most villains who are just unstable sociopaths or egoists (Sephiroth or Kefka for example), the main villain of TotA doesn't want to do what he's doing--he thinks he has to. In addition, he would have absolutely no beef with your party if you joined his side, and even makes that offer repeatedly. For me, the mark of a good villain is someone who makes me consider, even for a moment, that his way could be correct. And TotA's villain does just that.
Anyone who knows Luke's story (I won't spoil it) can attest that it was very unique as far as JRPG characters go. The game primarily focuses on Luke's attempts to redeem himself after a major error in judgment about fairly early in the game. The only other character who I think even comes close to that would be Cecil from FFIV, but Cecil is nowhere near as flawed and human a character as Luke. For one, Cecil's sin in FFIV was arguably not even is fault (he didn't know what would happen). In Tales of the Abyss, however, Luke is warned repeatedly before he makes his fatal error, but he doesn't heed those warnings until it's too late.
Now, going into the main villain, I'll just state that the main villain has the distinction of being one of the few villains who I absolutely agreed with 100% (the only other ones being Kuja from FFIX and Delita from FFTactics). Once you know what the villain's after and what his plans are, there's a really strong sense that he might not be completely wrong. Sure, his plans will result in the deaths of thousands, if not millions, but he truly doesn't see any other options. And, to make things better, the main villain is very reasonable even though he's a major antagonist. Unlike most villains who are just unstable sociopaths or egoists (Sephiroth or Kefka for example), the main villain of TotA doesn't want to do what he's doing--he thinks he has to. In addition, he would have absolutely no beef with your party if you joined his side, and even makes that offer repeatedly. For me, the mark of a good villain is someone who makes me consider, even for a moment, that his way could be correct. And TotA's villain does just that.
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Jaxel
Administrator
Yes... cause no other Japanese RPG main characters are emo kids with spiky hair who are thrown out of their element, thus forcing them to save the world... You need to play some more RPGs... Luke is the definition of JRPG Generic.
If you want to see the mark of a good villain, read (or watch) the Record of Lodoss War series. Ashram is by far the most honerable villain I have ever seen. In truth, he's actually a good guy; he just happens to be on the wrong side of the war.
I have. Lodoss War is my favorite anime series of all time. However, it amazes me that you can find Ashram (basically a typical bishonen who says few word) to be all that different from typical Japanese characters. But, that's beside the point.
Yes, all JRPG heroes are generic. Luke is certainly not an exception in many respects. But, that's like arguing that Tony Stark isn't an interesting character because he's a superhero who invents stuff, like all of them did between the 40s to 60s. Like any form of mainstream media, you just learn to deal with the similar molds that the characters are made from and appreciate the slight variations on the old formula.
NeoOutlaw
[09] Warrior
ok, time to unleash my inner dork. as far as characters go ToA was pretty disappointing in my opinion. generally speaking the main characters in tales games are the type to act first and tend to be on the agressive side. while i will agree that change is good this really wasn't a step in the right direction since the idea of "an emo kid with spiky hair who is thrown out of his element, thus forcing him to save the world..." has been hammered to death quite a bit since FF7. while it may be a matter of personal prefence i would rather not have a character such as that be the main focus in a game. even in ff6, a game which i competely love and rate highly, i couldn't stand terra's character and was happy to see celes take over as the main heroine of the game as the story progressed.
As for cecil in ff5, he was flawed as all hell. sure he wanted to do the right thing but he was far to loyal for his own good, somewhat gullible and a bit to trusting, and would often get stumped or discouraged when he didn't know what to do next.
And finally to brush on Lodoss, the only true villian in the story is wagnard. now i'm not really an anime fan so i can't really go into detail about of characters similair to ashram but he certainly wasn't your typical bad guy but rather he was fighting for his homeland. if the story were from the perspective of marmo, ashram would be considered a great hero because he fights to restore his homeland
As for cecil in ff5, he was flawed as all hell. sure he wanted to do the right thing but he was far to loyal for his own good, somewhat gullible and a bit to trusting, and would often get stumped or discouraged when he didn't know what to do next.
And finally to brush on Lodoss, the only true villian in the story is wagnard. now i'm not really an anime fan so i can't really go into detail about of characters similair to ashram but he certainly wasn't your typical bad guy but rather he was fighting for his homeland. if the story were from the perspective of marmo, ashram would be considered a great hero because he fights to restore his homeland
Well, as you said, this sounds like personal opinion. Personally, I've come to accept that most Japanese protagonists (in every medium from anime to film to games) are similar. But again, this is not uncommon in any mainstream medium. While I do praise original characters, I am more than satisfied with slight deviations on the same old formula.
You seem to be misunderstanding what I mean by "flaws". And by that, I mean that Cecil was basically a true hero in every sense of the word. As you said, he was virtuous, courageous, and trusting. However, these are not specifically "flaws" within his character. As a matter of fact, these are the sort of qualities a person is SUPPOSED to have. Luke, on the other hand, begins the game selfish, spoiled, whiney, impatient, vain, and several other things that would take too much time to mention. However, unlike most heroes, when Luke finally does convert to being a virtuous, loyal, and courageous hero, it's because he's actually given a reason to change. As I said before, the primary focus on the game is about Luke's character development and his desire to redeem himself for his past. FFIV had a similar theme, but Cecil's sins weren't even his own fault.
As I said, I like Ashram, and I like Lodoss, and I agree that Ashram was noble. But, I don't see how it's possible to compare him to the main villain in TotA in terms of characterization. Being a game that lasts for several dozen hours, a lot more time is given to developing Van than was given to Ashram in Lodoss War, the Chronicles TV series, the Lodoss manga, or Legend of Crystania combined. (And yes, I've read/watched all of them.)
Edit: As a side-note, why does everyone call Luke "emo"? Luke didn't fit the emo archetype at all. For one thing, the generally-accepted definition for "emo" is someone who is emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angsty (taken straight from Wikipedia) with thoughts of depress, self-injury or suicide (also taken from Wikipedia). The closest that Luke comes to any of that is emotional, but 1 out of 7 does not an emo make. A better word to describe Luke at the beginning of the game would be "snobbish". Even near the end of the game, when Luke is struggling with redemption and could arguably be called "depressed", not one time does he talk about suicide or self-injury. In fact, the game makes a point in saying how much Luke does NOT want to die.
For comparison, valid example of an "emo" character would be Squall from FF8: (shy, sensitive, introverted, angsty, and arguably suicidal). Standing him side-by-side with Luke, I fail to see the comparison.
Shenrei
[09] Warrior
All this talk about best villain makes me think of MGS3 and The Boss.
Best "villain" ever.
Best "villain" ever.