so after the demo performance, it still remains the most stable 60fps performance?
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so after the demo performance, it still remains the most stable 60fps performance?
I dunno, I can only comment on the version I'm playing. I ain't digital foundry :P
but it plays smooth as hell, I've had no real issues
oh okay, just remember the demo version breakdown.....the XSX always where high 50's/60fps while PS5 dropped to low 50's/high 40's, just wasnt sure if thats still the case for retail version.
Anybody know how the PC version performance is since it can be purchased for $50 currently?
Hootle if he hears people getting horny over his owl friends:
(from: https://www.reddit.com/r/tales/comments/poy6v5/hootle_to_brighten_your_day/)
No issues outside of a little glitch in one scene that apparently is only me on a 1070.
Yeah I don't remember them elaborating much on how Shionne got the Master Core. I just assume she was an orphan/outcast on Lenegis because of her thorns.
The whole master core thing is weird because all the Renan lords can materalize it out of nowhere so I'm not sure if they have it in them or if the cores turn into their weapons. When you defeat Ganabelt he just has it in his hands before he dies, Dohalim drops it when you knock his weapon out of his hand, Almeidrea isn't holding it but drops it when Vhloran impales her so it makes it seem like it came out of her and Vhloran drops it when he dies but it's not clear if it's his weapon or from his body.
I'd attribute Shionne being a maiden to why she can house the fire core within her. If we go by the fire core you can spawn weapons out of the cores so maybe the lord weapons do come from cores.
The whole master core thing is weird because all the Renan lords can materalize it out of nowhere so I'm not sure if they have it in them or if the cores turn into their weapons. When you defeat Ganabelt he just has it in his hands before he dies, Dohalim drops it when you knock his weapon out of his hand, Almeidrea isn't holding it but drops it when Vhloran impales her so it makes it seem like it came out of her and Vhloran drops it when he dies but it's not clear if it's his weapon or from his body.
I'd attribute Shionne being a maiden to why she can house the fire core within her. If we go by the fire core you can spawn weapons out of the cores so maybe the lord weapons do come from cores.
I found the fifth area to be difficult on moderate but nothing overbearing. I still think the early slime boss/second lord have been the hardest park.
Obviously that depends on your hardware, but for the most part it runs greats on PC and if you've got horsepower to spare you can push out the draw distance for everything via ini edits/mods. By default NPC and terrain pop-in is really bad on all platforms.
yeah. since you can't spam normal attack. theres a CD before it resets. and you get a penalty for doing the same move
All these owls enjoy the daytime. Where's the night owls atHootle if he hears people getting horny over his owl friends:
(from: https://www.reddit.com/r/tales/comments/poy6v5/hootle_to_brighten_your_day/)
Ah, thanks. Really haven't gone through the menus much and I'm 25 hours in
PC because you can mod the game to have less pop-in plus higher framerate.
The owls unlock cosmetics and alt colours for your party along with accessories. Later on they unlock
artifacts that let you carry over things into a new game.
👍 I was just wondering if I wanted to get them all. I'm sitting at 26, not too many more to find
I remember literally just looking at his face for the first time and saying out loud "he looks shady"
It's the same, hold two artes buttons while an arte hits.
you get a battle high mechanic where if you chain encounters you get a boost to your battle rewards, only opens up after a bit into the game (a bit too far in IMO but definitely unlocks before you have your full party)
Reached the fourth city. Unrelated, but Helix pointed out to me how the game uses skits a little too often and now I'm noticing it too, lmao. I love the skits, they're some of my favorite things in the past games, and I love them here too. It's just weird when we get some mandatory skits that happen as soon as a cutscene ends or when you reach a new zone. The new format does make them much more expressive so it's not too bad, but I'd still rather see normal cutscenes cause everything in this game is so pretty.
Anyways, some speculation about certain events that occurred before the fourth city:
No spoilers please. Just airing out some thoughts.
Speaking of the fourth city,
Anyways, some speculation about certain events that occurred before the fourth city:
I've been suspecting this whole time that Alphen is actually Renan since he doesn't have a core and he finds Shionne familiar (asked a few times if they'd met before) and his suspicious skill with a sword, etc. but now I believe it even more because when they were ambushed by who I assume is the 5th lord maybe? His mask started to glow like it did when whatshisname first lord guy broke it... Back then, I thought it glowed cause of the attack just breaking it and they wanted to make it look cool. Now we find out that that apparently isn't the case, and not only that, but Alphen had light bursting from him and shit... very suspicious.
No spoilers please. Just airing out some thoughts.
Speaking of the fourth city,
Dedyme is such an asshole, kinda shocked they made someone so... hateable. I don't even hate the lords I've encountered so far but this guy just takes the cake. Sheesh. The city looks great and kinda gives me... Halloween vibes? Or fall? I like it. Just a shame it's all in ruins...
Performance mode is same res and rock solid 60 on both. 4K native mode is average 45fps on PS5 while its ~50 on XSX but the latter also has advantage of VRR. PC perf is perfect, if you have a newer card you can push 120fps even (with some drops in large areas).
The bosses in this game are not fun to fight. Takes way too long and difficulty is weird compared to other enemies you fight. Took down the second lord and right as my achievement popped the game hard locked (XSX). Was so thrilled to have to fight him again with his Indignation spamming ass. Outside of this, I'm really enjoying the game. Just makes me wonder what the dev team was thinking during play testing.
By the way, so damn glad to finally have the second set of artes slots unlocked. Playing as Alphen is even more fun now, same with Shionne. Haven't touched the others much yet since unlocking the feature but I imagine it'll be similarly more satisfying.
A question though... Without spoilers, but is there much more to the game after the fifth realm? I'm just curious as I'm already in the fourth realm and I don't want the adventure to end anytime soon, of course. I've heard people say it's one of the shorter Tales games, which is disappointing, but I'm expecting/hoping there'd at least be one more region after the fifth realm.
A question though... Without spoilers, but is there much more to the game after the fifth realm? I'm just curious as I'm already in the fourth realm and I don't want the adventure to end anytime soon, of course. I've heard people say it's one of the shorter Tales games, which is disappointing, but I'm expecting/hoping there'd at least be one more region after the fifth realm.
I don't know any more than you do (about to wrap up the fourth realm) but just looking at statistics in the menu at the percentages of skits I've unlocked, weapons forged, items found, etc it sure looks like there is quite a bit of game left to me.
Just turned my PS4 on to play again and I got notified there's a update for the game! Downloading now!
First clear at 62h50.
I'm now doing the post-game content then I will finish the extra activities like fishing and arena.
I'm now doing the post-game content then I will finish the extra activities like fishing and arena.
Oh right, forgot I could look at those stats. Didn't realize they tracked the skits though. That's interesting.
Oh sweet, heck yeah. Thanks!
It says… Version 1.03: Fixed issues occurring after certain battles
They did a really good job making the cast in this game pretty relatable, Although I also find the cast unbearable/irritating at times as well, Rinwell included, it usually stems from how they paced my (the player) getting to know them (and a few writing decisions), at least for me the pacing of getting to know them could have used some tweaking. Also Anise from Tales of Abyss soured me on all kid characters in tales games and JRPGs as a whole so whenever I encounter a new on in a new game it's a tougher hill for them to climb for me to enjoy them as characters if that makes any sense.
I thought it was a good game, but the story wasn't as good as it could have been. I'm no Tales expert, but they seemed to improve on a lot of gameplay elements compared to older entries, but the characters weren't as good as the Berseria cast.
It also felt shorter than Berseria even though this has a lot more sidequests. I've still got 2 bosses left in the post-game dungeon and then have to do the other post-game quest and do the Training Grounds on Ultimate and I'll be at 100% and Steam says I've only played for 59 hours.
I'll probably replay it at some point though, to use the other voice track and wear silly outfits.
[
At one point Shionne elaborates that she spent a lot of time in a lab being studied on Lenegis by scientists who viewed her as a monster. However, unless it's in one of the few skits I'm missing, I don't think she ever explained how she escaped Lenegis (when it's also a plot point that starships usually only leave Lenegis at the start/end of a Crown Contest) and stole Balseph's core. I was kind of disappointed to see those details left out since they seemed somewhat relevant.
As for the core's themselves, I want to say there was a line of dialogue at some point about how Shionne keeping her Master Core inside of her was different from the others, but it wasn't ever elaborated on. The other lords might just use that Renan technology that lets them store their weapons in subspace.
As for the core's themselves, I want to say there was a line of dialogue at some point about how Shionne keeping her Master Core inside of her was different from the others, but it wasn't ever elaborated on. The other lords might just use that Renan technology that lets them store their weapons in subspace.
Playing on Moderate, and these Lord bosses are soo hard 😭 They have are so tanky that I can't tell if I'm supposed to beat them or not lol.
This is probably my biggest complaint about the game, at least at 15 hours in. Bosses are just way too spongey. On the bright side, you can just knock it down to the easiest difficulty because the difficulty level doesn't affect trophies/achievements at all.
Give everyone alexandrite Accessories to at least survive His light attack. And have some sort of apple gel and life bottles because he's going to go into desperation mode
Yeahh I'm gonna start doing that. Beat 2 Lords so far and each fight had me emptying like 90% of my consumables lol.
My spoiler free review:
Good:
Neutral:
Good:
- Story was a positive for me. There are some typical anime tropes and cliches but that's part of Tales identity at this point. I liked Alphen as a main character and Shionne was definitely an interesting foil to him. The writing can get hamfisted and rushed at times but I think it does a serviceable job. The whole premise was interesting to me and it really ramped up in the last third of the game. The ending and pay off was worth it for me and I couldn't have asked for more. The sci-fi lean is well appreciated given that most of the tales usually lean into high fantasy and I'd love for a modern Tales game to go more futuristic or dystopian.
- Presentation was great. The locales and the modern shine really made it feel like an actual current gen game unlike all the other modern Tales from the PS3 era which basically all felt like a glorified upscaled PS3 game. There was several points in the game where I just stopped to observe the world around me and take screenshots, the dev team really nailed the aesthetic. The character action cutscenes were cool and while I don't have the same disdain as other people for the ufotable animated cutscenes, the fact that we got so many really shows the increased budget of the game and it shows. The game finally feels modern.
- The cast was one of my favourites. I liked the Berseria cast a lot too but for different reasons. I felt the cast here felt organic and the fact that there wasn't a dedicated joke character was refreshing. There was no annoying mascot and they didn't make the mage character the awkward bumbling super smart character was also great because I really liked Rinwell and her arc. Once you get the whole party together, they really bounce off of each other in fun ways.
- I loved the party screen and how it updates to reflect the current progress and conflict in the game. It's simple but it was satisfying.
- The simplified equipment, title cooking and weapon systems is welcome after the mess that Berseria was. I hope they can add a little more complexity in the future because weapons usually ended up being pick the highest stat but at least you didn't have to manage learning passives from equipment and weapons. I also hope they keep the accessory system because there is RNG but there is also room for customization that can be eliminated through player agency. Making the perfect accessory was satisfying.
- A lot of the combat I did enjoy. The team finishers were great and really added a flair to normal battles that made it enjoyable. The changed TP system also lets you spam artes and spells to your heart's content without getting punished and it really makes normal battles feel much better.
- I personally enjoyed the fast start to the Tales games and the amount of filler in this game seemed much less compared to other games. I'd rather have a leaner experience with less filler than a bloated one. There was only a couple of times in the story did it feel like real filler.
- Big fan of the resource split of spells/healing spells. It adds an aspect of resource management and makes exploration and dungeons feel more dangerous.
- Camp fires and fast travel points were great. Really made exploring the world easier and the interactions between Alphen and the rest of the crew were nice.
- Avoidable mystic artes. I was tired of the bullshit of unavoidable and unstoppable enemy mystic artes that could do anywhere from 70% to 100% of your health.
Neutral:
- Bosses. There's a good template here but they really need to look hard at what they want to emulate and the direction they want to go. Fighting big bosses and monsters felt more akin to an action RPG or monster hunter instead of feeling like a Tales games. You have to be a lot more pro-active in dodging and avoid locking yourself into long animations or you'll get punished and that just causes you to spam the spam short artes and skills over and over. Cores should be easier to break and the stun should last longer from them so there is some room for combo potential. Either that or allow the bosses to get stagger for an x amount of time so you can juggle combo them. They could even reduce the damage during a stagger or introduce combo scaling like a fighting game, they just need to do something because a lot of people do not enjoy the massive monsters that barely flinch from your attacks. Bosses need to be more than overlimit spam in the last half of their health bar.
- Needs more customization and improvement of AI tactics. There needs to be a way to make your characters actively buff and there needs to be a way for you to force your AI party members to attack the same target as you. The AI just needs more presets on how to act because there is several times where Shionne or Rinwell will run into melee range of a boss and just eat every attack. A quick way to switch strategies or direct the AI.
- I'd like more post game stuff personally even if the main story is a little shorter. I love exploring the world and how characters and places changed based on what happened in the main story.
- While the title system is an improvement, it's still too obtuse for my liking. How much is increased weak damage, how much is increased BG gauage, how much is increased AG recovery. Give some hard numbers so the choices feel meaningful. You could even hide them behind an advanced tooltips option but I'd just like to know how much more I'm getting.
- Introduce more of the systems earlier, specifically chaining and the arte ball. It's not going to kill anyone that wants to grind earlier or wants more artes earlier to have it available and it's not overly complicated.
- Victory screens are gone but I'd like them to add more post-battle chatter. In general more lines for team finishers would also be appreciated, more variety in voicelines would help for people not getting annoyed at hearing the same things over and over.
- Despite playing the entire game on Hard, never did I feel pressured to grind for long amounts of time to try to compensate for the increased difficulty. Given battles were longer and I went through lot of orange gels and life bottles to do so, but money was never an issue because I was actively selling monster mats and doing side quests to increase my gald. Given that I almost took every fight that I saw and chained battles whenever I could which could also explain my lack of needing to grind, I think I ran away less than 10 times. I was probably underleveled for the whole game until the post game and it never felt unwinnable. I only had to grind for a bit to get the achievement for being level 100 and filling out all the title trees.
- Though I enjoyed the fast start, the Renan lords needed more character development and screentime. It doesn't hit as hard when you've only seen the main villains for 1-2 cutscenes and then suddenly you have to fight them. I think just a little more fleshing out their backstory and motivations would have made defeating them even better.
- The enemy variety is bad. Boars, wolves, birds and berserkers. I'm not sure how many reskinned wolves I have to fight before it's too much but the lack of variety really hurt the otherwise competent combat system. Not to mention the big monsters are even worse, normal battles last 30 seconds to a minute but the bigger mobs can last well past two minutes and it's just an HP sponge. They need to really up the rewards on huge monsters to incentivize fighting them.
- Field records should really have an easy way to search for materials for monster mats and ores. It was just guesswork for ore and scrolling through monster lists to find the correct thing I wanted
- More fun skits please and less exposition skits after every cutscene.
- I loved some of the overworld and town music but the battle themes didn't cut it for me. The sound mixing was extremely off in some of the cutscenes with instruments drowning out voiced dialogue.
- I said no spoilers but I had to add this, late realm 5 spoilers:
I absolutely hate losing the party healing member because Shionne is literally the only one with an aoe heal. I also hate getting locked into realm 5 for the entire duration of the zone because I really want to fast travel to other areas sometimes. Getting locked out other areas is a bit annoying.
- I think the treatment of the women in the game could still be better. I think they really did a good job on Rinwell, but Kisara's outfit is still eye rolling (and reminds me of Velvet in Beseria) and it's disappointing they went for the cheap humour for the hot spring skits at the expense of all the women characters. I think they still lean too hard into the damsel in distress tropes and I wish it wasn't always a guy rushing to the rescue of a woman in dire need of comfort or help because of her troubled childhood or past.
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I feel like I'm doing something wrong with the bosses. Their attacks are not that hard to avoid, they have good tells, and I can manage the risk/reward of going offensive or stop attacking, but other characters get hit a lot and they deplete my healing resources very quick. Like, Shionne would get one shotted by a rampaging boar across the field because she was casting. Twice now I had to finish the last bar of a boss with only one character, because at least I can avoid attacks and not worry about healing the party. It takes longer of course but at least I feel like I have control, which I'm sure is not the intended way to play.
Finally beat the game on Hard mode at about 70 hours because I may have spent a bit too much time fishing. I'm gonna let the game simmer in my head for a while before I really see how I feel about the story and characters, but overall I think it's safe to say it's definitely up there for me with the great Tales games (Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia, Berseria).
Two things I wanted to quickly get off my chest:
Two things I wanted to quickly get off my chest:
I really loved how the first OP captures the modern Tales vibe, while the surprise second OP captures the melancholy of the older Tales OPs, like Phantasia, Destiny, and Eternia. As a longtime Tales fan, watching that OP filled my heart to the brim with warm nostalgia.
I was honestly getting pretty annoyed with how the last dungeon was just spamming the giant monsters by the end, but finding and fighting the Sword Dancer near the end made up for all of it. Him turning into the Lizard Dancer after I thought I beat him was absolutely terrifying.
Okay let me talk about the third realm boss and some VA stuff
Holy shit Dohalim was really fucking hard! I had it on moderate but had to lower it to normal and STILL struggled. It was mostly because I only had 4 Life Bottles and 4 Orange Gels going into the fight so it was rough from the get go. After my first death I discovered you had to use Kisara's shield to block his charge, which helped, but I felt I barely did any damage to him and just wrecked my party. Way harder for me than the second boss which I beat on the first try on Normal.
Kisara's english VA work was really good here. Hell, everyone's was. You really feel for her in that scene where she is screaming at Dohalim, bravo.
Kisara's english VA work was really good here. Hell, everyone's was. You really feel for her in that scene where she is screaming at Dohalim, bravo.
