Because there is none. It's absolutely meant as a means to raise the difficulty which is fine in my book, because otherwise you can spam through the fights.
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Because there is none. It's absolutely meant as a means to raise the difficulty which is fine in my book, because otherwise you can spam through the fights.
Truer words have never been spoken.
I have the same issues. After a boss fight, my heal items are almost always 90% used up and I more often than not finish the Voss fight with 1 or 2 characters standing because the AI keeps getting itself killed (hence, the excessive use of life bottles and cp).
About the title... doing his battle arena stuff helped with that. Especially the training because it won't let you damage enemies before you break them in the first place.
The big Shionne reveal is pretty good. I like it.
I was originally annoyed by how she getting secretive again after the fifth realm. But this time her action makes sense. I am so sorry for her.
Finished the fourth realm last night and wow that was some BS after the boss fight.
The boss fight was also... surprisingly not as difficult as I expected it would be? Still tough of course, but it somehow went smoother. Didn't have to nearly deplete my healing items this time. That was nice.
Shionne (Kingdom Hearts III spoilers) got freaking Kairi'd! For fuck's sake, she got Kairi'd! Jesus. That fucking sucks. I hated that. I hated watching that. I knew it wasn't gonna stop and whatshisface is gonna get away wit her but goddammit! Frustration over that aside though, it was pretty heartbreaking seeing Alphen get hurt by Shionne's thorns then Shionne losing hope after realizing what just happened... But I sure would've preferred to see that scene in-engine instead of these anime cutscenes Ufotable's been doing that have mostly just been disappointing. I mean, in a way, it's both better and worse than (Kingdom Hearts III spoilers) Xemnas abducting Kairi cause the party's exhausted from fighting Almeidrea and her dragon, plus Vohlran's kicked their asses so easily both times they've encountered him, so... but then! Shionne's a powerful fighter and it feels like she should've been able to do something more. Ugh. Whatever. It sucks but I can't do anything about it.
Besides all that disappointment though, wow. Alphen was a sovereign. Very intrigued now about the twin planets' shared history and how the crown contest came to be in the first place. Very intriguied... I suspected him to be Renan in secret buuut, well, I'm wrong but there's still some Renan stuff about it. Pretty crazy stuff. I was at least right about the woman he was seeing in his memories to be related to Shionne though, so that's pretty cool. I wonder if they'll go into how he actually loses his memories though. Anyways, I suspect the Renas Alma has something to do with Shionne's curse. The black smoke/mist it emitted was very similar to Shionne's curse, and given their blood relation... That probably has something to do with it.
On another positive note, it was great seeing Dohalim stand up for Rinwell and the others, and the latter for Shionne and Dohalim, when they were confronting Almeidrea.
Besides all that disappointment though, wow. Alphen was a sovereign. Very intrigued now about the twin planets' shared history and how the crown contest came to be in the first place. Very intriguied... I suspected him to be Renan in secret buuut, well, I'm wrong but there's still some Renan stuff about it. Pretty crazy stuff. I was at least right about the woman he was seeing in his memories to be related to Shionne though, so that's pretty cool. I wonder if they'll go into how he actually loses his memories though. Anyways, I suspect the Renas Alma has something to do with Shionne's curse. The black smoke/mist it emitted was very similar to Shionne's curse, and given their blood relation... That probably has something to do with it.
On another positive note, it was great seeing Dohalim stand up for Rinwell and the others, and the latter for Shionne and Dohalim, when they were confronting Almeidrea.
The boss fight was also... surprisingly not as difficult as I expected it would be? Still tough of course, but it somehow went smoother. Didn't have to nearly deplete my healing items this time. That was nice.
Alright, I finished the main story last night and most of the side quests. I still have to do the remaining Lights though. In general, I liked it a lot. The story in general is well done despite a few hiccups/issues at points, some early and some late in the game. Characters were generally very solid. The most lacking thing is probably the world building in that the game feels too on rails at points and doesn't let the player explore in a meaningful way, even when the game means to. The combat system is absolutely fucking phenomenal. Yea, some bosses are way too hard at times and others times the bosses can be restrictive but the core combat system is probably one of my favorite ever in a JRPG. It's fluid as all hell for the most part. I wish FF7R would take notes in terms of party utilization and switching between stuff in combat.
From a thematic standpoint, I think the game is extremely well written. Almost every major thing in the game ties into the idea and notion of slavery and the consequences of that. Almost every single major twist and plot thread ties into the idea of control. It's pretty impressive how singular the writing was on that front as most JRPGs tackle a number of themes like religion being bad or racism is bad. Here there's much more focus on that singular topic.
In general, it's a very solid game and pretty easy to see why it's reviewing so well. Rinwell and Hootle are the best. Oh and that idiot dog Law too. That is all.
From a thematic standpoint, I think the game is extremely well written. Almost every major thing in the game ties into the idea and notion of slavery and the consequences of that. Almost every single major twist and plot thread ties into the idea of control. It's pretty impressive how singular the writing was on that front as most JRPGs tackle a number of themes like religion being bad or racism is bad. Here there's much more focus on that singular topic.
There's two major problems with the writing and direction throughout the game. One is that they have a tendency to have a major twist and explain it afterwards. The first happens in the 4th realm with Rinwell and Law. As I posted earlier a few days ago, the concept of the twist is very good in that it gives Rinwell something meaningful to do and advances her character in an interesting direction. Same with Law. The problem is the buildup in that it just comes out of nowhere and does not feel like there was an organic build up to the scene. The skits afterwards help give the scene additional context but some of that should have been moved prior. The writers leaned too heavily on the skits to explain things or develop the characters. That's probably the most egregious and worst scene in the game but that core issue in the writing is prevalent throughout, even with some of the late game twists.
The second issue is that a lot of the background lore stuff is not explored in a meaningful or interesting way. There is a huge 3 hour exposition dump right before the final dungeon that is sorta brutal to just play through. Almost all of it is text and there's little cutscenes or neat gameplay to break it up, especially the Forbidden Zone stuff. Some of it could have been broken and given to the player earlier in the story and others could have been done to some degree in flashback gameplay. Lenegis was where I felt like the game either had a budget crunch or ran out of development time.
On that note, Lenegis was a huge disappointment for a number of reasons. The first is that the art direction was flat out bad on Lenegis. The obvious point of comparison is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the art direction there for the scifi tech backgrounds was vastly better. Rena was also pretty lacking on the art direction standpoint but I understand from both a development standpoint that the devs were probably running out of time and also from a writing standpoint in that the world itself is largely dead. However it's pretty boring of a dungeon to trudge through. I also thought the repetition of the enemy palettes was a big letdown as they could have had you fighting huge robots instead of the X version of Zeugles and guards.
Another reason Lenegis is disappointing is because you don't explore their society in a big way. You're just sort of taken on a short rollercoaster and going from Point A to Point B. Exploring the families of the Lords and their Houses would have been a fantastic element to the game. For example, getting wrapped up in a short political fight on Lenegis could have given more insight into Renan culture and made that world feel more alive. At least Dohalim got a ton of character work in the section so it doesn't feel like a wash. However there's little character work involving Shionne which is weird as that seemed like a prime opportunity for exploring her childhood. Lenegis is a huge missed opportunity.
The party as a whole was a lot of fun but I miss the earlier tension at times. I think they got along too well at the end (lol). I'm also not sure how I feel about all the characters in the party being romantically tied to each other. Mainly I think Kisara's stuff would be better without a romantic attachment/tone to Dohalim's stuff. Rinwell and Law's budding romance was extremely cute though. That's lowkey the best pairing in the game. I generally liked Shionne's big twist although it definitely reminded me of Pyra/Mythra's twist in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Alphen was fine as a lead but I wish some of his rage earlier on came through in a more clear way so you could see a more noticeable character arc for him. I'm not sure how much I bought into Shionne and Alphen's romance especially as it was formulating in the 3rd and 4th area but near the end I think it got significantly better. Mainly when they have the heart to heart on the isolated satellite before going to Rena.
I loved Vholran's twist even if I didn't love the character. I think he's a bit too one note in terms of control and just kill everything. A few tweaks could have gone way longer with him in terms of both humanizing him and making him a better villain. I do think the Great Spirit was extremely lacking as a villain/boss as it doesn't have any personality. At least though the game and writers had enough sense to realize that Vholran is the closest thing to being the primary villain and make him the final fight. That's also probably the best human/human fight in the game too. So they didn't strike out with his character but they also missed a few opportunities to elevate him.
Use of that 2nd OP when they did was absolutely genius. I have to applaud them for that.
The second issue is that a lot of the background lore stuff is not explored in a meaningful or interesting way. There is a huge 3 hour exposition dump right before the final dungeon that is sorta brutal to just play through. Almost all of it is text and there's little cutscenes or neat gameplay to break it up, especially the Forbidden Zone stuff. Some of it could have been broken and given to the player earlier in the story and others could have been done to some degree in flashback gameplay. Lenegis was where I felt like the game either had a budget crunch or ran out of development time.
On that note, Lenegis was a huge disappointment for a number of reasons. The first is that the art direction was flat out bad on Lenegis. The obvious point of comparison is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the art direction there for the scifi tech backgrounds was vastly better. Rena was also pretty lacking on the art direction standpoint but I understand from both a development standpoint that the devs were probably running out of time and also from a writing standpoint in that the world itself is largely dead. However it's pretty boring of a dungeon to trudge through. I also thought the repetition of the enemy palettes was a big letdown as they could have had you fighting huge robots instead of the X version of Zeugles and guards.
Another reason Lenegis is disappointing is because you don't explore their society in a big way. You're just sort of taken on a short rollercoaster and going from Point A to Point B. Exploring the families of the Lords and their Houses would have been a fantastic element to the game. For example, getting wrapped up in a short political fight on Lenegis could have given more insight into Renan culture and made that world feel more alive. At least Dohalim got a ton of character work in the section so it doesn't feel like a wash. However there's little character work involving Shionne which is weird as that seemed like a prime opportunity for exploring her childhood. Lenegis is a huge missed opportunity.
The party as a whole was a lot of fun but I miss the earlier tension at times. I think they got along too well at the end (lol). I'm also not sure how I feel about all the characters in the party being romantically tied to each other. Mainly I think Kisara's stuff would be better without a romantic attachment/tone to Dohalim's stuff. Rinwell and Law's budding romance was extremely cute though. That's lowkey the best pairing in the game. I generally liked Shionne's big twist although it definitely reminded me of Pyra/Mythra's twist in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Alphen was fine as a lead but I wish some of his rage earlier on came through in a more clear way so you could see a more noticeable character arc for him. I'm not sure how much I bought into Shionne and Alphen's romance especially as it was formulating in the 3rd and 4th area but near the end I think it got significantly better. Mainly when they have the heart to heart on the isolated satellite before going to Rena.
I loved Vholran's twist even if I didn't love the character. I think he's a bit too one note in terms of control and just kill everything. A few tweaks could have gone way longer with him in terms of both humanizing him and making him a better villain. I do think the Great Spirit was extremely lacking as a villain/boss as it doesn't have any personality. At least though the game and writers had enough sense to realize that Vholran is the closest thing to being the primary villain and make him the final fight. That's also probably the best human/human fight in the game too. So they didn't strike out with his character but they also missed a few opportunities to elevate him.
Use of that 2nd OP when they did was absolutely genius. I have to applaud them for that.
In general, it's a very solid game and pretty easy to see why it's reviewing so well. Rinwell and Hootle are the best. Oh and that idiot dog Law too. That is all.
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The non-DLC economy is fishing tbh. I fished for about an hour or two prior to the final boss of the fourth realm, which let me max out peach/orange gels and life bottles, and didn't need to grind for gald for the rest of the game afterwards. That doesn't mean I could always afford full stacks of each item, but it did mean I was in a healthy enough place to have a reasonable amount of each item for every fight following. This is possible because gald starts being rewarded in great sums from side quests and treasure chests.
Edit: Oh, and selling old armor and weapons helps too! People say you shouldn't sell weapons because they are used to craft weapons later in the game, but frankly it's easy to just recraft them when you need to do so. If you need help affording something don't hesitate to do so
I finished the game a few hours ago, 60h while doing almost all the side content available before fighting the final boss.
I'd say that is my favorite Tales of game, mostly because is a game that I feel I'll be able to play in 10 years and enjoy, which I can't say about Symphonia/Abyss or other games I think I liked more when released but now are almost unplayable because the rigid combat system.
I'll elaborate more on my impressions tomorrow, but for now I'll say that while the story and characters are not amongst the best of the Tales of series, the fast pacing of the game and the great presentation helps it feel more pleasant, I hate when a JRPG has a slow section at the end to make the game longer (most of Tales of do this). I agree with some here that some of the scenes or reveals feel kind of sudden and lack the impact proper build up can create. I also think that all the plot twists and reveals make sense, and that the final section doesn't feel as stupid as in other games of the series, the entire narrative is consistent and the game doesn't fall in the classic "yeah they made this twist to keep interest or to make the game longer" JRPG trope, Arise tells what it needs to tell and no more.
The dungeon design may be my biggest gripe, the final dungeon feels rather basic and lacks the epic scale you expect from a JRPG, and I feel the same about the towns, are really basic. I appreciate woth the Inn has any shop you need, but finding secret chests or entering houses are usually fun in JRPGs but Arise has really limited towns with nothing more than NPCs and the Inn.
Overall a really good game with tons of QoL, great combat, good music and a solid story/cast. My main hope for the next one is that they keep the visuals and the combat system (improving on it) but try to do something more interesting with the narrative, like what they did with Berseria a few years before.
I'd say that is my favorite Tales of game, mostly because is a game that I feel I'll be able to play in 10 years and enjoy, which I can't say about Symphonia/Abyss or other games I think I liked more when released but now are almost unplayable because the rigid combat system.
I'll elaborate more on my impressions tomorrow, but for now I'll say that while the story and characters are not amongst the best of the Tales of series, the fast pacing of the game and the great presentation helps it feel more pleasant, I hate when a JRPG has a slow section at the end to make the game longer (most of Tales of do this). I agree with some here that some of the scenes or reveals feel kind of sudden and lack the impact proper build up can create. I also think that all the plot twists and reveals make sense, and that the final section doesn't feel as stupid as in other games of the series, the entire narrative is consistent and the game doesn't fall in the classic "yeah they made this twist to keep interest or to make the game longer" JRPG trope, Arise tells what it needs to tell and no more.
The dungeon design may be my biggest gripe, the final dungeon feels rather basic and lacks the epic scale you expect from a JRPG, and I feel the same about the towns, are really basic. I appreciate woth the Inn has any shop you need, but finding secret chests or entering houses are usually fun in JRPGs but Arise has really limited towns with nothing more than NPCs and the Inn.
Overall a really good game with tons of QoL, great combat, good music and a solid story/cast. My main hope for the next one is that they keep the visuals and the combat system (improving on it) but try to do something more interesting with the narrative, like what they did with Berseria a few years before.
The opening cutscenes and first area in terms of voice acting and storytelling did not make a great first impression. It was very tropey and lame IMO (the intro to the Demand and Renan conflict).
But after pushing on, just got to leaving Calaglia... The skit interactions and the voice actor for Alphen has sold it so far. Really hoping the characters and writing gets better in the other realms, because everything felt so rushed so far. Thank god for the art style and combat.
Symphonia, Vesperia and Berseria I feel had stronger openings that really sank their teeth into you (or didn't) much faster.
But after pushing on, just got to leaving Calaglia... The skit interactions and the voice actor for Alphen has sold it so far. Really hoping the characters and writing gets better in the other realms, because everything felt so rushed so far. Thank god for the art style and combat.
Symphonia, Vesperia and Berseria I feel had stronger openings that really sank their teeth into you (or didn't) much faster.
Yea there are definitely times where I feel the game pushes you towards the DLC in terms of difficulty spikes or dungeons just dragging on the point of you naturally burning up your CP. Yea you can counter this by spending a few hours farming for gold but it still feels like bullshit.
I loved the opening of Arise and Berseria, both games start in a interesting situation and feel fast paced during the first hours.
On the other hand the opening of Vesperia and Symphonia is too vanilla and basic to be really good IMO, you start in your town doing your normal life and then something happens and you go to do your JRPG stuff, but in both cases the first hours are kind of slow.
Definitely, spending time making strong accessories pays off very hard.
What I did is: fight until the last dungeon's first boss. Then I completed the 3 big side quests (you know which) and then I finished the last dungeon. This way it was easier and the extra levels made fighting the damage sponges on the 2nd half of the dungeon far more enjoyable.
I noticed an oddity that I don't remember if it was an issue in previous Tales but enemies instantly attack after hitting the floor in the middle of a combo so using the downward aerial attacks gets you hit sometimes. Its a bit awkward. I've had to segue into the controlled character's boost attack to ensure it doesn't happen and break combo.
Ok what the heck is wrong with Dohalim's AI? I have literally set him to heal people when they are below 50% HP, I even specified the Healing Arte he is supposed to use for it, I have enough CP, my HP are in the reds, yet he REFUSES to heal me. And no the Arte isn't turned off. Idk what I am doing wrong, Shionne's AI is following the Strategy commands just fine. At this rate I will have to have Shionne as a forced party member cause my other healer character remember how to heal...
Anyone else with that problem?
Anyone else with that problem?
Another thing I really appreciate is how the boss life bar is clearly divided in 4 and how you know that when you deplete 2 bars (and sometimes 1) a scene or special attack will always trigger and the boss will transition to the next phase.
The last Action JRPG I played was FF VII R, and that game does a really poor job with this, making really easy to spend a limit breaker (that are really slow to obtain) on a boss that will transition phases (during a cutscene that makes the boss invulnerable). The bosses in FF VII R are more fun and have more interesting and varied attacks, but the game has really big flaws like the one I explained that make the overall combat in Arise feel better and more polished.
The last Action JRPG I played was FF VII R, and that game does a really poor job with this, making really easy to spend a limit breaker (that are really slow to obtain) on a boss that will transition phases (during a cutscene that makes the boss invulnerable). The bosses in FF VII R are more fun and have more interesting and varied attacks, but the game has really big flaws like the one I explained that make the overall combat in Arise feel better and more polished.
Whew, finally assembled a fishing guide at RPG Site yesterday. I have no idea if it's up to par with whatever other sites do this kind of stuff. But I can tell y'all it was the most tedious guide I've made for this game.
Fishing's fun for a little while, but it really wore out its welcome by the end.
Fishing's fun for a little while, but it really wore out its welcome by the end.
OMG thank you. This has come at the perfect time for me.
PS: Love RPGSite. So reliable for RPG and RPG-adjacent coverage and the reviews always go into depth about gameplay/battle systems.
Oh, yay! I'm happy to know that it'll surely help somebody. If I missed something/something's not clear/etc, do let me know and I'll help out.
And thank you! Though I only just recently joined their staff, so I can't take much credit for that. :P But I'll be sure to pass on the sentiment.
Thanks, I'll look that up as I haven't done any fishing at all.
Overall I'd say it's worse outside of gameplay. The second part is a MAJOR disappointment compared to the first which is better than Berseria. The last few areas suffer from the same level design issues as Berseria and Zesteria.
Arise has you introduced to Iron Mask the slave after a very tropey narrated introduction, within two minutes on a train with a rando girl doing jumps in heels, Mask boi already suddenly doing amazing feats, with the rushed explanation he can't remember anything or feel pain. To me it wasn't interesting yet, it was just really rushed and the events that followed felt unearned.
Considering how actually decent the writing and the voice actor for Alphen proved when I pressed on through the first realm, I just felt Arise's opening could have used a bit of Symphonia and Vesperia's restraint to set things up better.
Okay it wasn't only me then, yeah I said earlier in the topic that it suffers the exact opposite problem of games with a slow start.
I agree that some chapters feel kind of rushed, to me the intro chapter had a certain "cinematic" feeling (good action cutscenes, linear progression, epic bossfight and area finale...) that made it really good, so I kind of prefer this over a really slow first chapter that tries to establish lots of world and character elements but takes a few hours.
Weird. I feel the opposite. I think Arise could have taken notes on how FF VII handles enemy aggro and atb build for party utilization. I'm only 20ish hours into Arise but I've never felt like it was advantageous to switch who I'm controlling, I just do it for fun, while in FF VII it was necessary.
Yeah what the hell kind of take was that? Remake has a much better and intuitive party switching and commands set up.
edit: unless they mean swapping equipment and Artes mid battle which is kind of necessary in Arise because of the party AI and aforementioned lack of intuitiveness in party wide control.
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I'm talking primarily about being able to adjust Artes on the fly and party layouts. It's extremely painless to just completely retool your party while FF7R locks you into a number of stuff at the begin. It's much more fluid and dynamic than FF7R.
I also think the Boost Attack stuff is much more interesting in terms of using AI party members (even ones not on the battlefield) than FF7R as there are more scenarios and uses to consider than whether an opponent is out of reach or elemental damage aspects.
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I think something Arise really would have benefited from would be the ability to make and save different Arte loadouts, which unless I missed something isn't possible? I would love to have been able to easily swap between Water Rinwell, Wind Rinwell, etc. It's a little annoying clicking and unclicking artes over and over lol
FF VIIR has always a preset party so they can design the encounters to use the 3 members at their full potential, making them mandatory to use (for example Barret is good at takind down flying enemies). The characters are also far more simple in FF VII and all of them use the same button layout, Arise (and all Tales of games) has complete freedom to set your Arte buttons and every character is harder to learn, as they have lots of Artes and their personal skills are more involved.
Both games try different things, I'd say that both games have excelent real time combat. FF VIIR tries some things that are IMO more interesting and has more unique bossfights, but Arise controls better and feels more polished, so I'd say that Arise is overall better.
Both games try different things, I'd say that both games have excelent real time combat. FF VIIR tries some things that are IMO more interesting and has more unique bossfights, but Arise controls better and feels more polished, so I'd say that Arise is overall better.
Yea that's clunky. Loadouts would be super nice.
I don't think those two styles are inherently opposed to each other. You can definitely set up fights geared towards having a particular party set up in Arise like having an aerial enemy rushing at you that does high DPS thus incentivizing having Kisara as tank and Shionne for healing. The problem in Arise's case is the lack of enemy variety so they never really push the combat system heavily in that direction. That's something that Arise's sequel could improve on, is making party switching more necessary than just having the Boost attacks.
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Game could use a lot of quality of life changes. Stuff that should have been introduced into the series a long time ago.
Not holding my breath though. Took the series 25 years to introduce jumping outside of combat and swimming.
Finished the 2nd realm last night. Really enjoying it. These have been some of the most intense boss battles in the series for me so far. Been playing on moderate and haven't died yet but I'm definitely not used to feeling this challenged in a Tales game. They have so much freakin' hp lol. One thing I don't care for is the leveling system... I hate when games make exp dependent on level and you get diminishing returns from fighting lower level enemies. I like to grind and reach crazy levels in Tales and I don't like feeling like I'm always at the level the game wants me to be at.
Also Hootle best Tales mascot. It's already official.
I knew Zephyr's days were numbered since his status as a fake party member had death flags written all over it, but I certainly wasn't expecting him to be Law's father! That was an interesting twist and a great way to introduce Law before making him a party member. Tragic tho. ;_;
Meneck was painfully obvious too lol. As soon as I saw him I was like hmm... glasses... not the standard npc model... TRAITOR!!!
I do think Shionne's one of the best Tales heroines so far, and I really like her badass, take no shit personality, but the "it's not like I care or anything, I'm just here for me" attitude gets rather excessive at times and the victim-blaming tone she sometimes throws at Dahnan people struggling to deal with their circumstances ain't cool, so I'm hoping she'll chill out a bit at some point.
Meneck was painfully obvious too lol. As soon as I saw him I was like hmm... glasses... not the standard npc model... TRAITOR!!!
I do think Shionne's one of the best Tales heroines so far, and I really like her badass, take no shit personality, but the "it's not like I care or anything, I'm just here for me" attitude gets rather excessive at times and the victim-blaming tone she sometimes throws at Dahnan people struggling to deal with their circumstances ain't cool, so I'm hoping she'll chill out a bit at some point.
So now my R2 button no longer works consistently on my brand new ps4 controller i started using with this game...
So this is a random thought that just occurred to me but why the hell does this game have two buttons to recenter the camera? Would have liked the option to change the camera distance instead like Berseria.
If you couldn't change Artes mid battle in Arise, your party members would just spam Wind attacks against a Wind element boss like nobody's business which isn't a problem in Remake so its a different solution to a different problem. There are some rare cases where not having the right materia in Remake can bite you in the ass though for sure.
As for the Boost system, its fun and snappy but amounts to rock, paper, scissors. I enjoy it and its flashy but the party members don't really synergize in the way that they do in Remake like Tifa's high pressure and stagger percentage abilites, Barret's tank abilities and burst ATB filling so he can double as a healer, Aerith's buff circles, etc. It wasn't just as simple as ranged vs melee.
In Arise it actually is that simple which is fine but there's much less strategy involved in the game and I've been playing on Hard. Hell the bosses are when things get the simplest where you can just equip accessory for their element, find the boost that downs them, spam Fire sword attack, rinse and repeat. Its highly effective and you don't even need to switch characters at all. Trying to style on them can be frustrating since the main focus is to PG in between dealing damage and switching characters can even be counter intuitive since the AI is bad at that.
Both games have their strengths and for me Arise shines in keeping regular battles and side bosses exciting where you try to keep the combo meter up and Boosts flowing but party synergy isn't really there. I still can't find a place for Kisara and often party members can get in the way of combos knocking enemies up in the air when you're trying to do a ground combo or vice versa.
Basically, I miss the Co-op aspect. If they are going to stop implementing it going forward, they need to improve the AI and switching members on the fly.
LOL. didn't know i obtained this. just going to let everyone in my party wear it.
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I got through the first couple hours, and I really like it so far. My question: is this game grindy? Like do I have to run through areas multiple times in order to keep up with the story bosses?
I was 100% Law in
that I didn't ask for another beast to come in the middle of that boss fight. Pulled through tho
I managed to air juggle an enemy for a good while. It was so hype. I wouldn't let it hit the ground lol Alphen might go down as my favorite JRPG character to play as
For me, I just fought everything in the way throughout the game. It does reward enough xp to keep you inline with the areas. Plus you get a few artifacts that increase xp gain if you do some of the specific side quests.
Don't think I ever repeated an area and only refought monsters when I back tracked in the same dungeon.
I mean being able to readjust materia mid battle in ff7r would be kind of crazy
Yep, cast Manawall on everyone then swap out, cast Haste on everyone, swap out cast more buffs, etc. Use a summon boosting accessory, use summon, swap out. It would break the game lol.
They should probably add a press square to change party settings before every boss battle rather than a select few though.
Is there a decent guide somewhere regarding what Artes I should be focusing on / deactivating for AI companions? Still early but not sure if I should be prioritizing certain abilities for Shionne for example?
