Tales Series

[AnimeGamer183]

Cool they are turning it into a give away and Namco agreed to it at least, and gave everyone a chuckle.

In other news amazon hasnt even shipped my order yet, still "preparing for shipment", hopefully tomorrow smh... amazon really needs to get on their game with pre-ordered stuff. Sucks I just continue to have trouble with them, only reason I went with them this time was because bundled with the guide it was much cheaper than going to gamestop. Sucks those are my only real options, at this point i dont really like amazon or gamestop, guess I gotta choose 1 of them.

[Raithos]

That sucks man. I canceled my amazon order when best buy shipped it. Got mine yesterday. My amazon order never even gave an estimated delivery date like yours did. I think it was on gamefaqs that I read amazon got their shipment late, and more than one person said they were having the same issue as you. So at least its not just your bad luck this time lol. I'd be in the same boat if it wasn't for best buy. And I only saw that it was posted up there because of slickdeals.net lol I check that site every morning. With GCU I paid 112 with tax and all.

[Raithos]

So I'm about six hours in and thoroughly enjoying it. I think Sorey might be my favorite protagonist since Yuri. So glad he's not a whiny little turd. The interaction between him and Mikleo seems genuine, and very funny at times. It almost seems like they were in the booth next to each other when they recorded their lines. Battle system is fun as always, smooth and fluid. And I like where the story is going so far. Very different from what they've done in the past. Too soon to make solid judgments, but from what I've played I would definitely recommend it. Its a breath of fresh air sinking my teeth into a good RPG after playing so much Destiny, MGSV and CS:GO lately.

[Himuro]

I bought it as well. Impressions later, but even as a Tales skeptic, so far I'm liking it.

[AnimeGamer183]

Some of the people that participated in the RPGamer contest posted their entries on the forums

[Himuro]

The size of the world and city really seem unnecessary. For all of its size, Ladylake has virtually nothing in it. A lot of the games structure so far seems to be about running from a to b to stars on the map. The space feels wasted. It feels like Tales thinks it's AAA and it's going for an FFXII vibe in terms of scope and size, like comparing Rabanestre to Ladylake for example. The general overworld map is FF12-esque as well. But it's really not working and traversing is a chore. You accomplish the same thing, but things end up taking a longer time, and for no real reason other than showing larger scale.

Further, the art has suffered. Comparing to Symphonia, Abyss, and especially Vesperia, something has been lost in the art direction. Much like when FF went from static camera in 7-10 and went full 3d in 12. Except Zestiria doesn't pull off the large scale maps nearly as well as FF12. Instead of filling maps with interesting art, it's mostly just a waste of space of boring houses and stuff. And for all the talk of the cities beauty in the storyline, the locales are exceedingly plain. It fully represents the industry's open-world race to see who can create the largest, most boring game world ever, and I'm disappointed that Tales fell victim to it.

Here's hoping the next Tales ditches the full 3d thing and goes back to the art direction in Abyss and Vesperia. I doubt it though.

Because I mean comparing Zestiria to Abyss of Vesperia, graphic wise just isn't fair. I'm playing on PS3 and I'd say the graphics are straight ass. No Anti-Alias, muddy textures, some frame rate hitches. Combined with the plain art direction and it looks ugly as sin. It's easily the games largest (and so far, for me) only glaring flaw.

Night and day.

How a Tales game should look like:













Scenic views, good art, nice camera angles.

Not this:



(boring)



(boring)



(boring)



I realize that Tales of Vesperia had a higher budget because MS gave them some money, but there's really no excuse for this large of a disparity. The areas in Tales of Vesperia/Abyss/Symphonia told a story with their areas. A crumbling, molded ancient ruin would look like a crumbling molded ancient ruin. With rubble all around it. Go into the waterway in Tales of Zestiria, and there's no story. It's just a generic waterway.

The larger scale cannot be justified in what has been lost.

[OL]

Absolutely agree that Vesperia is the more attractive one.
But man, I just have to say it, I kind of hate that the gaming world has become this kind of place, where you can describe something like this:



...as being "straight ass" or looking "ugly as sin," and no doubt many people would agree with you wholeheartedly.
Jesus Monkey Christ, we've become so ridiculously spoiled.

[Himuro]

It looks like a ps2 game, OL. Dragon Quest VIII looks better.



More ps2 games:





it's not being spoiled at all. That screenshot isn't impressive artistically or graphically, and I'm sorry you find it impressive.

More than that, I was distinctly talking about the ps3 version when I said it looks like ass, which is what I'm playing. It has no AA, textures are atrocious, unstable frame rate. It looks really bad on ps3. I watched some of the ps4 version and it looks considerably better. The disparity is shocking and the ps3 version has a very distinct lack of polish.

[OL]

I wasn't saying I find it impressive (that's something else entirely), I just think it's pretty sad that something so obviously pretty can be so readily described nowadays as looking like ass. I mean, we're really so jaded and numb to these things that terms like "ugly as sin" actually seem appropriate to describe something like that? Even with its less-than-stellar technical qualities, I find it hard to call a shot like that ugly. Sure, I can see it being "boring" or not particularly interesting (I'd kind of agree on those points), but ugly? Eh...

[Raithos]

I'm playing on PS3 and I'd say the graphics are straight ass. No Anti-Alias, muddy textures, some frame rate hitches. Combined with the plain art direction and it looks ugly as sin. It's easily the games largest (and so far, for me) only glaring flaw.

As far as the frame rate, muddy textures and no AA, that might because your are PS3 (no excuse for a game to be released like that, but its all too common nowadays) as I've seen non of those issues on PS4. You can tell it started out as a PS3 game for sure, but there's no performance issues. Everything runs smooth as butter, crisp and clear textures. Straight ass or ugly as sin though? Nah, not in the slightest lol. But yeah, I think Vesperia is just on another level. We all agree on that one. It has a lot to do with the bloom and shading that game implemented, on top of the art itself.

Beauty is the eye of the beholder I guess. I think the game world looks great. If you don't dig the art direction I can understand that, we won't all like everything. But as someone who spent way, way too many hours on DQVIII, both on PS2 and PCSX2 @ 1080p (as well as every other RPG under the sun on PS2), the game doesn't look like that on actual hardware. It looks amazing, even to this day, but not that crisp and clear. Screen captures always look better than the actual games on older hardware, which is what those are. Glad you are enjoying the rest of the game tho.

[Himuro]

I just don't find the screenshot pretty.

In any case, actual gameplay impressions later.

Raithos: that's why I'm disappointed with the visuals. If PS3 was the main system I can't understand how or why it looks so bad. It's almost like ps4 is the main system and the PS3 version was down ported. That's how bad it looks and I'm hardly a graphics whore.

[AnimeGamer183]

Talked to amazon customer service last night about what the hold up was, they gave me the run around, basically for Free shipping on pre-orders they swing the shipping day around the estimated time of arrival dates (in this case oct 26-30 is the arrival dates) so they have no problem holding my items if they can still get it to my house between those dates, and obviously Free shipping gets put on the bottom of the priority list. Oh yeah, it seems amazon has out sourced their customer service to foreign countries that dont speak english as their native language, my customer service experience was hell with the first lady, I couldnt understand her, she kept repeating herself, trying to get me to settle when she couldnt answer my question of "why didnt this ship out on the release date?", the supervisor wasnt much better he tried to justify shipping the items out late, it was really bad... I HATE having to make these calls. May cancel my amazon order and just buy a regular copy of the game at my local gamestop or maybe if they have an extra CE, im reading the guide is shit too so Im not sure i even want that anymore, I just wanna be happily playing and forget this bullshit ever happened.

[Raithos]

Ouch. That sucks. The CE is pretty much just like the Symphonia one, except the inside box opens at the top instead of sliding a part. Has the same outside plastic case too. Up to you if you want to wait or not, its numbered if that matters to you. As far as the guide, it seems on par with the Xillia one quality wise. As for the info inside being useful I have no clue, I don't buy them for that. I play them blind. I just bought this and the Xillia one since its the only two hardback Tales of guides they have given us. I did see a review on Amazon where a guy said he got a collectible in the first hour that wasn't in the guide, not sure what he was talking about. The first hour consists of one ruin, small forest and a village. Other than walking past a monument or chest (neither are hidden, and you have an ability that marks them on the map when you get close) there's about zero chance of you missing anything. Himuro can probably attest to that as well. I've never found guides that useful myself, I know you like them though. I can't honestly give an opinion on it though other than if you liked the Xillia one you would like this one too.

[Himuro]

dont worry about a guide. I haven't bought a guide in almost ten years.

[Himuro]

edited.