Forum - View topicA Beginner's Guide to Tales RPGs
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Generations
 Posts: 204 |
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Funny you mention that, since I think Shirley is probably top on my list of the more interesting, complex female characters in JRPGs. Sure, other female characters had development, but a lot of their development is very stock and predictable. Shirley and Chloe I find are both some of the more unique ones, and even then Shirley is definitely the highlight.
Also Legendia has the best soundtrack of the series. Sakuraba hasn't composed anything good in the recent games (in regards to the Tales Of series) and I wish they'd just switch completely to Go Shiina completely instead of giving him just the 13 tracks from Zestiria (which is about 15 of the only good tracks in the game). |
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belvadeer
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Don't get me wrong, I love Legendia too. It's one of my favorite titles. The story and characters were some of the best in the series, I loved Go Shiina's compositions for it (enough that I bought the OST as a result because In Pursuit/Chasing Shirley is addicting to hear) and I was completely okay with the minimal battle system, if people still want to call it that. It's just I've seen people spit on Legendia's name more often than not when it comes to those polls asking which Tales was the best and which was the worst. And poor Shirley is often cited as one of the reasons they hated the story and the whole Merines angle (well the main quest anyway, she does get a better attitude during the character quest portion, though some naysayers find that debatable). Others say also it has horrendous character models, long stretches of empty dungeons with too many random battles, bad dungeon designs in general, crystal eres being useless compared to iron eres and so on. Many do agree that Chloe was the better girl and should have been Senel's choice though, and that they felt Shirley's presence as well as Senel's desire to keep babying her was what basically disregarded Chloe's more impressive character development and growth. |
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Generations
Posts: 204 |
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I think Chloe's character quest pretty much outright said who Senel chose: spoiler[Neither of them. Senel wasn't in love with either of them and still loved Stella.]
As for terrible dungeon designs... that would be all of them post-2D era. The difference is that Go Shiina composed for Legendia which made it sting less. That being said, Legendia's combat is easily the most repetitive, and the worst of the Tales Of games I've played. It might be one of my favourite JRPGs, but with an objective viewpoint I'd rate it a fairly low score because of the lackluster gameplay and layouts. That said, it's still one of the best written ones, and is probably one of the very few JRPGs that actually subverted/inverted/play-with the general tropes instead of being limited by them. |
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tootbrush
Posts: 230 |
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Sakuraba just does what he's told to do:
I'm sure he'd love to try new stuff with Tales music (like the Elympios music in ToX?), as he does it frequently on other games he works on. |
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belvadeer
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Chloe was honestly everything Senel needed in a girlfriend. They really should have hooked up, but I guess that's what fan fictions are for. True enough. The music in Legendia's dungeons made those long stretches bearable at least. I won't deny the combat was simplistic, but at least Legendia still had some fun ideas, like the combination eres, especially Senel's throws, which could be used to negate damage through another enemy's dangerous attacks in the process of throwing your first target. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Chloe was such a great character, her epilogue arc is probably the best story segment in any tale of, but to be honest, it would hard to date someone who spoiler[stabbed you].
As for Shirley, well it'd be hard to date the sister of your first love, not to mention he clearly consider her his sister. |
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AyanamiRei
 Posts: 87 |
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Reading this article, it sounds like there are multiple art styles in this game series. Did they hire new chara-designers, because I thought only Fujishima from Ah My Goddess fame (the historical Tales of artist), and the one who worked on Eternia were doing this job?
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belvadeer
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That's quite true, but you have to remember why Chloe went that far. spoiler[People full of vengeance are often the ones who resort to "don't get in my way!" extremes like that. The stab wasn't intended to kill Senel, but to make him pass out from the pain. Chloe would have regretted stabbing Senel if she had ultimately killed him just to get him out of her way; she's a skilled knight so she knows where to aim.] As for Shirley, yeah, the whole "person I consider a sister but isn't really my blood sister developing feelings for me" is an ongoing thing with the Japanese. It's an odd and sometimes uncomfortable topic to be sure, but that whole sister act really needed to die off since the two of them were grown up enough to know better. I'm sure Stella would have lectured them about accepting one another's feelings had she been around longer in the story.
Legendia's character art was a unique and solitary case of Samurai Champloo's character designer providing the designs. In addition, they also have Daigo Okumura onboard (and he's been part of the team since the first Narikiri Dungeon on Game Boy), whose style differs from Fujishima and Inomata's designs. |
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Generations
Posts: 204 |
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spoiler[It was completely intended to kill Senel. She just didn't succeed because Senel was also a competent fighter and the stab wasn't a killing blow. At that point, she was so far gone she had every intention of not going back by leaving him for dead as a show of her conviction. If he hadn't been found, he would have actually died on the spot. Upon seeing him again at the end of the quest, she was honestly surprised he was actually still alive. The only reason she was able to get back to her senses was because the party managed to convince her and Senel was willing to forgive her. But for all intents and purposes, at that point she was ready to kill Senel AND Stingle's daughter to get revenge on Stingle. Also didn't help that Chloe was influenced by the black mist.]
I was pretty angry on my first playthrough that he didn't choose anybody (and no, he didn't choose Shirley in the end either). But after a while, I realized it was a very mature take on the expected trope. Yes, they had the most developed relationship and had the best chemistry, but that doesn't guarantee two people will hook up at the end. It was clearly a one-sided relationship, as Senel still pinned for Stella spoiler[even though she was dead.] For whatever their backstory was, Senel's feelings for Stella were true and honest, and he would never see Chloe as anything more than a cohort and Shirley as anything more than a sister. |
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belvadeer
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It's clearly been a while for me. I had forgotten about the spoiler[black mist further affecting Chloe by that point]. All I seem to remember about the spoiler[black mist] was that it spoiler[made a dark clone of each party member for their respective character quest].
It truly is a shame but at least Senel and Chloe have equally good chemistry in the escort titles like Radiant Mythology 2 and Tales of VS. I guess with Senel, he needs to learn to eventually let Stella go or he's never going to move past it. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4385 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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i kinda liked the tales of graces f series since it was that game that got me into the game, though its gameplay style is definitely something to be desired though its cause i am so use to the turn based gameplay from the old FFX games. and i definitely liked the anime style CG cut scenes. sophie was definitely my fav female character, though cherie was too much of a whiner. however after seeing the anime version of zestiria the x and its sequel, i am definitely interested in those games. though the 64 dollar question is will the cast for the anime english dub be voicing in those games? |
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JoeQ
 Posts: 77 |
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Sorry, but this last bit is wrong. Repede the dog IS present and playable in the X360 version, it's Patty the pirate girl who's the PS3 exclusive character. I've only played Symphonia and Vesperia myself. Liked Symphonia well enough otherwise, but hated Lloyd and Whats-her-face. They were just so annoying, bland and STUPID. Surprised to see Vesperia be so divisive, I thought it was great. Sure, the plot was typical anime mumbojumbo, but the gameplay and characters made up for it (except for Yuri's character arc just kinda petering out instead of getting a proper resolution). Kinda surprised they never made a sequel, there was plenty of potential for one. |
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belvadeer
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I think you misunderstood. She mentioned "a dog that's smoking a pipe" at the start and is mentioning that Vesperia is the Tales title with said dog, not which version specifically has him in it. The last sentence was an afterthought. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Inspired by the anime, i've recently started to play Tales of Zestiria and am enjoying it quite a bit. Granted, i've got no experience with any other titles from the series and even though i'm a regular gamer, i've never been much into JRPGs for whatever reason, so it's all rather refreshing to me (for now).
And of course, it's fun to find out more about the characters i've come to like from watching the anime...so let's see how this goes and i might just get back to your recommendations some day. 
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6873 Location: Kazune City |
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