Tales of Zestiria Playstation 3 Battle Gameplay Mystic Artes

Played on Windows
Also available on PlayStation three and PlayStation 4

The "Tales of" series and I have a long history, I believe my first Tales of series was the Tales of Phantasia for the SNES using fan translation when I was in college during the PS2 era of gaming. Information technology was 1 of the best RPG I played considering information technology used an action gameplay in the middle of a normal RPG story.

A couple of years later, Tales of Symphonia came out for the GameCube, and it was brilliant. A fantastic story, dandy characters, and that same brilliant boxing system combined to make an extraordinary game. It was long, it was a little hard, but it was excellent.

Now I've grown up even more than, I may still play games around the aforementioned amount, but the fact is I accept less time and more than money so I don't need the longest games, I merely want quality entertainment. Just when I saw I could get a Tales game for Steam, I jumped at the risk. Well I jumped on information technology and waited a while. I wanted to see if the serial was every bit proficient equally I remembered, simply the Tales games have always been long and I heard this game would take me 50 hours. That'due south quite a bit of fourth dimension. Over a year later I've now played Tales of Zestiria. So that means it's time to review information technology every bit well.

As the game boots up, it immediately plays an anime opening, and I have to say this, the opening is pretty amazing. It has all the makings of an intro to an amazing action anime, though probably i that has very little fighting even though the opening has a ton of it to show.

That'due south honestly one of four times that the game shows an anime cutscene. Four small cutscenes over a very long 50 hours or more than of gameplay. I'd call this out as a trouble, but it's a staple for JRPGs outside of Final Fantasy and specifically the Tales Series to do this.

The entire game though has an anime mode to information technology, even if the game relies on more 3D models than 2d blitheness, and the unabridged aesthetic of characters is based on anime tropes. You accept the loli girl, the shirtless guy, the taciturn assassin, the large breasted woman, a adult female who fights while barely wearing a skirt. Information technology'due south not necessarily bad to sit on the tropes but this game doesn't attempt to push beyond what is expected of it in terms of graphics. I suppose it's fine considering that'due south what fans of these games now await, this has been the style for entirely too long. However if you don't savour the anime style, Tales of Zestiria might not be for you.

That way is also infused in the story. The master story is "A Shepard is coming to save the world from the Lord of Carnage". It's non clear who the Shephard is from the beginning, but of course, you lot are. I'd agree back on the spoiler, just we're talking about the outset couple of hours of a very long game and it's a bit obvious in one case someone defines what a Shepherd is. I'm going to talk a fiddling more than in depth on the story though and then hopefully you'll bear with me.

The game has an idea of the Shepard being the only person who can talk to Seraphims, this globe's version of "angels." The kickoff couple of hours use this to great outcome. Your all-time friend as y'all start the game is a Seraphim and in that location are points where yous talk to humans who can't see Seraphim. Yous'll option upwards on something being off during the conversations but the game actually struggles in coming out and saying that the Seraphim are invisible for a while, or that anyone other than one other person notices you turning to an empty space and talking.

Even so there are a couple of really clever scenes where sometimes the Seraphim are visible from the main grapheme'due south point of view, but from other angles you don't come across them. Information technology works but this is mostly done in the kickoff two hours. Much later (forty hours) in the story they try to apply this aspect again but no 1 makes it clear who can see who or what class of people anyone is, and thus the novel thought doesn't land as firmly as information technology should.

I do like the idea of the Seraphim, it's quite clever. However the idea is not executed in a clean enough way to set up them upward then yous understand the limitations of people. Y'all'll understand the gist of the idea, and I believe information technology gets spelled out merely it's a bit besides late in nigh every utilize.

Worse, there are not defining features to the character blueprint, so later when you meet a Seraphim, the characters react like it's obvious that someone is i, and it's not entirely visible to the player as Seraphim and humans expect similar. A simple aura might have made it easier to see visually.

This is a constant problem with the story in Tales of Zestiria though. The delivery of the entire story is a little off at almost all times. I asked around almost this and it seems that fans of the Japanese version say it had similar problems. At that place are definitely some translation artifacts but the original Japanese isn't considered a lot better, and there are a lot of theories of why, which I'yard sure I'll misrepresent, so I'll avoid going farther than just mentioned they exist.

The one affair the story and game does do well is develop a world. The Tales games tend to e'er develop rich and vibrant worlds and characters, and sticking with the characters for fifty to sixty hours make this somewhat easy. There'southward a ton of "skits" which are little pieces of the story acted on with 2d anime manner cutscenes, plainly there are 336 of them. That's an insane quantity. Nearly of the ones that I saw are interesting or funny, usually both.

Most of the story is fully animated, and looks bang-up.

Withal the delivery of the story is mixed. Yous will sympathize the story by the end of the game, it's just not always consistent in quality. At that place'south a section of the game where a character reports to your party. "We asked mercenaries they said no." Then your party member says "Go ask other mercenaries." The people leave and then one of your party member says to another. "Allow's go talk to those mercenaries." What? It's a disruptive delivery that becomes commonplace in the game.

Those mercenaries have a leader called Lucas. Now this is about x hours into the story. About fifty hours into the game when the game is winding down someone goes "Lucas is at the gate". WHO? WHAT? The game merely assumes you'll remember who Lucas is, and the fact is, he's not even in that location for a real purpose, I don't know why he appears, he is continuing with another character only the other character could have come up solitary. You instantly assist that character and don't say a word to Lucas?

Lucas isn't the only instance, there'due south another major character who goes away for nearly xl five hours with no interaction with them, and and so reappears as a dominate.

Some story lines seem to accept the aforementioned problems, a few stories become mentioned and won't get a resolution for hours, if whatsoever at all. A group gets attacked by a mysterious arrangement. You can ask your partner if there's any word almost who attacked them. Eventually this is just dropped equally if nothing ever happened?

The game also sometimes volition give yous vaguish directions as to where you are to go, and then send you off. The proficient news is your partner (if you lot accept 1) volition assist you and remind you where to go. The bad news is sometimes that assistance isn't really helpful.

There are other times when there is a scene and the party talks over each other. It happens twice in the story, but both are back to back, and and then never again. Information technology could take been a skit, because it's funny when it happens, only it distracts from what needs to be heard for the story.

Speaking of humour though I laugh a few times at the story, information technology'due south a solid thought of a story with skillful humor. It'southward just that it never executes the serious moments anywhere near where as good as it needs to. The sense of humour always seemed to state, just that lone doesn't keep the game together. The story is not make clean, information technology'south not well written and the translation/original story only makes it hard to follow at times.

In fact I feel that there's a glimmer and you miss it attribute to the story at most whatsoever time. If you skip ii lines of dialog, y'all could exist lost. The game doesn't completely leave you in the dark, but major ideas sometimes only appear once or twice in the game, and so you're expected to deed on them or sympathize the concepts they're talking about.

I wish the story could exist improve, because Tales games are already a big demand when y'all talk virtually a xl to l hr game where the story is a big pull for it. It's just this isn't one of the improve ones.

On the other mitt, the characters in the story are well congenital, at least most are. There are a few well adult playable characters in the story, and I like that. The main characters of Sorey and Mikleo are extremely well done. The 2 of them grew upward together, and rather than have them bicker to develop some story, they accept a solid bond in the game they keep building upon. They may disagree but their bond is well done. At that place's besides Laliah who is a Seraphim who assists the Shepherd and has assisted others in the past as well and she's quite funny.

Easily my ii favorite character, Laliah and Edna.

I won't get into also many more characters considering many accept spoilers but they're all skilful. In fact there are a couple I really want to talk about considering there'due south some great evolution, merely it's sufficient to say they are well made. At least the characters in your party go a lot of development, and interesting stories.

The ane character I feel I should hash out is Alisha due to an issue I have with the marketting of the game. She is a princess and a knight of Lakeland. She'due south a rather interesting graphic symbol. Trouble is at least in Japanese promotional material they heavily showed her off, so she seems similar a main character. She leaves the party quite early, never to really render. Information technology's an odd situation where she feels out of place in the game. The character is interesting, the motivations are good, it's just makes me ask "why?" Why develop a character with a unique weapon and fighting style merely to drop her of a sudden. It'southward a shame peculiarly considering she's still in the promotional fabric even on Steam.

So without spoiling any more than near the characters, I'll move on to talk about gameplay and there's a lot to talk most here.

This is a Tales game, and that means you won't be done with tutorials before twenty to thirty hours but what stands out to me in Tales of Zestiria is how poorly some of the systems synergize or just work.

There'south over xx systems working in this game all focused on the boxing organization. Simply to recite some of them, There's Skills, Normins, Monoliths, Weaponsmiths, fusions, equipment proficiency, titles, elemental weaknesses, type of attack weaknesses, battle actions, support talents, map deportment, the Lord of the Land system, Bonus Skills, Armitizations, Blasts (multiple types), Mystic artes, Spirit Chain, Blast Gauge (different than just blasts), Ailments, Ability Links, Martial Artes, Hidden Artes, and Seraphic Artes. I'yard sure some of those are the wrong names, and some of them are spelt wrong, but it's simply to give an case of just how many systems are in this game.

Ane example of a system that doesn't really make sense is the map deportment. Yous tin swing your sword for instance to assail an enemy and practice some damage as you enter the battle. Problem is it's not a lot of harm, and feels like a rather minor outset to the boxing. Whereas another system like the power link might brand information technology impossible for yous to win a boxing if yous don't deal with it. There are very dissimilar tiers of importance here and the game is all over the identify.

Mystic Artes for instance are very powerful attacks that y'all can do when your Blast Gauge is at 3. But they're really not used for "attacks" but rather they double the Course you lot earn from a battle. In add-on I found I had some problems pulling the moves off reliably.

However I will say that the combat in the game is the same bully combat that the Tales series has always had since Tales of Phantasia, and Symphonia. You run effectually on a linear side scrolling style to set on, though you can movement to the sides through either dodges or a button printing to allow you movement in 3D motion. This allows y'all to focus on a specific enemy normally but gives you the freedom to move around the arena as you lot want.

Battles wait complicated but once you know what works, almost of the trash is piece of cake to take out.

If you've never played a game in the series, I would explain it as a 2.5D fighter similar to Tekken, where you tin can move to the side just the game tries to continue you lot on a linear aeroplane with the enemy so yous hands can movement towards and away from them. Enemies attack and you're able to dodge or cake those moves, and render with your own attacks.

In Tales of Zestiria at that place's no MP system, but rather a Spirit Concatenation system, which works almost like a stamina bar. You tin can use attacks until you run out of "SC" and from there y'all demand to terminate the set on to recharge the meter. That meter can be used for normal attacks (martial artes) or special attacks (hidden artes), which take a scrap longer and tin can't be chained together.

I realize this might not fully explain the gainsay system and I am trying, it's a very complicated battle system, but the game spends over xx hours education information technology, eventually showing y'all everything you can practise and from at that place you tin find what works for y'all. For the hardest parts of the game, information technology's usually better to have an understanding of what you're not using but for the well-nigh function I recall if yous realize what'southward working, y'all can focus on that.

In that location are fifty-fifty difficulty modes in the game, and those have an interesting implementation. Normally as yous go up a difficulty system you become more and more challenge and get improve rewards, still in Tales of Zestiria, they remove 1 piece. On Normal difficulty y'all get 100 percent of your experience, on moderate, which is the next highest difficulty y'all but go ninety percent of your Exp. On Hard y'all get 75 pct. Substantially choosing higher difficulties seem to crave more grinding. The theory of it is that they also accept higher levels to their enemies. As an thought it might piece of work, but in practice it just doesn't make a ton of sense.

At that place's also an easier manner (Simple) that's a nice touch so if you lot're completely stuck on a boss, you lot can turn that on and hopefully sneak by. I tried it once or twice when I was dying to a special set on of a boss. I reset both times I used it as I didn't desire to win on Uncomplicated, merely the option is great for people who really desire to just progress through the story of the game. The thought that you can customize your game and choose the difficulty is a swell touch on peculiarly if you want a more challenging game that requires a higher mastery of the battle system.

The claiming from the difficulty systems is there and I tried Moderate and I enjoyed it, merely the infinitesimal I felt like I was making an already very long game even longer I dropped my difficulty to Normal. I had already played about twenty to 30 hours on Moderate but the experience thought doesn't really piece of work in my mind.

On the other hand on normal at the least, there's very niggling grinding that you tin can do. The bulk of the non boss enemies requite yous minimal xp, and aside from loot yous by and large will fight them in one case on the way to dominate (unless y'all avoid them on the map) and and then you'll fight the boss of the areas which tend to requite you a huge corporeality more experience. I believe there's a level based arrangement to the EXP (if the enemy is lower than your level the experience quickly drops off) only the fact is, grinding just doesn't work like you lot expect it to.

The loot though is underwhelming. Enemies driblet a lot of gear for the player, the problem I have with the boodle though is nigh of it is meant to exist fused together and Skills/fusions are two systems I really didn't dive fully into because often by the fourth dimension the equipment would affair, there'southward another piece with like or better stats In that location's a practiced system in the game for information technology, and I'm sure experts would exist able to explain what's going on but for the nigh part it seems like a organisation simply an skillful would really need to care nearly.

I wish the game had an "optimal equipment" button because the loot/equipment system was deep, but I never felt similar I was getting better gear with each incremental slice. I usually would expect a couple of dungeons and and so when there was a difficult boss I would change the equipment for all my characters, but even there, some of the equipment raises different stats. It sounds interesting but if you lot don't choose ATK+ equipment for your main weapon your character loses a lot of generic damage. And so going Artes Assault + might sound better, fifty-fifty at higher values, just the loss of the generic damage was hard to deal with. I wish this was more fleshed out or fabricated easier because it's an over complexity that doesn't make a better game.

Information technology's this huge range of decisions that had to be made all that time that fabricated me wish for a simple optimize equipment button. I didn't need the best gear but it was difficult to choose what really might be the all-time gear to have even after spending a couple of hours with it. Skills affair, stats matter, simply neither seemed fluid. Even when trying to fuse 2 pieces together there's a whole formula to what the final gear would look like, and information technology's a shame that I couldn't have more control over it, because at times I merely wanted a specific gear. Instead information technology gets into randomness to the point where I threw up my hands and but ignored it, instead just choosing which gear had the best stats, and didn't have many problems from that.

There's likewise a huge open earth portion of the game. The first one-half of the game is adequately linear, however at that place's a specific function about half way through the story where the game just says "Ok now we're an open up earth game." The transition isn't really fluid, it just stops holding your hand with where to go.

This was a mixed bag. I liked the ability to explore and see a number of side missions appear. Your follower could be talked to and would give hints on nearly every mission that was going on including missions to collect Iris gems, side stories. The story yous're supposed to follow requires yous to find three locations, and I liked how they developed the idea. Though I feel the side quests were almost required as you gained valuable levels from them, and as such you need those levels to continue on in the game.

When the game wants to look good, it does.

After completing the beginning open world department, yous get the 2d open earth quest. There are "Iris gems" that are scattered through the world. They mostly have quests or hints on how to get them, and they accept been optional throughout the entire game. Suddenly they become mandatory, and you are tasked to complete all of them. You lot need fifteen of them, and but maybe three or five are part of the story line. You so have to go hunt the unabridged earth for at to the lowest degree ten. The good news is that if you've been post-obit along you might have twelve or more than, but if yous oasis't been paying attention to them yous now need to heavily backtrack to observe all the gems.

In that location is still more skillful news with this quest in that in that location are at present stars on the map to tell yous where you still need to go, but the bad news is there's a lot of random wandering to find them even when the locations are identified, and normally a few dungeons. Many of which are leveled, so you might need an Iris Precious stone from a place that's vastly under leveled. They don't feel like good dungeons, but monotonous chores to kill the same low level enemies over and over and a dominate that offers very trivial challenge.

However I like the attempt, both parts of the open world practice work hither, they merely experience very odd. I like the exploration aspects, I but would have turned a little more than data on where to go at times. The game seemed to delight in making you wander until you detect a cave with the specific name you lot were trying to find.

I mentioned dungeons with underleveled enemies. If you're a few levels nether a grouping of enemies you tin observe yourself in a lot of trouble. Enemies will be powerful and you might exist able to tackle a level 60 enemy as a level l grapheme and the game will challenge you. Simply those level 10 enemies at the kickoff of the game aren't easy. Yous should be able to kill them quickly, but y'all usually demand entire combos, where in many RPGs a single assail should dispatch enemies if the game even tries to make you fight them. It's a shame because when the game makes you return to the original areas, I wanted to feel like an an over powered tyrant and instead your characters never experience like they've advanced that far. You feel more than similar a slightly more powerful version of yourself.

There'southward so much more than to really look into, the game is brimming total of features and story that I can dig into, just I'g mostly trying to give a review to run across if you might enjoy this game.

The real decision of this game is it's the discount cafe of RPGs. It's long, very long, and you'll get your money's worth just on the quantity of time spent with the game. The battle system isn't bad either, but the story didn't leave me feeling thrilled. I didn't want to terminate the game, though I will say the last 5 to 10 hours felt like a very long ending where the game simply kept going after establishing what the final battle should exist.

If the game was improve written this would be a improve game, if it kept the same length but had less content and evolved the story and gameplay better, I think information technology would have been a better game. I have theories on what happened here, but ultimately I won't speculate more I accept.

On the other mitt I started this review and considered giving this game a 4, just the more I retrieve about it, the weakness of the story, the corporeality of systems in the game drives down the score to a 3, which is still considered a good game that I recommend. The amount of content and the quality of the battle arrangement does enhance the score a bit, and I found the story funny at times.

And then I do recommend this game to players who want the nearly time out of a game. There'southward at least 60 hours of content in here for a single play through, the power to replay multiple times, the class shop, and other changes for new game+ can make someone relish the 2nd playthrough. I just don't think I'll tackle that feel at this time or for the foreseeable future.

three/5

Final thoughts: A long JRPG with a lot of content. Enjoyable but brought down by likewise many battle systems, and a story that isn't very proficient. Notwithstanding it's a quantity over quality smorgasboard of JRPG goodness.

Stats 63.7 hours 17 out of 56 achievements earned.

I bought this game in the Humble Namco Bandai Bundle ii. I bought the packet specifically for this game.

solleydrestle1980.blogspot.com

Source: https://kinglink-reviews.com/2018/05/05/tales-of-zestiria-review/