Tales of Symphonia Remastered (Switch)

You Inferior... Being!

Had to get this game, the first Tales-game I played and as I think still the best one, for the most part. Story is that the world of Sylverant is dying so as the Tower of Salvation appears the chosen Colette sets out with her friends Lloyd (the main character) and Genies on a pilgrimage to save the world. On their journey they have their teacher Raine, who is Genies older sister and Kratos, a mercenary paid to protect the chosen since the last several chosen have failed (I assume). They fight the evil Desians, half-elves operating from human ranches where they enslave humans to create exspheres, crystals that will empower the user under the right conditions, otherwise it turns you into a monster. So this part is basically Final Fantasy X, you travel the world visiting temples and Lloyd learns that Colette as the chosen has to sacrifice herself for the world to regenerate it. Meanwhile they encounter the assassin Sheena that intends to kill Colette, but ends up joining them. So, at the tower of Salvation Colette loses her soul and the truth is revealed, that the order of angels, Cruxius that is behind it actually is behind the Desians as well and uses the regeneration journey to balance the worlds of Sylverant and Tethe'alla (the opposing world that have been phased into a parallel dimension) as they fight for the sliver of Mana that is generated by the Karhlan seed.

They travel to Tethe'alla and meet the chosen of that world, Zelos, and girl named Presea and Regal, a convict on death road that was the former duke and president of a big company. They uncover the truth that 4 000 years earlier, the half-elf Mithos Yggdrasill ended the Kharlan War by splitting the worlds in two and now heads the organisation Cruxius in order to create a vessel for his sister Martel that died at the end of the war after being betrayed by a human. As well as creating the Age of the Half-elves by making everyone into lifeless beings in order to end discrimination as elves and humans shuns the half-elves. Basically a communist! He succeeds in using Colette to bring Martel to life again, but she just calls him out on his foolishness before deciding to give Colette back her body. He goes on a rampage as his friends and family have now all abandoned him, you get the power to wield the Eternal Sword in order to set it back, but you have to fight Mithos once again and after that set all right. Well, at least till the sequel.

I loved the game as a kid, it was rather complicated with several fractions fighting each other with spies everywhere, including in your own group. The moral of discrimination is bad is done very good with both racial and class aspects. But this Tales-game has the best villain of all I have played, you sympathise with Mithos, the great hero (and I learned way to late that the voice actor for older Mithos is Tidus in Final Fantasy X). And as his broken body just mutters "I'm going home", when you know he has been cast out by everyone. It's also rather fun to replay with the different ways you can play it, temples can be done in varied orders, your affection for different characters gives differences to certain scenes and you can actually play as different characters for the most part. The music is fine (made by famed Golden Sun composer Motoi Sakuraba) and the graphics still looks good, although looking at the original Gamecube on a modern TV I gotta say, the pixelated remnants as you move looks rather hideous. Which brings us to the remastered version on Switch... and it doesn't look good.

First off, I can accept that it isn't the original intro from the Gamecube version, and 30 FPS verses 60 FPS don't bother me that much either. But god damn, the loading times after finishing a battle can drive you nuts and then we have the lost effect of glass breaking as you enter combat. Doesn't help that the frame rate drops something fierce at "intense" areas, for example the very first town Triet and its desert storm or the amusement park with its attractions. I mean, everyone have already mentioned this, but the remaster is bad on the Switch. Now, as of writing they have mentioned that they are looking into fixing some of the problems (probably helped that the Switch version is apparently the best selling version), but who knows how long that will take (well, as of release of this post they have at least released two patches fixing some issues), Chrono Cross took a year to get an update. I might not replay it on Gamecube again since it looks worse now (even if it might play better), but the PS3 version might look like the better choice (it plays better than the Switch, looks better than the Gamecube and you have the Trophies for yet another reason to replay it). If they fix it the ease of play might make it worth it, but since it also misses the sequel (that was in the package for the PS3 and I have the original for the Wii) it might even put PS3 above the fixes as well). Stupid me also got the Chosen edition with a steel case and several poster cards. Strange decision to not include a normal red case, but I'm not that bothered, but my boss told me he preferred normal cases so that it looked uniformly. Well, it was fun watching the credits again... wait, the credits are also stuttering? God dammit!

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (Switch)

Main character pose

So in wait for the (hopefully) coming off the Tales of Symphonia to the Switch I can at least play through Tales of Vesperia since I never played that before. And a good sign is that they actually bothered recording the song for the intro, most other games just use an instrumental version. And they also recorded voice over for the skits as well. And I like the voices here as well. I even heard Liam O'brian from Critical Role, although sometimes the text wasn't what was said. And that took me some time to get since I wondered if I heard correctly. And the gameplay is pretty much improved from Symphonia. Things like automatic use of items by your party members that you can stop by pushing the right stick and a new skill system that feels like Final Fantasy IX. Bad thing with that is that the AI goes through TP like snow in summer, and tend to use up all my TP-gels. It also have an overworld you can fly around on in the end part of the game. I like all that, and the story... kinda falls apart in the end. 

It began great with Yuri Lowell, a former knight that just hangs around the lower quarter of the Imperial capital with his dog Repide until someone cons the people by stealing their new core for the water fountain. Trying to catch the thief Yuri gets taken by the guards since they mistake him for a thief (and he has a history of causing trouble so the knight keep an eye on him). While captured another inmate gives him a clue to escape and during the break he meets up with princess Estelle as she tries to warn Flynn, a knight that is Yuri's friend and he gets dragged into that as they stop an assassination on Flynn. And the story takes of as they try to warn Flynn, meets up with Karol, a mercenary guild-member that never sticks around since he's scared (being a kid and all), Rita, the genius mage that studies blastia cores, Raven, the old guild spy, Judith, the krityan dragoon, and lastly Patty, the amnesiac girl looking for her grandfather, the pirate captain Alfried that committed a massacre. 

During the course of the adventure we explore ideas of corruption in those with power or pretty much mankind over all. They set this up with Ragou the senator and a commander of the knights who conspire to gain power for themselves on opposite sides of the imperial powerstruggle (the knights vs the senate) if Estelle or Ioder should be the next emperor. And that is fine... until Yuri kills them as he sees that as the only way to stop them from abusing power. And I can understand that. I like the idea since it also mirrors him and Flynn who chose to stay as a knight and change the system from within (and they wear black and white). The problem is that happens at the halfway point and there is no main bad guy anymore. So you travel around and try to stop the guild Leviathan's Claw that was giving the others weapons, but they aren't really the bad guys, they just profit on the struggles between others. Behind them is apparently the imperial commandant Alexei that people say had some ideals that made him go over the top to take over the world by using a super weapon from the time of the ancients. Meanwhile the Entelexeia (sentient beasts close to nature) tries to kill Estelle since her ability to destille aer (mana but not really since it appears later in the story) without blastia is a danger for the natural order. Now, the Entelexeia is trying to stop the return of the Adephagos, an eldritch abomination from the stars that feeds on aer, but fail as Alexei in his misguided search for power opens the shield that he thought was a weapon, killing him and leaving Brave Vesperia (the guild they decided to form) the ones to stop it before Duke, a characters that shows up from time to time, uses all human life to destroy it. 

It follows the rythm of the other Tales game pretty much, but where Symphonias twists and turns felt natural and the end goal was pretty clear, here I don't know. Alexei turns evil the last quarter of the game and a bit after that the Adaphagos appears in the story and then Alexei dies and leaving the Adephagos. Which you don't fight. The last battle is with Duke who belives that mankind must be sacrificed to save the planet since it was them that called the Adephagos the first time and again and again almost summoned it until now. And I agree with him, to stop this from happening take away the problem. And Duke was always this mysterious character that showed up helping the main characters, but reluctantly. But I got him. But as the final boss? No, the story fell apart there. Thank god that the gameplay didn't screw over me in the final battle. I accidentally shifted character and they all went into auto-mode and I couldn't switch back as the auto-mode wouldn't disable. Lucky my party pushed through. 

I feel disappointed by this game. Symphonia had the best final boss and Abyss the best main character. I like Yuri and friends, but Yuri doesn't have the arc of Luke and as I said, the end goal changes so you don't have that and the true final boss you don't fight. Thinking through the main cast, only Raven and Patty is interesting. And Raven I guessed pretty quickly that he played both sides. Patty took me by surprise and I don't know if I found everything in her story. Cause can't figure out why she looks like a little girl when she is apparently quite older than the others. I played the game for 60+ hours and I don't feel like playing through everything. It's not a bad game, it works and it distracted me for a while, but I don't feel anything for it. That or the fact that I stopped and played other games inbetween since the backlog is growing and soon I bought all Wii U and PS3 games again just to have them on the Switch.

Tales of Zestiria

The Tales of King Arthur

Back in the Gamecube days I bought the Tales of Symphonia game and found it rather enjoyable. I got the sequel to the Wii and actually never finished it. Didn't get a Tales of game until Tales of the Abyss for the 3DS. So as you notice I only got the Nintendo releases even though I got a PS3 and there been like 3-4 games and the first I bought was the HD collection of Tales of Symphonia which I wished was released for the Wii U but no. And then I read that LittleKuriboh was one of the voices for this game so I got it instantly. And then I learn that Kirbopher is one of the major voices... sweet! And what do you know, celebrities draw sales apparently cause after finishing the game I say it's the weakest Tales of game in the story department I've ever played. The premise is that it is the Age of Chaos caused by the Lord of Calamity who causes strife in order to create hellions, creature born out of the Malevolence in the peoples heart. To combat this a Shepard shall emerge from the humans and together with the Seraphim bless the land and purge it of Malevolence.

Meet the Shepard Sorey

Sorey, raised by the Seraphim leaves his home with his best friend, the seraph Mikleo, to warn Alicia, a knight they found in the ruins they were excavating and being hunted by an assassin. On his journey he will take up the mantle of Shepard from the fire seraph Lilah as he is pure and will rid the world of all Malevolence. As standard the interactions between the characters are fun, informative and well acted. Sadly the main character is boring, a goody-two-shoes that more or less is a Loyd, but lacks the great villain to compare him to. Heldalf is no Mithos Yggdrasill for sure. Of course Abyss didn't have a strong villain either, but Lukes journey and depth was something that made that game stand out. Here... nothing. And maybe it isn't the main focus of the game. You have very little environments and it's more focused on dungeons. A dungeon crawler. Action, battles and treasures. And it works. The armatize functions work well enough and unleashing the Mystic Arts are really satisfying. Sadly they even revamped the weapon system for a loot based economy where you gather weapons to synthesise and combine for better effects. Sadly this means you either spend 100 of hours gathering items, synthesising and taking notes of what does what... or you buy a guide... or read a FAQ, but it's busy work and I can't tell if a weapon is better or not due to all the skill bonuses. Just tell me if it's better Attack or Defence and I'm fine alright?

Well, apparently some people don't need clothes

So I'm a bit underwhelmed with the game, the only thing I can't say a bad thing about is the music which is made by Motoi Sakuraba, he who made the music for Golden Sun and you can tell. Certain themes sees eerily familiar and with an easy four element set up I feel right at home. Other things that are fun is they incorporated a discovery system where you find relics, plants, creatures and monuments that reminds me of Skies of Arcadia... doesn't help that Sorey begin with the same color-scheme from clothes to hair, all that's missing is an eye-patch.... oh, here it is in Fashion. Sadly that is all discovering you do since the overworld map is gone and we have a smaller world with a few settings. Sadly that feels like most RPG's are heading and I guess with more technical power you push more detailed environment, which feels big and looking across the whole area is fantastic, but the continent feels small in comparison to the two worlds of Symphonia or the one world of Abyss. Also there is several problems with the story. The malevolence angle, while understandable, gives the sense that you can't do anything without causing hellions. Lie, malevolence. Feeling sad, malevolence. Denying, malevolence. Really, an ascetic monk would probably be the only one not be affected or as they pointed out people really determined that they do the right thing, which somehow causes no malevolence. Right, I just need to believe in what I do apparently and it doesn't care if it is good or evil. No, I might play Tales of Symphonia Chronicles after I finish the DLC in this game.

Tales of the Abyss

 

Finished playing Tales of the Abyss yesterday, the sad ending accompanied by rain falling upon my window while the credits rolled on the 3DS. While I saw it fitting I don't know if the people across the lake appreciated  the rain that much during the camping (sorry about the Swedish, but the music festival is probably to small to garner any English fans). A fun game, a bit short though with just 50 hours, but then I didn't search for every single side quest or that sort. Compared to Tales of Symphonia it's not that good. I quite prefer Symphonia with its very good story and tragic characters that you have to fight. You actually feel for them and their plight and goals, but at the same time you see the evils they commit. In that game the main character is quite one-dimensional, he's the idealistic youth who strive for a better world. Same as the main antagonist, but he's pretty much a communist with all the Homo Sovieticus thinking.

In Abyss on the other hand the main character is deeply flawed. He begins as a spoiled aristocratic brat, but due to a traumatic event that changes his world upside down he starts to reform. You hate him in the beginning, but after playing through those events you begin to feel sorry for him. He feels like a real character and that's pretty much one of the main themes of the game. The main antagonist on the other hand is just set on destroying the world to "free it from itself". In Symphonia that was pretty much the same goal for Mithos Yggdrasill, but the character felt much more alive and logical (in a... twisted kind of way). A great part in that story was also when his ancient friends tried to push him toward a different path instead of that idea he clinging on to in hope to bring a better world as well as revive his sister. In the very end all that you saw was a former hero that regressed to nothing but a lonely scared child with a dream of a better world, who pushed his friends and loved ones away. No wonder you feel sorry for him.

Van Grants then? He's not alone. He has people who believes in him to their very end and dies in order to protect them. He doesn't even seem to care. Yes, he has a tragic back-story as well as he was forced to be a weapon that destroyed his home, but it's not the fall from grace story that Symphonia used. Van's plan felt more like vengeance upon the world for what it did to him while Yggdrasill tried to make it better, but due to insanity would let it burn.

Other things? 3D was kinda useless. Yes, it gave depth, but not in the animated cut-scenes so why do it? Music on the other hand was beautiful and certain themes really puts tears in my eyes (or would if it wasn't so damn hot that they evaporate before they leave the eyes). And why would it not when it was partially composed by Motoi Sakuraba, the composer behind the Golden Sun-games (didn't think I would sneak that in would you)?