Tales of Graces Beta vs Complete – “Almost a New Game”

but of course, unless you own a PS3.

Namco can get fucked, I'm sick of paying full price for a Tales game, only to have a better version put on another console. Just another nail in namco's coffin.

Soulcalibur is fun though.

Hey, waddaya know, I own a PS3, I get all these complete versions :3

LOL and to top THAT off, Tales have been releasing their same generic game for longer than CoD.

I wasn't knocking the Tales games by discerning that both CoD and Tales use very similar things in their series. CoD is very much the same game with a different plot, as is Tales. Guns and scenery don't really change that, but really you have to ask, does that matter?

Japanese is all about character/world driven plots, and that's what we WANT in a Tales game. Anon 6:27 you say the recent Final Fantasies were crap, and they changed and tried new things, but they weren't crap in the slightest. They were just bludgeoned by childish expectation which is impossible to meet. Everyone expected another FF3-F7 transition, and that will never happen again.

What we want in a Tales game is a good story with fun characters. The gameplay is good, we know this. People claim to want something different, and yet they can never say what would make it better, so they are worthless to listen to.

I'll keep playing Tales games with the same graphics for eternity as long as they keep writing such wonderful stories and settings and characters. Yes they're all archetypes, everything's always an archetype. It's the basis of modern literature. I want to see how they mix it up.

first address people, than my view.

Anonymous
02:21

CoD is a fun online game, the story is meh with MW2, but online was good when there weren't cheaters.

HouseLife
03:54

i have to say you are fucking stupid, haveing the story woven into the game, yea, great idea.

i fight major battles in a game that is basically the same, year after year, and have to read everything? whats the difference between a jrpg and a book at that point?

i grew up on video games from the late 80's and taught my self to read with nintendo power (quite a feat for someone not in school yet) so here is where i'm coming from, EVERY GAME weather on the wii, xbox, or ps3 MUST HAVE full voice acting. at this point in time when we have 8 gigs of storage space on discs, where 1 hour of dialoug can be compressed into 30mb files and still sound great, there is no excuse for anything less. and i mean EVERYTHING.

look at games like... o heres an example, lost odyssey, i got that when had no hd tv, i couldn't play it because the text was so fucking small i couldn't read it. and than there were walls of text too. that game i believe has enough text to cover an entire novel. with the pats of the memory he regains it should be read to you with internal monologue, not you fucking read this long ass chapter from a book.

you get what i mean? an rpg is basically a book you play, at least jrpgs, if there is not moral choices, or the like, than everything should be voiced, from their banter, to cut scenes. anything else is lazy,

and here, a voice actor, from what i understand, can get payed as low as 1 cent a word up to 20 cents, lets say there is 100000 words in the game (i just googled words in a novel, it appears to be between 80-120k so i went middle of the road.)

that would come to 1000$ up to 20000$

if you cant pay people 20 grand on a word heavy game to talk, than you have no business making a word heavy game.

now im not saying reading is bad, ill go back and play older games, but damnit the technology changed and some people are still making games with walls of text you have to fucking read. back when there was no other option it was ok, but now, when we can have voice, and in game cutscenes, i cant justify not having voice acting.

now, onto my comment,

namco can go fuck themselves, they only think of the japanese market, and not the american.

hell go through the game and just change the text to engish, we are ok with subtitals (my above still stands with voice acting, however with things like movies, i cant watch a foreign film dubed, i just cant) and market it in america, you deserve to die as a company. in this day and age, making a A game (not AAA, just A) and not marketing to outside parties, you have to be fucking retarded. it would take all of what, 10000$ to resub? that would mean that within the first 1000 copies sold you pull profit. 2000 at most (game companies make between 7-14$ a game after all the costs are hammered out) you dont even have to advertise, the people who really want the game know it came out in japan and hoping to whatever god they worship that its coming out for them to.

Okay, so the stories often involve releasing guardians of some sort.

....SO?

It's not like what you listed is the only thing going on in each game. You must have a hard time paying attention if all you got out of the plot of each game was "They have to find some guardian guys."

And the series has a lot of same skills in each game? No shit, Sherlock, that's because they're in a SERIES. Also nice job ignoring any and all new spells, attacks, and battle systems each game has compared to the last one, buddy.

You're really not making a strong argument for us westerners here.

Alidan... you make no sense... first you call me fucking stupid relating to a topic that I never even brought up, and then go on a rant about the same amount of nothing. Of course voice acting is a wonderful thing to have, but Lost Odyssey was an exceptional game. You represent the 'retarded XBOX generation' I spoke of if you couldn't realize how incredibly beautiful those side stories were. And I didn't want anyone speaking them at all. Not one bit. It would have ruined the entire experience of them if there was a narrator. I'll admit sometimes I didn't feel ready to read them, but that was only at 2AM a couple nights when I was ready for sleep, and I wanted to enjoy them with full concentration.

If you are against reading and calling a game a book if it's not fully voice acted in every facet, then... well I couldn't care less. I already have written off people who can't stand a bit of reading as stupid anyway. Your claims mean nothing to me, because they're full of useless generalities.

You are nothing more than a child if you think everything's as cut and dry as you claim it is. I work in the games industry, and your assessments are extremely shallow and lack a lot of information, but what else is expected of someone who judges things so black and white?

its not that i wouldn't play the game, its that i couldn't without an hd tv.

granted, i was tired so i had to re read most of what i wrote.

and that game could have been so much more... cant think of the word, but o well.

think of this, and in game cutscene, with narration in the first person, as though it was from a book, with everything that is being read popping up as its being recollected, i honestly don't thing that it could be done wrong. and im not calling that game bad by any means, im saying that damnit did i needs some more voice overs, i could have played it a LONG time ago if it wasn't for the text being to small to read on my sdtv.

and not weaveing the story into the game here ill directly quote you

"A sad underlying truth is that weaving the stories into the gameplay is the only way to truly present a story to that retarded 'XBOX generation"

the way you make it sound is that if a story isnt told in game, people cant follow it. well here is a truth, the story needs to be in game because how many people remember, or could put up with games where you need an instruction manual next to you to read, because the games were to small to fit the story text into the game.

now tell me, which is better.

a well done ingame cutscene,
or
press start, go through menus, and find relitivly important in game story, and have to dead 5-6 pages of text. not condex (masseffect) if you want to know more about this universe, read these, but plot important elements.

the minimum that should happen is full voice over. the most that should happen is in game cutscene.

Oh it's obvious which is better, a well-done, Avatar level tech cutscene where ever lip flap is rigged into the model so that you can watch the moist lips peel off one another during each word. That will never happen for every game, and to judge every game by standards like that is exactly what is killing the game's industry. Someone actually argued that a game should be judged on what it should have been, not what it was, and that is quite simply the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. Seeking for improvements in every iteration of a game is one thing, but expecting everything you ever dreamed as an inevitability is just a recipe for disappointment, because no company will ever be able to meet the expectations of every gamer, nor will it ever be able to afford everything it wanted to do.

I would happily read a well-written story across the board if it meant sacrificing voice acting. It doesn't mean I have to, but if I had to choose, the choice is obvious. That is why Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Fallout are still games that easily thrash anything in modern times due to their superb writing more than making up for a lack of some kind of cutscene for every instance.

And besides. FFXIII is exactly what you describe, and everyone bitched and moaned about it being a movie. I considered FFXIII brilliant in more ways than one, and only the morons who judged it on "Hey, where are the sidequests" seemed to actually be heard.

@anon 10:50

"Okay, so the stories often involve releasing guardians of some sort.

....SO?"

So? Are you retarded? Of course it's not the ONLY thing going on in the game, but this is the basic outline for the Tales series in EVERY GAME. I'm not saying that Namco is using copy and paste, but whether you can get it through your fanboy head or not, this is a major obstacle that the characters of the Tales series go through EVERY time. Needless to say, it's fucking predictable. But since you're so insistent that Tales is original, lets have an overview.

Tales of Eternia: Get the 4 guardians. Learn Splash (or w/e), Eruption, Stalagmite, etc. Go to next world, do the same. Final boss.

Tales of Eternia 2: Get the 4 guardians. Go to Celestial world. Get other 4 guardians. Final boss. AGAIN.

Tales of Symphonia: Get 4 guardians. Get other 4 guardians. Final boss.

Tales of Symphonia 2: Get 4 guardians. Get other 4 guardians. Final boss. AGAIN.

Tales of Vesperia... Need I say more?

Not saying all Tales games are the same in character development and such but the same shit happens everytime. And through all those game I'm just learning Demon Hammer and Tempest OVER and OVER and OVER again. And in what way are the battle system different? The only change they made was going from 2D to 3D. The only battle changes I remember were some minor battlefield elements. Now don't get me wrong, I love the Tales series and its battle system but the shit your spewing is pure fanboyism if you don't think they're basically the same game. In a sense its pretty much like Dynasty Warriors (better of course, but you should get the idea).

@HouseLife

First of all that comment wasn't even directed at you... If you read at the beginning of the post I said @anon >.>

"Anon 6:27 you say the recent Final Fantasies were crap. Everyone expected another FF3-F7 transition, and that will never happen again."

Why will it never happen again? If they could make a great game once upon a time, why can't they do it again? The only reason why they don't is because of Square's merge with Enix, their only real competition in the JRPG district. And by merging, they basically formed a monopoly so now they can just release any half assed RPG and people will think Square + Enix = BUY THIS SHIT, but in this case, two positives doesn't always make a positive (no pun intended :P). I'm not saying the recent games were HORRIBLE (except FFXII, that one flat out SUCKED.) but FFXIII had no towns and was just plain linear. Still an alright game IMO but not great.

Now before yall try to bash me about my Tales knowledge, I've played them all a few times (the ones I have at least, and I have most of them.) just not recently. So don't throw a fucking hissy fit because I didn't pinpoint all the details.

FFXII didn't suck, it FAR from sucked, and no town in FFXIII made no difference. Only thing that would have made FFXII better for me was more character interaction. They made a plot-centric story, which is VERY new to Japanese markets since everything is character or world driven.

Regardless of the various reasons for the cutting of content in FFXIII (which was actually older content, not expanded content) it became a great gate. It was a playable book, and I will never complain about that. It was beyond exceptionally well presented. And it came with interesting gameplay, which is what games need to include, so it succeeded. Every complaint about the game is a perceived complaint that I've heard. Everyone judges it on what it should have been in their minds, not what it was, and what it was was excellent.

The reason there will never be an FF3-FF7 is because you grew up on it. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING will ever match that experience for you ever again. Being a wide-eyes kid with imagination watching worlds unfold for you will never occur for you ever again. You've already proved it by being jaded about Tales games. FF3 had the same plot as FF7, but nobody ever really considers that, because the circumstances were changed effectively. I haven't played any Tales games sooner than Symphonia, but considering it's a series, they attempt to maintain some semblance of continuity. Square chose Chocobo, Tales chose guardians.

@HouseLife

I guess everyone's opinion is different. I actually liked all the FFs up to FFX. But I wasn't being harsh to Tales because I grew up on FF. If I recall, Tales of Eternia came out around the time of FF7-8 (I did pick it up for the PS one), thus I grew up around both. But as time passed, Tales didn't impress me as much as FF simply in the variations between games. I believe the semblance of continuity is a great thing, but it shouldn't such a big part of every game. Chocobos never played a big role (unless maybe it's one of the spin offs), though they might've been vital through a part of some games, they're mostly in mini games or sidequest. Whereas in Tales, they plot revolved around the guardians. I think it's alright to have that much level of involvement, just not every game as it gets repetitive. But I guess it is your opinion, so I won't say you're wrong.

I've only played Symphonia, Legendia and Abyss, and Abyss wasn't on your list of repetition, which should be made note of. I haven't played Vesperia either because I'm stupid and holding out some glimmer of hope that a PS3 version will exist here. If not, I still have the XBOX360 version sitting on my shelf waiting.

All I know is all the FFs are exceptional games, regardless of if someone liked them or not. Only people who are shallow will look at an FF and think 'wow, this is terrible' without realizing they have a completely skewed perspective on what is well-made. Even the worst FF is at least a good game, be it because of graphics, gameplay, character, whatever. Something about it is definitely worthy of being called good in every single instance.