#they would have helped some with how boring the combos are. armatized combos there was never any helping though

[corvuscorona]

ZESTIRIA THOUGHT BEFORE I FORGET: every attack has a Notable windup and cooldown and ESPECIALLY every hidden arte has these and i like that you can tell they went "okay. so we accidentally installed a Fun Ceiling" about that when they were niceing the combat system for berseria.

they made a whole thing out of banish blasts taking like 3 of god's own seconds to happen after you commit to them & it was mature of them to notice that this sucked (even tho having it happen instantly on a stunned enemy rocked) (not really worth it)

[dany36]

officially done with tales of zestiria!! overall, i really enjoyed the game and i'm glad i finally sat down and played it. more junk thoughts below.

so it's definitely not as bad as i had heard people say it was. i was really surprised when i saw just how much of a bad rep this game gets, but...i can definitely see some things as to why people don't like it... one of the things i had heard was that there was barely any character development in the game, and i agree with that. i was 35ish hours in when suddenly people were already talking about going into the final battle and i was like...what?! no sub-story about rose or eizen or lilah that goes more into their past/characters like sheena in tos or something?? i guess we did get more into edna with that sidequest about eizen (it was nice seeing her show emotions for once!), but other than that, i really didn't feel like the game focused on ANYONE else at any point in the story. they just sort of get introduced into your party and are there to help sorey in his quest.

speaking of sorey, i REALLY didn't care for his character at all. i think he's the only one where i was super apathetic towards in terms of character and personality. even zaveid, who i thought i was going to dislike because of how annoying i found him in berseria, grew on me and learned to like him. i don't know, i guess when i compare him to other protagonists in the tales of games i've played, he really is the most forgettable of them all. like, when he "sacrifices" himself and goes in a sleep slumber, i felt no emotion whatsoever. as soon as i got rose in my party, i switched to using her as my main (which never happens lol i'm boring and usually stick to main characters as my Player 1--emil, lloyd, luke, velvet, dude with the purple hair in vesperia for the amount i played in the game) cus i was just like wow give me someone more interesting PLEASE. so, sorry to sorey fans (if there are any) but to me he's one of the most boring aspects of the game...and he's the damn shepherd!

and continuing on that point, i think the plot in this tales game is also probably the weakest one out of the ones i've played (weak main character, weak plot). the game starts off with the simple premise that sorey is the shepherd and he must get rid of the Lord of Calamity, and...that's pretty much it. in other tales games, you start off thinking your objective is A, but then as you journey along, a plot twist occurs and you realize now that objective A really was just a small task in what is your true objective. Something like this never happens in the game, so the pace just pretty much stays the same throughout the entirety of the game. sure, there are some cool moments (rose's introduction and her learning to armatize will forever be my favorite), but they are scattered out and about and honestly in this game i can't really remember something as impacting as luke sinking that one city (haven't played tota in a while lol) or palmacosta being destroyed in tos or velvet finding out the truth about her brother.

but anyway, the rest of the cast, i absolutely loved, so it's truly a shame that they were stuck in a sort of forgettable plot. i already talked about edna and rose being my favorites, but lilah (that scene with the oregami...OOF...OOF!!!!) and zaveid are cool too. alisha is barely in the main game, but it was great seeing more of her in the DLC and showing her struggle of what she wants to do (her combat also seems cool for the couple of fights but i had to stick with rose...sorry!). i only wish we could have had more skits showing the party interacting with one other. i don't know if it's just me but i really felt like there were barely any skits in this game, which is sad because most of the cast is enjoyable and it's a shame we didn't get to see them talk with each other in skits more!

i had seen people say that it's best to play zestiria and then berseria so you can catch all the references in berseria, but...to be honest, i don't think i would have enjoyed zestiria as much if i had played it first! prime examples are the eizen sidequest and the sidequest where you FREAKING FIND MAGILOU'S TOMB. like...hello??? when i got to the eizen sidequest, i 100% would not have given as much of a shit on killing that dragon if i hadn't played berseria beforehand. it really made me sad knowing the tragic ending that eizen wound up having. and finding magilou's grave being guarded by her friend also broke my heart. like...seriously!!! that was something that i also would not have given another thought if i didn't know who magilou was. so yeah i don't regret playing berseria first since i actually think it enhanced the experience a bit more.

gameplay-wise, i really enjoyed it! took me a while to get the hang of the equipment system, but once i did, chaining combos with Rose was a blast. i also really enjoyed how easily you could change party members (unlike in tob where it costs 1 BG!) in the middle of a fight. and MAN i never get tired of seeing those sweet, sweet mystic artes animations. <3 <3 <3 it increases any character's coolness factor three-fold.

my main gripe in berseria was the terrible dungeon design. at the beginning, zestiria did a better job at putting in puzzles in dungeons so as to not make the same mistake that berseria did, but then...towards the second half of the game...it was pretty much all berseria-like dungeons of endless same-looking rooms with endless enemies (the DLC dungeon being a prime example of this). which is honestly just terrible and boring, but at least the gameplay makes the fights seem not AS tedious...

i also felt like zestiria did a better job with the music than berseria did. i can hardly recall any song i liked in berseria (there's like two or three i'd put in my vgm collection), but for zestiria, i'm gonna need to hunt down quite a few. also, i could actually remember the names of the towns/locations and what they looked like. in berseria, i felt like i was going town after town but for the life of me i couldn't remember at ALL what we did there in the first place. i really just felt like i was passing through each town not learning much about the place, but in zestiria i really got a feel of each town, so that was nice!

oh, and the ending i felt was...kind of weak lol especially cus...no one talked at all??? it was so weird haha in tos, tota, dotnw, and tob we have the characters at least saying SOMETHING in the ending but in toz it was just...animations and that's it lol. so glad we got a DLC cus i would have been PISSED seeing just rose leave off like that without saying a word and then...they show us her GRAVE??? i always think "wow i wish they would show us how the future of (insert favorite characters here) are like!! :)" but seeing rose's grave made me so sad (as well as eizen's and magilou's) like nononono you do NOT show my favorite characters just DEAD!! >:'v but anyway, yeah i mean it was an ok ending but nothing that made me feel with a great gap in my heart like tob's or tos's did. like mikleo seeing sorey again at the end? cool. did it make me feel something like when tear sees luke again at the end of tota? sadly, no. :(

and last but not least, the DLC. i mean, i absolutely LOVED seeing the girls in the team going out on their own little adventure and just interacting and talking with each other!!! lailah + edna + alisha + rose...who doesn't love that?? we got to see more of rose being the badass that she is and uh yeah her and alisha? totally gay for each other...like that last scene before they kill the final boss?? just A+++ material (except that terrible last dungeon AND the HORRID design of the last bosses??? dragons with purple bright titties so that the player will know they're FEMALE dragons??? LMAO)

oh wow i wrote more than i thought i would but uh yeah. all in all: DEFINITELY NOT a bad game, has a great cast of interesting and fun characters (except sorey) but sadly the game doesn't delve too deep into them as in other tales game, DLC was a fun addition to see more of who i thought was going to be a greater protagonist in the main story, but overall when compared to other tales of games, the weak plot puts it second-to-last in my list of tales games i've played. would i play it again? definitely :)

WHEW, ok, now off to watch the anime!! <3