(no subject)
Tales of Innocence is really growing on me and I can't really put my finger on why.
Okay I can, actually. It's the battle system and the character skits. Skits are basically little optional short mini-not-quite-cutscenes of characters interacting with each other. Sometimes they're serious things but more often than not, they're hilarious. And... that's the kind of stuff I love -- character interaction -- that I can utterly disregard almost all other problems in a game if the character interaction interests me enough. I really wish skits was something that was incorporated into more games because I think they're a nice way to get to know the characters in ways that don't necessarily pertain to the plot.
I still do feel Tales of Innocence is lacking in many ways; it doesn't have any on field banter and very limited post battle banter that both Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia have (and Innocence was the game between those) and what I said about dungeons being long and boring still stands. And you have this beautiful, beautiful battle system and no arena to use it in.
But... I guess Tales of Innocence is pretty charming in how simple and straightforward it is. It's really obvious what you have to do (most of the time) and it's obvious how to unlock more skits and it's obvious how to unlock more of your artes. There's only a few things that aren't obvious, and that's the food sidequest (which you might unlock anyway if you're a completionist) and getting the Innocence style (which encompasses obtaining mystic arte). None of this bullcrap in Tales of the Abuss with all these easily missable, GONE FOREVER sidequests in TotA that actually contain things that would have been helpful in making the plot make sense (and missing these sidequests also make for a horrible end game experience pacing wise. Trust me on this one). None of this bullcrap with Tales of Vesperia requiring equipping certain skills and using certain artes to gain new artes without the game giving you any clue into what arte corresponds to which skill.
I do admit that I actually tend to enjoy JRPGs that are 'linear' or have limited exploration more than the ones that want me to take the time and explore the world and find all these extras and such. The truth is that... as time has gone on, I've enjoyed exploring less and less. I think that's in part due to my preference to focus on a certain number of things and then pick apart every little detail. TWEWY was fantastic for this because there weren't all that many actual locations, but they were all bursting with life and detail that I felt compelled to more closely examine everything. In larger worlds... that kind of gets lost, because instead of everything being really awesome to look at and stuff, I found you get sort of 'meh' things for a lot of the time, and then you get something that's really awesome! But I kind of don't want to trudge through all the 'meh' stuff, you know? And the more 'meh' stuff I have to get through, the less compelled I am to explore and examine it closer :/a
The basic gist of all this is that... I hate feeling lost when I play a game. I don't use guides (other than for things like weapon customisation, or Pin evolution, and even then, I'll fiddle around with things on my own until I get fed up with it) and don't like to use them. When I consume media, I tend to turn off most of my brain; I'm the one being taken for a ride here, so I'm not going to go to a huge amount of effort to predict what's going to happen next and I'm not going to want too much standing between me and the next plot thing. And it feels really sad to say this, but I pretty much do not appreciate games much on the first play through because I essentially rush them and then complain how terrible they are when really it was me just not paying attention.
But... no matter how much attention I pay in the first round (which I did for P3: The Answer, since it's not my game/PS2), I'm just not going to catch nearly as much as I would if I replayed. And usually it's after I've replayed a game that I really start to love it.
But how many (non-arcade) games have I actually replayed at least a second time (from start to end)? Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Diablo II, (possibly Warcraft III+Frozen Throne but I'm not sure), Devil Survivor and TWEWY (and Dissidia sort of). Games that I've replayed more than 3 times, there's only Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Diablo II and TWEWY on that list. Most of the other games I start replaying, I don't quite finish. I just simply don't have a good enough reason to. Most games don't compel me to replay. TWEWY compelled me to replay to find out what the hell was going on in the ending with the Secret Reports (which were easy to obtain). Tales of Innocence compels me to replay through altering party make up, as well as unlocking more of the character skits I didn't unlock earlier. It also has the added bonus of all these extra background knowledge cutscenes that opens in New Game+ (that I didn't know I'd get) and now I'm suddenly all interested in the plot again, even though I still think some parts of it are still really stupid. As much as I loved the character interaction in Tales of the Abyss and hitting so many aesthetic pings and the cloning stuff, the effort to do all those sidequests and obtain the character skits I didn't get through the plot and going through that horrible pacing at the end really put me off.
I guess it really boils down to time and effort vs reward for me. I do generally feel I love the shorter games more because I have more time to replay again and again, adding extra layers of love every time. I like Persona 3 and 4, but it really doesn't match the same level of love I have for the more flawed games I've played over and over again.
ANYWAY the whole reason I wanted to write this in the first place was because my attention has sort of zoomed in on Spada in my replay of Tales of Innocence.
This is only tangentially related, but I've sort of re-realised that rhythm is really important for me in an action game. Part of the reason I'm so bad at fighting games usually (well, aside from my poor skill) is because they usually all go against my natural rhythm. Playing Kingdom Hearts is really satisfying because all the protagonists I've played generally have a one-two-three combo that happens to be timed about the same as my natural rhythm is. I have a hard time moving outside this rhythm, so there's often all kinds of things where I would be able to do my work more efficiently if I just sped up my pace a little bit, but I don't. In Tales of the Abyss, your characters can attack faster with higher... agility, I believe. When I played, Guy had a pretty high agility, but I never attacked faster than the natural rhythm. It's not like I couldn't, because Guy does attack faster if I push buttons faster, but... it just felt really weird and wrong to me.
And really, when I think about it, all my favourite characters to play in action games have always been those that adhere to that beat. Hawk and Kevin from Seiken Densetsu 3, the various KH protags (most of the time), Guy from Tales of the Abyss (probably Luke, too, but I never used him), Repede from Tales of Vesperia, Onion Knight in Dissidia, Luca and Spada from Tales of Innocence...
I mean, it also affects my ability to react to things; I naturally always react on the beat rather than off so... things like Chaos' Demonsdance is a cinch for me to dodge because it's exactly on the beat of my natural rhythm, but Divine Punishment is hard for me to dodge because it's like. just before a beat. Kinda weird! Makes me wonder if this 'natural rhythm' thing is the same for everyone else?
ANYWAY I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TALKING ABOUT SPADA. I don't think I have a good nail down on his background and the facets of his personality beyond a superficial level. I've been paying a lot of attention to his body language and battle animations and such through the game so... here goes a brain dump of thoughts and observations, subject to change (Edit: YEP DEFINITELY SUBJECT TO CHANGE ONCE I GET MORE OF THE SKITS. The online versions of the skits aren't really that well translated):
Okay I can, actually. It's the battle system and the character skits. Skits are basically little optional short mini-not-quite-cutscenes of characters interacting with each other. Sometimes they're serious things but more often than not, they're hilarious. And... that's the kind of stuff I love -- character interaction -- that I can utterly disregard almost all other problems in a game if the character interaction interests me enough. I really wish skits was something that was incorporated into more games because I think they're a nice way to get to know the characters in ways that don't necessarily pertain to the plot.
I still do feel Tales of Innocence is lacking in many ways; it doesn't have any on field banter and very limited post battle banter that both Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia have (and Innocence was the game between those) and what I said about dungeons being long and boring still stands. And you have this beautiful, beautiful battle system and no arena to use it in.
But... I guess Tales of Innocence is pretty charming in how simple and straightforward it is. It's really obvious what you have to do (most of the time) and it's obvious how to unlock more skits and it's obvious how to unlock more of your artes. There's only a few things that aren't obvious, and that's the food sidequest (which you might unlock anyway if you're a completionist) and getting the Innocence style (which encompasses obtaining mystic arte). None of this bullcrap in Tales of the Abuss with all these easily missable, GONE FOREVER sidequests in TotA that actually contain things that would have been helpful in making the plot make sense (and missing these sidequests also make for a horrible end game experience pacing wise. Trust me on this one). None of this bullcrap with Tales of Vesperia requiring equipping certain skills and using certain artes to gain new artes without the game giving you any clue into what arte corresponds to which skill.
I do admit that I actually tend to enjoy JRPGs that are 'linear' or have limited exploration more than the ones that want me to take the time and explore the world and find all these extras and such. The truth is that... as time has gone on, I've enjoyed exploring less and less. I think that's in part due to my preference to focus on a certain number of things and then pick apart every little detail. TWEWY was fantastic for this because there weren't all that many actual locations, but they were all bursting with life and detail that I felt compelled to more closely examine everything. In larger worlds... that kind of gets lost, because instead of everything being really awesome to look at and stuff, I found you get sort of 'meh' things for a lot of the time, and then you get something that's really awesome! But I kind of don't want to trudge through all the 'meh' stuff, you know? And the more 'meh' stuff I have to get through, the less compelled I am to explore and examine it closer :/a
The basic gist of all this is that... I hate feeling lost when I play a game. I don't use guides (other than for things like weapon customisation, or Pin evolution, and even then, I'll fiddle around with things on my own until I get fed up with it) and don't like to use them. When I consume media, I tend to turn off most of my brain; I'm the one being taken for a ride here, so I'm not going to go to a huge amount of effort to predict what's going to happen next and I'm not going to want too much standing between me and the next plot thing. And it feels really sad to say this, but I pretty much do not appreciate games much on the first play through because I essentially rush them and then complain how terrible they are when really it was me just not paying attention.
But... no matter how much attention I pay in the first round (which I did for P3: The Answer, since it's not my game/PS2), I'm just not going to catch nearly as much as I would if I replayed. And usually it's after I've replayed a game that I really start to love it.
But how many (non-arcade) games have I actually replayed at least a second time (from start to end)? Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Diablo II, (possibly Warcraft III+Frozen Throne but I'm not sure), Devil Survivor and TWEWY (and Dissidia sort of). Games that I've replayed more than 3 times, there's only Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Diablo II and TWEWY on that list. Most of the other games I start replaying, I don't quite finish. I just simply don't have a good enough reason to. Most games don't compel me to replay. TWEWY compelled me to replay to find out what the hell was going on in the ending with the Secret Reports (which were easy to obtain). Tales of Innocence compels me to replay through altering party make up, as well as unlocking more of the character skits I didn't unlock earlier. It also has the added bonus of all these extra background knowledge cutscenes that opens in New Game+ (that I didn't know I'd get) and now I'm suddenly all interested in the plot again, even though I still think some parts of it are still really stupid. As much as I loved the character interaction in Tales of the Abyss and hitting so many aesthetic pings and the cloning stuff, the effort to do all those sidequests and obtain the character skits I didn't get through the plot and going through that horrible pacing at the end really put me off.
I guess it really boils down to time and effort vs reward for me. I do generally feel I love the shorter games more because I have more time to replay again and again, adding extra layers of love every time. I like Persona 3 and 4, but it really doesn't match the same level of love I have for the more flawed games I've played over and over again.
ANYWAY the whole reason I wanted to write this in the first place was because my attention has sort of zoomed in on Spada in my replay of Tales of Innocence.
This is only tangentially related, but I've sort of re-realised that rhythm is really important for me in an action game. Part of the reason I'm so bad at fighting games usually (well, aside from my poor skill) is because they usually all go against my natural rhythm. Playing Kingdom Hearts is really satisfying because all the protagonists I've played generally have a one-two-three combo that happens to be timed about the same as my natural rhythm is. I have a hard time moving outside this rhythm, so there's often all kinds of things where I would be able to do my work more efficiently if I just sped up my pace a little bit, but I don't. In Tales of the Abyss, your characters can attack faster with higher... agility, I believe. When I played, Guy had a pretty high agility, but I never attacked faster than the natural rhythm. It's not like I couldn't, because Guy does attack faster if I push buttons faster, but... it just felt really weird and wrong to me.
And really, when I think about it, all my favourite characters to play in action games have always been those that adhere to that beat. Hawk and Kevin from Seiken Densetsu 3, the various KH protags (most of the time), Guy from Tales of the Abyss (probably Luke, too, but I never used him), Repede from Tales of Vesperia, Onion Knight in Dissidia, Luca and Spada from Tales of Innocence...
I mean, it also affects my ability to react to things; I naturally always react on the beat rather than off so... things like Chaos' Demonsdance is a cinch for me to dodge because it's exactly on the beat of my natural rhythm, but Divine Punishment is hard for me to dodge because it's like. just before a beat. Kinda weird! Makes me wonder if this 'natural rhythm' thing is the same for everyone else?
ANYWAY I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TALKING ABOUT SPADA. I don't think I have a good nail down on his background and the facets of his personality beyond a superficial level. I've been paying a lot of attention to his body language and battle animations and such through the game so... here goes a brain dump of thoughts and observations, subject to change (Edit: YEP DEFINITELY SUBJECT TO CHANGE ONCE I GET MORE OF THE SKITS. The online versions of the skits aren't really that well translated):
- It seems that even though he seems to be ambidexterous due to his two weapon fighting style, he definitely favours his right hand (he always starts his attacks with his right hand, his down-normal is arhythmic with his left following closely behind the right), which makes me think he's actually right handed but learnt to fight with both hands.
- When he's at ease, he rests his right hand on the handle of his right sword and gestures with his left.
- Not afraid to get touchy feely. THE HUGS AT GARAM, ANYONE?
- Such a pervert and a bit of a horn dog and not very good at hiding it. Which I suppose would be uh. Interesting for me to write the latter... Surprisingly(?), despite his personality, he doesn't really pursue. I'm... guessing it's because they have more important things to do, but it seems he doesn't pursue post game either. Then there's his talk with Luca (+ Ricardo) about the Galpos inn, which makes me think he wouldn't be opposed to sex with a random (I'm not really sure how much worth he places on his body), but then there's the conversation he has with Ricardo at Mamut about Thanatos and him boning other women. I guess the best way I can really consolidate all this is that it's likely he'd be alright with sleeping around if he's not involved with anyone. Monogamous once that's the case I guess. I'm surprised I'm even thinking of this :|
- He seems to share a lot of similar trains of thoughts as Iria, so usually when she's pissed, he's pissed, too, and vice versa. But I get the feeling he thinks she flips out way too easily sometimes (crazy woman?) but hurm I suppose the easiest way to describe their relationship is a brother sister one?
- WHAT IS STUDYIN'? Just point him in a direction and he'll beat things up for you.
- Seems to be generally good emotional support, albeit a little rough. But definitely not as rough as Iria, despite his creepy laugh.
- He doesn't seem to care for the Devic Era stuff, especially when Ange is the one talking. But he does seem to have some curiosity for it, and he does ask Ricardo about it a little. I think he's generally more concerned about the present than his past life. I mean, dude, he was a sword. Durandal doesn't seem to care very much about most of what went on.
- Okay the basic mythology of Durandal was brought by an angel to Charlemange, who passed it do his paladin, Roland. Roland then used the sword to hold off a hundred thousand strong army for Charlemange's army to retreat. Then in an attempt to break the sword so it would not by captured by an attacking side, he cleft the earth. Durandal was indestructible so the dude hid it instead.
- Ha ha ha he gets pissed if Luca suggests he might be tired. Anyway, he seems to be able to deal with heat; aside from Ricardo, he's the only one who's perfectly okay in the volcano, and he doens't complain about the humidity in Galpos either. His version of Coil also has flames.
- His Thunder Blade also mirrors his mystic arte.
- Interestingly(?), his support spell is Barrier. I suppose that fits into his theme of being a sword that 'protects'.