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tenshinoakuma) wrote2011-11-07 12:35 am
tenshinoakuma) wrote2011-11-07 12:35 am
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Tales of Innocence, COMPLETE
Took me just under 30 hours according to the game clock and I beat the last boss at level 49 after wiping twice whoops. I'm pretty sure I missed out on a lot of skits because I didn't get all the cooking recipes or level the guild much, but seriously there is no way you'll be able to get 100% completion in the first playthrough of a Tales game. Heck, 100% completion in this game would be ridiculously hard because of the Monster collection, where you have to get both rare and common drops, as well as rare and common steal items. Including for the bosses. YYYEP.
I actually didn't think I was as close to finishing the game as I was, due to the Awakening bar along the bottom of the menu. I thought it corresponded to my progress in the game but it seems to actually be based on how many skits you've seen or something.
Anyway, overall, I found the plot kind of average. I know that I have a really bad habit of switching off my brain when I consume media for the first time, so that may have factored into this but... I kind of feel that I'm in love with Tales of Innocence's concept more than I love what actually happens in this game. I like drawing the parallels between the past lives and the current lives, how they lived and how they choose to live now. I... really have no interest in the world conflict, I just want to know more about the characters (which... I guess is the norm for me). I'm a little disappointed by Chitose deciding to commit seppuku; it's a rather... unsatisfying end for me. In general, I feel that most of the characters both in the present era and the Devic era actually have very little significance to the plot. In the end, everything pretty much boils down to Inanna and Asura, and thus, Iria and Luca. Everyone else, it feels like their significance is really very superficial. I mean, Hermania was Vrtra, who was a dragon who supposedly took care of Asura but she doesn't even do anything in the Devic era plot and kind of just wanders on her own after everything broke. She only appears once in the Devic era flashbacks, iirc. Same with Hypnos (at the very beginning). It's more than a little sad.
I basically feel that Tales of Innocence has a lot of groundwork and potential in it, but it doesn't quite have as much depth or detail to it as I'd like. It might not be fair for me to compare it to the PS2 or 360 Tales games, but the impression I get from Tales of Innocence is that it would have had more detail to it if it had been made for a non-handheld console.
Also all the gender changes between past lives and present lives means suddenly lesbians!! on a very superficial level xD It's not quite like that but it's kind of funny to think about. I don't usually have these trains of thought but it's kind of hard not to, given the game's content.
I ended up really growing to like Spada, though. This may be partially influenced by his hat. He's one of the few characters in the game whose aesthetics I really like, from his design, his manner of speaking and his general mannerisms. He's a pervert too, but I GUESS THAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED BECAUSE HE WAS A SWORD. I also used to play Guy in Tales of the Abyss, and Spada's physical play style is very similar to Guy's. And he dual wields and it's just a lot of fun to watch some of his attacks. His version of Coil is fiery (Luca's isn't) despite his associated element being wind, and whoops I'm getting off track here. I still do like Ange a lot, but the various skits about her weight and supposed tubbiness was a little :/ inducing. Because when you look at her in game, especially the face and hands, she is ridiculously skinny. Whatever weight she might have, it's completely hidden by her robes so I'm kind of "whut" about those skits.
Battle system wise, like I mentioned in the previous post, the game is ridiculously fun. I did touch on how the characters all have both strike artes and spells, which means theoretically any character can be a caster or a physical attacker. What I didn't mention is that support spells are not restricted to one particular (healer) character the way they were in TotA and ToV (iirc only Natalia and Estelle had them). I don't know about Ricardo or Hermana, but Luca has spells and a strike arte that increase attack, while Spada and Ange have Barrier. Incidentally, Iria doesn't have any buffs, despite being a healer.
Generally the AI is pretty good, and sometimes it's actually pretty amazing watching the combos it pulls off (I'm never going to get tired of Luca's Rising Phoenix). It's difficult to get it to target a particular enemy when the need arises; you could do that by changing strategies so that the AI targets the same/different target to you, but you can't actually change that mid battle. I find that pretty odd considering you can change pretty much everything else in battle! You can easily swap what artes you have assigned to your directions at any time in battle, as well as use artes directly from the artes menu. This is pretty useful if you just want to buff yourself just this once before pounding the boss! Though I wish the artes list had a better order. Also, you can change gear on the fly, which is really helpful when you're using a weapon the enemy is resistant against. Or... you only have one set of flame resistant gear and the person not wearing it is the one that's getting targeted by the fireballs. I think this stuff has become standard in Tale games now, actually. But regardless, I think being able to change things is pretty neat. Unfortunately you can't change styles in battle but that would probably break the game.
I'm not sure if it's because I was under level (I think I was, based on Spada's battle intro quote), but I found some of the normal encounters actually quite challenging. What comes to mind are some of the wolf-type monsters, especially the ones in the final dungeon. They're troublesome because they use hit and run tactics and are difficult to pin down and combo, especially because they move so quickly. They also (fast) cast spells and don't seem to be affected by things like Lure (enemies tend to attack the character with Lure). When you come up amongst three of them, it's really quite a challenge keeping the party alive and well. Even though Spada is my hardest hitting character, I had to sacrifice that damage to keep two of the monsters distracted while Luca smacked the other one around.
There aren't any multi-target healing spells, but I think that's a good thing in this game. This game pretty much teaches you not to just flail around because if everyone gets hurt, there's a very real danger of someone dying. You generally can't rely on just magic to heal you through tough battles; using items has quite a few merits. Items are faster and don't have the cooldown that's present in TotA and ToV, so they'll get you out of sticky situations. Also, you'll be picking up a few party heal items so those can be a godsend. Magic blocking is also easier to pull off in this game, and it did see some use from me, because some spells are not ones you can dodge by running around.
For the record, the party setup I had was Luca as a tank, Spada as DPS and Iria as support. These roles aren't quite as clear cut as that, because Luca still hits pretty hard (especially because his weapons have the highest attack in the game) and Iria does some pretty amazing damage with her spells. I'm going to be trying different part setups in the future for some variety, but I think this will probably the group I like most. Luca makes a really good tank because his damage isn't sacrificed much due to his hard hitting weapon, and he has good reach with it. Spada was doing some crazy damage because of the weapon I customized. I had Feather (because I like having faster movement speed) and Critical+, and coupled with Critical up (+40% crit), most of his hits were criticals. He was dealing 300 damage per hit on the final boss, when Luca was dealing about 70-80. Yep.
I'm going to be trying out different party setups in future playthroughs, though, so we'll see how that goes.
Something I should mention, but what I thought was a really nice touch was how your character will walk when they're indoors (by the game's internal classification of 'indoors') and run when they're outdoors. Very cute! Though I wonder why they bothered to make an idle animation for Spada and not Luca or Iria * A*aaa
tl;dr I feel Tales of Innocence isn't a bad game by any stretch, but its strength lies in its battle system. Its story's potential is let down by the general lack of significance anyone not Luca or Iria has to the plot.
I actually didn't think I was as close to finishing the game as I was, due to the Awakening bar along the bottom of the menu. I thought it corresponded to my progress in the game but it seems to actually be based on how many skits you've seen or something.
Anyway, overall, I found the plot kind of average. I know that I have a really bad habit of switching off my brain when I consume media for the first time, so that may have factored into this but... I kind of feel that I'm in love with Tales of Innocence's concept more than I love what actually happens in this game. I like drawing the parallels between the past lives and the current lives, how they lived and how they choose to live now. I... really have no interest in the world conflict, I just want to know more about the characters (which... I guess is the norm for me). I'm a little disappointed by Chitose deciding to commit seppuku; it's a rather... unsatisfying end for me. In general, I feel that most of the characters both in the present era and the Devic era actually have very little significance to the plot. In the end, everything pretty much boils down to Inanna and Asura, and thus, Iria and Luca. Everyone else, it feels like their significance is really very superficial. I mean, Hermania was Vrtra, who was a dragon who supposedly took care of Asura but she doesn't even do anything in the Devic era plot and kind of just wanders on her own after everything broke. She only appears once in the Devic era flashbacks, iirc. Same with Hypnos (at the very beginning). It's more than a little sad.
I basically feel that Tales of Innocence has a lot of groundwork and potential in it, but it doesn't quite have as much depth or detail to it as I'd like. It might not be fair for me to compare it to the PS2 or 360 Tales games, but the impression I get from Tales of Innocence is that it would have had more detail to it if it had been made for a non-handheld console.
Also all the gender changes between past lives and present lives means suddenly lesbians!! on a very superficial level xD It's not quite like that but it's kind of funny to think about. I don't usually have these trains of thought but it's kind of hard not to, given the game's content.
I ended up really growing to like Spada, though. This may be partially influenced by his hat. He's one of the few characters in the game whose aesthetics I really like, from his design, his manner of speaking and his general mannerisms. He's a pervert too, but I GUESS THAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED BECAUSE HE WAS A SWORD. I also used to play Guy in Tales of the Abyss, and Spada's physical play style is very similar to Guy's. And he dual wields and it's just a lot of fun to watch some of his attacks. His version of Coil is fiery (Luca's isn't) despite his associated element being wind, and whoops I'm getting off track here. I still do like Ange a lot, but the various skits about her weight and supposed tubbiness was a little :/ inducing. Because when you look at her in game, especially the face and hands, she is ridiculously skinny. Whatever weight she might have, it's completely hidden by her robes so I'm kind of "whut" about those skits.
Battle system wise, like I mentioned in the previous post, the game is ridiculously fun. I did touch on how the characters all have both strike artes and spells, which means theoretically any character can be a caster or a physical attacker. What I didn't mention is that support spells are not restricted to one particular (healer) character the way they were in TotA and ToV (iirc only Natalia and Estelle had them). I don't know about Ricardo or Hermana, but Luca has spells and a strike arte that increase attack, while Spada and Ange have Barrier. Incidentally, Iria doesn't have any buffs, despite being a healer.
Generally the AI is pretty good, and sometimes it's actually pretty amazing watching the combos it pulls off (I'm never going to get tired of Luca's Rising Phoenix). It's difficult to get it to target a particular enemy when the need arises; you could do that by changing strategies so that the AI targets the same/different target to you, but you can't actually change that mid battle. I find that pretty odd considering you can change pretty much everything else in battle! You can easily swap what artes you have assigned to your directions at any time in battle, as well as use artes directly from the artes menu. This is pretty useful if you just want to buff yourself just this once before pounding the boss! Though I wish the artes list had a better order. Also, you can change gear on the fly, which is really helpful when you're using a weapon the enemy is resistant against. Or... you only have one set of flame resistant gear and the person not wearing it is the one that's getting targeted by the fireballs. I think this stuff has become standard in Tale games now, actually. But regardless, I think being able to change things is pretty neat. Unfortunately you can't change styles in battle but that would probably break the game.
I'm not sure if it's because I was under level (I think I was, based on Spada's battle intro quote), but I found some of the normal encounters actually quite challenging. What comes to mind are some of the wolf-type monsters, especially the ones in the final dungeon. They're troublesome because they use hit and run tactics and are difficult to pin down and combo, especially because they move so quickly. They also (fast) cast spells and don't seem to be affected by things like Lure (enemies tend to attack the character with Lure). When you come up amongst three of them, it's really quite a challenge keeping the party alive and well. Even though Spada is my hardest hitting character, I had to sacrifice that damage to keep two of the monsters distracted while Luca smacked the other one around.
There aren't any multi-target healing spells, but I think that's a good thing in this game. This game pretty much teaches you not to just flail around because if everyone gets hurt, there's a very real danger of someone dying. You generally can't rely on just magic to heal you through tough battles; using items has quite a few merits. Items are faster and don't have the cooldown that's present in TotA and ToV, so they'll get you out of sticky situations. Also, you'll be picking up a few party heal items so those can be a godsend. Magic blocking is also easier to pull off in this game, and it did see some use from me, because some spells are not ones you can dodge by running around.
For the record, the party setup I had was Luca as a tank, Spada as DPS and Iria as support. These roles aren't quite as clear cut as that, because Luca still hits pretty hard (especially because his weapons have the highest attack in the game) and Iria does some pretty amazing damage with her spells. I'm going to be trying different part setups in the future for some variety, but I think this will probably the group I like most. Luca makes a really good tank because his damage isn't sacrificed much due to his hard hitting weapon, and he has good reach with it. Spada was doing some crazy damage because of the weapon I customized. I had Feather (because I like having faster movement speed) and Critical+, and coupled with Critical up (+40% crit), most of his hits were criticals. He was dealing 300 damage per hit on the final boss, when Luca was dealing about 70-80. Yep.
I'm going to be trying out different party setups in future playthroughs, though, so we'll see how that goes.
Something I should mention, but what I thought was a really nice touch was how your character will walk when they're indoors (by the game's internal classification of 'indoors') and run when they're outdoors. Very cute! Though I wonder why they bothered to make an idle animation for Spada and not Luca or Iria * A*aaa
tl;dr I feel Tales of Innocence isn't a bad game by any stretch, but its strength lies in its battle system. Its story's potential is let down by the general lack of significance anyone not Luca or Iria has to the plot.