Pullarius_Capax

@project343: But other than that sequence he has almost no personality I feel any strength of the characters comes from the great voice acting (though I feel Swaine's voice is just too generically British), The game doesn't really go into what happened to him in the period between being broken hearted and leaving hamelin.

Having gotten back to it I have basically beat the game (I died on the third phase of the final boss and it check pointed me to the beginning of the whole battle, so that combined with how completely unnecessary and tacked on that third phase felt, it will be awhile before I put in the effort to go through the boss battle again). Here is my sort of review (possibly spoilery):

While the production quality from the graphics to the voice acting is absolutely top notch and the side quest system with the merit stamps and "perks" is really cool, I was disappointed with everything else. I thought the story had good promise in the beginning but the last few hours are just baffling, you see the white witch plotting throughout the entire game yet she basically doesn't have any effect on the protagonists until the last 10-15% of the game which is also the first time they learn she exists at all (they don't even suspect someone is behind Shadar). So basically in a game called "Wrath of the White Witch" I felt that the White Witch was tacked on and the game would have been better served completely dropping her and developing Shadar more, whose interesting but slightly cliched backstory is only revealed in an info dump right after you beat him. Also the game does very little in characterizing your party beyond Oliver, this is a problem with a lot of JRPG's but I felt the Tales games did a much better job of giving characters in the party at least a personality

The use of the familiars just makes the character problem worse. Pokemon works because the character is non existence and you get attached to the pokemon and you strategize with the elements and what not and the grinding of pokemon to get a pokemon of a type you need for a gym leader make sense. In a game with actual characters like this it makes it harder to really emotionally attach to either and the story means that going out and grinding up a familiar specifically for its element not compelling at all.

@iGooner7: So overall I was disappointed with this game, but when they apply this high of a production value to something like a Tales game, I cannot wait (I don't think this requires studio ghibli as I feel the real high mark of this game is the english voice acting)

@project343: Well I guess it depends what your issues were with Vesperia, the biggest difference of Graces F is that they completely overhauled the title system to something where they each individually gain experience and impart bonuses and you constantly switch between them after you max them out.

Man I really really want to play symphonia (for the 3rd or 4th time) but it requires me to connect my wii and buy another wavebird receiver. I basically only keep the Wii to be able to play Symphonia again.

@kerse, @SpunkyHePanda: I decided to switch the difficulty to easy and I have a group of familiars I am happy with to keep thus the frustration has abated and I am enjoying the game a whole lot more than I was. I still wish the combat was more like Tales, but I'm having a lot of fun with the game now so I'm good.

@Yadilie: I would love to play a Tales game, but they have only released 3 this entire console generation (one of them being Tales of Symphonia 2 which wasn't great).

(I am reposting this from a reply to the First Impressions topic)

To begin this rant I have to say that I absolutely hate it that I don't want to play this game anymore.

I am a huge fan of the Tales series (this game is a Tales game in everything but name and combat) so I went into it with high hopes, and my first impressions were that I loved it, the presentation, the merit stamp sequence and the heart system are all really cool, but as I got deeper into the combat I realized I really didn't like it at all. One, I have never found a monster collecting system compelling other than in pokemon as I feel it just distracts from the characters of the story. Two, switching between familiars and characters and their commands is too clunky, the fact that it takes several steps (some of which don't pause the action) to get from using a familiar to use an item is just absurd to me. Three, a lot of the difficulty of the combat to me comes from the fact that MP is scarce (characters don't have a lot of it, doesn't regenerate and restorative items are ridiculously expensive for how much MP they restore) and I don't find that kind of challenge very fun at all. I may give this game another go (I'm maybe 2-3 hours ahead of Brad in the quick look), but I think I may just replay Tales of Vesperia or Tales of Grace F even though I will be really missing everything about this game.

As a demonstration of my love of the Tales series I will just say that Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube is my favorite game I have ever played.

To begin this rant I have to say that I absolutely hate it that I don't want to play this game anymore.

I am a huge fan of the Tales series (this game is a Tales game in everything but name and combat) so I went into it with high hopes, and my first impressions were that I loved it, the presentation, the merit stamp sequence and the heart system are all really cool, but as I got deeper into the combat I realized I really didn't like it at all. One, I have never found a monster collecting system compelling other than in pokemon as I feel it just distracts from the characters of the story. Two, switching between familiars and characters and their commands is too clunky, the fact that it takes several steps (some of which don't pause the action) to get from using a familiar to use an item is just absurd to me. Three, a lot of the difficulty of the combat to me comes from the fact that MP is scarce (characters don't have a lot of it, doesn't regenerate and restorative items are ridiculously expensive for how much MP they restore) and I don't find that kind of challenge very fun at all. I may give this game another go (I'm maybe 2-3 hours ahead of Brad in the quick look), but I think I may just replay Tales of Vesperia or Tales of Grace F even though I will be really missing everything about this game.

As a demonstration of my love of the Tales series I will just say that Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube is my favorite game I have ever played.

Dave tweeted that only subs up to Thanksgiving, I finally was able to get connected.

I have been a sub for over 2 years and when I clicked on the link given by @snide (seaserpent.giantbomb.com) I just get a 500 internal service error. Any ideas?

I got my wired controller today and works well (although the preferences screen shown on the drivers website is missing) thanks for all your help? I can finally more comfortably play games on my laptop!

@TruthTellah: I just have a wireless xbox 360 controller, If I just plug in a wired controller will it just work with a macbook Pro?