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Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition - Launch Trailer (PC/PS4/Switch/XB1)


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I think all the Tales games feel super dated to be honest. They're the perfect example of why I think half-assed "action" JRPG combat is one of the worst gaming trends there is. At their absolute best, they're serviceable, middling and forgettable. They want to escape the stigma of the turn-based JRPG (despite the entire genre existing because some of us actually LIKE turn-based because every other fucking game in the universe is an action game) but don't want to put in the effort to make it a top-tier action game. They should just focus on making turn-based more fun and interesting, like Bravely Default, and I guess to some of you weirdos, Octopath Traveler. Or for me personally, The Last Remnant.

 

I still enjoy Tales games because they've got alright stories and characters, but the combat has never did it for me. You have to play this one using free-run cancelling at the end of combos to make it stop feeling like a broken pile of shit. The delay you get at the end of your basic three-hit combo is fucking comical in how long it is. If you're cancelling it, though, it actually feels much more involved and enjoyable to play, and trying to see how far you can extend chains using cancelling before you miss your timing (or find a move it doesn't work with) makes battles dramatically more interesting.

 

But even that doesn't help the absurd staggering when groups of enemies hit you. I'm going to go ahead and assume there's going to be skills you can get later on to negate that, because while you're getting juggled by slow, basic attacks, you're unable to input any commands, including guards, backsteps, etc. You can't even recover since it's a stagger and not a massive knockback, which means you actually WANT to be knocked back by bigger attacks instead of getting caught with 8 slugs having their attacks spaced just right to juggle you for 20 seconds while you stare in boredom. (This is admittedly rare, usually it's just a few annoying hits over and over inbetween your own attacks unless you play defensively, in which case the outcome is the same except you have a little more HP, which isn't the issue.)

 

I've heard there's hundreds of skills to earn, including combinations that can net you infinite combos, so I'm sticking with it because it might just be one of those cases where they start the battles off feeling clunky and awful and then 20 hours in finally give you the abilities you need to have the "full" battle system. I believe I just got to the part I stopped at on the 360 oh so long ago (that area in the screenshot above where mine came out green) so we'll find out soon enough, I guess!

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Make sure to use all the weapons to get every skill off of every one! You don't have to, but it'll save you a headache later if you decide there was a skill you wanted/needed but you upgraded the weapon or something. Also always check party member skills! They'll often just set whatever they just learned. So, for example, if you're training them to get the half-damage or minimal damage skills (which sound less-than-useless but have their purposes in some cases) and they finally learn them, they'll probably have them set automatically! And you definitely don't want those left on for 3-4 hours like I did without noticing somehow.


Also, new party members won't have many, if any skills set, so set theirs, too!

 

I'm finally starting to get some skills that really open the combat up and make it seem a lot less stiff.

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44 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Make sure to use all the weapons to get every skill off of every one! You don't have to, but it'll save you a headache later if you decide there was a skill you wanted/needed but you upgraded the weapon or something. Also always check party member skills! They'll often just set whatever they just learned. So, for example, if you're training them to get the half-damage or minimal damage skills (which sound less-than-useless but have their purposes in some cases) and they finally learn them, they'll probably have them set automatically! And you definitely don't want those left on for 3-4 hours like I did without noticing somehow.


Also, new party members won't have many, if any skills set, so set theirs, too!

 

I'm finally starting to get some skills that really open the combat up and make it seem a lot less stiff.

Yeah the combat has gotten a lot better as I have leveled up. I’m still confused on how to equip all those new skills. I see them and I press the button but I’m not sure I’m doing it correctly. I am really enjoying the game though. 

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When it turns green or teal or whatever, it's equipped. You don't have to equip skills that say "WEAPON" because the weapon you have equipped automatically grants you those skills so long as it stays equipped. You've got your little skill meter to see how many points each skill takes up, so sometimes it's better to keep a weaker weapon equipped if it has a good skill that takes like 10 skill points or something.

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