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I had a good feeling! Celebrating 40 Years and 108 JRPGs of Destiny
- Thread starter Lokii
- Start date
gorha
For the Ylory of Mankind
Tales of Symphonia was an important release for its time as one of the few good, high profile Gamecube JRPGs, an important release for the series as the first 3D entry, and especially an important localized release as the first Tales game not to cut out all the skits, and thus most of the character development. It's a great game, too. I've only done the one playthrough on the Gamecube, though, and it's been so long that I don't remember the game that well, so I didn't vote for it. I've had ToS (and its sequel) installed on my PS3 for years now and still haven't gotten around to playing that version, but I will... someday.
I was the one vote for Tales of Berseria, and it looks like I forgot to put Eternia on my list even though it is one of my favorites. Whoops!
I was the one vote for Tales of Berseria, and it looks like I forgot to put Eternia on my list even though it is one of my favorites. Whoops!
I, um, wouldn't recommend that. I played the entire game that way, and I found it a very frustrating way to experience it.
I didn't vote for any Tales games, but if I had, this would likely have been the one. Destiny was my favourite single-player Tales game, and Eternia was my favourite co-op Tales game.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Hahaha... yeah.
jpfriction
(He, Him)
Lloyd sharing a voice actor with Robin from Teen Titans did more for my enjoyment than it should have.
I enjoyed this one and Vesperia quite a bit. I should give Abyss a fair shake on something without atrocious load times. Couldn’t make any progress on the PS2, got too annoyed.
I enjoyed this one and Vesperia quite a bit. I should give Abyss a fair shake on something without atrocious load times. Couldn’t make any progress on the PS2, got too annoyed.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I enjoyed Symphonia but it was retroactively hurt but not only the different playstyles of the friendgroup (JBear... he's thorough) but also a friend made a prediction of a plot twist that was so deeply asinine and he kept harping on it to get our goat and then it turned out to be absolutely 100% right.
I've got mixed feelings about Tales of Symphonia. I loved the experience of playing it for the most part. It was a bright spot in the GC's kinda barren library. It's a beautiful game and has an endearing cast with an interesting story. The game combat was engaging and a lot of fun; never felt bored of it which is rare with me and RPGs. It was just a little too long for my tastes. It's been decades, but my memory is that my save file was 100+ hrs, and that there was like, at least 3 different points in the story where I thought I had reached the game's conclusion yet it still kept going. I think if I had played this game when I was younger -- like in my formative years when I was only allowed a small handful of games and had to make the most of it, this would have been an all time goat for me. But by the end, I was itching to move on and play something else new or in my ever increasing backlog. It's a testament to how good this game actually is, that I actually kept going and finished the game versus just abandoning it.
I've dabbled in the franchise since then, but never really dug into other games like I did with Symphonia. I wanted to play Vesperia, but it was stuck in Xbox-jail for ages. Other games had glacial starts to the beginning of their stories and I gave up early. I don't know if I would have put Symphonia on my short list, but I think it's pretty well deserved to show up here.
I've dabbled in the franchise since then, but never really dug into other games like I did with Symphonia. I wanted to play Vesperia, but it was stuck in Xbox-jail for ages. Other games had glacial starts to the beginning of their stories and I gave up early. I don't know if I would have put Symphonia on my short list, but I think it's pretty well deserved to show up here.
gorha
For the Ylory of Mankind
Going on and on well past the point where it should have ended is a hallmark of the Tales series, for better or worse. Their length is about the same as other contemporary JRPGs; Phantasia is like 20-30 depending on how much endgame sidequesting you do, the later ones are 50-100+ like every other big name RPG that comes out nowadays, but if you ever find yourself thinking, "oh, this game seems like it'll be over soon! and it wasn't too long!" it's probably a fake-out ending and you've got 1/3 to 1/2 of the game left.
In what way?
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
I think I put 50 hours into Symphonia before rolling credits, but I also didn't do crazy grinding or engage in all the optional content available.
There are several of these Tales games that were in my top 100, just not my top 50. As stated before, hard decisions were made.
There are several of these Tales games that were in my top 100, just not my top 50. As stated before, hard decisions were made.
A robust answer to that question would be outside the scope/tone of this thread, I think, so I'll just say that the biggest inherent issue
(which is to say an issue that was unrelated to the specific personalities/preferences of those involved) was that only one person at a time had anything to do outside of combat, and there is quite a lot of time spent outside of combat, so you're talking about many many hours of down time for 3 players at a time. To say nothing of just how many evenings we had to devote to playing this, which is valuable time with friends (increasingly rare as we all age) that could have been spent on more participatory activities.
If you still want four people to sign up for 100 hours of that, make dang sure you're all drift-compatible.
I see, I see... thank you!
I'll put it in the FFCC bucket of 'reality could never match the ideal'.
I'll put it in the FFCC bucket of 'reality could never match the ideal'.
Mothra
(he/him)
The Tales of games are such joys to play with friends. I love the world and the look and feel of them a lot. I'm about 90 hours in my playthrough of Tales of Rebirth with a buddy and we're still having a ball.
That said, lordy, they reeeeeeeally stretch the taffy on story and character. It could just be the handful I've played - Symphonia, Rebirth, Berseria, Vesperia - but they have essentially 5 hours of story and character work stretched beyond all reason to fit their very very long playtime. Tales has such a good opportunity for character moments, too! They have an entire mechanic to just watch interactions between them! They just don't have anything to say or do in them, the vast majority of the time.
The combat and the exploration makes up for it, in my estimation, but that lag on story and character has always been an anchor around the series' neck in rising to greatness.
That said, lordy, they reeeeeeeally stretch the taffy on story and character. It could just be the handful I've played - Symphonia, Rebirth, Berseria, Vesperia - but they have essentially 5 hours of story and character work stretched beyond all reason to fit their very very long playtime. Tales has such a good opportunity for character moments, too! They have an entire mechanic to just watch interactions between them! They just don't have anything to say or do in them, the vast majority of the time.
The combat and the exploration makes up for it, in my estimation, but that lag on story and character has always been an anchor around the series' neck in rising to greatness.
I really like 4-player FFCC, though. >_>
so incidentally, tales of destiny is the game with the druaga dungeon. namco and all that.
i was a phantasia-and-vesperia voter as those are by a pretty significant margin my favs but i was also a person who played tales of symphonia with my brother at the age of 14 and with very little knowledge of other console rpgs (he was happy to do a lot of the stuff i wasn't interested in between battles, lol) so, you know, got some memories there. this game also kinda avoids the common problem of tales endings (imo) where the world undergoes some kind of epochal transformation which would impact literally every facet of life and society, for which an actual depiction would be far outside the scope of what the game can actually depict. admittedly it does this by revealing that the whole game is a distant prequel to phantasia but that connection is probably also why i've felt the world design feels a bit more strong and memorable than most tales games. for me i think the cast is a big reason it's hard for me to favor over its successors (the abyss/vesperia) line, i don't dislike them but i think vesperia's party are some of my favs in the genre and abyss has some really interesting dynamics with a heavily developed antagonist squad. i also don't really like the way the axial battle system works as it really downplays movement in favor of straightforward guard-and-counterattacking play (with those later games introducing a button that lets you move freely across the battle plane while held) but it's still fun enough.
though personally i find abyss a bit hard to recommend between the rough experience of actually playing it (it's got some weird bugs, the load times and world map performance is really bad, and i had a crash on one of the later bosses; i don't think the one port (to 3ds) fully fixes these) and a specific plot point (tower of rem) that really feels like an unforced blunder on the part of the writer(s). i had vesperia all the way up at #12 though...i absolutely love the battle system, it's especially fighting-game-y with tech traps and weird cancels, but it also has the boss gimmicks (ok there's a few really dumb ones but there's a bunch i love).
phantasia is one of my old-school comfort rpgs. almost every version is really fun, many of them in unique ways, and it's pretty quick once you know your way around (and not an unreasonable tales-length before that)...i played it at least a dozen times between 2007 and 2013. i've always loved the sort of melancholy story and ending too.
i was a phantasia-and-vesperia voter as those are by a pretty significant margin my favs but i was also a person who played tales of symphonia with my brother at the age of 14 and with very little knowledge of other console rpgs (he was happy to do a lot of the stuff i wasn't interested in between battles, lol) so, you know, got some memories there. this game also kinda avoids the common problem of tales endings (imo) where the world undergoes some kind of epochal transformation which would impact literally every facet of life and society, for which an actual depiction would be far outside the scope of what the game can actually depict. admittedly it does this by revealing that the whole game is a distant prequel to phantasia but that connection is probably also why i've felt the world design feels a bit more strong and memorable than most tales games. for me i think the cast is a big reason it's hard for me to favor over its successors (the abyss/vesperia) line, i don't dislike them but i think vesperia's party are some of my favs in the genre and abyss has some really interesting dynamics with a heavily developed antagonist squad. i also don't really like the way the axial battle system works as it really downplays movement in favor of straightforward guard-and-counterattacking play (with those later games introducing a button that lets you move freely across the battle plane while held) but it's still fun enough.
though personally i find abyss a bit hard to recommend between the rough experience of actually playing it (it's got some weird bugs, the load times and world map performance is really bad, and i had a crash on one of the later bosses; i don't think the one port (to 3ds) fully fixes these) and a specific plot point (tower of rem) that really feels like an unforced blunder on the part of the writer(s). i had vesperia all the way up at #12 though...i absolutely love the battle system, it's especially fighting-game-y with tech traps and weird cancels, but it also has the boss gimmicks (ok there's a few really dumb ones but there's a bunch i love).
phantasia is one of my old-school comfort rpgs. almost every version is really fun, many of them in unique ways, and it's pretty quick once you know your way around (and not an unreasonable tales-length before that)...i played it at least a dozen times between 2007 and 2013. i've always loved the sort of melancholy story and ending too.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but ToD has talking swords, right? Ever since I was a kid, giving a sword a personality is a cheat code into my heart, so I ate that game right up when I first played it, even though I found the idea of the real-time battles worrisome at the time.
This basically started with Symphonia as a series trend.
I had three Tales games on my list, of which Symphonia was the highest which kind of surprised me looking back at it. I really enjoyed Phantasia when I played the SNES version - the mix of JRPG structure and action battles worked for me, and I liked the little bits of voice (“indignation!”) and various little touches like the reflections of the characters in the water. I got the GBA version when I could, ancient battle Kangaroo and all. Somehow it doesn’t have the magic of the SNES version, maybe just because I was older by then, but it’s still a game I have a lot of fondness for. I bought every Tales game released in English for a long time after that, though I’ve since dropped off and haven’t gotten around to actually playing all of them.
I don’t entirely remember Symphonia beyond enjoying it a lot. I liked the maximalist stuff in the series - skits, titles, costumes, recipes, all that stuff. Probably don’t have so much time for it now. The 3D games blur together a bit for me, to be honest, and there’s a lot of stuff where I’m not sure if it was Symphonia or Vesperia (which to me feels like more Symphonia, while Abyss for example just feels different somehow and I didn’t like as much). I’m pretty sure it was Symphonia where I beat an optional super boss by using one of those items that drops all damage by half so I could survive its attacks and then just spending ages chopping away at its health. I think it was Vesperia where the protagonist allows a villain to drown in sand or something and I happened to have him wearing a huge black hat that covered his eyes and made him look kind of ridiculous but also appropriately sinister for the scene. I think it was Phantasia that had an optional town where you could just go and hang out in the snow with a hot drink. They’re just big silly games that I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out of.
I don’t entirely remember Symphonia beyond enjoying it a lot. I liked the maximalist stuff in the series - skits, titles, costumes, recipes, all that stuff. Probably don’t have so much time for it now. The 3D games blur together a bit for me, to be honest, and there’s a lot of stuff where I’m not sure if it was Symphonia or Vesperia (which to me feels like more Symphonia, while Abyss for example just feels different somehow and I didn’t like as much). I’m pretty sure it was Symphonia where I beat an optional super boss by using one of those items that drops all damage by half so I could survive its attacks and then just spending ages chopping away at its health. I think it was Vesperia where the protagonist allows a villain to drown in sand or something and I happened to have him wearing a huge black hat that covered his eyes and made him look kind of ridiculous but also appropriately sinister for the scene. I think it was Phantasia that had an optional town where you could just go and hang out in the snow with a hot drink. They’re just big silly games that I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out of.
I had Symphonia at #26 (and I was one of the Graces votes). It was a really awesome experience back in my early 20s, but I imagine I would find a revisit more tedious than exciting. The combat gets pretty samey and the plot is nothing to write home about. Still, I appreciate the cast, the music, and some of its themes, and Presea is one of my favorite RPG women of all time.
67. Vagrant Story
Square Division 4, 2000: PSX Points: 244 Votes: 6 Previous rank: 44
What a strange mash-up it is: a compelling mystery-filled scenario full of Matsuno’s love of political complexities and moral grays mixed with hardcore dungeon crawling sensibilities and an overly elaborate gear synthesizing system that must be understood or progress becomes simply impossible. Players are pulled in by highly cinematic cutscenes—some of the best conceptualized and directed of its generation, and possibly out of all of gaming—but are then tested by a somber and demanding gameplay almost designed as much to repulse as the presentation is to draw one in.
But for all that there’s something to be said for the way the game compels you to trace its intricacies—following the unfurling of the twisty plot, the ins and outs of its gameplay systems, and the tangle of Leá Monde’s dungeons and back alleys. To play the game is to navigate a labyrinth and this is appropriate to the player’s role of Ashley, pawn to both the VKP and Sydney Losstarot, and with nothing but the dubious thread of his suspect memories for a clew.
And really, not enough can be said about the mastercraft graphical work on display here. Vagrant Story gets so much out of the Playstation’s capabilities, while still adhering strictly to its limitations. The blocky character models are so expressive, the pixelated texturework so fine, the lighting and colors of its low-poly environments so artful that it operates on a higher level. Even its closest analog Metal Gear Solid fails to measure up. And yet, it’s the kind of game that would look worse if it looked better. It’s so evocative of the graphic framework that the Playstation produced that it becomes at once a celebration of that particular console’s era and character, while also somehow transcending it to become timeless and unreproducible.
Difficult, obtuse, and demanding, and yet still one of the essentials. Vagrant Story is a true masterwork that proves that limitations aren’t confining but the very matter from which art is crafted.
An amazing game. It looks and plays like nothing else I've ever experienced. I think I still even have the strategy guide for this one!
The only Matsuno game I haven't played. It looks cool, but the complicated dungeon crawler-y gameplay intimidates me something fierce. Really don't understand why he made it one and not a strategy game, like all his other games. Ah well, maybe I'll work up the courage one of these days.
Vagrant Story is cool as hell, even if I had to look up several block puzzles and (if I remember correctly) was unable to hit the final boss 90% of the time and could only plink at it the other 10%. I think crafting required loading from the memory card which takes ages and had to be done a lot - a remake that speeds that up but is otherwise unchanged would be pretty good I think. As with a lot of items on this list I’m wanting to play it again just thinking about it.