Tales of Hearts for the DS

[Craymel]

I'd say tales of hearts looks much better then nd2/nd3. It's at least smooth and basically uninterrupted animation. I don't think the source of the problem is with the animation but more with the attack effects. I was just playing tales of eternia and even though the character sprites were much better in toh I couldn't help but feel that toe looked better. It felt like this was greatly due to the more flashy and smooth attack effects. Look at that hi-ougi for kohak it looked uber cheap like really. But it's the ds and I'm not sure how much you can expect from it. I always thought that the ds was at least as powerful as the ps1 because I heard it was a step above the n64 but I guess I was wrong.

[pedrocasilva]

I always thought that the ds was at least as powerful as the ps1 because I heard it was a step above the n64 but I guess I was wrong.

It really depends; DS is a very different hardware from those, for one it's the only hardware I know with a pre-set polygon throughput per screen.

Providing you know what you're doing though, it's able to push more polygons than a N64, and pull good lightning effects for what it is. But few games use it like that, or to that extent. In one hand you have DS games that while looking good are running at 60 frames and use AA 2x (mario kart DS) N64 or PSone for that matter just couldn't pull that; and of course, DS has perspective correction, something that Psone didn't (and is hideous that it didn't)

If anything, though, I'd advise you to look for a DS benchmark with games like Tales of Innocence though, it's full 3D and looks very good for the hardware, really shows more of a glimpse of what it can do than this.

[Craymel]

That's true, though The tales of innocences attack effects are really not that much better from tales of hearts from what I can see. I also bring it up because of megaman legends which was also ported to the n64 as megaman n64. The effects lost thier translucency and didn't look as good. This is what I'm seeing with these two games as well.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

i wasn't finding much fault with the character animations (other than kohak's rising phoenix and the final kick of her hiougi, which look super cheap), but with the character sprites themselves, which seem a bit too saturated, lacking in color gamut, and a bit weird looking with the heavy black outlines. also the spell/arte effects, which look a bit low poly, but that's sort of expected from the DS, i think. plus it doesn't look bad. and again, the music, which sounds like trash quality to me.

i'm not saying innocence is perfect either -- at least half the hiougis are really lame, the 3D effects are a bit lower poly than i'd like (though they have more of an excuse i think, since the characters, enemies, and background all have to be 3D, too!), etc. but still.

[Craymel]

More game play vids and yeah the midi music really isn't good at all.


The two hi-ougi vids but with out youtubes take on video quality.
Kohak Hearts Hi-Ougi
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43503.html
Shing Meteoryte Hi-Ougi
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43504.html


Other fighting vids.
I have white and a giant blue weapon. What more
do you need?
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43525.html
Just call me... THE GREEN ARROW!!!
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43526.html
TASTE THE BURN OF MY ACRYLIC PAINTS!
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43559.html
Those aren't arms on my head! They're just opposable
growths... Thanks for pointing them out... Jerk. 
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43561.html


Puzzles
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43532.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43562.html


Story videos. The 3D environments look really good.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43533.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43560.html

[Kajitani-Eizan]

hmm looking at those, the sprites seem a little better... the color choice is still not as good as it could be i think though. plus there are definite scaling issues affecting my evaluation of them -- the question is, is it the video, or the DS? because if they're dumb enough to scale the sprites on the DS, good god. if it's just the video, though, then the actual product might actually be rather nice unlike the initial impression i had.

and yeah, any time a character does a spin flip thing in battle (see: tempest strike, rising phoenix, final fury), it looks super lame.

[Craymel]

Most of the time when looking at media like this it's best to keep in mind that on the ds they'll be more defined because it's a smaller screen. So I think these videos may be upscaled I don't actually know the resolution of the ds but I can't imagine the game looking like that when played on the ds.

[Magicpaint]

The DS screen resolution is 256 x 192. So yeah, resizing the vids to that resolution creates a better impression of how it will look on a DS.

I think the main problem overall is the battle effects (I think the character and enemy sprites look good) - the DS for some reason seems to have more trouble handling transparency/translucency effects than the PS1/N64 so that's why the battle effects look inferior to the ones you see in ToE (which still looks amazing). I don't know if it has anything to do with fillrate...

[Craymel]

YAY FOR CAMEOS!!!

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43657.html

[Nae]

Best Satsugeki Bukoken ever.

[Kevassa]

Best Satsugeki Bukoken ever.

It totally raped Regal´s

[Cless]

I've put in about 30 minutes. To be honest, I'm pretty underwhelmed so far. Maybe my expectations were too high, but if this is truly a "Team Destiny" game, it has by far the worst beginning of them all.

I don't like the way the battle system feels at all. Something just seems off about it. On top of that, it's probably the slowest 2D system in the entire series. Legendia's battle system also felt pretty off from all the other 2D systems. Narikiri Dungeon 2's battle system felt tighter than this...seriously. Maybe my opinion will change slightly if manual control becomes available.

Map designs are pretty uninteresting. The world map seems to have been replaced with a bunch of featureless, extremely narrow paths, and so is this dungeon I'm currently treading through. It's like Legendia in that regard, sort of, minus the incredible art direction.

Soundtrack has been incredibly unremarkable. If it keeps up like this, I would not hesitate to call it worst of the series.

After you've seen a bunch of skits, there's one final skit that probably tells you where to go or something. You can see it as many times you want. That's great, but...there's always a skit nag at the corner of the screen.

I don't really have much positive to say so far, but I can't give a fair evaluation of the characters I've seen so far because I don't understand Japanese. But anyway, that's just the first 30 minutes, and there's a good chance it might get better.

[Craymel]

I didn't even know it was out in japan yet

[throughhim413]

I rather like the characters. Perhaps it's just coming off of the generi-fest that was Tales of Innocence, but I've found the three main characters (only a few hours in) to be fun. I still can't say much for the story since I'm not that far in. Game is of course lol-cliche, but honestly, that's half of the fun with the Tales series these days.

I mostly agree with what you're saying (except that I rather like the game). The one point I don't really agree with is your evaluation of the battle system. Maybe I'm not being fair, but calling it the slowest while Tempest still exists doesn't seem right. Like you, I'm a little frustrated not having manual right off the bat, so I'm reserving judgment on the battle system for now.

Overall, the game still feels like a step up to me (on the DS). I didn't follow ANY of the pre-release hype, so I may have come in with lower expectations. I came looking for a decent 2D Tales game on the DS and so far, I've enjoyed what I've seen. For me, most of that is currently because of the characters, but I'm hoping that I will come to like the game more as the battle system and the party continue to expand.

EDIT: Okay, the characters aren't actually unique. I can't say that with a straight face.

[Cless]

Heh, I've not actually tried Tempest yet. This game seemed pretty promising, but I'm really not feeling it from what I've played so far. Thinking this might be the next TD game probably raised my expectations too high. Or maybe I've got some kind of subconscious dislike for portable Tales, period. :/

I don't want to give my thoughts of the characters based on visual/audio action, but I've gotta say one thing at least: Abyss and Vesperia have seriously spoiled me with their relatively mature casts compared with most of the series.

[ForceCube]

Wait, is it out already? o_o

Time to get the rom. No way I'm gonna import this right now and wait for a month until it arrives here. Being a Team Destiny game raised my expectations up to the stratosphere (yes, I'm that much of a fanboy >_>), so even if it has flaws, I'll probably end up doing my best to overlook all of them. That means... don't take my upcoming first impressions post seriously.


EDIT:

Map designs are pretty uninteresting. The world map seems to have been replaced with a bunch of featureless, extremely narrow paths

...you're kidding me, right?
They just did away with the classic world map and used Star-Ocean-like zones? No, no, no, NO >___> that's the one thing I can't forgive. Not my world map.

After you've seen a bunch of skits, there's one final skit that probably tells you where to go or something. You can see it as many times you want. That's great, but...there's always a skit nag at the corner of the screen.

Aren't all Team Destiny games like this?