Tales of the Tempest reviewed in Famitsu

[supersonic1453]

Well, if they wanted more sales, they should have actually remade the game.  Give it Eternia's battle engine or something.  There's enough room for it.

[Kiko]

Yeah, the Phantasia port is totally inconsistant with the sprites, it was such a turn off that we had fit playable characters,  fat human(oid) enemies, and the same LMB as the PSX version with nothing else added but voices and a gradeshop. If I was a Phantasia fan myself, I'd be pretty pissed at how not changed the game is, but it is "Good 'ol Phantasia" =P

I was still expecting the battle system to get a little faster atleast..

[Magicpaint]

I interpreted that as "Good to see that it bombed, so the idea that sub-par installments won't make namco laugh all the way to the bank". Which is an interpretation I agree with.

On the other hand, it's a double-edged sword. This will probably make namco less likely to support the DS in the future, even though it seems their attempts with it have been half-hearted at best.

We'll just have to see what the heck happens to the upcoming PSP games, I guess. The Phantasia port didn't even come close to Eternia's in sales, if I remember correctly. But that could be largely due to it being its fourth incarnation...

That's what I meant. Low sales certainly can't encourage them now to create more shovelware. Yeah, it's a double edged sword indeed. Watch Namco blame the DS yet again for their lowered profits.

I think a great, well promoted Tales game could do well on the DS, Namco obviously isn't interested in putting that much effort and it bites them and they wonder why. If Children of Mana could manage 300K,  I don't see why a great DS Tales game couldn't and FFIII is at a 99% sell-through rate, so RPGs can sell fine on the system, if effort is put into it. It's sad that Namco doesn't get a single clue. Last time they blamed the DS because craptastic games like Pac-Pix and Pac 'n' Roll didn't sell well... Lol.

Oh and ToP:FVE did over 100K, which is pretty good. I'd say expect future portable Tales on that platform. I'd expect TotW:RM to do equally well, at least they seem to be promoting it a hell of a lot better than they did with Tempest and it seems to have actual effort put into it.

[gyozilla]

what flaws/gripes are you refering too?

I take back how they don't learn from each other (things like ToD2j Spirits Blaster/ToS OL and skit styles are influenced), but I think both teams do break things that have already worked.   It feels like after around ToD2j they tried too hard to promote Tales as a series. Maybe the ToD2j sale spike spoiled them.

ToA's like an oldschool Tales slack job, but you know that was because they wanted out by the tenth aniversery, not because of ToP-GBA, ND3, ToT, or ToL were made (I don't think a lack of ToL would have fixed it either).

You don't consider ToS a rush job? (underdeveloped moves at the end of the roster list, missing chara/boss hi-ougis, bloated filler moves, etc) They didn't finish for GC and rebadged the "extras" as ToS PS2.

1. ToS, unlike ToD2, did not seem to know how to make a proper mage. (You can tell they tried with Kratos, Zelos, and Colette, but their magic sucks, so they might as well have been fighters, and Genis and Raine are like ToP-SFC backup characters, e.g. lame mage.)

Haha. Funny you should mention, 'cause WHILE ToD2j had good fighter mages, the chara balance was broken. ToD2j fighters = meat shields only + keep dudes busy in between spells. Ironically, because of the inherent battle system (SP bar and all), meat shields worked PERFECTLY.    And yeah, ToS = harken back to that old school ToP fighter/mage distinct duality. ToS has that whole old Tales feel. Hell, ToS' formation reversal thing is from ToP.

ToS' problem is the system's ambivalence: Trying to keep old fighter/mage distinctions while experimenting with hybrids in ToD2j's wake. Krat/Zel/Col failed. Krat/Zel's nail in the coffin was the spell choices: Basic-ish level spells with 3 crappy heals. It was like a bad wizard/paladin.

Fighter mages go back to ToD, almost a disaster if that engine's pace was different. Crappiest deal was Garr stretching THREE ways (sword, magic, arrows). Nice variety concept but underdone like many things in ToD. ToS and after taught Symphonia team how to do fighter mages. ToA's genius isn't Free Run (everyone wanted that back with ToS), it made elements mobile. FOF allowed quick elemental manipulations and meant more moves. FOF is kinda the evolution of ToS' T/S system and Shihna's Silva/Tethe seals (changing T/S and casting elemental attributes were stiff and slow).

Maybe Destiny team's fighter mages work better because they blur the fighter/mage line more. ToA picked up the slack though. I can believe Fujishima's concepts dictated a chara's fighting style (unless he's told what styles beforehand). From that Fujishima may prefer stricter fighter/mage styles.

And I still think people complaining about how overpowered magic is in ToD2 is why magic sucks so hard in ToS, so it learned something....

Yeah, but ToS sorta screwed itself up on its own. 1 attack mage, summons were impractical. ToD2j has 2 dedicated mages. Judas' spells > Krat/Zel's. All dedicated fighters could cover mid range being fighter mages, and Nanaly was a dedicated mid ranger (most ToS guys were close range). Factor in ToD2j's battle system, the natural shield for mages except for spells. ToS' failed AI and the 360 field = less spell casted if your fighters can't intervene in time. And you can't Free Run here like they can.

- Not enough moves for ToD2j fighters. ToS' T/S tried to fix it? Except it was just another branch for more choices (some were fillers). Shihna's movelist (shame for a ninja) was so bloated.

- Skits. ToD2j added subs, scrolling sucked. ToS saved skits, added skit names to boot. ToR BROKE it, cramming like 20 skits after each big event. Hell, the last skit is always there. ToA skits just mixed ToS' face and ToR's profile styles.

- Honestly I don't know why TS listened to those idiots about ToS' lack of FMVs, the amount wasn't overly appeasing. ToR broke it with a load of 10 sec clips, scenes could've been done like ToS.

- I saw ToR's hi-ougis as a 180 turn after ToD2j cut-ins; but it was even MORE about flair. ToS' U-Attacks could've inspired the team up finish, but that's it. Some like deprecated hi-ougis, but all those conditions made them useless. So why even have em just to finish ONE dude at the end?

- ToD2j has one of the best AI. Auto battles can earn more Grade than you do. ToS' AI really annoyed me. The AI options were ok, but the party/enemy AI was just too dumb. ToR's was pretty nice; AI moved around the 3 lines better than I expected. You could argue that it's harder to program AI in 3D space, but ToA's was great.

- Item count (ToS the black sheep, ToR ignored it. This doesn't count, but it looked weird how ToL had sculptures in 1000s. ToA had 16).
- Carrying over grade and spent grade
- The running jump/backstep evasions were all great except for ToR (seems intentional). It was the best way to avoid spells. A little iffy with ToA but Free Run saved it.
- Special conditions for Grade in ToR. And stops counting after a certain amount of times in an area.
- Depending on how you see it, ToR's smash points is way less abusable to get ougis than simply increasing a skill's count in ToS.
- Zoom out battle screen, camera focus
- The back and forth with monster zukan (no spectacles, spectacles but no book)
- Number of max combos
- ToA can't use items on other allies unless you have Item Throw (as inane to me as the ToS Rename Gem)

[Kiko]

You don't consider ToS a rush job? (underdeveloped moves at the end of the roster list, missing chara/boss hi-ougis, bloated filler moves, etc) They didn't finish for GC and rebadged the "extras" as ToS PS2.

No kidding, characters that were introduced halfway into the story felt rather incomplete. Regal had NO Unison's for example, Shihna's skill list was definitely DEFINITELY trash. Having a ton of summon skills does not mean that she has a bunch of skills. If every character had a sizable amount of of waza/ougi like Lloyd does, I'd be much more impressed with everyone else but Lloyd's skill list.

Haha. Funny you should mention, 'cause WHILE ToD2j had good fighter mages, the chara balance was broken. ToD2j fighters = meat shields only + keep dudes busy in between spells. Ironically, because of the inherent battle system (SP bar and all), meat shields worked PERFECTLY. 

EXACTLY. The zone system (which I hate so very much) totally enforces that as well.

ToS' problem is the system's ambivalence: Trying to keep old fighter/mage distinctions while experimenting with hybrids in ToD2j's wake. Krat/Zel/Col failed. Krat/Zel's nail in the coffin was the spell choices: Basic-ish level spells with 3 crappy heals. It was like a bad wizard/paladin.

Ah, I got Kratos and Zelos worked out okay, if they could diversify each other a bit more, I'd like em alot more seperately though. Kratos and Zelos definitely had a poor choice of spells though, man I totally agree with that XD. You only needed Kratos' First Aid for the beginning parts of the game, by the time you had Refill back you didn't need that anymore, you needed it even less after getting Shihna (By then you've got better skills to keep everyone alive). And then they had to toss in 2 circular area healing spells that are almost pretty much EXACTLY the same? Those things sucked because by the time you got the first, you had Nurse, by the time you had the second, you had Ressurection. Infact, I had to work out of my way to get them to complete my skill lineup, I didn't need them at all, and just like after I got Refill, I found myself disabling them as soon as possible. I needed a second dedicated fighter to be right up there with me, and I didn't get a decent one until Presea and arguably Regal came along. You can always disable Kratos/Zelos' spells to make them more dedicated, sure, but that's diminishing what they can do. It's bad enough they mostly had clones of Lloyd's attacks in looks along with some old style Tales goodness thrown in, but you don't need them firing off crappy novice spells when Genius does it just fine by himself.

Oh oh, another thing I hated about the circular healy spells is their placement. They work okay in TotA thanks to free run, but more often than not, you're probably not going to be able to get to that spells' area effect in ToS, while the AI will probably waltz right in >_>;

Fighter mages go back to ToD, almost a disaster if that engine's pace was different. Crappiest deal was Garr stretching THREE ways (sword, magic, arrows). Nice variety concept but underdone like many things in ToD. ToS and after taught Symphonia team how to do fighter mages. ToA's genius isn't Free Run (everyone wanted that back with ToS), it made elements mobile. FOF allowed quick elemental manipulations and meant more moves. FOF is kinda the evolution of ToS' T/S system and Shihna's Silva/Tethe seals (changing T/S and casting elemental attributes were stiff and slow).

Yeah, again, I found myself disabling MORE attacks here, Shihna definitely had a horrible case of bloatedness =/. I like how they built up to the FoF enabled elemental attacks moves from ToS' "Give that weapon an element, and if you can guess it right your waza will change to a cooler elemental one! Go Go DANKUUKEN!"

- Not enough moves for ToD2j fighters. ToS' T/S tried to fix it? Except it was just another branch for more choices (some were fillers). Shihna's movelist (shame for a ninja) was so bloated.

Again, I totally agree here, most will argue that ToD2j's extensions were enough to compensate, but that's just as wrong as counting ToTA's FoF-enabled moves towards the grand total in that game.

- I saw ToR's hi-ougis as a 180 turn after ToD2j cut-ins; but it was even MORE about flair. ToS' U-Attacks could've inspired the team up finish, but that's it. Some like deprecated hi-ougis, but all those conditions made them useless. So why even have em just to finish ONE dude at the end?

Yeah, to be honest, they looked alot better to me in the videos than when I executed them in-game. It's like with ToE's flashy Indignation for Dha--*shot at* Sekundes! Only that it made sense there, and it was a "Ha ha awesome" type thing. But to totally base an entire game's hi-ougis after that is a waste, IMO.

- Depending on how you see it, ToR's smash points is way less abusable to get ougis than simply increasing a skill's count in ToS.

Yeah, actually ToS' was probably the easiest game to get Ougi's in since you just had to do the move in thin air, with Eternia, you HAD to hit an enemy with it to increase the skill count..

- ToA can't use items on other allies unless you have Item Throw (as inane to me as the ToS Rename Gem)

ToTA bothered me alot with how it totally stretched out little Tales-y mechanics like that. Want to use an item on someone (except for Life Bottles, you can use em on other people with out it)? Get the ADSkill for it! Want to switch your characters? Get the Moon Selector! Want to switch your on-screen character! Go get that ..thing in the Cheegle Forest I forgot the name of!
I got used to earning Manual Mode in most Tales games with an item, and thankfully they've been giving it to us near the beginning (alot with all of those things I mentioned above), but I hated how it stretched out stuff like that.

Phew, this is long XP

[supersonic1453]

It would make zero sense if you couldn't use life bottles on other people.

[Cyllya]

I take back how they don't learn from each other (things like ToD2j Spirits Blaster/ToS OL and skit styles are influenced), but I think both teams do break things that have already worked.

Yeah, but that's not a team split thing. Anything ToA broke (e.g. the "let's take this basic gameplay feature and make it something you have to wait for!" thing) already worked fine in ToS too.

Oh, another example of learning from each other's mistakes: ToR's skits.
Fans playing ToS: "NOT ENOUGH SKITS!!!!"
ToR Dev Team: We'll fix that! ^_^ *pack in a bunch of stupid filler skits*

You don't consider ToS a rush job? (underdeveloped moves at the end of the roster list, missing chara/boss hi-ougis, bloated filler moves, etc) They didn't finish for GC and rebadged the "extras" as ToS PS2.

Not sure what you mean by underdeveloped moves or bloated filler moves (people complain there aren't enough moves *points to Kiko's post* o_O Personally I think Lloyd has too many; I've played the game like five or six times and still have no idea what half of his skills do, got fed up and started using characters with less skills) and most of the rest is a bunch of useless extra crap, except the PS2's extra plot content, but I think those were more like ideas they didn't get until they made the PS2 version (based on player response?).

When they made ToS, they didn't take a poorly functional engine and use that as the framework of their new game, did they? If they did most of the game right and lopped off the extras because they rushed at the end, it doesn't make a big difference like it does when they slop the whole thing together from the start like ToP-PSX and ToA.

ToS has that whole old Tales feel.

Yet I hear people complain it's too different from "normal" Tales. 9.9

- Honestly I don't know why TS listened to those idiots about ToS' lack of FMVs, the amount wasn't overly appeasing. ToR broke it with a load of 10 sec clips, scenes could've been done like ToS.

Well, ToR needed FMVs, because using sprites means they can't do cinimatics with the game engine graphics. Remember that scene where Hilda first loses her hat? Imagine that done without an FMV. It would have required some character explain what you were looking at. (Or do it ToL-style.)

ToS' problem is the system's ambivalence: Trying to keep old fighter/mage distinctions while experimenting with hybrids in ToD2j's wake. Krat/Zel/Col failed. Krat/Zel's nail in the coffin was the spell choices: Basic-ish level spells with 3 crappy heals. It was like a bad wizard/paladin.

I don't think they were trying to keep the distinction at all. There were only two characters out of nine that totally lack spells, only two out of nine that totally like fighting ability. It's just because magic in general doesn't do as good of a job at damage as physical fighting, so why would you use Kratos or Zelos as a spell caster? Maybe if you're l33t with exskill abuse so you can use the spells while fighting melee. Genis has an advantage over them in case you for some reason want spells, but why would you use him either? >_<

The skill learning system was part of why magic was lame. Genis has three base skills, three tiers each (except ice on T-type for some reason o_O), and you have to use a spell 50 times to learn the next one. But it takes forever to use a spell 50 times! It was okay for Jade since he had like four sets of two tiers or something like that. And I think it did more damage in ToA. And it's more important for elemental attacks than in ToS.

Having a ton of summon skills does not mean that she has a bunch of skills.

Hi-ougi are widely loved yet Shihna's summons are widely hated. >_o *doesn't get it*

Yeah, actually ToS' was probably the easiest game to get Ougi's in since you just had to do the move in thin air, with Eternia, you HAD to hit an enemy with it to increase the skill count..

You could do that with some older Tales too. ToP-SFC at least. *mastered majinken and various fire skills by spamming them at those firefly things*

[Kiko]

Yet I hear people complain it's too different from "normal" Tales. 9.9

More often than not I hear that from the ToD2j elitists =P

Not sure what you mean by underdeveloped moves or bloated filler moves (people complain there aren't enough moves *points to Kiko's post* o_O Personally I think Lloyd has too many; I've played the game like five or six times and still have no idea what half of his skills do, got fed up and started using characters with less skills) and most of the rest is a bunch of useless extra crap, except the PS2's extra plot content, but I think those were more like ideas they didn't get until they made the PS2 version (based on player response?).

Well, I mean, I also agree that Lloyd had way too many moves, my main beef is that other characters got shafted in the process. At the very least Abyss got the skill counts down okay with all characters on average.

Tear's list was bloated with her Appears Spells, and Charge, and Enhance Cast which I'm sure no one uses. But she's generally a fight-enabled Mint anywho. But she's the only character I had a problem with according to the lineup. Infact, they managed to make the Rokujinshou fight with their own original styles seperate from the main cast (aside from FoF changes, giving Largo the Natalia stuff besides enforcing the connection, really does look wierd XD) with their own waza/ougi line-up. Lots of people would have killed to play as them and..well I'll kill that thought here to save spoilers >_>;.

Hi-ougi are widely loved yet Shihna's summons are widely hated. >_o *doesn't get it*

Oh c'mon. Shihna's summon's pretty much ride the line of hi-ougi attacks.

Shihna's summon suck because:

- They're a rehash of other spells with some sort of positive status boost tossed on.
- You want Shihna to NOT take alot of damage (and god knows that we're probably not doing the food thing to raise OL manually all throughout the game, but it's a nice thing =P) since she gets hit hard.
- Shihna doesn't offer much to the party.
- Hi-ougi's never counted towards the total skill count for ANY character, she had those summons locked until OL, which happened to coincide with the requirements for hi-ougis, tossing on the cut-in made it official to fans, but they totally cheaped out on her. I understand making them not abusable by keeping them disabled till you're OL'ed, but they do crap damage and usually aren't anything special to look at (Wow, multiple Spread's with Undine, Explosion with Efreet, Luna has one of those highly accurate boss-version Judgements I think, stuff like that).
- Shihna's other skills got shafted in the process. Tethe and Silva Seals are highly throwaway-able and the rest of her skills don't really offer much. If you had a Lloyd, Refill, Genis party, you've got tons of other characters to pick, save for Collete, that do alot better than her, offer more, and are generally not as risky to get good results with. I love Shihna, but giving her low defense, a low amount of skills that are actually useful, extremely short range, make it so that her most powerful attacks are OL enabled but do bad damage anyway was quite wrong IMO.

[Datschge]

Anything ToA broke (e.g. the "let's take this basic gameplay feature and make it something you have to wait for!" thing) already worked fine in ToS too.

Indeed. I honestly don't understand the complaints about that though since this offered a nice learning curve reminiscent of well designed games (most Nintendo games actually) where you get only one feature to get accustomed to at a time (including respective in-game explanations). It may annoy people who already know and expect all of the features from the get go (like we see here) but it's great for making the game suitable for people who play Abyss as their first Tales game. (Also having to earn some features first is rather typical for Tales, Abyss is just the most consequent about it.)

[Kiko]

Eh, but Abyss was extremely poor in describing it's features. Since you didn't gain access to most Capacity Cores later, the game didn't really tell you that the level up boosts you get for them count towards most requirements for the ADSkills, or which stat does what...

[supersonic1453]

Instruction book.

I thought everything was explained fine in Abyss.  I never had any problems.  They explained different features of the battle system as they became relavent.

I didn't have a problem with Sheena's skills.  All I needed was power seal->life/spirit seal->demon seal, but you are right.  Sylva and Tethe seals and summons are worthless.  Lloyd didn't need the Sonic Thrust tree or the Beast tree.  The Tempest tree was okay because of Omega Tempest, but Tempest was much better in 2D.

[kiryogi]

Now let's get things back on topic shall we?

Here's something I've been posting around some of the other boards out there,  a run down of Tempest so far:

Pros:

-A first for the Tales series, ougis are actually executed manually now. For example, you need to do majinken twice inorder to get majinken souga or chirisazame+kogetsuzan will get you akisazame. Also, ougis get nice little background effects and camera focus change when executed. Unfortunately, there's no voice for the ougis, only for the starting skills.

-3on3 also means you can get flanked/attacked from 4-8 directions. It's frantic! The only tactical defense mechanism in this game is the backhop though. Which can be used to pass into other lines! Also, due to the multi directional nature of the system, you can't mix up attacks by holding up and down. It's all the same string, that only varies if you're attacking an air enemy. This also means you cannot jump. On the other hand, you can also hold your attack for a much stronger strike in the middle of a normal chain.

-Sakuraba's first solo Tales job! No Shinji Tamura here, and the end result? Very promising!

Neutral:

-Being that it's based on Rebirth's 3LMB, it really does try to follow all the rules. The jutsuwaza your party uses will be dictated by what you have equipped on them. Also, you cannot command to do anything outside of using items. The only nonsimilarity is the lack of the Force system.

-Once again like Rebirth, there's a grid you can arrange in the ai settings that'll give you different bonuses during battle like TP up or mind up. Oddly, it doesn't seem to actually affect their position in battle as that's more so dictated by the sakusen settings.

-Skits are in the form of camp skits, like Eternia. They actually take things from both Eternia and Rebirth here. The 3LMB, Camp skits, Day/Night system. In any case, you need to use a tent on the world map to activate them.

-Dark bottles easily remedy the encounter complaint. But on the other hand I found that it took almost forever to wear away. I was forced into 4 step encounters for at least a good hour i think D:

-Tales series first proper 2handed sword user! (Tilkis) Some of his skills accomodate the 3line environment very well. (Heracross Blow)

Negative:

-3on3 doesn't mean 3vs3, tho the limit to how many enemies you can face is 4.

-Boss battles thus far are a complete joke. Normal battles are a lot more entertaining. Even on hard!

-Item usage is really slow, and you need to keep yourself free from attacks or else it'll cancel it out.

-Lack of voice, even during battle!

-The complicated, and inconvinent navigation of the menu system. Party change was hidden after the position system menu, urgh.

-Day/Night system can be annoying since you won't be able to enter some areas if it's a certain time of day. Tent can remedy this however.

-Camera in dungeon is too limited, thus making dungeon exploration a real chore.

[Cyllya]

Nice, the only thing I've heard about Tempest that bugs me much is the text box sound effect. (And not being able to tell your party members what skill to use, but I survived that in ToR.)

Tethe and Silva Seals are highly throwaway-able

No love for +50% damage?

If you had a Lloyd, Refill, Genis party, you've got tons of other characters to pick, save for Collete, that do alot better than her

"Save for Colette"? Man, that's how I know you've got the whole ToS cast backward; Colette's usually the first person to do a lot better than anyone.

Anyway, Sheena can summon every 56th time she gets hit (unless she dies in the GC version), so wouldn't it be too cheap if summons were stronger? The other characters have much stronger hi-ougi I think, but they're much harder to pull off. Especially Presea. o.O

Indeed. I honestly don't understand the complaints about that though since this offered a nice learning curve reminiscent of well designed games (most Nintendo games actually) where you get only one feature to get accustomed to at a time (including respective in-game explanations). It may annoy people who already know and expect all of the features from the get go (like we see here) but it's great for making the game suitable for people who play Abyss as their first Tales game. (Also having to earn some features first is rather typical for Tales, Abyss is just the most consequent about it.)

I'm trying to imagine how ToA's learning curve would've been affected if manual mode and changing your control character were available from the get-go, and I'm not getting it. Free-Run, maybe, but....

[Kiko]

No love for +50% damage?

Why not use a gem, or an item or Sharpness/Aggregate Sharp/andwhateverthepartywideattackupspellwas if you really needed an attack boost..?

"Save for Colette"? Man, that's how I know you've got the whole ToS cast backward; Colette's usually the first person to do a lot better than anyone.

You've GOT to be kidding me, the AI really sucks as Colette. And Collete's hard to get ahold of as it is, but I know that you've been enforcing that she doesn't really suck, it's us sucking as her..so.. I'll leave it at that =P

Anyway, Sheena can summon every 56th time she gets hit (unless she dies in the GC version), so wouldn't it be too cheap if summons were stronger?

Right, because, as I said earlier, it's not entirely smart to have Sheena get hit at all. She's got the worst defense out of the entire cast as it is, I pretty much run to her aid as if she were Refill and Genius getting wailed on. It's almost the same as using Refill's 6/7 deaths to OL Sheena up. Not something you want to do, an d definitely something you want to prevent, so it's not an opportunity that would present itself much..

The other characters have much stronger hi-ougi I think, but they're much harder to pull off. Especially Presea. o.O

Eh, Indignation Judgement, Sacred Shine, Fairy Circle, and Divine Judgment is cake to pull off, they work the same way the summon's work in terms of triggering them (Other than getting certain techs to a certain usage count). Regal's Garen Zesshuu Geki is fun to do to, it's not hard at all. Just the HP requirement ones and both of Presea's are a little wierder to pull off.

[Cless Aileron]

Guess to get back on topic, I'll have to comment on kir's comments.

Pros:

-A first for the Tales series, ougis are actually executed manually now. For example, you need to do majinken twice inorder to get majinken souga or chirisazame+kogetsuzan will get you akisazame. Also, ougis get nice little background effects and camera focus change when executed. Unfortunately, there's no voice for the ougis, only for the starting skills.

-3on3 also means you can get flanked/attacked from 4-8 directions. It's frantic! The only tactical defense mechanism in this game is the backhop though. Which can be used to pass into other lines! Also, due to the multi directional nature of the system, you can't mix up attacks by holding up and down. It's all the same string, that only varies if you're attacking an air enemy. This also means you cannot jump. On the other hand, you can also hold your attack for a much stronger strike in the middle of a normal chain.

Doesn't sound bad but I still have the 64,000 gald question...is this game's battle system as shallow and pedantic as people made it out to be?  In other words, does it end up having as much depth as a beat 'em up like Double Dragon or Final Fight?

-Sakuraba's first solo Tales job! No Shinji Tamura here, and the end result? Very promising!

I'll hear for myself since Sakuraba has been disappointing as of late in regards to the Tales series.

Neutral:

-Being that it's based on Rebirth's 3LMB, it really does try to follow all the rules. The jutsuwaza your party uses will be dictated by what you have equipped on them. Also, you cannot command to do anything outside of using items. The only nonsimilarity is the lack of the Force system.

-Once again like Rebirth, there's a grid you can arrange in the ai settings that'll give you different bonuses during battle like TP up or mind up. Oddly, it doesn't seem to actually affect their position in battle as that's more so dictated by the sakusen settings.

-Skits are in the form of camp skits, like Eternia. They actually take things from both Eternia and Rebirth here. The 3LMB, Camp skits, Day/Night system. In any case, you need to use a tent on the world map to activate them.

-Dark bottles easily remedy the encounter complaint. But on the other hand I found that it took almost forever to wear away. I was forced into 4 step encounters for at least a good hour i think D:

-Tales series first proper 2handed sword user! (Tilkis) Some of his skills accomodate the 3line environment very well. (Heracross Blow)

Not bad, though I'll have to see myself before I see where these fall under.

Negative:

-3on3 doesn't mean 3vs3, tho the limit to how many enemies you can face is 4.

No comment.

-Boss battles thus far are a complete joke. Normal battles are a lot more entertaining. Even on hard!

I guess my previous comment is sort of answered, though not completely.  Still pathetic that the boss dies as if all that's needed to do is poke them.

-Item usage is really slow, and you need to keep yourself free from attacks or else it'll cancel it out.

Don't like the sound of that.

-Lack of voice, even during battle!

I expect that the voices were limited to just the battle but the lack of voices are there.  Well, let's move on.

-The complicated, and inconvinent navigation of the menu system. Party change was hidden after the position system menu, urgh.

Messy menus.  Not a good sign.

-Day/Night system can be annoying since you won't be able to enter some areas if it's a certain time of day. Tent can remedy this however.

-Camera in dungeon is too limited, thus making dungeon exploration a real chore.

That sounds bad.

I still have low expectations on the game.  Overall, what do you think of the game so far?  Is it like what others have said?