Tales of Graces ƒ - Initial Thoughts

Alright, so I've been playing the game since March 17th. Not that I have gotten like close to beating it or anything. Like probably half way and maybe a little more. I've only been playing it on the weekends. So, it's still better late than never to share my thoughts and initial impressions about the game.

First off, the battle system kicks major butt. Seriously, the fans in the US have been waiting for a dang battle system like this. Japan already got it with some of the other Tales games that never came over here. Like Destiny Remake. But anyways, basically TP is completely done away with in this game. Instead you have a Capacity Chain guage in battle. Weapons and other enhancements you can add on determine the minimum and maximum CC a character has. You can keep attacking until it runs out. Skills and regular attacks use a certain amount of it. Obviously the more CC you have the more combos and attacks you can pull off in succession. When it runs out, you simple just stand still and wait for it to refill. You can guard during this time or just dodge the enemy entirely. It doesn't take long to refill and you can add enhancements to weapons and armor to make it refill faster. Mystic Artes exist in the game of course. And there's different levels of them. Meaning characters have more than just one. These are unlocked through storyline events and Titles.

Speaking of Titles, that's another aspect to mention. Titles do much more for you in this game than just collecting them for completion. Titles carry different skills and effects and stat increases on them. At the end of a battle you get Skill Points. SP is used with the Title you have equipped on a character to unlock the items on it. Obviously better skills and effects take more SP to unlock. Battles can net you extra SP, HP recovery, and gald if certain conditions are met at the end of a battle. Such as finishing the battle in a certain amount of time, doing a 10-hit combo, etc. So, all around the battle aspects of the game are top notch. Excellent work there.

The music is also very good as always. I mean, it's the same kind of music you come to expect with the Tales series since they keep mostly the same composers. Actually, some of it reminds me of Skies of Arcadia music. Heck some aspects in general of the game remind me of Skies of Arcadia. And that is never a bad thing if you know me at all xD The opening song to the intro kicks so much butt too. I love it~


The characters are pretty lovable from what I've seen. I can pretty much guess which ones get the most complaint and hate from people. Cheria is most definitely the one I could guess gets a lot of dislike. After the childhood arc she's pretty gloomy when you meet her at first in the adult arc. But there's good reason for it. I mean, you see what happens at the end of the childhood arc. Seriously, not all girl video game characters are meant to be perky and happy all the time. It just doesn't work that way. Not in real life either. That's what makes things more interesting anyways and more realistic.

Anyways, Asbel is a pretty cool main. The story pretty much follows him in trying to correct mistakes he made as a kid. Things that cannot be undone. Which is why there is so much tension between him, Cheria, and Hubert, his younger brother, when they meet back up in the adult arc. Hubert also for good reason since he was sent away to another nation and adopted into another family in the childhood arc. There's also Sophie, the mysterious girl as in most Tales games. No one knows who or where she came from.

The other characters include Richard, prince of Windor, who Asbel met as a kid and now seems to be possessed by something evil in the adult arc. Captain Malik was a knight instructor and Asbel's teacher when he joined the knights. He's kind of like the older character who sets everyone else straight. And last but nowhere near least is Pascal who is pretty crazy and goofy xD She's the comedy relief for the group.

The story and characters are very much enjoyable so far. There's so much to do in this game too. Collecting stuff, discoveries, and sidequests. And the skits are actually voiced! It was very much worth the wait. The Tales series has made it to the next gen consoles with much improvement and taking advantage of what there is to offer. Though Bamco shouldn't have taken as long as they did. Who knows when we'll see another game. But anyways, looking forward to seeing how it all turns out and what happens. Expect another post about that at some point.

Happy Birthday, Artie~

Even though the real fun is going to be tomorrow xD But hopefully it has been a pretty good one anyways~ Aside from dealing with some other stuff. We'll make up for it tomorrow for sure~ Happy Birthday, my Artie ^_^

2012 video game releases~

It's pretty much about time for a new post I suppose. And what better to talk about than the games coming out this year? At least the ones that have piqued my interest and I either have already or plan to get.

First off, Tales of the Abyss (3DS) and Tales of Graces F (PS3). Been a while since Bamco decided to grace us with some Tales games. Even though Abyss is just a port on the 3DS but hey, it's something anyways. As for Graces, we haven't seen a new Tales game like this since 2008 with Vesperia on the 360. So, really it's about dang time now. Both of these I have already nabbed since they were early releases this year. Heck, I'm a good ways through Abyss now xD Still my favorite Tales game to date~


Next up, Dragon's Crown. I cannot say enough how much I love Vanilla Ware~ They make such wonderful, beautiful games. And this one is no exception. Plus, it's only 30 bucks! That's half the price of a normal PS3 game. Anyways, it's an action RPG similar to Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade in game play. 2D side scrolling and good stuff like that. Beautiful 2D graphics as always too. I'm quite excited about this one for sure. Grand Knights History on the PSP is also coming out this year from Vanilla Ware and I have my eye on it as well.

Next is Etrian Odyssey 4, a series I have been following since the beginning. I love this dungeon crawling RPG series. Customizing your own team, picking the classes and skills for your characters, and exploring the labyrinth dungeon in the game. It's all good stuff and so much to discover. This series is not for the faint of heart however. While the difficulty has been let up on to an extent from the first game, it still can be pretty challenging. After watching the trailer and seeing screenshots, they have definitely improved upon the series even more and taken full advantage of the 3DS's graphical capabilities. No release date yet for the US but it has been confirmed for localization.

Last but not least, Pokemon Black and White 2~ I know what most people including myself thought initially. That these were just the follow up games for generation 5 like they've always done with previous generations. Well, we were proven wrong this time. Generation 5 has certainly been the interesting one and they have taken so many new paths with it. Black and White 2 are indeed direct sequels to the other two with a whole new story and features. This is the first time they've done this with any generation of games so it's definitely interesting to see what they're gonna do with it. Looks like the DS is gonna get two more great games before they're finally finished with it. These games are due out in the fall some time, which is a pretty quick turn around from the release in June in Japan. Good stuff~ And at this point, I think it's fairly certain we'll see a generation 6 on the 3DS. I don't see them not taking advantage of the newest handheld system. But I guess we shall see on that one.


2012 already has some good stuff out and lined up for the year. Time will only tell what else is in the works and will be announced for release. Persona 5 perhaps? Haha, that's just my wishful thinking xD But who knows~

Solatorobo: Red the Hunter~

Alright, gonna give a short review of this game. Beat it like a little over a week ago and I have to say it's an RPG that I enjoyed very much. Compared to new RPG's in recent years. It gave me a very similar feeling as Skies of Arcadia did when I first played it and as anyone who knows me at all could guess, that's a very good thing. So, I'll just go down the line highlighting some different aspects.

Music: Excellent soundtrack. Now I'm even more glad the game came with a bonus soundtrack with quite a bit of music on it from the game. Doesn't matter either way because you can listen to any piece of music in the game itself. You can unlock them as you progress though you need music points to do so. Which aren't that hard to find if you explore well. Anyways, many tracks remind me of Skies of Arcadia music as well. Especially ones like To the Blue Sky. That is very reminiscent of the intro to Skies of Arcadia. So, put simply, this soundtrack is pretty awesome. Good stuff.

Art Style: Also excellent. I love the world design and characters designs of this game. Also the anime cutscenes of the game were done by animation studio MADHOUSE which worked on anime like Trigun and Death Note. Tis good stuff there. The world is comprised of floating islands, each one with different environments and themes. Also pretty reminiscent to Skies of Arcadia whose different continents were similar to real life countries and continents. The people of the world resemble different breeds and species of dogs and cats or Caninu and Felineko as they're called in game. And their ancestors being wolves and lions. Pretty interesting concept especially as the story of the game unfolds.

Characters: Wonderful and lovable. Like Skies of Arcadia once again. The only characters you really won't like are the villains but that's how it's supposed to be xD From the main characters down to just small side quests characters, they tried to develop every single one of them giving you a background story and a wide variety of personalities. It was obvious that someone put quite a bit of effort into really making the world of this game come alive.

Game Play: Very fun and fast paced. You do most of the exploring with Red on his robot and there's lots of stuff to explore on each island. If you're trying to collect everything anyways. The battle system mostly involves picking up and throwing your enemy with your robot or throwing projectiles back at them. You can customize Red's robot to your liking. Focusing on attack and defense or other stats depending on what you like. You can do combos with your throwing and special moves as you progress through the game too.

Story: Definitely interesting and pretty good. Nothing earth shaking or anything like that. Unless you count finding out that the world you've been exploring the whole time is pieces of earth. You explore one last piece of old earth below the clouds at one point and find out how it was destroyed. Humans got a hold of technology they weren't ready for. But yeah, it's similar to Skies of Arcadia here too where you have someone who wants to basically reset earth and let it restart from scratch. Interesting what species took the place of the humans after all this. But anyways, Red, the main character stops the guy wanting to reset the world and makes a promise that they won't let the world go back to the way earth once was. And if this generation can't do it then their children will and so on. Basically, as long as they don't give up trying then they haven't failed yet.

So, there you go. That's Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. An excellent RPG that could very well get a sequel if you play it all the way to completion and do the final quest, which kinda hints that there could be one. Will be interesting to see~ But until next time.

Digimon Xros Wars (Episodes 1-54)~

Alright, I have finished the first two arcs of Digimon Xros Wars~ The season itself was split in two with the first 30 episodes being all about collecting code crowns and whoever grabbed all of them could change the Digital World into anything they desired. For better or worse obviously. The last 24 episodes followed Taiki and Shoutmon as they go back to the Digital World, after getting forcefully sent back to the real world by Bugramon, only to find that a lot of time has passed while they were gone and it's been completely conquered by the Bugra Army and split into 7 kingdoms each ruled by a death general.

Story: I'm basing this off other seasons of Digimon not on anime itself but the overall story here is pretty good. They seem to be getting better and better in this area with each new season and that's commendable really. It still follows the basic principle of saving the Digital World from an evil maniac but beyond that there are some deeper elements. Lots of character development and themes that make it not just a kid's anime anymore.

The story follows Taiki, the main guy, and his partner Shoutmon who wants to become king of the Digital World in order to change it into the world it should be. In the first 30 episodes, the way to do this was to collect all of the Code Crowns of the Digital World's areas. Long ago, the Digital World had been broken up like this from a huge clash between the legendary Digimon and Bugramon as they tried to stop him from achieving his ideals. At the end of the first arc, Bugramon manages to nab all of the Code Crowns and forcefully send Taiki and Shoutmon back to the real world. However, while there they meet Omnimon, one of the legendary Digimon, who has the ability to send them back to the Digital World. Turns out he's the one who chose Taiki and gave him the Xros Loader, pinning his hopes that he would be the one to save the Digital World.

Before going back, they have to stop Tactimon who followed them there and is causing havoc. But Shoutmon by himself with no one to DigiXros with doesn't have the power. But with the power of strong bonds and friendship from Taiki's friends in Tactimon's grasp and their courage and determination in the face of death, Shoutmon gains the ability to Super Digivolve into OmegaShoutmon. With this new power he destroys Tactimon and he and Taiki return to the Digital World with Omnimon's help. When they return, the Digital World has been completely transformed and split into 7 kingdoms ruled by Death Generals, the strongest Digimon chosen by the Bugra Army.

Taiki meets up with Nene and Kiriha, who he left behind there, and have been struggling to survive against the Bugra Army's new rule and harsh kingdoms. They team up and Kiriha faces the demons of his past and the truth about friendship and what true friends really are, realizing the truth behind what his father said before he died. Nene faces the reality of using force to stop her little brother from making a huge mistake in thinking the Digital World is just a game. And Taiki faces his weakness of being too kind and learning what has to be done to help someone may not always be what you want to do. Together they discover a new found power of Great Xros to create Shoutmon X7, which helps them defeat most of the Death Generals and stop Nene's little brother, Yuu, from making a huge mistake in thinking what happens here isn't real.

With the loss of some friends and great allies along the way, Taiki and the others manage to arrive at the final destination. They learn of DarkKnightmon and Bugramon being brothers who were both only deceiving each other as being allies. DarkKnightmon wanted to use the power of DigiXros to defeat Bugramon by combining with him and taking his power for himself. However, this backfires as Bugramon is the more powerful of the two and crushes his brother from the inside, taking back control of their new found form. Now with even more power he wants to combine both the real and Digital Worlds, ruling both as the ultimate king. But with help from the legendary Digimon and the Code Crown, which still exists and has chosen Taiki and Shoutmon because of their ideals in turning the Digital World into a peaceful place again, they discover a new power with the help of all the bonds and friendships they created throughout their journey in the Digital World. An even more powerful DigiXros between all the Digimon is born, Shoutmon X7 Superior Mode:

With this, Bugramon is defeated and both worlds are saved. Shoutmon and the other Digimon return to the Digital World to help with the clean up process and turn the Digital World in the peaceful, beautiful place it should be. And Shoutmon obtains his goal of Digimon king. Taiki and the others return to their normal lives in the real world, ready for another adventure that could be coming.

Overall: Xros Wars is a very nice addition to the Digimon series. The music and animation are all top notch and improved. I can feel some inspiration from other anime coming into play as well here. Gurren Lagann being one. It was well worth watching and there's still a third arc to watch taking place a year after the events of the first 54 episodes. Basically, a direct sequel to the first two arcs. I shall be catching all of this and seeing what it's all about.

Localization: This season does appear to be making its way over under the title of Digimon Fusion Battles but I won't be taking any part in it. It's already obvious they are going to ruin it simply by looking at the name changes and some other details. So, I shall be sticking with the subs all the way here.

And with that, I believe that's I need to say about this for now. Until I finish the third arc, so till then~

Happy New Year~ 2012

Hopefully this year brings with it bigger and better things~ ^^
Have a good one, everyone~

Almost a new year~

2011 is winding down and it was definitely an interesting year~ Many new things happened, some not so good things, and then some really great things. It has definitely been a year to remember in many ways and the good far outweighs the bad for me. Hopefully you can say the same and if not then I hope 2012 will be much better.

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone~ ^_^