Tales of Dislikable things

[Slivius]

I ask this purely from a game development point of view:

"Make a list of all the Tales Games you played and share what you dislike the most in every single one"

Everyone dislikes some part of a game. I would like to know what it is that infuriates you or makes you go "wat?" while playing a Tales Game so I know what pitfalls to avoid for my own game design.
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Also known as Sliv, Slivvie, Quilvius, Slivendiferious, and slivijizzisious

Ruilus wrote:

Holy hell. Yesterday was a blur of wine, whiskey and brandy. I can't remember where I left my sofa.

[Radge]

I'll only list the games where I was really bothered.

Tales of Phantasia GBA: How slow it is in battles. I was fairly new to the series when I saw that it was from the same series as Abyss. Was excited to play, then when I played it, I wondered why it was so slow.

Tales of the Abyss: So many sidequests, so little time frames. I think this is self-explanatory. Oh, and a bit of a complaint for their "anti-fan rage" ending.

Tales of Graces f: Some early bosses get difficult, while some late bosses are easy Or maybe it's just me not that good with the game?

Tales of Xillia: Bosses. Yes.

Tales of Xillia 2: Why is it so sad for Ludger? Also, don't make the game look like it OBVIOUSLY reused everything from the first game. And even how Xillia 2 is really good as it is, with what they did, X2 will now look like to be a quick cash-in game. And this doesn't help their sales. Especially when it gets localized.

Do the escorts count? RM1 is basically the horrid drop rates and difficulty spike in higher difficulties, forcing you to grind. DOtNW was, too short and for making the ToS1 cast crippled.

Game design? Oooooh. One thing I can say is: Make sidequests not as missable as Abyss' and Vesperia's but not also as too available in Xillia 2. A nice balance would be good.
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My Backloggery - BLESS XSEED!

[Slivius]

[Radge]

Bosses in Xillia escape combos after 15-20 hits. Not only that, but, they can access overlimit even without heeding to the mechanics of the game: which is Link Mode, when the whole battle system emphasizes Linking up. I know these are just some properties so that bosses won't be another "Yuri Lowell Punching Bags", but it's hard to love boss battles if they can cheat on you and the game's mechanics.

Also, I would like that you don't rush developing games as much as possible. Characters in Xillia who don't have the names "Jude" or "Milla" were shafted in their Link Artes and artes department. Even if those were fixed in Xillia 2, that doesn't mean you can make your games like that and ask the public to positively receive them.

And yeah, having the NPCs for quests be relocated is a good idea for story and plot matters when necessary. How bout a message on the lower right screen/in the game's menu saying what quests are available now after a certain part of the game (of course that only applies to quests you've started)? That way, we won't have to talk to hundreds of NPCs or look at guides that much.
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My Backloggery - BLESS XSEED!

[GinRei]

Mostly stuff from Xillia 2, since it's the most recent one and I can't remember anything that truly bugged me about Symphonia, Vesperia, or Graces:

Stop harassing me for money.
Even though Ludger is awesome, stop forcing me to use him.
I felt no connection or cared at all for Ludger due to him not speaking. To me, he had as much character as Elle's backpack.
The decision system. Sure, it was an interesting idea based off of visual novels, but if they don't end up making any difference, why bother? There were like, three choices (not counting the ones that led to the Bad End and the Good/True split) where there wasn't an obviously "best" answer. Just don't bother if it won't change anything.
AI is so freaking stupid. When fighting a Giganto X monster who shoots laser beams that 1-shot you, don't freaking clump up! They aren't even melee, they're healers swarming the one melee so they can heal with heals that are long range!
They made it so you have to nearly pay off the debt to get the Skill Book for Leia that made her my favorite character. That's some dastardly crap right there.
The skill orb completes far too quickly. I finished off everyone's orb by like, Chapter 15.

[Colour]

[Exelx]

xillia 2 fix some battle mechanic from xillia 1.. boss still can tech out combo with "!" counter, but they're more reasonable with overlimit (at least they don't spam it + spam hi-ougi like in xillia 1)

as for combo, you can combo them now in xillia 2 with that weakness system.. thx to broken weak bar don't deplete during corpse shell in specific condition (if you exploit more than 3 weak if i'm not mistaken) you can combo them to death.. refers to some YT users like Kouli30, omegaevolution, MaliceNX, that had several video that demonstrate it.

to be honest, i don't really like xillia-xillia 2 even though i platinum both... might not play it again after some time, lol~ i still prefer vesperia & graces f for ps3 tales. don't quote me on that, just opinions

[Abicion]

I don't like Tales healers who aren't Mint.
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SOON.

[Accelerator]

[Aha Disco Elf]

I'm gonna echo that the weakness system is definitely a good fix for Xillia battle system, hell I might even say that it transform the battle system into something entirely new. The weakness system encourage you to vary your arte usage because you can only maintain the weakness gauge, and consequently your combo, if and only if you use different element artes to keep the meter from going down - that definitely curbs the tendency to spam the same artes in AC/CC-based system.

And I don't remember if it's in Xillia 1 but Hi Ougi removes bosses' overlimit; I often save Corpse Shell for when the boss activate overlimit so I can transform and end their Overlimit quickly with Matter Destruct/Keiga Soujinranbu. Multiplayer is unfixable yeah can't deny that because the whole selling point of Xillia is the Dual Raid battle system, but at least you can have a solo run with Ludger now.


On topic now, this is my personal pet peeve though but I dislike quest system that allows you to only pick a handful amount of quests at a moment (e.g.; only one quest at one time in Radiant Mythology series when the monsters you need to slain are all in one dungeon and you have to go back to HQ after every quest to take another). Xillia 2 gives you 5 at a time, but it's still annoying to teleport back to town and take another 5. Inn Request in Graces is my ideal type of quest but it only consists of fetch quests so that's understandable.

And in general, I dislike the way Destiny R, Hearts, Graces, Xillia 1 and 2 handles the arte pool. For me, Tales series has always been a martial art-ish games which have cool artes that develop into newer/cooler artes through repeated use and combination with other artes - much like martial art in real life. The progression from Tiger Blade to Tiger Rage/Heavy Tiger Blade and when combined with Sword Rain it becomes Raining Tiger Blade - it's just so fun thinking of the possibility. The aforementioned games however just give you a bunch of flashy artes that have no relation with each other, much like the Star Ocean games. It's pretty sad imo.

[Arn]

Cooking
Reuse of some artes/moveset each game
Class archetype(x character is mage, y character is thief, z character is tanker, etc)
Stupid hi-ougi triggers like Symphonia
DLC
3D
Fanbase

[Xillia Millia]

Phantasia:

The Morlia Mineshaft (I think?) where it was dark and you had to run around trying to get to the top for Maxwell? Not fun. And this is probably just me, but when you were looking for Sylph and you had to use a rope? I thought you had to climb UP with it, like up the mountain. And even when I tried to go down through the hole, I never would have thought to attach it to the tiny spec that is apparently a rock.

Legendia:

They didn't voice the character quests. It makes me angry. And Shirley, but that's a rant in and of itself.

Abyss:

Sidequest are impossible to know about without a walkthrough. And there is such a short period where they are available that even if you get a walkthrough you'll probably miss some.

Symphonia:

The skits aren't voiced. Abyss was like that too, and it irks me. And the battle system there is just...weird. I always wound up stuck in a corner while my enemies ran circles around me. But that's probably just me again.

[Tenshigami]

The Tales battle system before Eternia. It's so horrendously clunky that I find it difficult to return to those games now.
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[siphry]

Tales of Vesperia's third arc felt even more rushed and poorly done than Xillia's, imo. I played Xillia before Vesperia, btw.

Timed anything, which thankfully isn't very frequent at all in Tales games.

Xillia's 2 poker system hates me and I hate it! I much prefer Vesperia's system. At least the prizes don't cost that much in Xillia 2.

I don't DISLIKE this, but it kind of annoys me a tad bit: Almost every single Tales game has some silly "oh my GOD the SKY!" moment. Actually, I'd bet money that EVERY Tales game has the final/important story arc in something that has "risen" from the Earth or something that appeared in the sky (have yet to finish the handhelds games minus Innocence and Tempest, oh and Legendia).
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[Tenshigami]

^
Eternia must drive you nuts considering the way Inferia and Celestia are laid out relative to each other. Literally everything that happens in the game takes place in at least someone's sky.
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