According to my last Report here it's been... two months? Well damn, time does fly. Probably due to my dabbling in FF14 as I'm want to occasionally and somehow never get past level 20. But seriously, I think the holdup was simply tackling a long ass JRPG and one I wasn't enamored with as it went on. If there's any uplifting news it's my newfound determination to stop buying games beyond what I get from Humble Choice so let's see how that pans out.
There's also a SF novel I managed to finish.
Tales of Zestiria
( PC (Steam) – JRPG – 2015 ) + TRAILER
Looking at this review as a whole you might get the idea I'm channeling some of my old Final Fantasy 13 review, but I'd like to disperse that notion. Tales of Zestiria has problems big and small, and yet I believe it could've been greatly improved with some changes in all departments. Just to be on the safe side this isn't a “how I would fix the game” take on the matter, though. Merely my opinions on what I played through.
With the risk that taking couple of breaks may have fuddled my memory I have to say the story aired on the safe side. Not saying that managed to surprise me considering this is Tales of series we're talking about and they hold formulaic anime stories near and dear based on multiple games I've now played. There's this evil force called Malevolence that permeates the world and can infest all beings. Pushed to extreme it can turn them into monsters called Hellions. How do you fight it? Well, that's where the Shepard comes in aka human agreeing to a contract with Seraph, another race of beings living in the world nowadays unseen by normal people, as he can not only purify Malevolence itself but also Hellions. As fate would have it our archaeologist aficionado Sorey becomes the Shepard and along with his best friend Mikleo descends from a life of among the Seraph high in the mountains to embrace his destiny. Maybe even save the world in the process and have fun searching for monoliths. What actually follows is an arduous journey where he realizes there are reasons why Seraph are turning their back on humans and vice versa, why Malevolence is on the rise and who stands to benefit as well as dealing with third-party groups who have their own agendas.
And so we reach my first of two big problems with the game – these characters are unfit for the kind of narrative Tales of Zestiria is intent on keeping. What do I mean by that? Well, I found party members really enjoyable and likable on their own. They all have zany personalities with quirks that manage to endear them; from Sorey & Mikleo's fanboy obsession over ruins and ancient cultures, Lailah's goofy love for puns and sisterly love, Edna's stoic dead pan reactions, etc. Game's skits where 2D portraits have fully voice interaction stole the show for me and manage to flesh out characters like no other. Now imagine these characters having to participate in a story centered around magical depression and very existence itself being in danger, even other Shepards in the past failing to avoid corruption. My point is these characters would be better fit in some comedic game about shenanigans and non-existent stakes. What you end up with are almost bipolar characters who switch 180 on a dime between their normal and grim SRS BSNS behavior when story calls for it. It NEVER clicked with me. That's not getting into how Zestiria ditches a character who is seemingly set up to your second only to replace her with a new character and bend backwards narratively to justify her being. Fortunately, I rather liked the spoilerific character to a point she transcends deuteragonist role, but still.
Departing the narrative lands what was my other big problem? A rather sizable one for a JRPG - combat. Or rather, game systems in general.
My complains here should be taken with a grain of salt because I am well aware Tales of games are essentially made to be played multiple times and preferably on higher difficulties, doubly so if you're aiming for achievement completion. Just like I tend to I played the game on normal. Turns out there's quite an overload of game systems piled on top of the player, but from my own experience you have next to zero reason to engage with them. First thing to keep in mind – leveling has very limited use in Zestiria. Mainly because you're expected to engage with skills from gear. Skills on unreliable gear drops and shop offerings, mind you. Which you're then expected to become proficient in through use, reinforce via Fusion and get the skill composition you want. It's so woefully contrived and arbitrary if you actually want to get the skill ranks you want. On the flip-side this just might be a min-maxer's ideal and way to customize your characters to the extreme for higher difficulties. Artes as form of active abilities you use in combat are back in full force, along with Support Talents along the lines of useful ones (Snack Preparation, Windstepping) and useless ones (Money Finding, Stealthy Feet, etc) unique to each character until they master it and can teach others. Due to how the game is set up you will have barely unlocked a few of these on multiple characters and MAYBE maxed out your starting Talent provided you stuck with it. New Game+ exists where you can continue development.
Arguably learning the WRONG lesson from western RPGs, “overworld” zones in the game are far too expansive for their own good.
Is it weird character skits may be the highlight of Tales of Zestiria for me?
It's astonishing how clean combat presentation manages to be considering just how much is going on at any point in time.
We finally reach the combat section where I have to explain how normal mode is too easy without feeling a lick of shame. Only because there ARE fights that were supposed to be challenging yet due to combat design choices they fall on their face. What is the most integral, game defining feature of Zestiria's combat? Beyond being real-time action it's surely Armatization. It's where one of our two main characters “merges” with their Seraph companion and become, well, an elemental Power Ranger for a lack of better description. For example, merging with Mikleo turns you into a water-aligned archer with a separate moveset entirely. Potential to do so is limited by your Blast Gauge which in turn also determines almost all of your heaviest hitting special attacks. With some accidental skill fiddling you'll never find yourself running on empty and as a result Armatization absolutely obliterates everything in your path. Even when you're in human form your regular attacks are only held back in check by SC easily replenished by dodging or holding down the defend button. It will gradually reduce meaning you need to eat food or rest at an Inn to recover, but this is a non issue I barely registered some ten hours in. What I'm poorly trying to convey is there are barely any tangible checks on the player in combat aside from Blast Gauge itself. Unless...
Party AI is supposed to be one because lord have mercy, I learned to love the rare sections when Sorey went at it solo. There are four party members in combat, but this usually means two because Sorey and spoilerific girl enact their Oath and merge with Seraphs. There is a Strategy menu to decide how everyone will act when you're not in manual control seeing as you only control one character in combat but can switch who that is on the fly, and yet despite that I found idiocy cannot be cured. Thankfully they won't use healing items on their own, but final boss in particular drove me up a wall seeing as part of it is a time limited damage race check or he will annihilate the party. You can see how this can be a problem where you lack total control over your party members. Amusingly enough, I found myself not having any problems with other game bosses despite them towering over me by good 10-15 levels. Either you're meant to grind to stay up to snuff or there's an insane safety margin. I've dismissed the possibility of me being just that good for obvious reasons.
Dealing with production values I have to say I downloaded a Community Fix because this PC port ain't that hot. From frame rate issues, odd crashes and weird image filter quality. Beyond that this was quite a right foot forward production for Bandai Namco with plenty of voice acting to go around and even animated cinematics for important bits. Character designs air just a bit too much on the over-accessorized busy side for me. Like other things such as highly melodramatic story and archetypal characters when it matters the most, it's simply part of Anime: the Game package.
Final Thoughts and Rating?
A flawed JRPG experience where some tweaks and shifted priorities could have resulted in tighter, but more meaningful package. Shepard Sorey will find it's not the dangerous Malevolence corrupting people that's the real threat, but rather poorly thought out gear-derived skill systems reliant on grinding to realize “builds” you want yet also being something you can safely ignore on lower difficulty as you power through with random drops. Merging with your Seraph companions into Armatized mode also turns action-based combat into a cinch robbing most of its difficulty in the process. Zany and genuinely likable characters who sadly never really go beyond that one-note personalities are also stupendously poor choices for the kind of dark story Tales of Zestiria has going on.
Embassytown ( Science Fiction – 2011 – 345 pages ) + GOOD READS
I imagine Embassytown would be something of a wet dream to a creative language major considering how much of its very core revolves around the nature of linguistics, weaponizing languages as such and identity-defining powers they hold over societies. It should speak in novel's favor when I say despite having little beyond cursory interest in such topics, and debates over them sometimes slowing the narrative to a crawl, idea as a whole STILL managed to keep my interest strong to see it through. Additional observation worth pointing out is I can't recall another instance of a novel making such a heel turn at exactly halfway point when all hell breaks loose and alternating past/present chapters get dropped in favor of a linear fixed narrative.
Continuing author's weird fiction twists we now take to science fiction territory as we follow one Avice Benner Cho from her childhood days in a small town called, well, Embassytown on planet Arieka seeing things from her point of view along the way. You might imagine this leads to a "girl wants to leave her hometown and go to a big city" kind of scenario and you'd be right if not for couple of things. Terre and other races are allowed to have a colony of Embassytown by natives of this planet, whom all others have affectionately dubbed Hosts, and due to how their Language works there's this privileged group of people called Ambassadors who are the only ones capable of open communication. Our girl Avice would have been just one of frontier residents had the Hosts not used her to embody a simile and thus forever immortalizing her as part of their Language. Looking back on the novel as a whole this is the pretty much the only elements making her important in subsequent events otherwise way above her pay grade. On a fringe world where language and those who ply its trade are so important even her relatively exclusive status of a Terre immerser aka someone who navigates hyperspace of sorts, is treated as a curio rather than something admirable after she makes her return and ends up embroiled in massive societal changes as new mysterious Ambassadors arrive alongside her. Turns out everyone has an agenda in this place, especially those furthest from it.
Even if execution of this particular premise where you see aliens change after continual exposure to something like a language changes was at times protracted and protagonist herself almost ended up being a go-between until very late into the story, where she figures out things others must have considered earlier and decided otherwise, I have to say the setting definitely did not fail to pique my interest. First half of Embassytown is almost testing you to see for just how long you can go without air as it throws terminology and ideas you're eventually less so explained and more left to your own devices to piece together with context later on. From the fact this is the Third Universe, begging the question what happened to first two, entirely bio-engineered "technology" of the Ariekai like battery-beasts and living buildings that can get chemically addicted, to general weirdness where mentioning "there are other alien races beyond two most prominent ones" is almost an inconsequential side note when you look at the bigger picture. It gripped and sustained me when whatever was going on did not. Impression I got was one of very divisive nature - on one hand there's inventive and almost esoteric SF backstory I wanted to immerse myself in, while on the other the equivalent of an airline pilot involved in debates regarding the living nature of languages with experts on the matter high on their own farts. I found one far more engaging over the other, as you can probably tell.
This is where I would talk about characters, but I don't think there is much to say in this particular case because I'd be hard pressed to remember much about Avice herself. It says something when we get more about her as a person from childhood parts than when she returns as an adult after X kilohours had passed. Other than her having multiple husbands and a wife before this current relationship. In her own words I would describe her as unsurprising. If this was a lesser work I would almost assume she's one of those horrible self-insert and forgettable type of female protagonists. Other, support, characters are firmly on Ambassador side of things as primary conduit to the Hosts. Latter surprisingly get almost nothing until the very last quarter of the novel, but I think it adds to their alienness so I approve.
I only played Tales of Berseria in the “tales of”, and the combat AI of your partners is horrendous here as well.
And reading the rest of the review, I guess I’ll never play another “tales of” given how similar they seem to feel.
To be fair Zestiria is generally seen as a low point in the series by many. It had problems transitioning to the new generation at the time.
It’s true that some of the point about the story / world sound less prevalent in Berseria.
But the combat remains a mess for me. I guess this is just that I don’t like this kind of fighting in a JRPG.
I just find it funny how both Zestiria and Berseria seem so hell bent on not having a straightforward energy resource like mana. They’d rather employ blast gauges and whatnot to affect what you can do in combat. I suppose it does lead to more proactive gameplay because you want to be attacking to raise them, but it’s very singular in nature.