Tales of Graces EEEEEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!~~~~~

[Pie]

Thank you guys for divulging your thoughts on the game, and thank you Nesta for your very long post.~ =)

@Farore- it sucks that I don't remember where and didn't write any notes on where I found the review that mentioned the text boxes. >.< Since I don't have the source to direct to, it kinda sounds like I made it up. @_@

@Nesta- Those difficult boss battles sound like such a huge pain to have to face. >.< It sucks that there aren't many costumes in the game. ._. I looked up out of curiosity on how many costumes are available that aren't DLC and was surprised to see so few. -such a disappointment. I didn't know about the ultimate weapons being named off of previous Tales games! =D That IS cool! I really want to see what the weapons look like now.~

[Adol The Red]

Second to all that stuff Nesta said, except for the parts I haven't gotten to but I'm sure I will agree on. And I agree that the price for costumes is a little steep, especially the ones that are download only. And ugh on the costumes you have to get by playing the card game. There's three difficulty levels, and each level gets you a costume, but only by beating it without the other player getting any points. No. Not doing that. I'll wait till they're available as DLC. Sadly, at least two fo them are Tales of Vesperia costumes. I think where I agree the most is the stuff about the characters. I really like the characters in this game, and I loved the cast of Vesperia. I've played games that had characters I just didn't care for, or characters that just flat out felt pointless. In both of these games I like the whole cast. It's a little hard to come back from Yuri, though. This is not a knock on Asbel at all; I like him as the main character. Yuri is just kind of my hero, mostly because he grabs a lot of RPG and anime cliches by the scruff of the neck and tosses them aside. A deadpan snarker who is cool under pressure and doesn't freak out if a girl shows interest. Also, Yuri was a darker character, and if you've played Vesperia you know he's not afraid to do what he thinks needs to be done. If I was doing a list of favorite protagonists he'd probably be at the top, or very near.

But yeah, Graces has a great cast. Nothing really more to add on the point, just seconding the opinion.

[Farore]

I believe you Pie, some people will come up with anything to avoid giving a game a good review. When we went to get Graces f we checked the Game Stop on the base first to see if they might have a used one. As soon as the guy told us no he started going on about how he didn't like JRPG's bla bla bla. Roll and I were just stunned, I mean, I get that people don't like certain games, but you don't bash a game that someone is clearly interested in buying!

[ThePaul]

Was it the guy with the neck tattoos? I've been looking for a reason to legitimately hate him, but none have arisen.

[Adol The Red]

Still loving this game to death. Constantly gaining and upgrading titles gives me something to think about other than grinding while I'm grinding. In fact, I don't think I've once felt as if I was grinding, because I'm completely focused on others things. Almost to the end.

One complaint, though, and it's not so much about the game as it is Namco Bandai. I don't consider myself a huge Tales fan. I like what I've played, and would play others, but I do have friends who are very big Tales fans, and I have to agree with one thing they find annoying about Namco Bandai and how it especially relates to this game. That is, how they just refuse to release Tales games in America. I guess I should be glad we got the f version of graces, and not just the original. I'd love to play the PS3 version of Vesperia, though, and there are other games they just haven't brought out. I know these types of RPGs aren't the hottest sellers here, but it seems like the fan base Tales games do have is pretty rabid. Maybe the games are just too big to justify the cost of localization? I don't know. This relates to Graces with the Magic Carta game. You collect all these cards for this game, all of which have portraits and quotes of various Tales characters. When all is said and done I think you can get 90 of these things. Of course, if you're relying on American releases, you won't know who about half to three quarters of the these people are. There's also a cameo of another character at the end of the arena, but again, no-one we would know. What I'm getting at is that it's a huge tease. It feels like they're shoving it in people's faces that they have all these games but won't release them.

I know I'm overreacting, and I really don't take it as seriously as this post sounds, but things like this just irritate me. That said, Graces is still awesome and this is in no way a reason not to play it. I just wanted to complain.

[TheNesta]

While it's certainly true Namco Bandai has had a bumpy track record with the localization of some Tales games, it's really not as bad as all that. In the main Tales series, ie. everything that isn't a Radiant Mythology crossover game or some such, there's been 14 Tales games, if you count Symphonia 2. Out of those, only 5 of them haven't been released here, including Xillia, which should hopefully be coming here. So while there is certainly 4 games worth of characters in those Carta Cards people over here might not recognize, I think some of them are just from older, less popular games in the series.

As to why these 4 games weren't released over here, I'm not really sure. However I can speak a bit about Graces and Vesperia. For the PS3 version of Vesperia, your guess is as good as mine as to why they decided not to release it here. Vesperia for 360 sold fairly well over here, as well as in Japan. And then it seemed like Namco Bandai just lost interest in publishing the series here until they finally decided to bring Graces f over. The original Graces for Wii was pretty infamously a broken game, it was buggy and unfinished, and a lot of Japanese gamers ended up calling it a "beta" for Graces f. So it kind of makes sense that they didn't want to waste time and money on bringing the Wii version over here. Luckily we got Graces f, so can't complain too much.

As for Xillia. I dunno, I hope it makes it over here. It seems like it is, there's been some western domain name registering by Namco Bandai, so that's a good sign. The only thing I'm worried about is the fact that Namco Bandai didn't really market Graces f at all. I don't think it charted on the NPDs either, so I can only guess how well it sold. Either way, better to be optimistic I guess.

[Alexx]

See, the marketing is what ticks me off, but first...

The friends Adol was talkin' about is me and my wife (and my friend Simon can be included as well). Granted, I suppose there haven't been many that have not come over, but included in those are THREE DS GAMES. The DS is friggin' huge; or was. Tons of games for it and you'd have a hard time seeing a kid without one. So why oh why did they think that NO DS Tales games should come over here? I guess I'm not ticked about missing out on games that may or may not have been good - I mean who knows - but it's the principal of the matter. The do bring out Tales games from time to time, they have at least a minor fanbase, and they bother to put some great work into them when they come over. Why skip the DS games? It's the random gaps like that. It makes no sense. Where was Tales of Rebirth, too? Perhaps Abyss and Legendia didn't sell well...I don't know. Nonetheless I've heard that Rebirth is one of the best in the series, and the PS2 was never a slouch in the US.

Back to the marketing, though. Like you said, Graces has a poster in Gamestop; that's about it. I don't even think this game is easy to find in any other store. I mean, I barely watch the TV anymore and I STILL caught a Final Fantasy commerical. Why not a commercial or two for Tales? I realize marketing is expensive, but come on! Try a little! You can't build a fanbase if you can't get the attention of new people.

[Adol The Red]

Yeah I know I was overstating it a bit. I mean, I recognized a good deal of the Carta characters as being from older games that I personally hadn't played but knew about through friends. It just irked me a bit seeing stuff from games I didn't get to play. I don't know, my own personal beef is with the PS3 Vesperia. I really want that one. To be honest I'm surprised that we're only missing 5 of them. It seems like it should be more. I suppose I could have done things like "research" and "having a solid view of what I'm talking about based off of actual data" before I posted, but, you know, internet. Either way I didn't intend for my complaint to come off as too serious. Mostly just one small thing that someone annoys me in an otherwise very awesome game.

Knowing that the original Graces was buggy makes me even more glad we got the f version, and I have no issue with us not getting the original. The same would apply if we got the PS3 Vesperia and not the 360 version (though I guess people with only a 360 would certainly miss out). It's funny you mention that about Graces because now that I'm most of the way through the future arc I really feel as if Graces isn't really complete without it.