2010-12-17, 09:54 PM
So I finally got to playing this. Since I'm using my 1080p Monitor, I can actually read the text involved in everything instead of seeing scrunched blocks for complex kanji.
I'm so happy they lowered the requirements for a lot of the Aliases. As per Tales tradition, skill use count leads towards something, and in this it's Aliases (and maybe extra damage, not too sure). In the Wii version, basically every skill had an Alias at 100 uses, and the next at 1000 uses. As you can see, this would be problematic for characters like Cheria, where her Artes Style isn't particularly useful, or someone who you have on dedicated Artes or Burst (Cheria as an example again, in my Wii play through had like 4000 uses on Divine Saber, a Burst style, but less than 200 on most of her Artes styles because she was a dedicated caster). In Graces F, everyone who isn't Asbel had most of their requirements for these Aliases lowered to 40 or 80 uses or something not inconceivable. <3
So far, I've gotten the two new Artes style skills for Asbel. I was hoping that everyone who had their left/right combined would get more Artes styles, but sadly they didn't, probably because it'd be too demanding to create three whole new animations for most characters. I'm amazed they have the uniqueness they already do with these, but more would be nice too. The new Artes styles all require you to hold down X during a certain CC range. For example, Shouryuuhoumuu (昇竜氷舞
, which is a really badass attack (RISING ICE DRAGON DANCE), requires you to hold down X after performing a CC3 Artes style attack. A problem I saw on the Wii version was that at really late-game events, you ended up having a lot of expendable CC. You only need 10 to reach CC4, and you didn't always want or need to interweave Burst Style, especially for Asbel since his sword drawing and sheathing can be slow in situations like that, so this solves that issue by allowing you to spend up to 15 CC to attack, get a higher combo, and spread more element, instead of spending only 10 and having 5+ left over with nothing useful to do.
I want to say that Cheria's cast speed was increased, because of the rate she can spam Religious, which is stupidly fast, but my Japanese sources say it's the same as the Wii version. Playing around with Richard at the beginning, his CC3 Seppa (説破 and Dankuuken (断空剣 annoy the hell out of me because he jumps up into the air, and ends his attack there. I also never quite liked Dankuuken ever since I saw it in Destiny, but I will admit it has amazing crowd control. Akisazame (秋沙雨 one of my favourite Artes of all time (I generally love all the Phantasia Artes) is still sweet though, and I really like his speed, though his CC2 Up and Left/Right, Raijinken (雷神剣 and Fuujinken (風神剣 could be more unique, they get the job done quite stylishly in my opinion.
The PS3 version also added a Battle Mode thing at the title screen. You can choose it and fight some monsters to win a prize that will be added to your save file. So far, I can only access like six fights, and they just gave me low level items, but I presume the last fight, labeled with Level 175 will be good.
I'm quite enjoying this more than the Wii version because my understanding of Japanese has improved, as well as my understanding of the entire game overall, since there are a few intricacies to the Alias system, as well as that damn Dualize system, that I was completely unaware of at the start of my Wii playthrough obviously.
Anyways, I accidentally stumbled into an area with monsters that had 30k HP, when the norm is 2k for my level, and I was doing single digits to them T____T
I'm so happy they lowered the requirements for a lot of the Aliases. As per Tales tradition, skill use count leads towards something, and in this it's Aliases (and maybe extra damage, not too sure). In the Wii version, basically every skill had an Alias at 100 uses, and the next at 1000 uses. As you can see, this would be problematic for characters like Cheria, where her Artes Style isn't particularly useful, or someone who you have on dedicated Artes or Burst (Cheria as an example again, in my Wii play through had like 4000 uses on Divine Saber, a Burst style, but less than 200 on most of her Artes styles because she was a dedicated caster). In Graces F, everyone who isn't Asbel had most of their requirements for these Aliases lowered to 40 or 80 uses or something not inconceivable. <3
So far, I've gotten the two new Artes style skills for Asbel. I was hoping that everyone who had their left/right combined would get more Artes styles, but sadly they didn't, probably because it'd be too demanding to create three whole new animations for most characters. I'm amazed they have the uniqueness they already do with these, but more would be nice too. The new Artes styles all require you to hold down X during a certain CC range. For example, Shouryuuhoumuu (昇竜氷舞
, which is a really badass attack (RISING ICE DRAGON DANCE), requires you to hold down X after performing a CC3 Artes style attack. A problem I saw on the Wii version was that at really late-game events, you ended up having a lot of expendable CC. You only need 10 to reach CC4, and you didn't always want or need to interweave Burst Style, especially for Asbel since his sword drawing and sheathing can be slow in situations like that, so this solves that issue by allowing you to spend up to 15 CC to attack, get a higher combo, and spread more element, instead of spending only 10 and having 5+ left over with nothing useful to do.I want to say that Cheria's cast speed was increased, because of the rate she can spam Religious, which is stupidly fast, but my Japanese sources say it's the same as the Wii version. Playing around with Richard at the beginning, his CC3 Seppa (説破
and Dankuuken (断空剣 annoy the hell out of me because he jumps up into the air, and ends his attack there. I also never quite liked Dankuuken ever since I saw it in Destiny, but I will admit it has amazing crowd control. Akisazame (秋沙雨 one of my favourite Artes of all time (I generally love all the Phantasia Artes) is still sweet though, and I really like his speed, though his CC2 Up and Left/Right, Raijinken (雷神剣 and Fuujinken (風神剣 could be more unique, they get the job done quite stylishly in my opinion.
RAGE SPOILERS
The PS3 version also added a Battle Mode thing at the title screen. You can choose it and fight some monsters to win a prize that will be added to your save file. So far, I can only access like six fights, and they just gave me low level items, but I presume the last fight, labeled with Level 175 will be good.
I'm quite enjoying this more than the Wii version because my understanding of Japanese has improved, as well as my understanding of the entire game overall, since there are a few intricacies to the Alias system, as well as that damn Dualize system, that I was completely unaware of at the start of my Wii playthrough obviously.
Anyways, I accidentally stumbled into an area with monsters that had 30k HP, when the norm is 2k for my level, and I was doing single digits to them T____T