Along with the Accessory page is a more detailed description of the new [Equipment Fusion System].
Accessories come with 4 slots on them, which you can see in the first screenshot. The darker lines are for the skill name, and the lighter line underneath is for its effect.
The first skill on an accessory is always there. The remaining three slots may or may not have skills when you obtain the Accessory. Weapons can also come with varying skills on them.
You can check your current skills in the Skill Sheet UI (by pressing R2).
Types of Skills
From the Skill Sheet, you can check the different types of skills available.
There are two types of skills; the [Basic Skills] from your Accessories, and combinations from them that create [Bonus Skills].
Accessory powers can vary, and they can come with different abilities. When these skills are put together, they can provide powerful effects. You can use this to find combinations that suit your play style.
Same: A bonus skill that appears when setting two skills with the same name. A small number will appear to the lower right of the skill to indicate how many of it is currently equipped.
In the screen shot, the fire skill [Mind] which gives MATK (+8% in this case) is equipped twice. [Same 2] appears, and the bonus skill is [Anthem] which reduces your flinch time by 6%.
Elm: A bonus skill that appears when neighbouring skills are activated.
In this screen shot, the [Bloody] skill is equipped, which provides +40 HP per hit on stunned enemies. I'm not sure what the neighbouring skill is, but the bonus skill is an [Elm 2] skill, [Divide] which provides a 10% reduction on non-elemental damage taken.
Union: A bonus skill that appears when a vertical column of skills is lined up.
In this screenshot, the [Union 1] skill is [Soldier] which provides +20 All Stats.
Accessory Fusion System
In ToZ, you may obtain weapons with the same name several times. Though they may have the same name, the power they hold may vary from one another. For this reason, the [Accessory Fusion System] exists to allow you to more easily choose the skills and powers that you like.
The Accessory Fusion System is used for accessories with the same name. It doesn't improve their basic ability, but improves the skills attached to the items, allowing you to add or change skills. You can perform this at an equipment merchant.
In the screenshots, Sorey has an earring with the [Rocking] skill, which reduces paralysis by 50%. He also has another earring with the same name but with the [Bloody] skill. Fusing them, the item gets a +1 and has both skills now.
Accessory Proficiency Level
The level of an accessory can be raised up to a rank of 5 from winning battles for various benefits. These can be fused for greater bonuses, used to craft powerful weapons, or spent to improve vendors, all things that will be helpful on your journey.
They also never clarify, but judging by past game equipment, this game has 3 accessory slots, possibly 4 with the medal. For Sorey, in any case, his equipment appears like this:
Weapon Earring
Armor Ring Boots
Medal
Random item stats are a pretty fun RPG element. I quite liked them in Tales of the World games, but pomegranate the drop rate on those items was really bad for how long battles took, etc.
Since the thorough details for Equipment Skills was released, I was a bit concerned over how limited their access would be. Even if you had 4 skills on each accessory, and even weapon, that'd only be 16 skills, of the possible 50 plus Same/Elm/Union.
The news for this week is about [Normin Search].
Normin are these if you don't remember.
A familiar mechanic in many tales games is collecting certain NPCs, such as Wonder Chefs, or Cats. In Zestiria, these are the Normin, which is the character that hangs off of Edna's parasol. The official site states as an example that finding a [Defense] Normin will make accessories with this bonus drop more easily from monsters. The new information states that finding a Normin will unlock the Equipment Skill with the same name, allowing you to freely equip it.
It's possible that there are different Normin who do either of these things, the finding requirement may be different (i.e. you need to find a Normin twice), or both of these things will occur, so that you can freely equip certain skills while farming for some to spawn on items.
Other information includes that all of Edna's cooking items fall under the [Snacks] category. hnnngggg. This may indicate that the cooking system is not exactly like Xillia's, where you purchase the items and use them for an effect after battle for a set number of times.
About the battle system:
Tokugi, Ougi, and Tenkyoujutsu, which I believe translate to Artes, Arcane Artes, and Seraphic Artes now interact in a special way. If an enemy is casting a spell (Seraphic Artes), you can use regular Artes to interrupt their chanting, stopping their spell; however, attacking them with Arcane Artes will speed up their casting. This seems to be a rock-paper-scissors style then. I believe Artes will be like Artes-style from Graces, while Arcane Artes and Seraphic Artes are the Burst-style equivalent.
Most interestingly, Rose is confirmed to be a playable character. While this was basically never in contention, it's been revealed that she will have access to Kamui like Sorey, being able to fuse with each of your party's Seraphs.
Dragons and Dragons
Dragons come in various forms, such as Dragon Puppies and Dragonewts. They are different from Demons, who cannot be recognized by normal people. They are materialized magical monsters who become immortal and un-aging. Even the power of the Priest cannot cleanse them like Demons.
There is a legend left behind of [Eight Seraphic Dragons] across the world who betrayed Seraphs and fell into hell.
Colosseum
[video=youtube;oETmkzFRA4A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oETmkzFRA4A[/video]
The Colosseum in this game appears as encounter areas across the continent. Here, vast amounts of Defilement gather to spawn Demons, with a barrier that prevents more than one person from entering. A fairly good look at the battle system in the video.
Dragons look like a real encounter. Reminds me of Vesperia's Telescopic Graveyard's final boss, or some of the bigger gigantos in Xillia 2, but the fight just looks really nice in the video, since it doesn't just get knocked down. I was worried it might be like Rockgagan in Graces. While that was an interesting fight, due to the scale, you were basically attacking a wall.
Just a bit more than a month until the official release! There's also a TV Special to be released quite soon as well (31st).
TV Special has aired and there are subs courtesy of Abyssal Chronicles available now. I hadn't noticed but apparently 導師 is being localized as Shepherd.
I thought it was a very good special, and really made me even more excited for the game. While it's not uncommon to see video game adaptations of anything nowadays, this 44 minute special kept a very strong theme from what we've seen in trailers so far. Izuchi gives off a feel similar to Milla's home town in Xillia in its mystique, but also a much crisper feel from the high mountain air. The exploration of the ruins was a bit short since it's just an introduction to the series, but I believe we'll be playing everything that was animated here anyways. Surprisingly, they showed a villain, and it was pretty dark what just happened. And then everyone was like "Oh well, celebrate". Which was a bit weird, but I guess that's just Seraphs? The fight scene they showed actually employed a couple of the artes you would normally see in-game and I thought it was animated very well in regards to this, as expected of ufotable.
The ending to the episode was quite nice, with Alisha's Shepard line, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this story unfolds from here. Just hoping there's much more Alisha in the story.
There's just one week to go. Hopefully they send it out early and I get my copy on the 22nd here. And someone is here to receive the package. =S
Abyssal Chronicles has some nice scans, showing Armatization for both Sorey and Rose. Disappointing they look so similar. http://www.abyssalchronicles.com/?fn_mod...fn_id=1351
Their Mystic Artes are a reference to Destiny's Swordians which is pretty neat.
[video=youtube;-y5sb531Wdo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y5sb531Wdo[/video]
Pretty hype CM showing some Armatization scenes.
It got 36/40 from Famitsu. For reference (I think this is chronological order?)
Vesperia: 35/40
Graces: 36/40
Hearts: 33/40
Graces f: 37/40
Xillia: 39/40
Innocence R: 36/40
Hearts R: 34/40
Xillia 2: 35/40
Zestiria: 36/40
Complaints were:
Problematic camera angle if you took a fight too close to a wall
Tedious overworld once you got used to the active component (this is pretty normal for most games honestly)
Got my game. Was pissed because FedEx showed up and no one answered the door while I was in class, so I had to waste 3 hours going to their pick-up location.
Read a 'small' spoiler trying to figure out if they disabled screenshots for this game. I can't access it in the menu. Not sure what the problem is.
Anyways superspoilers
Spoiler
Alisha isn't a permanent party member...?!?!? WHAT THE pineapple. People are speculating an enhanced version/DLC already. pineappleing appalling if there's no way to get her back. Especially hyping her as the main heroine, and then showing of Rose so late.
[video=youtube;BpFIwHOD5qI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&v=BpFIwHOD5qI&x-yt-cl=84503534[/video]
Here's the opening.
Alisha isnt a permanent member, even though the announcement stuff made her seem like a main heroine
camera is terrible
Sorey is bland
something about constantly being locked to Sorey and Rose with little chance to play as other characters???? not sure about this one
other mechanics such as equips and cooking etc are fucked up
basically im scared for this game unless they announce a major patchy patch or a enhanced version.
JoeTang Wrote:Got my game. Was pissed because FedEx showed up and no one answered the door while I was in class, so I had to waste 3 hours going to their pick-up location.
Read a 'small' spoiler trying to figure out if they disabled screenshots for this game. I can't access it in the menu. Not sure what the problem is.
Anyways superspoilers
Spoiler
Alisha isn't a permanent party member...?!?!? WHAT THE pineapple. People are speculating an enhanced version/DLC already. pineappleing appalling if there's no way to get her back. Especially hyping her as the main heroine, and then showing of Rose so late.
Alisha afterstory -in the eye of the beholder-
Planned for a low low price of only ￥1300, get it fro free during the limited time, Feb 12~Feb 26!
Guess this free thing is a reaction to the outrage, but the fact that they were planning on charging ￥1300 for this in the first place... Maybe we can expect one for every other character too, and end up paying for the game a second time!
Anyways, what I've played so far of the game is okay, but I'm not very far. Just got to Lailah. Combat is a bit weird because of the flow. The artes are similar to Graces style, but you can completely substitute anything with a different action, instead of delaying. i.e.
In Graces, you can go from Dash ->A1 -> A2 -> Dash -> A3 -> A4 -> B
In Zestiria, you go from Dash -> A2 -> B -> A4
Combat feels somewhat slow, but Xillia 2 was quite fast compared to every other Tales game in my opinion. It might speed up with additional bonuses and stats, but it may be an issue if it stays at this pace forever.
Here's my progress report and thoughts on the game so far. I have 16 hours of play time and just got to Rose at around level 20 (probably lower?) I'm fucking slow and bad.
World:
Spoiler
Everything is pretty big, but it's kind of boring. I think this is coming from being spoiled by how many interactables there were in Xillia 1 & 2. I think leveling the Guardian Seraphs can increase random chests and stuff on maps though, but there's no such thing as harvest points as far as I'm aware. Up to this point, I've only gotten one map action, aside from Sorey's slash, and I've only had to use that in the starting dungeon.
Monsters were pretty sparse at the start of the game in the maps. I wasn't too sure why this was, but I basically killed everything in my way, and I ended up being 10 levels underleveled up til now. Now I know why that is though. Monsters are Hellions; collections of Impurities. As such, if they group together, they not only form a combined encounter, they also power up. From what I could tell, getting a 'Dangerous Encounter' increased the monster's levels by 10, and when you're already 10 below the enemy level to begin with... There's also sometimes random monsters with dark auras/darker models on them, and they're similarly much higher level, and I've game-overed three times so far, accidentally walking into these (Literally oneshot).
The maps themselves are much more vibrant than the desolate wastelands of Xillia, and there's some actual slopes and stuff, which I've noticed, and that makes things look nicer, but while Tales games are definitely not known for their graphics, there's a lot to be desired in everything... especially some anti-aliasing would help.
Systems:
Spoiler
Equipment skills are a bit confusing, but thankfully, like 10 hours into the game, they gave me some skits that tutorialed how they worked. I personally preferred Graces's equipment skills, since they were attemptable and such, but much less necessary for progress. Xillia 2's were completely negligible in my opinion though, which is the other end of the spectrum. Equipment Skills here are basically the replacement for actual Skills, i.e. Graces's titles, and Xillia's orbs. At this point, it feels like it's difficult to get anything together because everything is a bit too random. However, by leveling your Guardian Seraphs in towns, you can increase the chance for better drops and specific skills on those equipments. It does feel a bit iffy like in an ARPG where you have a 'set bonus' or whatnot, and you've clearly outgrown your gear but don't want to part from the bonus. I imagine that occurring quite often.
Equipment leveling I'm not really feeling yet. The most noticeable effect I've seen so far is it reduces the cost of fusing, but I wish it did more. It probably does later on? Or costs actually matter, because it's fairly cheap to begin with at my level.
Guardian Seraphs, I've only encountered two so far since I've only actually been to two towns. (I'M SLOW). The concept seems interesting. They require GRADE to level up, so you need to kill things in their zones, or offer items to them to increase it. Leveling them gives certain bonuses, specifically improving that area's stuff, i.e. drops etc. For example, there's one bonus that lets you see nearby monsters on your minimap. Normin are attached to this as well. You can choose a Normin at a Guardian, and that specific stat will occur more often from drops. Finding a Normin forces you to add that stat they represent to a piece of gear before they become available, but I believe that's only doable once so it feels like a waste when you have nothing good to upgrade etc.
Battle Acts are more like the Skills from Vesperia or Xillia 2, where you have a set number of AP and equip them. They're more the type that affect your battle actions, hence Battle Act. For example there's some that allow you to automatically dodge attacks, though doing so 5 times decreases your grade by half for that battle. I feel they're like the Skills from those two games, minus the ones that actually only boost stats.
Support Abilities (?) are the ones that you set active on party members. There's Snack Making, and then specific ones for each character. Sorey and Mikleo's are fairly useless in my opinion. They activate if there's a discovery/tablet or treasure nearby, except you have to basically be standing on top of the thing for it to work. Maybe they require more leveling to reach further, but it's really not useful unless there's a chest/etc on an entire elevation below/above you and you can't see it. Edna's is the same, except for Normin, which are tiny and missable, so it's nice. Her other skill picks up Gald, but I was only getting like 10~20 every few minutes so, no. Lailah's heals a bit of HP as you walk, which is nice, but it could be more. At the same time, you don't want to make healing obsolete. Alisha's let her make healing items every now and then which helped a bit. There's a total of four of these per character, and I only have 2 (3 for Edna).
I'm confused as to how Arte progression works though. You have a Title that shows what the next Arte you're going to learn is, but I'm not sure if you earn it by maxing the title or just by leveling/getting exp/grade etc. They're very rarely different artes between titles, and I've only ever seen two different Artes at the same time from my ~6 titles. The title itself gains some bonuses as you level it, and it levels like equipment.
Combat:
Spoiler
Combat is quite interesting, but there are a few issues that I've experienced as well.
First off, it takes a bit of getting used to 4 actions. Basically, you have 4 AC, but this is invisible to you. It recovers immediately after it replenishes, it just basically means you can only string 4 actions together at a time. You can get more from 'Exceed' skills, which is [Elm 5] (5 horizontal skills of the same type) or if you're lucky, it can come on random gear. On your 4th action, you can step to decrease the delay for the next set of actions, but your Chain Cast will disappear.
Your SC is like Heart's EG, rather than TP. It recovers very quickly when you're blocking, or if you perfect dodge stuff, and there's a few Battle Acts that can improve this. The amount you start with each battle can be lowered, depending on how many consecutive fights you've been in before resting at an Inn. A non-issue if you realise this is a thing. I think it works well as an anti-spam effect, since your 'AC' recovers immediately.
Good points:
'Artes-Style' as I'll call it still, is fairly friendly. Neutral is fairly good multihit. Up/Down is more single target oriented. Left/Right is more area effect oriented. It explicitly says this in a tutorial I believe (at the least, I recall left/right being aoe). Burst-Style/Spells feels fairly sparse amongst the cast so far. Sorey's is okay, but I'm not really feeling anything special so far. I think they're really championing the rock-paper-scissors style here, which I'm vaguely getting used to, but it's hard because I can't really tell when an enemy is using Burst.
Armatization is interesting, but I sort of feel it's like Chromatize (?) Ludger and crutchy...? I liked that in Xillia 2, but at the same time, I don't want to crutch too hard. It's fun though. Particularly useful if Sorey dies, you can Armatize to revive him.
Seraphs can't 'die' too hard. If they get KO'ed, you can swap them with a non-KOed Seraph in your party that's not on the field, and wait for Koed one to regenerate HP. Then they can come back on. Takes maybe 20 seconds? I think it's an interesting feature since the game revolves around this interchangeable party and focuses on really picking an ally element to get through some fights better. Given how hard some fights are, it's a welcome feature for me, as casual as it may sound.
Sorey's Artes-style is nice and fast, but his 4th hit leaves a lot to be desired. It even costs less SC than his default 3rd hit, and I don't really feel that it's stronger or impressive, more that it leaves me open. Maybe I need to use it more to make it more effective? I just recently got his 3rd hit Up, which is really nice. His Burst style has a few elements so far, but there's nothing that really screams that it's better than Artes. I think it's balanced fairly well then, but I'd prefer it to be more noticeably different. I think I only have 4 Burst Artes.
Alisha is decent, but a bit slow. I like her Artes style, and I would love to see her full branch. She had two Bursts so far, but I'll never know more...
Mikleo is okay so far, for me. His Artes-style is meh. He's the best healer of my characters so far. I have three offensive spells. His Resist is the best heal so far. I think he's got fairly strong magic offense too, I particularly like Ice Shears. He has Freeze Lancer too, which is one of my favourite spells in past games, but I'm not feeling it here. Rather than straight linear, it fans out and I feel it's more melee range to get the full hit count.
Lailah is interesting. I feel like she plays similar to Kohak from Hearts. Really close up melee fire. It's pretty tricky in my opinion, since she's a bit slow, and things tend to run away a lot. Of her three offensive spells so far, two are melee range (Heat Red/Pyrogenic Ring, and another similar to it) and Burn Strike which I just got and it's nice. She's fairly glassy though in my opinion, but I may just suck at gearing. Her heal, Astion, isn't spectacular, but it gives +MATK.
Edna I really like so far. Her Up 2 is a bit weird, since she hops on her parasol and kicks. Misses some of the smaller stuff, but her other Artes styles are really nice. She wracks up the hits, and that's great for her Trigger spells. So far, I have two. One activates after 10 hits, and basically casts Grave/Rock Lance underneath the enemy. The other one is after 20 hits, and looks like a small Gravity (since it's called Gravity Trigger). If you tag a monster with this spell, and Edna hits the monster after a combo has reached at least that mount, the effect will activate. She also has Air Pressure, which is a really nice AOE and high hit spell. Her Heal is Barrier, which isn't as bad as Lailah's in my experience, but could heal more =[ Overall, really loving Edna in and out of battle.
Bad Points:
Camera angles when you're near walls are horrendous if you're terrible and bad. I'm patient enough to wait it out, or know how to dodge so the camera changes, but I typically just avoid the situation altogether. If it's happening to you, you probably got yourself cornered anyways and are about to get pounded.
The fights are a bit hectic. First off, I think I need to switch from semi to manual, since it's fairly common for me to collide with a monster I'm not targetting. Or I just need to tap R1 more often. Second, fights are pineappleing haaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. Part of it is me having it set to hard and being so underleveled, but 1) monsters are pineappleing smart/annoying and 2) allies are pineappleing dumb.
Monsters tend to run up and interrupt spell casters. It's fairly difficult to go through an engagement and heal yourself, even with a full chain spell set-up, because there's sometimes just too many monsters and you can't get them all in hitstun. They'll usually actively seek out a healer. Another thing is many monsters have special tactics and skills. For example, some things run away from you, baiting you, while enemies you're not targeting will chase. Some things backstep. pineappleing Eagles/Harpies are so annoying. They can fly, so they get a little bit of altitude (enough that neutral Artes usually won't reach) then they shoot a big volley of multihit feathers. It's ridiculous how often they just stagger someone who's trying to chase them down because there's four or so on the field at once.
Allies are dumb. I'm not sure if there's a strategy setting I can change to fix this, but I'm often seeing them do nothing at the start of the battle. There's four tactics mid-battle you can employ aside from default (R3). R-Up = Attack. R-Left = Scatter. R-Right = Focus. R-Down = Defend. Focus (same target as Player), from what I've seen does nothing a lot of the time. They'll literally just stand there sometimes doing nothing. Defend is hit or miss. Sometimes they'll be able to run and dodge effectively, other times they'll just try blocking and get broken, or start healing when they're too close. I'm missing the skill shortcut R-analog, which they've removed for this.
Finally, I'm having a hard time knowing when an enemy is using an Artes or Burst. Burst makes your spells cast faster and doesn't stagger, so I'd know I can just tank the hits for a heal, but I can't really tell what they're doing to begin with, and then an Artes comes in to interrupt.
I've hardly had any time to sit down and play this, despite having the entire week off.
I just want to restress this though: This game is haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. Or it is for me anyways.
I've been extremely underleveled despite spending extra time grinding now. I was 25, and the dungeon I was recently at had monsters in the ~35 range, and during it I unlocked Evil, so I was obviously required to step it up and everything went to level 45. Ended up hitting game over three times trying to go through an extra part to the dungeon. You could follow a straight path and get to the boss (which absolutely destroyed me) or you can go off on this long ass side-path to get treasure, etc, first which I did. In particular, this dungeon had spell casters. If you ran into the actual monster model itself, they could spawn 5 at a time. Their spell was Ice Shears, Mikleo's second basic spell, so it's very fast, and it basically twoshot anyone. Since the enemy AI in this game is fairly good, they'll all spread out, so even if your ally AI were smart enough (which they aren't) you would only be able to stop 4 of them casting at a time if you didn't immediately stunlock all of them with armatization. Equivalently, think 5 enemies in Graces that all start casting Cold Front that comes from both sides instead of one direction
The boss itself literally oneshot me, even if I was blocking because it was level 56 I believe. The AI isn't very good at dodging, so they tend to try to block things, which would work if I was at an adequate level, but they just sit there and eat it. It did 5000 damage unblocked so... I think I had like 2000 on my highest HP character? Ended the fight with 0 Grade. It was like +35 Grade for not using any items and then -40 Grade for dying 27 times.
tl;dr I need to step it up. I left off at the entrance to the Trial of Fire, so I imagine we're past the halfway point in the game? I have no idea, my pace is awful.
They put a good number of their games on Steam these days so it wouldn't be too surprising. It would be nice to have the whole back catalogue up on Steam eventually. I never got around to buying Vesperia.
This came out in NA today, last week on EU, and yesterday on Steam, if anyone's gotten it.
Shamefully, I still haven't finished since I practically played none at all over the summer, and being constantly destroyed was demotivating. I stopped at the boss for the Trial of Wind. Got it down to its last like 5k HP and Game Over'ed because it summons adds. Adds that exist in the dungeon there that I intentionally skipped because they were too hard.
A few tips:
Martial > Spells > Hidden > Martial
Martial Artes will stagger spells. Spells will resist Hidden Artes. Hidden Artes will resist Martial Artes I think.
You can use a Side/Forward/Back step on your final action to cancel the delay for your next set of actions.
Armatization is pretty ezmode.
Getting 4 Equipment Skills in a row gives you the Stat+ on level up skill; i.e. 4 Horizontal Void gives you Attack+ on level up, something useful if you're a min-maxer.
Combined encounters have a higher chance to drop equipment, and give more Grade/Gald/EXP, but for each monster on the field, you get +10 enemy level or something like that.
IIRC, higher difficulties lower the EXP you get as well as increases monster's levels
The chance of getting equipment drops gets lower as your inventory becomes more full
There's a special system regarding Equipment skills and Lord of the Lands (I think it's on gamefaqs). Basically, after fusing an item to +10, you can bless it at a Lord of the Land into a better version of that item at +0. By offering this new item to the Lord of the Land, you get +1% chance for whatever is in the first skill slot to drop with a double bonus in one slot. i.e. [Attack]x2. If you do this with a +99 of this item, you get a 100% chance for double bonus on that skill.
You cannot get a double skill equipment drop if you're on a lower difficulty than the difficulty you have the highest amount of battles in.
The last Tales of game that I played was Tales of Innocence and that still had the TP system, so this new battle system confuses the pomegranate out of me.
I was able to try Tales of Graces f on a friend's PS3 a long time ago and it feels similar to that. Did they do away with the whole Basic Attack-->Base Arte-->Arcane Arte thing?
ChronosXIII Wrote:The last Tales of game that I played was Tales of Innocence and that still had the TP system, so this new battle system confuses the pomegranate out of me.
I was able to try Tales of Graces f on a friend's PS3 a long time ago and it feels similar to that. Did they do away with the whole Basic Attack-->Base Arte-->Arcane Arte thing?
haven't played zestiria but yea it was that way in graces, you had to figure out what could combo into what mainly.
Sister picked up her CE, but we won't be playing it until she gets back this weekend and after we finish Graces F since we're right at the end in the final area. I read they didn't really do much to the PS4 version other than increase the draw distance and other stoof. Camera is still balls.
ChronosXIII Wrote:The last Tales of game that I played was Tales of Innocence and that still had the TP system, so this new battle system confuses the pomegranate out of me.
I was able to try Tales of Graces f on a friend's PS3 a long time ago and it feels similar to that. Did they do away with the whole Basic Attack-->Base Arte-->Arcane Arte thing?
ShinkuDragon Wrote:haven't played zestiria but yea it was that way in graces, you had to figure out what could combo into what mainly.
In Graces, you basically had Artes Style artes go A1->A2->A3->A4 as a hard restriction for combos. You could mix any Burst Artes (the other button) in anywhere though, and those could be spammed as long as you had CC. i.e. A1->B->A2->A3->B->A4
In Xillia, you could use any arte in any combination (unless there was an aerial restriction) as long as you had TP/AC.
In Zestiria, it's similar to Graces's with Martial Artes, M1->M2->M3->M4, except instead of inserting Hidden Artes into the combo, you replace an arte in the combo. M1->B->B->M4
One of the reasons for people who didn't like Graces's system was because they were forced to execute a strict combination, despite there being 3 to 4 different optons for A2/A3/A4, and a very wide range of Burst Artes.
I personally dislike the Basic Attack -> Arte -> Arcane Arte because basic attack is pretty worthless and uninteresting, and only an artificial way to generate TP. There were typically a large number of Artes to choose from, but it felt like it was just to progress to the more powerful Arcane Artes a lot of times. Like, this base arte does more hits to build a combo, or this other base arte is mathematically stronger, not because it was particularly useful for any effect, and they all just provide the same opening for an arcane arte.
With the more recent titles, intermediary artes are used to mix in damage/weapon/element types, and many artes have either different combo set-ups or certain effects. Particularly in Zestiria, many artes have buffs or debuffs.
That's not to say that the older games didn't have combo set ups, but there's a lot of freedom, especially in Xillia 2 where you literally have more artes than you can map (IIRC 18~20 vs 16 shortcuts), and the vast majority could combo into each other. The exceptions were basically artes that put you in the air, meaning you had to use another arte that could be used in the air, or something that had knockdown, forcing artes that could force enemies to stand (which itself was well set a combo). In Vesperia, Yuri had 10 Base Artes, 14 Arcane Artes, and 10 Altered Artes. IIRC, you could do 2 different Base Artes, 2 different Arcane, and 2 different Altered in one combo before being forced to stop. Some just left you pretty open with no options. Some combinations just couldn't work. I really don't feel that in any of the newer titles, unless the enemy got super armor in the middle or you used something they resist.
Dark Link Wrote:Sister picked up her CE, but we won't be playing it until she gets back this weekend and after we finish Graces F since we're right at the end in the final area. I read they didn't really do much to the PS4 version other than increase the draw distance and other stoof. Camera is still balls.
Avoid walls. Just avoid trying to fight near a wall or doorway. It's fairly simple to get used to unless you get ambushed. If it does happen, you can fix it by moving away from the wall most of the time though, in my experience. Might be harder to coordinate when the camera focuses on P2 as well though.
JoeTang Wrote:In Graces, you basically had Artes Style artes go A1->A2->A3->A4 as a hard restriction for combos. You could mix any Burst Artes (the other button) in anywhere though, and those could be spammed as long as you had CC. i.e. A1->B->A2->A3->B->A4
In Xillia, you could use any arte in any combination (unless there was an aerial restriction) as long as you had TP/AC.
In Zestiria, it's similar to Graces's with Martial Artes, M1->M2->M3->M4, except instead of inserting Hidden Artes into the combo, you replace an arte in the combo. M1->B->B->M4
One of the reasons for people who didn't like Graces's system was because they were forced to execute a strict combination, despite there being 3 to 4 different optons for A2/A3/A4, and a very wide range of Burst Artes.
I personally dislike the Basic Attack -> Arte -> Arcane Arte because basic attack is pretty worthless and uninteresting, and only an artificial way to generate TP. There were typically a large number of Artes to choose from, but it felt like it was just to progress to the more powerful Arcane Artes a lot of times. Like, this base arte does more hits to build a combo, or this other base arte is mathematically stronger, not because it was particularly useful for any effect, and they all just provide the same opening for an arcane arte.
With the more recent titles, intermediary artes are used to mix in damage/weapon/element types, and many artes have either different combo set-ups or certain effects. Particularly in Zestiria, many artes have buffs or debuffs.
That's not to say that the older games didn't have combo set ups, but there's a lot of freedom, especially in Xillia 2 where you literally have more artes than you can map (IIRC 18~20 vs 16 shortcuts), and the vast majority could combo into each other. The exceptions were basically artes that put you in the air, meaning you had to use another arte that could be used in the air, or something that had knockdown, forcing artes that could force enemies to stand (which itself was well set a combo). In Vesperia, Yuri had 10 Base Artes, 14 Arcane Artes, and 10 Altered Artes. IIRC, you could do 2 different Base Artes, 2 different Arcane, and 2 different Altered in one combo before being forced to stop. Some just left you pretty open with no options. Some combinations just couldn't work. I really don't feel that in any of the newer titles, unless the enemy got super armor in the middle or you used something they resist.
Avoid walls. Just avoid trying to fight near a wall or doorway. It's fairly simple to get used to unless you get ambushed. If it does happen, you can fix it by moving away from the wall most of the time though, in my experience. Might be harder to coordinate when the camera focuses on P2 as well though.
you could also do full B combos (at least with asbel), i haven-t played xillia 2 much actually, did beat xillia 1 where you could pull some pretty nut combos. but the problem i had with graces was how each attack had some sort of element that you had to memorize to be able to abuse the bosses with the break.
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