Archview #53: Tales of Graces F

 Probably my favorite Tales of game...

 I've no idea as to why we got this game. Namco was never too fond of localizing 'Tales of' games, and we usually got the first iteration of the game, instead of the enhanced sequel. This time, however, Namco skipped on the Wii Version(Wii players everywhere, like me, cried a little) and after the HD port to PS3 came out, they decided to bring that version overseas(Wii players who also had a PS3, like me, celebrated).
 In Tales of Graces you take control of Asbel Lhant, son to the Lord of Lhant, alongside his very cliched party members. You have you veteran with the mysterious and tragic past, the childhood friend who the main character sees as a sister, the mysterious waif who is obviously not human, the crazy but impossibly smart engineer, the villain who is always one step ahead or arrives slightly after the party, in search of a certain collection of items, etc. To be fair, there are some sparks of originality, like how the childhood friend reacts when Asbel returns from his seven years of training, and the relationship between Asbel and his brother Hubert, heck, his brother might be the most interesting member of the cast. You see, the first 4-5 hours of the game are spent in the "Childhood chapter", were you get to know Asbel, Hubert and a couple of other characters. Some may scorn at how long this part is, as the battle system is pretty limited at this time, but I actually liked how you get to know the cast as children and how they changed in seven years.

 As with other Tales of JRPGs, it does away with combat by turns. Instead, when you touch an enemy while exploring, you initiate a battle. In battle, you and three of your party members(Controlled by the AI) are confined to an area, where you can move towards or away from an enemy, you can also use free movement or sidesteps to move to the sides, but these cost CC. CC is the new mechanic introduced to the battle system, and it's used for attacking and sidestepping. This gauge has a set maximum per character, that can be increased or decreased depending on the equipment you are wearing, and every action for every character has a different CC cost. You can restore this meter by staying still or be sidestepping right as you are hit, evading the attack and restoring a bigger amount of CC. As for this new system, I'm alright with it. It's certainly different, since there's no TP(MP in the 'Tales of' games), so you'll never run out of mana, but sometimes I found it a bit boring to stay still as I awaited the CC to recharge.
 Something that I found very cool was that every character has two different Arte styles. A-Artes are performed with the X button, and are, usually, the basic physical attacks for every character. The Circle button, however, performs B-Artes, and these change from character to character. Asbel, for example, unsheathes his sword and can't flinch for a couple of seconds, pressing X again unsheathes the sword and heals him a bit. Hubert instead has Gun artes as his circle attacks, which are a mix of spells and instant attacks, etc. It certainly makes every character feel different. Titles also return, obviously, but now there are hundreds of them, and they can be leveled up too. Leveling them up grants you new Artes or permanent stat boosts, so it's in your best interest to master as many as you can.

 Other gameplay features include Dualizing, in any store of any town, you can, by paying a small fee, combine two different items to produce a new one. These can be sold at stores for money, or sometimes you may have to dualize new item for Inn requests(more on this later). You can also imbue weapons and equipment with Shards from fallen enemies, and thus enhance their attributes. Then there's the Mixer. Inside the Mixer you can put a certain amount of items, and the Mixer will sometimes produce one the items inside, as you walk around. Every now and then, after an item is created, the amount of slots in the mixer will increase. You can also put inside Books that grant passive effects, or Food that is used during a battle, once, to heal you. You will learn to like the mixer, you are not forced to use it, but it can be handy.
 As with every modern 'Tales of' game, Skits return. Skits are little scenes, played with 2D cut-outs of the characters, that have them interacting with each other, usually with funny results. They really do help on deepening the characters, and are completely optional. Depending on your tastes, you may be surprised yo know that there is no world map. Every town, dungeon and road are connected, if you can't reach it by foot, there's a port that can take you there, but otherwise, no world map. Near the end of the game you gain access to free travel, though, and you can choose any place, from a list, to revisit. Speaking of travelling, it starts very linear, with many invisible walls preventing you from backtracking or exploring, as Asbel mutters something alongside "There's no time for this now", and it can grow a bit annoying when you want to go back.

 Finishing the game, that should last around 50 hours, unlocks Lineages and Legacies, a completely new epilogue that wasn't included in the Wii-version. Something I really liked is that this chapter deals with different themes and issues than the main game, so it actually feels like something new. There's also new dungeons that try different things, like splitting the party, which is kinda nice, although the very last dungeon is on the tedious side. There's also a new seventh playable character, and the Skits he is involved in are hilarious. This chapter should last around 10 hours, it's nothing special, but it's a nice expansion to the main story.
 The game also has many sidequests and Inn-requests. Inn requests are requests, obviously, that can be found on every Inn in the game, and they task you with fetching items, usually found by dualizing other items. Sidequests, however, are usually triggered by stepping over Stars that are hovering over places, more than a couple of these can be missed if you don't trigger them in a certain time frame. There's also a Trials of Graces mode, where you can take your party and challenge certain battles. They reward you with items that you can take on your game.
 Graphically, it shows that it used to be a Wii game. There are new textures, sure, but they are still very simple. Character models have some sharpish edges, and saying that they look from a PS2 game wouldn't be too far off. Still, it is a pretty game, it's not a technical marvel, but it's a very bright and colorful game, it is pretty. The music is very fitting for the genre, while the only song that may get stuck on your head is the fantastic localized intro song, the rest of the score is alright, nothing special, but not bad. Voice acting for the main characters is pretty good, but the rest of the cast are not as good, passable at worst.

 All in all, it's a very meaty game, there's plenty to do, and plenty to see. It's presentation may not be the sharpest, but I'm the kind of guy that doesn't measure a game by it's presentation, and the game as a whole is more than a sum of it's parts. Ah! It has to be mentioned that I came around a game-stopping glitch, and many others came across it, where a scene with a certain buttler would get stuck as he game into scene. It can be fixed by deleting and reinstalling the game, but it was still pretty annoying and a bit scary, heh.
 8 out of 10.

Tales of Graces may be my favorite Tales of Game yet!

 And here I'll explain why.

 Characters: I loved Tales of Phantasia, but there's no denying that the cast is a bit on the flat side. The GBA version added all sorts of scenes that expanded on them, but it didn't do a whole lot. Tales of Symphonia has Lloyd Irving, one of my favorite characters of all time, but I didn't care much about the rest of the cast. Heck, I didn't care much about the cast of Tales of Destiny. I won't dwell too much on Tales of Symphonia:DotNW, but Emile is my most despised character of all time. Lastly, Tales of the Abyss, while Guy was interesting, everyone but Luke were real a$$holes. They blamed Luke for the massacre, while some of them knew that something odd was up. One of them at least had suspicions that Luke may be 7 years old, meaning he was a bit naive. Even worse, one character is later revealed to have been aiding the antagonists, and she is let off scott-free. And she was among the ones that went harshest on Luke. 

 As for Tales of Graces, most characters are very cliched, but Hubert is fantastic, and once Richard becomes a playable character, skits become hilarious. And as under-developed as Cheria and Asbel were, Cheria actually deconstructed her "childhood friend in love" archetype, actually calling out Asbel on leaving her and everyone behind. And Sophie was adorable. Tales of series always tries to shoe-horn kids(Suzu, Genis, Anise, etc), and they tend to be a bit annoying(Especially Annise), but Sophie was disgustingly adorable, you just can't hate her, even if she is just another "Mysterious waif who may or may not be human".

 Story: The story of World Regeneration(Symphonia) is probably my favorite setting and story on a Tales game, but Graces' is not far behind. Phantasia's story was alright, the big shocker being that the party may have been the bad guys, from the bad guy's point of view. It was smart, and new, but the rest of the story wasn't anything special. Symphonia 2's story was bad and really, really dumb, with the premise that Lloyd was killing people, they just copped out and "Nope, just some guy transformed as him". Seriously? Either go all the way, or don't pull that just to garner interest. Destiny's I can't even remember, so it was probably forgetable, still the Swordians were interesting. Tales of the Abyss story was actually pretty interesting, if only the characters weren't so mean.

 Then comes Graces. I've to say that it was pretty interesting, and they had a couple of twists on their twists. And I played Graces F, so I've got to mention Legacies and Lineages too, which deals with some more original themes, Asbel even becomes a parent! Graces, as a whole, was pretty darn interesting.

 Gameplay: The fighting engine I felt needed some polishing. For instance, on paper, the CC mechanic is sound, but in practice, unless you are sidestepping at the right time, you are going to be waiting for the CC to charge, and if you wanna pull longer combos, you are gonna want it to be filled. I felt it ended up feeling a bit to slow. The amount of Artes, and how titles held benefits was really good though. As a whole, it's not my favorite fighting engine, probably Symphonia 2 (Yeah...) or Abyss' is my fave.

 But where it really stands out is it's length. The main game took me around 50 hours, and the L&L epilogue added 10 more. But what's really cool, is that you are never truly backtracking, unless you want to. Abyss lasted 70-80 hours, but the later 20 hours were dragging badly, making you backtrack through dungeons you've already been too. Maybe even twice.

So, all in all, it's probably among my favorite Tales of games. Yeah. I'm gone. Whatever.

First Archimpressions: Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition

 So, I asked myself "Yo, what haven't I played in a while?". Street Fighter was the answer.

 So, the first thing that shocked me? Even the cut-scenes are in. When I first booted up this game, I expected the cutscenes to be left out. They were not. The character models look, as expected, downgraded, but they still look very impressive. The stages did take a massive hit though, no animations and many 2D objects that used to be 3D.
 And while that sounds awesome, it does have a few setbacks, namely, the console itself. The 3DS isn't friendly with fighting games, and when they use as many buttons as Street Fighter, you are screwed. It's still playable, but don't expect to pull off the same combos as you could on the console. The other big issue is that it's slow. If you've played the console version you'd know what I mean, the character intros feel on slow motion and the fighting feels a bit slower too. It's not too bad, but if you are used to it's console counterpart, it might be offputting at first.
 And that's it! Off I go to study some more.

Unsung Marvels #4: Spectrobes Origins

 A Disney's children game is what we have here.

 Back when the DS first launched, Disney wanted to try their hand at a Pokemon-style franchise not based on any of their IPs, thus Spectrobes was born. Spectrobes is set in the future, and you play as a very anime-style hero named Rallen whose catchphrase is "Iku-ze", which means "Let's go" in Japanese. Seriously. Rallen could command up to two spectrobes at the same time, and he'd better, as his attacks were incredibly weak. In order to get more Spectrobes, Rallen had to find fossils, with a clever touch-based dig mechanic, then clean up the fossils, once again touch-based, and then he could revive them. These mini games were actually kinda fun, although by the end of the game they got a bit repetitive. Spectrobes could also be evolved by feeding them minerals, which also raised their stats.
 All in all, I didn't like the game, but it seems children did, as it got a sequel: Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals. The fighting was completely overhauled, and now you played as any of your two spectrobes, Rallen sitting out of the fighting. While it was a better game than it's first iteration, I still didn't like it much. And somehow, it got another sequel. On the Wii.

 And once again, the fighting was completely overhauled. Rallen once again takes part in the fighting, or you can play as Jeena, his sidekick since the first game. Both characters play the same, and can equip the same weapons, so it's just a matter of preference if you want to play as the boy or the girl. And yes, weapons, there are many types, from Swords and Blasters to Gauntlets, and each weapon of every type looks different! While you can carry about 5 Spectrobes, if I remember correctly, with you, only one is on the battlefield, but you can swap it whenever you want. And you will want to, as enemies and Spectrobes have different elements, some being stronger or weakers to others. Oh! And it can be played with a second player, him taking control of your Spectrobe.
 The story is pretty basic as simple, the main focus are children after all, and it has you going from world to world as you take down different bosses. This is one of the few games I haven't completed, as after finishing the game you are to battle harder versions of the bosses, and since healing items are random drops, getting ready to fight another of these challenging beasts would involve grinding. A lot of grinding.

 Fossil-related minigames return, and they are as fun and engaging as they used to be, now taking advantage of the Wiimote. Most of the popular Spectrobes return, alongside a couple of new ones. Their designs are alright, and have an style of their own, it's easy to tell them apart from Pokemon and Digimon(At least at the time they were released, before Pokemon hit the 600th creature....), and their third evolutions are usually on the badass side.
 Spectrobes: Origins was a nice little game that never got the credit it deserved. The fact that it was a Disney game, and it was another Pokemon clone probably didn't help. The fact that the two previous games weren't too good(Although they were a financial success for Disney) didn't help either. Regardless, Spectrobes: Origins completely eclipses previous outings from the franchise, and delivers a neat little package to whoever gave it a chance.

Unsung Marvels #3: Spyborgs

 I think there's gonna be many Wii games....

 Spyborgs was originally planned as a bit of an adventure game with a very cartoonish look, Capcom decided to do away with that, and completely redesigned it, with a darker, grittier tone, and shift the genre to beat'em up. The visual makeover wasn't well recieved, and I can't blame the critics, it turned into another "me too" victim of this generation.
 Regardless of how it looks, what matters is how it turned out... and I think it was great. This game is a throwback to beat'em ups of the past, games like Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and the dozens of clones that were so popular in the 90s. As such, you must move throughout the stages, beating up baddies, and every now and then the screen will lock in place until you beat every enemy on the screen.

 You can play as one of the three Spyborgs, and just like games of olde, you have the all-around male hero, the female speedster and the slow brute that packs a punch. You must also pick a character for the CPU to use, or a second player, so you are always fighting alongside an ally. Gameplay is very simple weak/strong attacks, and you can upgrade your character stats as you go along, which also changes their appearance. The game itself is just long enough, it ends right after it gets a bit boring. There are many collectibles and challenges that award you with unlockables, from concept art to cheats.
 It's not without it flaws though. Like every beat'em up from the 90s, beating up on the same thugs over and over again will get repetitive after a while. The colision detection feels a bit odd, and with certain attacks, the enemies won't even flinch, so you don't know if you are actually damaging it. Oh, and some of the achievements are bugged, so no unlockables for you.

 While it's a flawed game, it's also very underlooked. While not a masterpiece, it's a competent game. If you ever liked the Final Fight-type games, this game is right up your alley, and it came out at a time where games of it's ilk were not being made.
 So yeah. That's it. I've no idea how to end this. So yeah. Bye.

Unsung Marvels #2: Arc Rise Fantasia

 This is the definition of underrated.

 First of all, let's get this out of the way: Most Wii games are unsung marvels. People just didn't give a damn about the Wii, and missed out on lots of great games. One of these games being Arc Rise Fantasia. To be fair, ever since the first trailer got released, most people decided to hate it, since the voice acting was bad. Terribly bad. Not even the funny kind of bad, just bad. Then the game came out and got mostly mediocre reviews, but most people were just fixiated on the voice acting.
 Yes, the voice acting was bad. Some of the few fans this game has say that it "Gets better later on". Wrong, it does not, you do get used to it, though. Evidently, these people weren't there for the earlier years of voice acting on games, I digress, my point is: The voice acting is terrible, but it doesn't ruin this amazing game.

 What may not be readily noticeable, is that this game is a successor of sorts to the Luminous Arc series on the DS. While it has almost nothing in common, the Koppins are here, albeit with a different name, and you can fight characters from LA 1 on the Arena. Arena? Cameo battles? Oh yeah, this game is heavily inspired by the Tales of series. The designs are a bit different, but the visual style employed, down right to the colors, is very Tales of-y, there's even the ever popular skits, and they are both hilarious and a source of character developement.
 The combat however, is a bit more traditional. It's almost turn based, however, instead of each character getting a turn, you get a certain amount of AP per turn, which can be increased by leveling up or by equiping certain equipment. Each action consumes a certain amount of AP, and you can distribute it however you like, you can even have a single character use all the Ap on various actions. There's also an elaborate Magic System, where you can strenghten a spell, and cast different and stronger spells, by having different party members, or a single one, cast certain spells on the same turn. You'll eventually find out that mastering magic is a must, else, you will be wrecked by the bosses.

 Ah yes, the bosses, they are incredibly hard. And the optional bosses? Nintendo hard. There's two ways to get through them: Grinding, which takes a lot of time due to diminishing returns as you level up, or by being smart and learning how the Magic system works and how to make the most of it. You will still be face to face with death mind you, but using magic effectively will go a long way towards your success. Furthermore, you can customize your weapons. Each weapon has a grid, by default it has 2 skills placed in, which may or may not occupy different amount of blocks on the grid, one that can be mastered, and afterwards taken out of it, then placed it on another weapon, and another one that cannot be removed. Choosing how to outfit the grid of the weapon, taking into account what spaces you can't use, and granting yourself different skills is quite fun and allows for different strategies.
 The story is your usual JRPG fare, but executed it in a very smart way. There are twists that you won't ever see coming, party members may die... And in one of my favorite scenes in all of gaming history, you are betrayed. Betrayal by a party member is a rather common occurrence, and a staple of Tales of games, however, in Arc Rise Fantasia, you lose over half of your entire party when the betrayal happens. Very shocking, very cool and a very memorable scene that even the terrible voice acting could not ruin.

 The graphics are fantastic, especially for Wii standards. Many vibrant colors comprise the lands of ARF, and the character designs are really good. Oh, and the main character is named L'Arc Bright Lagoon. Seriously. As for the music? It brought me back to the PS1-JRPG era, which is a good thing, even if the voice acting is grating to the ears, the music will sooth the wounds.
 As per usual for JRPGs, it doesn't have much replay value, however, there is a lot of optional sidequests and bosses, I easily clocked over 80 hours and I 100%ed it. And I loved every hour I spent.
 All in all, it's a shame so many people skipped it due to the voice acting, the game has a lot to offer, and once you understand the magic system, you will learn to love it. It's a fantastic game, and one of the Wii's exclusive hidden gems.

Unsung Marvels #1: Super Dragon Ball Z

 Is fandom the reason we can't have nice things?

 Dragon Ball games before the PS2/GC/XBox era have aged very poorly, Hyper Dimension, the SNES card-based RPG and Legends(My personal favorite, and another Unsung Marvel, but that is a story for another day) being the few standouts. Heck, I'd be willing to say that the first good Dragon Ball game was Hyper Dimension. Regardless, the PS2 era brought us Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi, two different series of fighters, made by different developers, that fans still debate over which one is better.
 I always found the discussion a bit silly, Budokai is the better Fighting game, and Budokai Tenkaichi is the better Dragon Ball Z game. I say this because Tenkaichi has always been a fanservice game. There's over 120 characters, and the gameplay mechanics and character movements and attacks are made to simulate the highspeed flying battles of the show. Budokai fans accuse it of being a button masher, which is a bit true as it doesn't get as complex as Budokai 3, and the character balance is based on the series, rather than seeking every character to be on equal footing. Budokai, on the other hand, has a smaller roster, about to 30 or so characters, and plays more like a fighting game, the camera shows each character on the right and left side respectively(Tenkaichi's camera is on the back of whichever character is on the front, sounds odd, but it works). You have cancels, special cancels and the such, and characters are not overly stronger than others, although Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta is a bit cheap.

 Budokai fans and Budokai Tenkaichi fans hate each other, and they can't have both games coexisting. Either Budokai Tenkaichi is the best Dragon Ball Z game ever and Budokai sucks, or Budokai is the best Dragon Ball Z videogame series and Budokai Tenkaichi is a cheap mashfest. Sadly, one game got lost between these two titans, Super Dragon Ball Z. Released on Arcades first, unlike the other two series, and with the involvement of Street Fighter II's producer, Super was a game that meant to appeal to fans of Fighting games first, and fans of Dragon Ball second. And in the eyes of this Fighting Game fan, they succeeded.
 Super Dragon Ball Z is my favorite Dragon Ball Z game on the PS2. It's setup is a bit more similar to the Budokai series, with the camera having each fighter on both sides. Stages are a bit larger than most fighters, with uneven terrain in some cases, and you can move all around it, your character will be facing the enemy the entire time you move, mind you. Blocking is done by holding back, and you have two attack buttons: Weak and Strong. Interestingly, there's a jump button, a bit odd when you first boot up the game, but you get used to it eventually.

 Besides your life bar, there are two other gauges: Your three-tiered energy bar, which is used to unleash special attacks and an Action bar that governs dashing and flying. Flying is done by pressing jump twice, which will make your character hover(Chi-Chi uses Goku's cloud, Kintoun!(Yeah, Chi-Chi is in the game!)), and dashing is done by double tapping, you've also got universal dashing homing attacks. The biggest departure from the other Dragon Ball games of the era, is that Special and Super moves are performed with directional inputs, like traditional fighters.
 Then there's the presentation. While it's, on a technical level, not as good looking as the other games, featuring a pretty jaggy cell-shading coat of paint, but it aims for a handrawn look instead of the more universal look of the anime. Yes, this game focuses on the manga instead of the anime, so you may notice that character colors are slightly different. The stages look amazing and as if painted by hand. There's even Onomatopoeia's when really strong hits hit their mark. So while it may not boast the highest amount of polygons, it does have a unique look to itself, and in my opinion, the Dragon Ball Z game of the era that I find the most visually alluring. Oh, and I have to say that to this day, I find Cell's Muay Thai stance just awesome.

 The game also has some RPG mechanics. You can create a "Character Card", and every time you play using that card, you will receive experience points. Each character has a different maximum level, usually about 7-8. Every time you level up, you get to pick a skill from two different branches. These skills may be passive effects, or new moves, and some even change parts of your character, like Trunks or Gohan's Sword(Gohan uses a sword here!) or Cyborg Freezer's tail or you can give him a giant Cannon. You may also come across Dragon Balls, playing through Arcade Mode almost guarantees that you will get to summon Shenron. The Dragon is how you unlock characters and little extras, you may even unlock special Skills, like the Senzu Bean, or inherit one skill from any another character(I recommend Cell's), you also get colors and sometimes even costumes.
 So why was this game forgotten? I can see many issues why. First, the one that probably meant death in the Dragon Ball fandom: a 18 character roster. That's even less than Burst Limit(Which had less characters than Budokai 1). To be fair, they tried to get the most iconic characters, while also adding a couple of unique choices, that have never ever made another playable appeance: Gohan with the Z sword and teen Chi-Chi. Then there's the fact that 3 of them are almost clones: Mecha Freezer, Majin Vegeta and Piccolo Daimao play almost exactly like Freezer, Vegeta and Piccolo, perhaps with one different looking move or the such. I didn't play them extensively(I mained Trunks and Gohan!), but I didn't find many differences.

 Then there's the really few amount of modes, them being Arcade, Versus, Survival and Training. There's not much to do(Although I did create one character card for each character, and maxed their levels, unlocked every color and filled all their skill slots!). Oh, colors, yeah, you only unlock them for your Character Card, so if you want to use another color, you have to set it before going into the character select screen, which is a bit of a hassle. As for the music, it's on the blander side, very forgettable.
 As solid as I found the gameplay to be, most Dragon Ball fans wanted a Dragon Ball game and not a Fighting game. While it's a visually appealing game, it's not flashy enough for a Dragon Ball game. I remember going into the GameFaqs forum and making a thread about how underrated it was, one of the first responses I got? "The beams look like crap". Then there's the fact that characters don't zip around the screen or teleport behind each other, no, this game wanted to be a traditional fighting game with Dragon Ball elements, and not the other way around.
 Sadly, it seems that this game is destined to be forgotten. The Budokai series got a successor in "Burst Limit", which sadly received no sequels, and the Budokai Tenkaichi morphed into "Raging Blast", I tried the demo for Raging Blast 2 and.... it was not very good. For what it's worth, there's a "Battle of Z" coming out, and it looks really good, taking hints from the Dragon Ball Legends PS1 game, so I'm actually excited for it. It might not be another Super Dragon Ball Z, but since the Raging Blast series is not my thing, Ultimate Tenkaichi was awful and Burst Limit is discontinued, I'll have to take what I can get.