While this article includes five entries from five separate writers, I happen to be the first one featured, so you don't have to wait to read mine. But the entire thing's worth reading!
Luke fon Fabre -- the protagonist of Tales of the Abyss -- was my instant go-to choice for this collaboration. While he certainly doesn't have autism, he does reflect a certain frustration I've dealt with in my life due to that condition, and I've always wanted to write about that. Perhaps I'm biased in saying he's the most realized Tales protagonist? Regardless, for anyone who's wanted me to get in-depth regarding my Asperger's, I'd recommend reading this.
(By the way, I'm not the one who selected that picture; that was the editor. While it's from the anime adaption, it's certainly a clever choice when considering the subject matter!)
The gradual decline of Tales over the past decade has been heavily disputed, with its journey into HD at the heart of the matter. Any potential brought forward by Vesperia was quickly snuffed in favor of rushed products and randomly adapting to AAA-standards. Namco clearly didn't have the budget to elevate Tales to Final Fantasy production values, and it showed in the mediocrity that were the Xillia games, what with the banal fields that stretched on forever and various cut corners (not the least of which were the limitless assets reuse; how many identical, music-less port towns were in the game, again?). Aimless stories and Motoi Sakuraba's homogenized score only cemented the notion that Tales games had grown creatively bankrupt.
When I reviewedTales of Xillia 2, I dismissed the game as being the latest in a series of JRPG junk food because, really, that's what the series had become: an assembly line of fast food that barely scratch that RPG itch. That analogy is inapplicable as of Tales of Zestiria, a complete failure in everything from level design, pacing and progression, modern graphical standards and proper storytelling. I can't claim to have played every Tales game of the past nine years, but I remain confident in stating it's the absolute worst since the abominable Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (and what a coincidence that they're from the same series; I can't think of any game I've hated as much since).
I mean, Jesus Christ. I knew during pre-release the game was likely to continue the series stagnation, as the previews showed little evidence of Namco learning from Xillia's missteps. It's not that I believed such a tone-deaf game would reinvigorate the series (not to mention the controversy surrounding the Alisha character, which signaled alarm bells rivaling that of Xillia 2's debt system), so I walked into Zestiria thinking it'd be the latest batch of sub-par takeout that I'd maybe write about.
Boy, oh boy, was I not ready. I wish I could say the game's return to swords and sorcery was as base as its overall presentation; in particular, the latter is just a stunning display of laziness and inadequacy. I mean, where do I even begin? The inconsistent character framerate? The empty dungeon design? The terrible facial animation? The pathetic pop-in and draw distance? The pixelated tree shadows? The sound glitches that plagued the PC release? That one scene where two characters not only talked over
each other when they were clearly not supposed to, but the dialogue
didn't even match the subtitles? How some of the anime cutscenes output sound with all the glory of a 240p stream video, including the very first one you see?
Needless to say, I'm beyond shocked production values have fallen below even that of the Xillia games. The framerate particularly caught my attention; it's not like Zestiria looks even that different from those games, but apparently Namco spent a couple years developing a new graphics engine that can't produce 60 FPS for an overworld monster unless you're standing less than five feet away from it. With how ghastly their movements carry even into battle, I wonder if 30 FPS would be pushing it.
Not even the in-game cutscenes are exempt from this, as it's not rare for characters to fluctuate in frame animation and slowdown from the most minor of movement. On top of how the rocky character animation itself, you can hardly take them seriously regardless of context. Above is an example of the blank facial animation: here, the character is supposed to be shellshocked at a betrayal, but the way her mouth morphs into a near-smile renders the scene almost comical. Oh, and just to clarify, that GIF is from the Playstation 4 version. Let that sink in for a moment.
To top it off even further, Xillia's dry color scheme and static field designs are alive and well. I mean, the former was at least kinda acceptable before considering the new setting, but there's just no excuse for the latter anymore. The Tales team is clearly ill-equipped in adapting the series to an "open-world" environment and it shows in everything from the needlessly broad overworld maps to the boring mazes. It's gotten to the point where I have to ask what's the point in suddenly pretending Tales an AAA effort when all the obvious cut corners immediately dispel such fantasy.
The dungeons are the perfect example here. No matter how bombastic Go Shiina's music may be, the level design never lives up to any such standard no matter how much the context wills it to be. Rooms are designed with bare minimum effort, devoid of any aesthetic value or interesting features besides enemy/treasure chest placement and whatever half-baked gimmick each respective dungeon decides to throw at you (the most torturous of all being the water dungeon, a convoluted maze which zaps you back to the entrance whenever you come across a sentry's line of sight.)
So how on earth did Zestiria end up being this cheap? With the Tales Studio being laid-off/absorbed into Namco and other huge internal projects developed within the same timeframe (notably Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U, which borrowed a portion of Tales staff), Namco had no choice but to rely on heavy outsourcing; more than any Tales game before, in fact. While it's unfair to say outsourcing is solely for conserving money, that the game required such a ridiculous extent and still looked this terrible proves just how limited the game's budget was (the convoluted web of external assets likely contributed to the mess).
And what was it all for, really? It only serves as a detriment to the actual gameplay, as already seen in the worthless dungeon and field design, but what about the combat? For the first time in Tales, Zestiria opts for seguing battles into the overworld rather than transitioning to specialized battlefields. See, there's a neat idea for evolving the series...had the overworld been competently designed and the characters/battle camera didn't get stuck behind walls and pillars (seriously, just watch this).
It's actually pretty funny how much it falls into the pitfalls as Xillia 2. Just like Xillia 2, the impact of attacking monsters feels as dull as pounding on a wet paper bag. And just like Xillia 2, it's only worth using the characters gifted with super cool awesome Plot Powers (in this case, Sorey and Rose's Armatization, where they combine with one of their element-coded Seraph friends). And hey, just like Xillia 2, they try to make you work for those via combos, but unlike Xillia 2, there's no limit or penalty to how long you can use Armatization. Consequently, battles just boil down to pounding down on enemy weaknesses, and the inclusion of Graces' CC combo system does little to ease the tedium.
The second point is particularly interesting, considering how just like Xillia 2, the whole game is a vehicle for a plot not worth a damn. Of course, that's how JRPGs work, but everything from the overworld to the combat just renders Zestiria a slow, terrible slog to wade through, one that not even the fast travel option can fix (something you actually have to pay Gald for!). That, and...well, JUST LIKE XILLIA 2, it decides to piss me off with horrible, horrible padding. I was not at all happy to discover I was being gated off from continuing at one point until I gathered all the Iris Gems, which magically project the disposable backstory of the generic villain.
Rare is the Tales game that actually has a well-rounded story (that would be Tales of the Abyss), but it's especially bad here since in recent years, Tales has fallen into a bad rut with goody
two-shoes protagonists and characters who join your party just because. Not once am I given a reason to care about Sorey (who falls squarely into the "Chosen One" trope right down to pulling the generic sword from the generic stone) and his band of Seraphs and squires, as Zestiria frequently screws around with natural foreshadowing and player expectations.
Just take the character Edna. The diminutive, snarky Seraph only joins Sorey's gang in the faint hopes of reverting her brother back from being a dragon, yet apparently the developers had the bright idea of relegating that subplot to a sidequest. As far as the main plot is concerned, not once do Sorey's idealistic dreams of curing dragons from malevolence ever become important, and not once does Edna ever embark on a character arc, remaining static in her snarky ways of harassing party members. Other party members fall in similar traps, but she's the most striking example.
On top of out-of-whack story beats and base "twists", there is no reason for investment in anything that goes on. A character turns into a monster? That other one betrays me? Someone dies? I don't care because the game won't let me care, because it refuses to properly foreshadow, engage in proper pacing or, y'know, develop its characters. As to why, a good chunk of this can be chalked up to the elephant in the room: a shift in party members so nonsensical in concept I'm beyond baffled it was actually executed.
I'm talking, of course, about the Alisha bait-and-switch. Yes, we can bring up her gradual absence in pre-release material or producer Hideo Baba claiming they never said she was the heroine despite her being the very first female character they introduced, but how it happens in-game is ultimately what's important. There's just no getting around how jarring it is, as the character is the catalyst for Sorey leaving his village of Seraphim and fulfilling his destiny of becoming The Shepard. While there's nothing particularly nuanced about her character, her role as Sorey's squire sets one of the game's few fathomable themes in stone: two people with entirely separate backgrounds helping the world in ways the other cannot (in this case, an idealistic country orphan and a troubled princess knight).
That is, until said role randomly causes Sorey to temporarily grow blind and she decides to up and leave six, maybe seven hours in. It's as random as it sounds, and what makes it even worse is that her replacement (Rose) is later thrust into the role despite being casually introduced as a NPC (some have defended this saying it plays into the revelation of her spoiler-related job, but, well, she's right on the box. Every other Tales party member has had an elaborate introduction).
I'll refrain from citing any of the vague *conspiracy theories regarding the situation, but regardless, it's just so easy to frame the contextual reason as "well, Alisha wasn't working out for whatever reason, so here's another character that works better just because!" It's not even as if Rose brings anything to the party that Alisha couldn't aside from having a foul mouth and her relationship with Dezel, a Seraph whose endearing traits are being reclusive and getting pissed off at everybody. (This isn't even getting into how poorly Rose takes over Alisha's role; heck, her fellow guildmates don't even acknowledge her absence!)
In attempting to have Alisha take care of Zestiria's events by holding the fort back at her kingdom, all it does is invalidate her character. Rather than sharing a dual role, any appearances from then on are fleeting, and she possesses absolutely zero involvement with the climax. As it is, it's the biggest screw-up in an indecisive tale right down to the context of the "surprised" GIF: a delayed reaction to a twist we already knew and don't care about since she's become superfluous; at that point, we've gotten so used to Rose cementing over her role that Alisha may as well have been that background character.
Can I say anything positive about Zestiria? It has a solid localization with solid voice acting (despite that aforementioned "speaking over each other" goof-up), and there's some sidequest meat to chew on. Sidequests I chose not to partake, but they exist in case you enjoy the contemptible thing. Oh, and being able to customize flair and costumes for characters. Having Sorey wearing giant sunglasses and Mikleo being stalked by a floating Yuri Lowell doll was the only thing that dulled my pain (aside from South Park episodes playing on my tablet. "Suck my b-b-balls, PC Principal!").
Is that it? I don't know, and honestly, I don't care anymore. Between this, the fiasco that was the Tales of Symphonia Steam port (and to a lesser extent, its PS3 "remaster"), a separate Namco development team being unable to tell who Zestiria's main heroine is (look up the controversy surrounding the Tales of Asteria mobile game), and the upcoming Tales of Berseria being a prequel to this game, I've given up hope Namco and the Tales team can provide a quality experience for the series in this age. They're clearly unable to manage quality control across the board, and so any aspirations for evolving a niche RPG series remain futile.
The days of relatable characters and fun battle systems are over. Tales is dead.
*Which reminds me, there's nothing in the main plot that even remotely
hints at a homosexual relationship between Sorey and his BFF Mikleo.
Sorry, Fanfiction.net!
Note: This review was originally published in 2014 for Gaming Grunts, which went under some time ago. Having recently salvaged most of my articles on there, I've decided to give them a new home here for archival purposes. Please bear in mind they differ in structure from this blog's reviews, and be sure to join me at the end for a bonus reflection!
Tales of Xillia finally arrived in America last year to much
criticism, as the game’s cut-corners and immense asset
recycling (all consequences of rushing to meet the series’ 15th
anniversary) rendered it the latest disappointment in the series. Could a
sequel right all of the predecessor’s wrongs? Perhaps, although the
last attempt at a Tales sequel (the wretched Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of
the New World) did not inspire any optimism. While Tales of Xillia 2
for the PS3 avoids such dreary levels, it still settles for stagnant
mediocrity.
STORY
A year after the events of Tales of Xillia, new protagonist Ludger
Kresnik fails to attain his dream job: an agent at the Spirius
Corporation, where his brother Julius is a respected officer. His
unlucky streak continues as he not only winds up in a train hijacking
(possibly spearheaded by Julius?), but is suddenly slapped with
a twenty-million dollar debt and entrusted with caring for a mysterious
young girl named Elle. As Ludger begins to awaken his heredity-branded
power of the Chromatus and takes over his brother’s job, he and Elle
find themselves joining forces with the original Xillia cast to restore
the balance of spirits, chase down Julius, discover there may be worlds
lying beyond their own, find the Land of Canaan, reunite Elle with her
father, put an end to the Exodus terrorists, learn the secrets of the
Chromatus, settle tensions between Reize Maxia and Elympios, pay off
Ludger’s debt, and watch the antics of his fat cat Rollo.
If the above summary sounds like a mess, it’s because it is. It’s
frustrating to see Tales struggle in story and character over the past
half-decade, what with great characters being wasted by aimless
plots (Vesperia), bland characters in a bland setting (Graces, excluding
Sophie and Pascal), or base personalities that, while fun, lack purpose
in story (Xillia). Xillia 2 wastes no time in continuing this
tradition: while the scrappy, charming Elle fits in just fine, Ludger is
subject to the most boneheaded series decision in quite some time: he’s
mute, so as to take advantage of the Mass Effect-esque “choose your own
adventure” dialogue choices players can choose for him.
While starring a mute character isn’t necessarily bad in itself, it’s woefully
awkward in a game chock-full of chatty characters and spoken dialogue.
The split dialogue choices don’t even possess much of an impact–barring
“affection” gained from other characters to obtain quick bonus
scenes–and we’re just left wondering why this character
couldn’t have a proper personality to call his own. No matter what plot
moments “justify” this decision, the overall execution is just far too
clunky and we’re left with a lame self-insert protagonist.
And even then, the plot itself isn’t so hot. Despite being divided
into chapters, there’s far too much for the story to juggle, and
consequently certain story elements are frequently diminished and
sidelined. Julius is meant to initiate the “battle between brothers”
trope, but his infrequent appearances and vague–if at all
discernible–goals render him peripheral. The fragmented worlds subplot
raises questions of morality that never go anywhere, and the original
cast shows up because…well, just because. Any genuinely interesting
twists are far and few in-between, and the result is just more wasted
potential on Namco’s front.
OVERWORLD AND PRESENTATION
Just like the original title, Xillia 2 takes place over various
countries presented in a third-person camera perspective new to the
series. Such a bold shift could the bag of fresh air the series needs,
but alas, it comes included with a dreadfully boring overworld. Most
Tales games prior enforced something of a semi-top-down camera
perspective with a sprawling map representing the game’s world, yet
Xillia 2 continues to opt for long, boring “pathway” segments from town
to town. They’re tepidly uninspired, are hardly unique from one another,
and will compel players to either dash past all enemies or scramble to
the Quick Jump button just to escape the tedium.
As Xillia 2 is based on the same engine as the original, it’s not
surprising the game reuses all of its predecessor’s assets, right down
to towns and cities looking just as they did before. Since only a year
has passed in-game, it could be somewhat forgivable…if the obvious
signs of laziness that already plagued the original weren’t present. All
the ships ports are still practically identical, and the cries
of fresh muttons continue filling the air of every single city. No
matter how much content Xillia 2 presents, this homogenized presentation
does it absolutely no favors.
COMBAT
Flashy combo strings and magic spells continue decorating the
battlegrounds of Tales. More characters, arte improvements, and
borrowing Graces’s “CC” combo system are points in favor of Xillia 2’s
combat system, but the anemic attacks render them somewhat moot. While
the artes and spells are as quick and fancy as ever, hardly
anything feel satisfying to land, and so pulling together combos has all
the excitement of beating up a paper bag. Okay, maybe it’s not that dull,
but when considering just how great combat felt in the game’s
predecessors (particularly, Vesperia and Graces), it’s disappointing for
Xillia 2 to feel so sluggish.
While the entire party can be controlled, Ludger is a special case in
that his Chromatus ability–usable when a time-based meter fills
up–teleports he and his opponents into a space-time continuum of sorts
where he can unleash amplified artes without risk of damage. Regardless
of its imposed time limit, it’s also unabashedly, unavoidably broken; of
particular note is the “Falling Snow” move, where Ludger can just slice
back and forth for a whopping 30,000 HP within the span of maybe twenty
seconds. Getting bored with battles? Just spam Falling Snow.
DEBT
Remember the train hijacking plot bit? See, Ludger was roughed up
quite a bit during that escapade, and the Spirius Corporation was kind
enough to treat his wounds…for a price. In what’s an absolutely
shameless method of padding out the game’s length, Ludger is forced to
pay over a $20,000,000 debt over the course of the game. The debt acts
as paywall: before you move on the next chapter, Ludger and the gang are
forced to earn Gald (Tales currency) through job requests and monster
bounties.
To be fair, the debt intermissions are beneficial in highlighting the
game’s healthy collection of sidequests (specifically the character
sub-chapters that feature self-contained narratives for each party
member), yet that hardly excuses how it blatantly halts the main quest.
Job requests amount to little more than repetitive fetch quests that
tend to repeat and redress themselves, and their meager payment is
rendered useless by the big bucks offered for giant monster kills. No
matter how many sidequests the game throws at you, an
overbearing impression of pointlessness pervades the entire thing, and
it may as well be seeing as how it too falls victim to the mess of a
plot.
Its mere presence begs the question: why am I doing thisin a fantasy RPG?
Yes, the Xillia games are a tad more modern than your typical Tales
adventure, but what place does this have in an epic? Despite Xillia 2
being regarded as a “Mothership” entry by Namco, the constant intrusion
of something so conceptually insipid (let alone the tedium of its actual
execution) trivializes it to budget-levels of “Escort” Tales games
(such as the aforementioned Dawn of the New World). Keep the financial
woes in Animal Crossing and let me go save the world, please.
GRAPHICS
Virtually identical to the original, Xillia 2 continues to ape
washed-out colors for its aesthetic. Despite the occasional gorgeous
location (such as the capital of Fennmont), Xillia 2’s locales
are typically dreary, pale and uninspired to a literally depressing
level. While character models are some of the series’ most detailed and
well-animated, not even the big green eyes of Leia Rolando can light up
Xillia 2’s color palette. As mentioned before, the game loves to reuse
assets (NPC characters, backgrounds, ports, etc.), amplifying its
homogenized nature.
SOUND
Series composer Motoi Sakurai reports in for the game’s soundtrack,
albeit in one of his weaker outings. Much of the BGM is again recycled
from the original, and while it’s not outright bad, things get off on
the wrong foot with the piano-styled ambiences that pervade the cities
and dungeons of Elympios. They’re dreadfully banal and only promote the
lifeless, dead nature of the segmented roads (which worked in context of
the original game, but serves as meager motivation for a new title’s
beginning). Don’t expect anything special from the new songs, either.
Thankfully, Tales’ sense of humor hasn’t gone anywhere, as evidenced via
the jubilant voice cast. With a superb localized script and the
hundreds of “skit” conversations providing plenty of laughs, it’s a
blast listening to the antics of the party. Best of all, the muffled
recording for the Milla character has been done away with, so no longer
does her jarring lisp grace our television speakers. All in all it
proves the Tales producers can still create fun characters…
Summary
But it's not enough. While
Tales of Xillia 2 may have made up for all the original's missing
content via sidequests and such, there's just no excusing such obnoxious
missteps via tiring paywalls and a senselessly mute protagonist. It's
not terrible, but Xillia 2's consistent tedium, clunky execution, and a
still-empty well of inspiration impede any sort of player immersion. As
it stands, it's just the latest in Namco's series of JRPG junk food. Go
check out the Tales of Symphonia HD port if you haven't already.
5/10
PROS
Characters are as fun as ever.
Uhh…I guess spamming the daylights out of Falling Snow was kinda fun.
CONS
Story and presentation are a mess.
Combat is easily exploited and rather dull.
Sorry excuse for an overworld.
Intrusive, tedious debt system.
Boring, uninspired score.
Reused assets and lazy art direction.
Bonus Reflection: This was easily the funnest review to write. Let's face it: we all love trashing media below sub-par standards, and video games are no exception. Reviewing Xillia 2 again in blog format would be interesting, but I think I expressed my feelings so well here that there's no need. Not yet, anyway.
But if you're looking for more brutal criticism from me, don't fret. As anyone who's been following my Twitter knows...well, let's just say year's Tales game gives Xillia 2 a run for its money in terms of sheer awfulness. In any case, expect the actually good Tales to pop up in Worldly Weekend.
