Tales of Vesperia has been talked up by some as a great game. Thus I bought it to give it a try as I liked what I got put of the demo, but now I'm finding it very hard to enjoy this game for a large number of reasons.
The graphics are extremely bland 95% of the time as was Blue Dragon. The textures are extremely flat and undetailed. The City of Blossoms was the only acceptable place I have visited thus far. Any kind of shading is practically nonexistent in this game. I understand they are trying to create a cartoon-like look to it, but it is practically a coloring book. And the colors used aren't all that impressive or captivating. No nice special effects either are here.
The combat is coming off very shallow with a lack of control over your characters and a lack of genuine strategic elements. All of these strike arts are just different fancy ways of dealing some extra damage. The Wolf Strike is the one exception as it knocks your enemy down. The Strategies you can set for your AI is nice, but you cannot actually control your other characters. You can't use an item on your party unless it is a Phoenix Down, and you cannot command your AI to use item on someone beside themselves explicitly; yet the very thing I was denied to order my AI to do, they, the AI party members, can do just that on their own accord. I have yet to see any form of elemental weaknesses/attacks even tho elementals are listed in the handbook. It tells me I can control my other characters with "Personal Call" even tho it does not work when I follow the instructions by the letter; all that happens is my party member back off for a few seconds for "things to be left to me."
The towns are very restrictive, linear, and with a large number of nonsense invisible barriers that are leaving me baffled as to where I can go and not go. I got stuck at the very beginning of the game as I did not know that I could go down one flight of stairs and not the other adjacent to it even tho both should lead back to the exact same place.
I'm really having trouble enjoying this game. If there is something regarding the combat that I am misunderstanding, please let me know what it is. This is my first Tales game. I'm 10 hours in and I just left Heliord. Does the game get better beyond this?
The graphics are extremely bland 95% of the time as was Blue Dragon. The textures are extremely flat and undetailed. The City of Blossoms was the only acceptable place I have visited thus far. Any kind of shading is practically nonexistent in this game. I understand they are trying to create a cartoon-like look to it, but it is practically a coloring book. And the colors used aren't all that impressive or captivating. No nice special effects either are here.
The combat is coming off very shallow with a lack of control over your characters and a lack of genuine strategic elements. All of these strike arts are just different fancy ways of dealing some extra damage. The Wolf Strike is the one exception as it knocks your enemy down. The Strategies you can set for your AI is nice, but you cannot actually control your other characters. You can't use an item on your party unless it is a Phoenix Down, and you cannot command your AI to use item on someone beside themselves explicitly; yet the very thing I was denied to order my AI to do, they, the AI party members, can do just that on their own accord. I have yet to see any form of elemental weaknesses/attacks even tho elementals are listed in the handbook. It tells me I can control my other characters with "Personal Call" even tho it does not work when I follow the instructions by the letter; all that happens is my party member back off for a few seconds for "things to be left to me."
The towns are very restrictive, linear, and with a large number of nonsense invisible barriers that are leaving me baffled as to where I can go and not go. I got stuck at the very beginning of the game as I did not know that I could go down one flight of stairs and not the other adjacent to it even tho both should lead back to the exact same place.
I'm really having trouble enjoying this game. If there is something regarding the combat that I am misunderstanding, please let me know what it is. This is my first Tales game. I'm 10 hours in and I just left Heliord. Does the game get better beyond this?
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