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Tales of Hearts R |OT| With Our Vitas Combined

PKrockin

Member
Crap, this is out already? I missed any news on it since the localization announcement. I hope my Gamestop has a copy...
 
Crap, this is out already? I missed any news on it since the localization announcement. I hope my Gamestop has a copy...
FWIW, you can also get a digital copy on PSN, order a physical copy off the Bandai Namco site or a physical copy from GameStop's site. They seem to still be well in stock.
 

Scher

Member
Since I see some Beryl discussion going on, how viable would it be to try and make her a physical attacker? I finally got her not too long ago and I'm ready to ditch Shing so I can play as someone else. However, I've never been very fond of playing as a caster in Tales games, so I was wondering if Beryl can at least make a decent physical attacker.
 
Since I see some Beryl discussion going on, how viable would it be to try and make her a physical attacker? I finally got her not too long ago and I'm ready to ditch Shing so I can play as someone else. However, I've never been very fond of playing as a caster in Tales games, so I was wondering if Beryl can at least make a decent physical attacker.

Long time no see Scher. My Beryl is level 31 or 32 and she doesn't really have any physical artes worth using so it would be quite difficult, I think.
 

Fauve

Member
Beryl's becomes a decent physical fighter later on. And she becomes a beast when she gets her high tier spells that you can weave in between physical artes in chase link.
 

Zafir

Member
On normal I've found the bosses pretty easy so far(I'm about 14hoursish in?) only exception being the one in the twilight forest at the beginning(though i didn't wipe). Especially since I got
Kohaku as a party member
. I should probably turn the difficulty up really.
 

khaaan

Member
I had a tough time with the first real one. That might have been because of the AI running into AoEs constantly though...

The one right after the Calcedny scene?

I'm currently on that fight and having a heck of a hard time. I took a break from the game and went back to Freedom Wars but I'm going to try and see if I can mess with the AI setup to make things go smoother.

Speaking of Calcedny, I think I'm starting to loose track of the number of times I've assumed the gender of a character based on their appearance in a Tales game only to find out I'm wrong.
 

Scher

Member
Long time no see Scher. My Beryl is level 31 or 32 and she doesn't really have any physical artes worth using so it would be quite difficult, I think.

Hello again! Guess I can always give casting a shot, or try experimenting and see what I can make of a physical Beryl.

For those who have gotten most/all of the characters, how do some of the later characters play? Based off what I've seen of other characters, Ines and Chalcedony both seem like they'll be interesting characters to play, and might be a little more of what I'm looking for.
 

Zafir

Member
Hello again! Guess I can always give casting a shot, or try experimenting and see what I can make of a physical Beryl.

For those who have gotten most/all of the characters, how do some of the later characters play? Based off what I've seen of other characters, Ines and Chalcedony both seem like they'll be interesting characters to play, and might be a little more of what I'm looking for.

Ines is purely physical, so if you're looking for a physical fighter, she's certainly one to try.

Not got Chalcedony, so can't comment on him.
 

Fauve

Member
Ines is purely physical, so if you're looking for a physical fighter, she's certainly one to try.

Not got Chalcedony, so can't comment on him.

Chalcedony's primarily an aerial fighter, so he can do a lot of fun suff in a chase link combo. He has some decent heals, so he can also make a good backup healer. And he's a good spellcaster, primarily focusing on light.
 
Maybe it's just me, but it seems a little inappropriate to have the hot springs scene barely five minutes after
Peridot and Byrocks died. Also, that scene seemed a bit too over the top with the volcano suddenly becoming active so Chal couldn't fly to them.

And WOW, I literally just stumbled on the events for Kitten Mittens and Destiny by complete accident, god damn those are massive boosts in pretty much everything lol.
 
Has anyone determined exactly what the Dark/Holy bottles do to your rate of encounters? I ask, because Holy Bottles seem to still allow a few battles through.
 

Alucrid

Banned
The one right after the Calcedny scene?

I'm currently on that fight and having a heck of a hard time. I took a break from the game and went back to Freedom Wars but I'm going to try and see if I can mess with the AI setup to make things go smoother.

Speaking of Calcedny, I think I'm starting to loose track of the number of times I've assumed the gender of a character based on their appearance in a Tales game only to find out I'm wrong.

Yeah, I ended up setting them NPCs to defend/ranged and doing most of the work myself.
 

Zafir

Member
I do like how even the dungeons are reminiscent of the old more puzzle based tales of dungeons. Unfortunately due to my OCD chest collecting tendencies, the random battles are doing my head in through them. Holy bottles don't really help that much either. >.<
 

kewlmyc

Member
We were talking boss difficulty spikes? I know the worst offender so far. This
terrible three-way battle with Cal and his pals

Just got to this fight. Holy shit. Died twice, but beat it when I decided to switch up my team and strategy.

1. Don't use casters or have anyone cast spells.
2. Get some heavy hitters (Gall, Kunzite, Kor, Ines)
3. Get one healer, preferably Hisui.
4. Set everyone to "Hit Focus" except Hisui who should be set to "Heal"
5. Under "Priorities", have everyone set to "Different Enemy"
6. Have them popping Lemon Gels and Pineapple Gels like candy.

Fight still wasn't a cake walk after all of that either.

In other news, Kunzite is a freaking blast to play.
 

Zafir

Member
Yeah, that was the first boss that was a bit tricky in a while for me.

Due to the tougher fights I've come to remember how much I hate tales of casters/healer AI. I thought the gambit system would make it better, and it does in terms of what abilities it tries to use. However, the AI still randomly goes into melee range to attack occasionally, and chooses the most stupid places to cast. Contemplating just controlling the healer, even though I don't really care for ranged gameplay.
 

Pics_nao

Member
I didn't find the fight too bad. Party was Ines, Kunzite, Hisui and Beryl. Had
Kunzite target Chal, Beryl target Pyrox and me as Ines targeting Peridot. Hisui healed and provided Beryl with support.
Didn't die but the CPU did once.
 
Yeah, that was the first boss that was a bit tricky in a while for me.

Due to the tougher fights I've come to remember how much I hate tales of casters/healer AI. I thought the gambit system would make it better, and it does in terms of what abilities it tries to use. However, the AI still randomly goes into melee range to attack occasionally, and chooses the most stupid places to cast. Contemplating just controlling the healer, even though I don't really care for ranged gameplay.

Can you give an example of what your gambit setup is on HIsui? He's been 100% perfect in my experience.
 
Just got to this fight. Holy shit. Died twice, but beat it when I decided to switch up my team and strategy.

1. Don't use casters or have anyone cast spells.
2. Get some heavy hitters (Gall, Kunzite, Kor, Ines)
3. Get one healer, preferably Hisui.
4. Set everyone to "Hit Focus" except Hisui who should be set to "Heal"
5. Under "Priorities", have everyone set to "Different Enemy"
6. Have them popping Lemon Gels and Pineapple Gels like candy.

Fight still wasn't a cake walk after all of that either.

In other news, Kunzite is a freaking blast to play.
I gave up this afternoon after dying three times, so I'll go back and give that a shot now. Sounds like a pretty well-rounded strategy. My problem was exactly number one. Attempting to use a caster and some casting routines.
 

Zafir

Member
Can you give an example of what your gambit setup is on HIsui? He's been 100% perfect in my experience.
It's not really Hisui I'm having the problem with since his weapon is a cross bow, so he's not randomly running in to do melee attacks. The point where his AI fails is when making space he'll often stand with other casters meaning the enemies come along and interrupt them all. That's not something gambits can solve. It's how the AI is set up for movement.

I was trying out the heroine(her names slipped my mind, 5am ftw), because Hisui can run out of TP really quickly and she has higher magic stats. She'll run in and attack sometimes, even though I've set in the strategy to only do healing / artes, turned off everything outside of healing stuff and I've set up all of her healing abilities in the gambit list with no attacking. She also has the same spacing issue as above. She may be a better damage caster considering Hisui has Nurse and she doesn't making her a inferior healer in that sense, but I don't see her being better than Beryl, and Beryl also has the same issue by the way, running into melee even though it's all set up for her not to do that. It seems to be issues with casters and melee weapons.
 

Fauve

Member
Have you tried using party guard in situations where they would all get attacked? That could potentially buy you some time to assist them.
 

Stuart444

Member
Just got to this fight. Holy shit. Died twice, but beat it when I decided to switch up my team and strategy.

1. Don't use casters or have anyone cast spells.
2. Get some heavy hitters (Gall, Kunzite, Kor, Ines)
3. Get one healer, preferably Hisui.
4. Set everyone to "Hit Focus" except Hisui who should be set to "Heal"
5. Under "Priorities", have everyone set to "Different Enemy"
6. Have them popping Lemon Gels and Pineapple Gels like candy.

Fight still wasn't a cake walk after all of that either.

In other news, Kunzite is a freaking blast to play.

I just got to this fight as well, what are your levels? Mines is 30 across the board (though I think one character may be 29).

I actually got to it last night and gave up because I was too tired to think (got
Peridot
to around 4000hp but everyone was on red hp and died pretty much at the same time, that's on default AI/tactics. This battle is probably the first one that will make me modify the strategies for the characters.

Don't have Lemon/Pineapple gels though :( the armour is too expensive and I ended up strap for cash after buying new helmets for everyone (first upgrade since several towns back I believe).

I'll keep this strategy in mind, I was thinking of having physical/heavy hitters all focus down one target and then moving onto the next one. Ah well, I'm sure I'll beat it eventually. (hopefully without turning it down to easy...)

Ah well, I'm still loving this game. It may end up being one of my favourite Tales games after Destiny DC.

also the boss before that,
the worm in the desert
was also very very annoying.
 

kewlmyc

Member
I just got to this fight as well, what are your levels? Mines is 30 across the board (though I think one character may be 29).

I actually got to it last night and gave up because I was too tired to think (got
Peridot
to around 4000hp but everyone was on red hp and died pretty much at the same time, that's on default AI/tactics. This battle is probably the first one that will make me modify the strategies for the characters.

Don't have Lemon/Pineapple gels though :( the armour is too expensive and I ended up strap for cash after buying new helmets for everyone (first upgrade since several towns back I believe).

I'll keep this strategy in mind, I was thinking of having physical/heavy hitters all focus down one target and then moving onto the next one. Ah well, I'm sure I'll beat it eventually. (hopefully without turning it down to easy...)

Ah well, I'm still loving this game. It may end up being one of my favourite Tales games after Destiny DC.

also the boss before that,
the worm in the desert
was also very very annoying.

I was at level 32. Honestly as long as you have any type of HP or TP gels, you should be fine. Focusing on just one doesn't seem like all that good of an idea. If you do that, then the other two will just cast spells on you breaking your combos. Plus the party member AI is good when it comes to comboing and dealing damage. By the time I killed one of the bosses on my own, I would target someone else and they would already be near death since my party member AI did a pretty good job fighting back against the bosses on their own 1v1.

These bosses pretty much force you to get good at comboing to high numbers, learning to counter block, and activate Cross Chase as many times as possible.
 
I was at level 32. Honestly as long as you have any type of HP or TP gels, you should be fine. Focusing on just one doesn't seem like all that good of an idea. If you do that, then the other two will just cast spells on you breaking your combos. Plus the party member AI is good when it comes to comboing and dealing damage. By the time I killed one of the bosses on my own, I would target someone else and they would already be near death since my party member AI did a pretty good job fighting back against the bosses on their own 1v1.

These bosses pretty much force you to get good at comboing to high numbers, learning to counter block, and activate Cross Chase as many times as possible.
For another perspective, I actually stood outside and grinded a little bit to levels 33-34 since I needed some money anyways.

Your strategy from above worked, but I actually did modify it myself and focus on one AI initially. I focused on Peridot, because if you let her live too long, her AOE stuff gets really annoying. Once she's downed, the fight is much easier.
 

Bladenic

Member
That's the only boss in the game I've died on (just once).

Also the cameo fight becomes available after the events in Kohaku and Hisui's hometown, my ass was handed to me even though I'm level 66. I'm on Hard though. I'm sure I could lower the difficulty but I'll just come back. I didn't think it would appear so early so I was using Shing/Kohaku/Beryl/Hisui which isn't a great combo for this fight, and even for the cameo fight you're forced to use a small selection of items given to you. Most Tales games you could use your own items.
 
Really? I found the Three way fight to be pretty easy, the whole game as a whole has been disappointingly easy for me so far. The combat is well designed enough that it rewards using the systems well, so I've never felt like anything was taxing those systems at all so far about 20 hours in.

Only real difficulty complaint would be the
Xeromized soldiers
since they have a ton of armor and always go for your casters, and your characters just aren't fast enough to keep up with them, even with skills and items making you faster and Kor/Shingu/whatever has next to no ranged options, so the section where you fight those guys exclusively just kinda sucked.

Also, as the game goes on I've been less willing to forgive Hisui's character. At first he was alright, the whole over protective brother character is pretty cliche, but he was just trying to be a good brother and he was pretty fun while doing it, had a cool design and weapon, overall I liked him. Then as the game went on he never changed from that same "I'm mad so I'm gonna fight you and I don't like this guy!" thing. Like, to the point where he has repeatedly punched a fucking robot because he's angry at it. It's a robot you dipshit, it just got done explaining that it has super armor, weren't you figuring things out at the beginning?

Only other real character gripe is that Gall seems completely unnecessary. His introduction was weird and he very, very quickly fell into the background of every single cutscene, providing next to nothing for the story. Beryl is just there for the ride, but she's at least chiming in with her dumb child character responses, Gall just kinda stands there and says he's a cool cat every now and then. It's a shame because when looking at promo material for the game I though he looked awesome, like a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character in Tales, but he's so inconsequential that I've completely lost interest in him. Hopefully he'll have a big moment or something, because right now he's just kinda depressing.
 
Really? I found the Three way fight to be pretty easy, the whole game as a whole has been disappointingly easy for me so far. The combat is well designed enough that it rewards using the systems well, so I've never felt like anything was taxing those systems at all so far about 20 hours in.

Only real difficulty complaint would be the
Xeromized soldiers
since they have a ton of armor and always go for your casters, and your characters just aren't fast enough to keep up with them, even with skills and items making you faster and Kor/Shingu/whatever has next to no ranged options, so the section where you fight those guys exclusively just kinda sucked.

Also, as the game goes on I've been less willing to forgive Hisui's character. At first he was alright, the whole over protective brother character is pretty cliche, but he was just trying to be a good brother and he was pretty fun while doing it, had a cool design and weapon, overall I liked him. Then as the game went on he never changed from that same "I'm mad so I'm gonna fight you and I don't like this guy!" thing. Like, to the point where he has repeatedly punched a fucking robot because he's angry at it. It's a robot you dipshit, it just got done explaining that it has super armor, weren't you figuring things out at the beginning?

Only other real character gripe is that Gall seems completely unnecessary. His introduction was weird and he very, very quickly fell into the background of every single cutscene, providing next to nothing for the story. Beryl is just there for the ride, but she's at least chiming in with her dumb child character responses, Gall just kinda stands there and says he's a cool cat every now and then. It's a shame because when looking at promo material for the game I though he looked awesome, like a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character in Tales, but he's so inconsequential that I've completely lost interest in him. Hopefully he'll have a big moment or something, because right now he's just kinda depressing.

Agreed on Hisui, but disagree on Gall. Though, the translation isn't doing either of them any favors. So many times, the text has made it look like Hisui has said mean things (mostly to Kor/Shingu), and yet what he was saying wasn't actually aimed at Kor, but just at the situation in general.

And I really hate the beatnik thing they've decided fit Gall because the actual voiced dialog doesn't have any of that silliness.
 
Agreed on Hisui, but disagree on Gall. Though, the translation isn't doing either of them any favors. So many times, the text has made it look like Hisui has said mean things (mostly to Kor/Shingu), and yet what he was saying wasn't actually aimed at Kor, but just at the situation in general.

And I really hate the beatnik thing they've decided fit Gall because the actual voiced dialog doesn't have any of that silliness.

Most of my issues with Hisui seem to stem from the translation from what I've seen around, but his character still keeps devolving into just the angry idiot guy, which is unfortunate since he seemed like he was going to be more than that.

As for Gall, I actually really like Gall, I'm frustrated with his plot significance, since he mostly just stands around. I'd like him to have a bigger role, like, he's devoted 20 years to researching Despir and yet has surprisingly little to say on the matter.
 

Stuart444

Member
I'm also just curious, how far long in the game am I? I'm like 15 hours in at the Cathedral fight.

Also as a secondary question that is totally unrelated: That sewers area, is there another entrance to it? I saw some chests in the background that I couldn't get to (after hunting around the whole area) that I wanted to get :(. I also missed a treasure in the desert but I can always go back there later I'm sure :p )
 
Most of my issues with Hisui seem to stem from the translation from what I've seen around, but his character still keeps devolving into just the angry idiot guy, which is unfortunate since he seemed like he was going to be more than that.

As for Gall, I actually really like Gall, I'm frustrated with his plot significance, since he mostly just stands around. I'd like him to have a bigger role, like, he's devoted 20 years to researching Despir and yet has surprisingly little to say on the matter.

Ohh, plot significance. Then yeah, agreed on Gall, too. Though, you're probably further than I am.
 

Bladenic

Member
I'm also just curious, how far long in the game am I? I'm like 15 hours in at the Cathedral fight.

Also as a secondary question that is totally unrelated: That sewers area, is there another entrance to it? I saw some chests in the background that I couldn't get to (after hunting around the whole area) that I wanted to get :(. I also missed a treasure in the desert but I can always go back there later I'm sure :p )

About 35% of the story? Roughly. And yes there will be another visit there.

As for Hisui, he was flanderized from the DS version, which is unfortunate. And Gall was a new character added to the R version, and it shows.
 
In the record menu, it shows my total number of encounters are 462, so I'm a little confused as to why the Total Battles shows Kor as having been in 508 battles unless encounters and battles aren't the same thing lol.
 
A note about Gall, he wasn't actually in the DS version of Hearts (he was added to the Vita port) so that's why his plot contributions are not that large. Same deal with Patty from Vesperia and the two new characters in Innocence.

He's still my fav Hearts character though.
 

Protag

Banned
A note about Gall, he wasn't actually in the DS version of Hearts (he was added to the Vita port) so that's why his plot contributions are not that large. Same deal with Patty from Vesperia and the two new characters in Innocence.

He's still my fav Hearts character though.

Galado is very awesome, so glad the devs decided on his inclusion.
 

kewlmyc

Member
A note about Gall, he wasn't actually in the DS version of Hearts (he was added to the Vita port) so that's why his plot contributions are not that large. Same deal with Patty from Vesperia and the two new characters in Innocence.

He's still my fav Hearts character though.

He's probably my favorite as well and he's fun to play. Dual wielding FTW. Hell this is the first Tales game where I don't feel like using the main character at all. Kunzite and Gall are way too much fun to use. Kohaku and Ines are fun as well. Kor's okay, but I can't air combo with him at all. His Rising whatever attack kinda sucks, or I'm using it wrong.
 

Holmes

Member
A note about Gall, he wasn't actually in the DS version of Hearts (he was added to the Vita port) so that's why his plot contributions are not that large. Same deal with Patty from Vesperia and the two new characters in Innocence.

He's still my fav Hearts character though.
And his swimsuit is the best. Aw ye.
 

panzone

Member
what's so different between DS version and Vita version? Someone list the bullet points.

I'll try my best

- world map. The original had a world map but it only became available late into the game, up to then you traversed connected fields like Graces.
- vastly different battle system. Characters have some different and new artes, etc. Chalcedony wasn't playable, and Gall wasnt a character at all. Everyone generally had more artes in the original, some exclusive spells removed in the Vita unfortunately.
- growth system was different. Unlike this one, you chose between 3 different paths for each soma rank. Red gave you most stats, blue was a mix, and green gave you less stats but the most artes and skills. Somas didn't change appearance until the last rank, and you couldn't choose which to equip.
- some story events slightly altered. Some characters altered a bit too.
- no cooking. New mechanic called Heal Stone that could be customized to work like Graces' system (could activate in battle etc)
- obviously graphics, original was 2D
- some new bosses, other removed.

That's a basic rundown.

Also the DS version have a story dungeon that in the Vita version haven't
 
I am happy that the game has apparently not strayed that far from the original game storywise since I really like the conflict of it.

However I really would have appreciated if the game had more than a 2€ budget...it deserves it imo. Fun game so far and entertaining story.
 
Man, going into this game the one character I wasn't really interested in at all was Ines, so it's ironic that she's by far my favorite to play. She just clicked for me.
 

Bladenic

Member
I thought *cameo boss spoilers*
Hubert and Pascal were in this game as cameo bosses.

Yeah, what I meant was the original Hearts has optional bosses that hailed from other Tales games. Not characters, but enemies like this crab boss from Tales of Destiny 2.

The original had Guy as a cameo fight, but he didn't have a voice or mystic arte, it was lame.
 
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