Splash Wave
Member
What's the trick to getting longer combos?
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Public Announcement: Tales of the Abyss 3DS is out today
- Thread starter Relix
- Start date
In Semi-Auto you automatically move into range and face the target when you press attack, you block automatically, and you have to press block+up to jump. I prefer Manual because I don't like pressing block+up and I can control my distance from the enemy when attacking a bit better. Automatic blocking can be helpful too so go with whatever you like.
Sometimes it's as simple as stopping your own combo when another character starts hitting the enemy with their own attack so you have time to recover and start a new combo. One trick is activating overlimit when your combo is about to end, then immediately hit them with a Mystic Arte before they get up (at which point the combo counter would have disappeared).
Another little trick is you can chain the same Strike Arte twice in a row if the second time activates a FoF Change. For example, say it's early in the game and Guy doesn't have any Arcane Artes yet, but Jade has Splash. Do a three-hit combo with Guy and link it to Crescent Strike, timing it so that Crescent Strike hits just before the Water FoF from Splash appears. You can link that Crescent Strike right into Frigid Moon.
In fact, I'm not sure, but I suspect you can always link into an Arte that can be FoF Changed if the field appears at your feet. For example a Slag Assault -> Rending Thrust -> Devil's Maw combo might be possible with Super Chain. Slag Assault makes the FoF, Rending Thrust moves Luke forward into it, Devil's Inferno FoF Changes with a Sunlight Chamber. Normally this wouldn't be possible because Slag Assault and Devil's Inferno are both Arcane Artes. Sadly I didn't get around to trying many of Luke's combos on my PS2 version run years ago.
I was thinking about picking this up, but I'd rather wait for a deal on it. Best Buy is sold out or I would've got it through the tiered discount through Nintendo Zone. My Best Buy was pretty much sold out of every 3DS game and every Best Buy around me has it on backorder.
Anyone know if they're going to restock it? My gamestops have it... but I'd rather not venture there. (unless it's a good deal)
Anyone know if they're going to restock it? My gamestops have it... but I'd rather not venture there. (unless it's a good deal)
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Incitemaybe
Member
I was wondering if anyone knows what those little circles are on the ground during battles. At first I thought they were items you could pick up but I haven't found any way to interact with them. The manual has been no help either......
Edit: Wow, nevermind, I actually just hit the part in the game that explains FOF. Haha
Edit: Wow, nevermind, I actually just hit the part in the game that explains FOF. Haha
Mr. Bubble
Member
Had to restart a new game after my 11 hours on my first save. Realized I missed a sidequest with a very short opportunity window. Sigh.
Getting through the beginning is actually fast if all cutscenes and skits are skipped.
Getting through the beginning is actually fast if all cutscenes and skits are skipped.
chickdigger802
Banned
lol. 100%ers for rpgs. I feel sorry for you =)
I grew out of that phase and feel so free!
Why would you do that?
Member
Nice combo tips.
I always get annoyed when I work with the cpu players, time the hits right, get 14, 15, 16, 17 combo, but the cpu players just stand there at the end, watching the enemy fall. I can totally see doing infinite combos with a 2nd human player.
I always get annoyed when I work with the cpu players, time the hits right, get 14, 15, 16, 17 combo, but the cpu players just stand there at the end, watching the enemy fall. I can totally see doing infinite combos with a 2nd human player.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Can you turn off the voice acting in this version? Because I don't want to hear Yuri Lowenthal screaming at my face for so many hours and such.
Yes, in the config menu you can change the volume of the music, sound effects, and voices. Just crank voices down to 0.
MaxwellGT2000
Member
Got myself a review copy on the 13th but because of work I picked it up from my post office late and wasn't able to start on it till today, gotta say I'm liking much more than Tekken 3D, but I was playing it side by side with the PS2 version and saw some odd inconsistencies between the two.
They made a poem for the back of the candy box
And finally me playing the two versions side by side
They made a poem for the back of the candy box
And finally me playing the two versions side by side
chickdigger802
Banned
Got myself a review copy on the 13th but because of work I picked it up from my post office late and wasn't able to start on it till today, gotta say I'm liking much more than Tekken 3D, but I was playing it side by side with the PS2 version and saw some odd inconsistencies between the two.
They made a poem for the back of the candy box
And finally me playing the two versions side by side
ewww don't stretch 4:3 games!!!!!
Agreed.... although in this case it could be argued as some sort of experiment, given the 3DS is widescreen AND expanded rather than cropped.
MaxwellGT2000
Member
Yeah not my TV since I was doing this over at a friends, he has his TV set up in some odd ways... took him seeing my crisp monitor just for him to fix his colors, but he had the copy of the PS2 game so what's a guy to do when he wants to have a proper comparison?
There's still the issue of FPS in battle, higher resolution, and personally I thought the game looked washed out on my 3DS compared to the TV. If loading weren't an issue the only reason to get TotA on 3DS when you already have it on PS2 would be portability, and if the loading doesn't bother you then may as well pass.
EDIT: I'm not even sure why this went to the prior page when I clearly looked in this thread. Well, still worth posting.
twisteddeeds
Member
I done the same thing, and probably exactly the same side quest lol its actually suprising how quicker you can be skipping all of the stuff..
Though doing this kind of thing is one of my ocd moments in rpg gaming over the years
The overworld runs better and I remember the PS2 version looking more washed out.
But yeah, no need to get this if you own the PS2 version... it's a port, after all. The loading is a huge deal for me though. Five second load times after each battle on the overworld, constant long load times going from screen to screen in the same town or dungeon... ugh.
It probably IS dependent on the TV, but given you can actually change settings on a TV and whatnot I'd give the nod to PS2 there. And the overworld DOES run better, but I had hoped it'd be closer to perfect than it actually is. And if nothing else they could've sped up the rate L/R spin the map around.
I picked this up a few days ago. It's cool that it exists and all (especially as I only played TotA PS2 on a borrowed copy, and never managed to snag my own), and I like the 3D effect better than most other 3DS games I've played (other than the really horrible aliasing), but goddamnit if Vesperia didn't totally spoil me in terms of gameplay.
The scaling of enemy stats between difficulty modes is just absurd. If you play the game on normal, it's a snoozefest cakewalk, but if you turn it up to Hard, enemy defense shoots through the roof and you basically have to grind out enough money to afford an equipment upgrade every town, or else get used to dealing single-digit damage to any enemy that's even slightly more powerful than the average. And the party AI options don't seem to be as good as Vesperia (which was kind of bad to begin with) about setting options that make your companions just fuck off and run away while you exploit free-run to deal with the bad guys - the alternative being just healing your way through all the damage, which means that Tear's shitty First Aids leave her drained inside of 2-3 standard encounters. And with nothing like Vesperia's Fatal Strikes (and no early-game secondary healer to take the pressure off), there aren't really any options that let you end an encounter early through skillful play instead of just beating down an enemy until they run out of HP, and hoping that your party has more endurance than the enemy.
I can't really complain too much, since it's not like any of this is really a surprise, but I forgot how off-balance the difficulty settings felt.
The scaling of enemy stats between difficulty modes is just absurd. If you play the game on normal, it's a snoozefest cakewalk, but if you turn it up to Hard, enemy defense shoots through the roof and you basically have to grind out enough money to afford an equipment upgrade every town, or else get used to dealing single-digit damage to any enemy that's even slightly more powerful than the average. And the party AI options don't seem to be as good as Vesperia (which was kind of bad to begin with) about setting options that make your companions just fuck off and run away while you exploit free-run to deal with the bad guys - the alternative being just healing your way through all the damage, which means that Tear's shitty First Aids leave her drained inside of 2-3 standard encounters. And with nothing like Vesperia's Fatal Strikes (and no early-game secondary healer to take the pressure off), there aren't really any options that let you end an encounter early through skillful play instead of just beating down an enemy until they run out of HP, and hoping that your party has more endurance than the enemy.
I can't really complain too much, since it's not like any of this is really a surprise, but I forgot how off-balance the difficulty settings felt.
Set position to farthest left, Artes only, disable all melee Artes. For Tear enable Pow Hammer so she has something to use when everyone's healed. Now there you go, nobody will approach the enemy unless they're out of TP.
IMO Abyss's AI is better than Vesperia's solely because the computer physical attackers will do more than one normal attack or Arte at a time.
Fatal Strikes don't really encourage skillful play as much as they encourage memorization and spamming one type of move.
To me the whole point of random battles is to experiment with your Artes, AD Skills, combos, and strategies, so I just switch to Normal for them.
chickdigger802
Banned
hmmm I always found the difficulty to be pretty good in this game (unless you really want to abuse free run). Taking on boss fights with multiple enemies is pretty tough without some planning (first arietta fight killed me even though I remember it being tough on ps2 lol).
airmangataosenai
Member
I always feel sad how this game was overlooked back in the day due to mediocre reviews. What does it take for a JRPG to score 9's in this day and age?
It sold decently for a RPG with no advertising that was released two weeks before Final Fantasy XII. The PS2 version managed to sell 71,670 copies.
Q
qizah
Unconfirmed Member
About 14 hours in, the story is getting really interesting. I'm really liking it a lot so far - it makes me more interested in the series in general. I think I'm going to take a stab at Vesperia afterwards.
Incitemaybe
Member
Can someone explain a bit about FOF to me or point me somewhere that will explain how it works? After getting the brief in game explanation I have never been able to pull it off even once, and I just got my ass handed to me by Gloomietta
I keep reading how easy it is to spam the free run but the monsters just chase me around and everyone ends up dying.
I keep reading how easy it is to spam the free run but the monsters just chase me around and everyone ends up dying.
By being a fuck tonne better than TotA?
I did a quick review for the game over in the OT. I felt it was only worth a 3/5, myself.
Can someone explain a bit about FOF to me or point me somewhere that will explain how it works? After getting the brief in game explanation I have never been able to pull it off even once, and I just got my ass handed to me by Gloomietta
Watch this
And they get easier to pull off once you get higher level spells.
Incitemaybe
Member
Awesome! Thank you.
Find places where there should be real depth, and try closing one eye then switching the other and see how much things actually shift relative to how far they are from the camera. At best it does an acceptable job in cutscenes and makes text boxes pop up if you like that, but there's several opportunities for wow factor that are ignored (battle transition) then areas like the flower field at night near the start of the game and a tree top view in one of the early towns lack the depth they should have. Whether you like the effect anyway or not it's definitely not utilized as well as it could've been.
Splash Wave
Member
I think this game is dumb as hell (for the most part), but I'm really enjoying the experience.
.
However, I'm finding Luke's fear of killing people and Jade's relative indifference to human life to be an interesting dynamic
Splash Wave
Member
Much obliged. Is intricate knowledge of the combo system even necessary, though? The battles are usually over so fast that I never have time to try anything interesting.
edit: nvm
TheyTookOurJobs
Member
I'm having trouble and getting trounced by the 2nd set of bosses. That girl at the top of the haunted castle with her animal buddies wipes me out every time! Any tips? I'm lvl 11, do I need to grind?
Can you explain what you mean by inconsistencies between the two? Are you just talking about experiencing firsthand the stuff that's already known, like 30 FPS in battle and seemingly increased jaggies, or something else entirely?
The boss fights with multiple enemies are always the toughest in Tales games.
Take out Arietta or the Liger first. Arietta can cast Limited and Negative Gate and the Liger is fast and pretty strong. Arietta will turn to face whoever she's targeting when she starts casting a spell, so if she faces you, be ready to dodge with Free Run in a few seconds. Once you take down one of them the battle will get much easier.
QUOTE=Billychu;35390849]How does cooking work? I think I assigned Luke and Tear to make Spaghetti but I'm not really sure...[/QUOTE]
To cook, you need the necessary ingredients for that recipe. When you cook something its effects are immediately applied to the party.
Go to the Cooking menu, and select who will cook and what will be cooked, then press X to cook it.
Press d-pad down twice to set touch screen shortcuts so you can cook on the battle results screen.
The problem with the AI is twofold: 1) They really don't stay out of melee range, even if you set them up that way. Jade, with full TP, with all of his spells enabled, set to the far left on the Strategy screen, with Fonic Artes as his Action, will often begin a fight with, for instance, a Sword Dancer, by running up from the back line and using his normal attack for three damage before he gets one-shotted. Tear, when left to her own devices, will run into melee range and then use Pow Hammer. And 2) Frankly, I need them to stay out of melee range when they don't have TP. Running away from enemies and doing nothing at all contributes more to the party than running into melee range to deal one damage, and soaking up all of the healers' time and TP.
The AI in this game is really, really bad. It's pretty pathetic when the easiest way to beat Arietta on Hard is to just let your party die and then stay dead, while you control Guy and run around sneaking one combo at a time on her monsters until they're dead. Followed by soloing Arietta despite the fact that her Physical Defense is so high that your attacks deal 1-3 damage each, and she has 4500 HP.
Definitely disagree on Fatal Strikes. The quickest way to fill the meters was not to spam one attack over and over again, but to be familiar with which colour worked best on each monster type, and to coordinate quick combos with your whole party. Ultimately, though, it gave you an alternate method to defeating enemies besides simply brute-forcing through all their HP and defense. Against some enemies it was more convenient than simply beating them down, and against some enemies it was less, and part of learning the game was finding out which did which - similar to MP Kills in Star Ocean 3.
And yeah, you probably wouldn't notice if Hard Mode is out of whack if you're only turning it on for boss fights. The more important aspect of it is that it gives the standard encounters fangs, such that they are a continuous drain on the player's limited resources (namely, HP/TP/consumable items). It's pretty easy to get through just the boss fights on Hard, since playing the standard encounters on Normal leaves you flush with cash and easily able to buy all the equipment upgrades available, plus keep yourself fully stocked on Gels and Life Bottles (which you don't typically have to use during the actual dungeons).
It's just an awkward experience - Normal mode makes the game boring, and Hard Mode too often skirts the line between 'a good, solid challenge' and 'a pain in the ass without actually being more difficult'. Hopefully at least the ridiculous stat scaling will come back under control once I'm further into the game - the Sword Dancer immediately after Arietta was much more in line with what the game should be like on Hard.
They really do stay out of melee range. Do what I said and set them to Artes Only, NOT Fonic Artes. Read the description again. It says "use MOSTLY Fonic Artes." If they rush to the Sword Dancer at the beginning of the fight you probably didn't change to your boss strategy right away. I don't know by what magic your Tear runs into melee range and uses Pow Hammer either, she NEVER does that for me for the simple reason that Pow Hammer has no range limit.
If you don't feel like keeping up your caster's TP (why would you do this? Casters do the best damage) up have a separate command that sets them to Guard.
One type of attack. Four up-direction standard attacks, Shining Fang, Shining Dragon Swarm, wham. Against bosses you just want to go into overlimit and spam one move throughout so you can get the most FS Chains before the FS. The only other element to it was memorizing what attacks were which direction and memorizing what type each monster was and what direction that type is weak to. They sure looked cool but you said they encouraged skillful play and I disagree.
Uh... not really. I got Game Over around five times on the Sync and Largo fight yesterday. Blasted Largo and his long reach and spinning fire attack... besides, I'm still not seeing the big problem with switching to Normal for random battles. In fact I don't see why you would switch to Hard for random battles at all. If I'm exploring a dungeon, solving puzzles, and trying to get somewhere on the world map, tough enemy encounters are just a nuisance to me.
Also, random funny note, you said Tear's First Aid sucks but actually it and Heal are the best healing spells in the game.
So how long is Abyss anyways? I didn't get this far in the PS2 version so I can't say, though I'm guessing I'm at about the half-way point. 20 hours in and -
.
Got to Chesedonia for the third time, the reveal from Mohs that Natalia apparently isn't the actual princess, followed by a quick visit with Asch at the Oasis before heading off to the Zao Ruins
chickdigger802
Banned
50 hours is a safe answer. Give or take 10 hours up or down.
pretty much typical ps2 jrpg length. Which is still a bit mind blowing for me. P3P might be the only other ps2 jrpg on portable and that had compromises.
wait... so where the mana khemia or w/e games... anyhow, mainline tales game on 3ds while vita gets a 'remake' of a shitty ds game.
You really can't predict Bamco at all huh?
MaxwellGT2000
Member
Lots of the details, some textures are changed, in that picture I provided I know you can't tell but the wood texture in the back was changed completely to something less detailed on the 3DS version, the lamp in the cart, in the PS2 version it's rounded (okay it has edges but it was obviously trying to be round) while the 3DS version has fewer polygons which turns the lamp into a square, and lastly in the first town/area, the 3DS version is missing pedals floating in the air and swaying grass/corn stalks.
Just a lot of the little details are missing or textures look fairly blurry, I could forgive the lower detailed textures given how the larger cards would make an already small budget/small market game less profitable, but taking out effect details all together knowing full well the 3DS can handle them and they work really well with the 3D effect (like Namcos own Ridge Racer 3D). I feel if you're going to do all that work changing geometry/textures why not rework the simple effects you've already laid out in the original...
/off soapbox
Don't let that push you away from the game though, still works really well, if I wasn't playing it side by side I probably wouldn't have cared at all, and well... it's a really good JRPG.
Second this.
I got to the cave with wind switches and what not, and it's very hard to tell if a switch was on because the light torch thing was so tiny on the 3DS screen. I don't think a lot of thought went into this port, other than super brief load time.
Still a good game nonetheless.
Q
qizah
Unconfirmed Member
There was a problem with the text?
Urban Scholar
Member
Finally had the time to play this. And just like that... 40 minutes were sucked off my life. Sound is a bit low, and the 3D effect tame but I am keeping it on as I am a sucker for that. Video Compression is awful though, and sound compression isn't bothering me. Textures generally look blurry but I don't mind. Its Tales! !
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