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Tales of Graces ƒ |OT| Gracing the PS3 with the Best RPG Combat

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
Damn, I wish the OT Title was "I'm Commander Shepard and this my favorite game on the Citadel.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
welp brb killing myself

Hopefully the voices aren't cringe worthy like Arc Rise Fantasia.

I'm already dancing on the game's grave, join me
Bahahahaha.

I ended up thinking that the voicework in ARF wasn't too too too bad towards the end. Not Chaos Wars-calibre. But I do think it's incredibly unfortunate how that game was treated (vanille translation, some terms not translated, lacklustre VA) because I really liked it.

?? Add which part? SOOO CONFUSED!!
How long the Childhood Arc is.

Speaking of Graces, interesting that Asbel is pronounced with a voiced alveolar fricative as opposed to the voiceless alveolar fricative in English. I pronounced it the latter way. :O
 
Childhood Arc for normal players will probably take about 1-2 hours.

...

For some reason I spent a ridiculous amount of time in it until I realized, "Hey. You can unlock the other difficulties another time when you get more characters with better artes."

I spent a bunch of time in the Childhood Arc just trying to max out the titles there. I mean, now I realize that I could have waited to unlock the stronger difficulties to gain more SP, but that was an option.


The voices aren't bad. Sophie definitively got the flat character voice down.
 

Ties

Banned
Sophie's voice ain't half bad, I approve. And I swear I'm not the YouTube comment asking to hear Cheria pinky promise.
Damn, I wish the OT Title was "I'm Commander Shepard and this my favorite game on the Citadel.
What is this meme I see.

Well that sounds completely tolerable. I'm still so freaking amazed how unreal the releases these few upcoming months are gonna be for RPG fans.
Xenoblade coming up oh man. Can't wait!

Bahahahaha.

I ended up thinking that the voicework in ARF wasn't too too too bad towards the end. Not Chaos Wars-calibre. But I do think it's incredibly unfortunate how that game was treated (vanille translation, some terms not translated, lacklustre VA) because I really liked it.
I really enjoyed ARF. The battle system and everything were pretty above average for a JRPG and I'm a bit bitter that Xseed didn't get to localize the game as orignally planned. I got use to the voices near the end as well, but those first few hours dear god.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I spent a bunch of time in the Childhood Arc just trying to max out the titles there. I mean, now I realize that I could have waited to unlock the stronger difficulties to gain more SP, but that was an option.

The voices aren't bad. Sophie definitively got the flat character voice down.
I ended up maxing out the childhood titles too. Maxing the titles is really addictive in this game.

I unlocked all of the difficulties in (this is pretty early on in the game, but I'll tag it nonetheless)
Baronia Castle
. I was originally going to do it in Wallbridge Underground/Wallbridge until I realized that I didn't like those places. The recommended method of doing it in the Back Hill of Lhant with bottles just seemed boring to me.

Yeah, I like the English dub I heard in that video. But I usually like the VAs in the games that 8-4 localizes, so it isn't a surprise that I like 'em so far. Hope Pascal sounds okay.

Typae said:
I really enjoyed ARF. The battle system and everything were pretty above average for a JRPG and I'm a bit bitter that Xseed didn't get to localize the game as orignally planned. I got use to the voices near the end as well, but those first few hours dear god.
Definitely. The battle system and the Tetris/Lumines system for weapon development were really fun. I loved how weapons were handled in that game. I'd like to go to the alternate universe where XSEED continued to localize the game like originally planned, but oh well... We get to have a Jerry Seinfeld soundalike in the game, so that's ok.

I really want to hear Cheria's voice (both child and adult) too.
 

Aeana

Member
Bahahahaha.

I ended up thinking that the voicework in ARF wasn't too too too bad towards the end. Not Chaos Wars-calibre. But I do think it's incredibly unfortunate how that game was treated (vanille translation, some terms not translated, lacklustre VA) because I really liked it.


How long the Childhood Arc is.

Speaking of Graces, interesting that Asbel is pronounced with a voiced alveolar fricative as opposed to the voiceless alveolar fricative in English. I pronounced it the latter way. :O

I don't understand how you could not think the voices in ARF are terrible. I mean, people are incredibly over-critical of English VA, and it has been fantastic on average for many years, but ARF is just what.

As for Asbel's name, it's pronounced the same way I say it. Victory.
Oh, and I absolutely think Sophie's voice is nailed.
 

CrazyDude

Member
I ended up maxing out the childhood titles too. Maxing the titles is really addictive in this game.

I unlocked all of the difficulties in
Baronia Castle
. I was originally going to do it in Wallbridge Underground/Wallbridge until I realized that I didn't like those places. The recommended method of doing it in the Back Hill of Lhant with bottles just seemed boring to me.

Yeah, I like the English dub I heard in that video. But I usually like the VAs in the games that 8-4 localizes, so it isn't a surprise that I like 'em so far. Hope Pascal sounds okay.
Even star ocean 4? D:
 

Aeana

Member
Even star ocean 4? D:

Well, I don't think 8-4 had any input whatsoever on voices in SO4. I remember both John and Aokage saying that they were on a really tight leash with that game.
When they get much more freedom, like with Tales, Nier and BKO, they do amaazing work.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I don't understand how you could not think the voices in ARF are terrible. I mean, people are incredibly over-critical of English VA, and it has been fantastic on average for many years, but ARF is just what.

As for Asbel's name, it's pronounced the same way I say it. Victory.
Oh, and I absolutely think Sophie's voice is nailed.
Oh, I thought they were pretty awful for the first half of the game, though I didn't equate them with Chaos Wars-esque voicework. They were still pretty bad during the second half but I noticed that the voice actors generally grew into their roles as I played through it, but they still weren't that great. They're still bad, but they weren't "I want to plug my ears and turn the voicework off like in Chaos Wars" awful. Edit: You know, reading that back, it almost seems like Stockholm Syndrome since it was the only thing I had to deal with throughout playing the entire game and postgame.

As for Asbel, it's just a very very small thing so it doesn't really matter. I kinda guessed that they'd go for the voiced fricative over the voiceless fricative for simplicity.

Even star ocean 4? D:
Edit: What Aeana said. I don't think 8-4 had a ton of input on the casting there.
 
Apparently Cheria's child voice is Laura Bailey.

Oh boy, I just knew that was gonna happen. Not that I don't like her, I've just heard her play unlikable characters too much so I'm always reminded of them when I hear her. :(

I'll get over it, I hope.

Edit: I feel your pain, Dark Schala.
 
I really need to check out a video of Arc Rise Fantasia one of these days. Horrific voice acting fascinates me for some weird reason.

Oh goddammit, I could have gone without seeing that Omochao video. >.>
 
Oh boy, I just knew that was gonna happen. Not that I don't like her, I've just heard her play unlikable characters too much so I'm always reminded of them when I hear her. :(

I'll get over it, I hope.

Edit: I feel your pain, Dark Schala.

Watching Full Metal Alchemist again helps me get over her bad roles.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Now I want to know who's voicing Malik, Richard, and Hubert.
 

Volcynika

Member
It's sad to think that one video showing some of the dub has been about as much or more content of the game than Namco Bandai has shown us since the localization announcement.
 
so only asian and NA version released this month?
it is quite funny that europe has to wait, wasn't france getting first look of the english screen in japan expo tales event?
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I really need to check out a video of Arc Rise Fantasia one of these days. Horrific voice acting fascinates me for some weird reason.

Oh goddammit, I could have gone without seeing that Omochao video. >.>
Better yet, play the game because it's actually good. :D

And hey... I don't know what's worse: "I THINK THAT'S A HOMING SHOT"/"BE CAREFUL SONIC" or listening to Omochao tell you exactly what to do during battles/levels during pokecapn's LP of Generations. -_-

Aeana said:
Could be worse.
Could be Kath Soucie or Wendee Lee.
Apparently she voices Richard as a child according to her wiki?

And Kath Soucie is in everything. All of her voices blend together since she seems to do the Phil/Lil voice for a lot of things...

Spirit Icana said:
Oh boy, I just knew that was gonna happen. Not that I don't like her, I've just heard her play unlikable characters too much so I'm always reminded of them when I hear her. :(

I'll get over it, I hope.

Edit: I feel your pain, Dark Schala.
We've gotta tell ourselves that it's only going to be for 1-2 hours.
 
Xenoblade coming up oh man. Can't wait!

Seriously! To think, Xenoblade could have been another great RPG brought to us by Namco (since they owned majority of Monolith before they let Nintendo buy it up.) Considering how lukewarm they are with their Tales games though, I'm not surprised they let it go. Not that I care since we're getting both games one way or another. \(^ ^)/
 

Aeana

Member
I love how all of that's taken from, like, the first 1-3 hours of the game.

To be fair, I think Leslie's and Rastan's voices aren't bad. Rastan is probably the best voice in that game. Cecille's voice is... passable.

I watched some videos from later in the game and I'm not really hearing enough of an improvement.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I watched some videos from later in the game and I'm not really hearing enough of an improvement.
As I said, it's likely that I got used to the voices over time and ended up giving them a free pass.

With that said, I don't think they're exceedingly amazing. They're still pretty bad. They just aren't as awful as Chaos Wars' voicework, imo.

It is? I don't think I've ever heard anything about the game's quality outside of the voice acting, come to think of it.
Yeah, the 'game' part of the game is pretty good. I enjoyed it quite a bit despite the vanilla translation.
 

Aeana

Member
As I said, it's likely that I got used to the voices over time and ended up giving them a free pass.

With that said, I don't think they're exceedingly amazing. They're still pretty bad. They just aren't as awful as Chaos Wars' voicework, imo.

Well, nothing is.
 
We've gotta tell ourselves that it's only going to be for 1-2 hours.

Since she's playing the child, I'm thinking she'll be playing the older Cheria too. Good thing I haven't played ToS 2 recently. I'd be burned out on Marta by now.

Edit: Eh, I think I'm being too hard on Laura. Maybe I'll like Cheria better than Marta.
 

KingK

Member
Okay, you've misread that.

It's possible to get your stores listing above Amazon's listing at Amazon. The store currently listed over Amazon is selling the game for $42 and they only have 18 left in stock. Amazon still has god knows how many at $40.

Gamestop still has it in stock.

Walmart still has it in stock.

Ah, yeah, it seems you're right. That's really dumb that Amazon lists more expensive prices as the main price over their own.

But still, I doubt Abyss will still be in stock around Christmas this year when I might actually be able to play it.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Since she's playing the child, I'm thinking she'll be playing the older Cheria too. Good thing I haven't played ToS 2 recently. I'd be burned out on Marta by now.
Don't get me wrong. I like Laura Bailey. I just... uh, I can't help but to think of the more irritating characters she's voiced in the past few years like Omochao or Welch. I liked her as Marta, but that was at a time when I didn't hear her in a lot of stuff. I really liked her performance in Nier, but that's probably because it was different from her usual stuff.

I like using Cheria in battle manually a lot (and thus will hear her voice a lot). Problem is, I might hear 'Omochao' instead of 'Cheria'.

Are we talking about ARF? I loved that game. So good.
Severely underrated because of its lacklustre localization, imo. The battle system is great, and spell/hi-ougi synchronization is fun, and the weapon system is awesome. I had lots of fun with that game; so much so that I wanted to play it on days that weren't part of the weekend. Even postgame is fun.

It's too bad that costumes weren't visible on the in-game models.
 
sorry if this was asked but how does this rank to other tales series? high? low? in the middle?

Only ones ive played is Eternia (EU PSP version), Phantasia & Vesperia, loved them all
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death

No. It's on its own level. Rofl.

Severely underrated because of its lacklustre localization, imo. The battle system is great, and spell/hi-ougi synchronization is fun, and the weapon system is awesome. I had lots of fun with that game; so much so that I wanted to play it on days that weren't part of the weekend. Even postgame is fun.

It's too bad that costumes weren't visible on the in-game models.

I hate Bailey, I hate Bosch and ARF was really really fun if it was voiced properly. Okay, maybe hate is a strong word. I'm just sick of it.
 
Don't get me wrong. I like Laura Bailey. I just... uh, I can't help but to think of the more irritating characters she's voiced in the past few years like Omochao or Welch. I liked her as Marta, but that was at a time when I didn't hear her in a lot of stuff. I really liked her performance in Nier, but that's probably because it was different from her usual stuff.

Marta was the first time I ever heard Laura. I thought the voice was fine, I just wish my first impression with Mrs. Bailey was with another character, though Marta grew on me by the end of the game.

I like Laura Bailey too. I can't really nail down what it is that's bothering me so much about her though, so I'll put it this way: I would've preferred someone else played Cheria.

But we'll get used to it right? We've endured ARF, so this shouldn't be a problem. Besides, Laura is a pretty good voice actress.
 
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