Maybe it was the case of both game's budgets being applied in different ways? I guess that with DotNW they were allowed to be more experimental with this sort of stuff since they had many assets ready from Abyss/Symphonia, plus they didn't have to worry about a completely new world map, HD resolutions, etc. Sure would be nice if both games used it though.
Maybe it was the case of both game's budgets being applied in different ways? I guess that with DotNW they were allowed to be more experimental with this sort of stuff since they had many assets ready from Abyss/Symphonia, plus they didn't have to worry about a completely new world map, HD resolutions, etc. Sure would be nice if both games used it though.
Would be pretty funny if their next main Tales title didn't have the budget necessary to do such things. Now that I think about it, the fight scenes we did see cutscene wise for Vesperia seemed a bit stiff didn't they?
The first trailer? showing Flynn fighting against Yuri. Looking at Rita's really nice animations they better keyframe some other amazing shit for the games better cutscenes.
Just to sum up a bit of what I've seen (while trying not to spoil events):
-Load times are a bit long (I didn't keep count of the videos I've seen for this, but it seems longer than Symphonia/Vesperia's, but a bit shorter than Abyss')
-The monster system doesn't seem that bad. I've seen a lot of people making use of them too.
-Animations are very nice and add a lot to the game's cutscenes.
-I've heard the game was about 30 hours. Now, mind you, this is from people that blew through the story. I'm guessing it's the usual 40 or 50 the series usually has if you take your time.
-Seems to be a lot of minigames and sidequests. Marta even gets a "pettanko" (flat-chested) title. :lol
-Along with the sidequests, seems a fair number of titles are also there.
-Controls take a bit of getting used to, but it seems to be pretty simple.
-A lot of people find the new characters pretty enjoyable.
-Story's actually pretty serious and doesn't seem to "disgrace" the previous game.
-Emil's pretty fun to use (though from what I've seen of the beginning of the game things start out pretty slow).
-There's a lot of skits and Tenebrae's apparently pretty funny.
-Item synthesis is really useful.
-There's a lot of remixed versions of old tracks, but they're good.
Though I guess a lot of this could've just been figured out by seeing videos, but I guess a lot of them had spoilers.
I don't think anyone's found any costumes or a cameo battle yet, but now that a few people (mostly those that got the game early) have finished the game, I'm pretty sure people are searching the game for all the various sidequests. So we'll probably know if any of that's here pretty soon.
I also haven't seen any animated cutscenes, no idea if no one's posting them or they're all ingame stuff, but the animation and the important cutscenes moving automatically (no need to press any buttons and all that) seems to make up for it at least.
Basically, from what I've seen, it's at least a pretty solid game overall.
Just to sum up a bit of what I've seen (while trying not to spoil events):
-Load times are a bit long (I didn't keep count of the videos I've seen for this, but it seems longer than Symphonia/Vesperia's, but a bit shorter than Abyss')
-The monster system doesn't seem that bad. I've seen a lot of people making use of them too.
-Animations are very nice and add a lot to the game's cutscenes.
-I've heard the game was about 30 hours. Now, mind you, this is from people that blew through the story. I'm guessing it's the usual 40 or 50 the series usually has if you take your time.
-Seems to be a lot of minigames and sidequests. Marta even gets a "pettanko" (flat-chested) title. :lol
-Along with the sidequests, seems a fair number of titles are also there.
-Controls take a bit of getting used to, but it seems to be pretty simple.
-A lot of people find the new characters pretty enjoyable.
-Story's actually pretty serious and doesn't seem to "disgrace" the previous game.
-Emil's pretty fun to use (though from what I've seen of the beginning of the game things start out pretty slow).
-There's a lot of skits and Tenebrae's apparently pretty funny.
-Item synthesis is really useful.
-There's a lot of remixed versions of old tracks, but they're good.
Though I guess a lot of this could've just been figured out by seeing videos, but I guess a lot of them had spoilers.
I don't think anyone's found any costumes or a cameo battle yet, but now that a few people (mostly those that got the game early) have finished the game, I'm pretty sure people are searching the game for all the various sidequests. So we'll probably know if any of that's here pretty soon.
I also haven't seen any animated cutscenes, no idea if no one's posting them or they're all ingame stuff, but the animation and the important cutscenes moving automatically (no need to press any buttons and all that) seems to make up for it at least.
Basically, from what I've seen, it's at least a pretty solid game overall.
This is great, all I ever wanted, especially after seeing the first screens. It felt like Namco went "shit, the Wii is selling", and put some (real) effort into it.
The first hour of this game is by far THE WORST first hour of any rpg. Hell it's a good deal worse than Suikoden V's first hour.
It picks up a little after that. I'd say it's almost at Tales of the Tempest level of fun. Should be there soon. Definitely starts out far below Tempest and the worst Tales game to date though.
The main culprit is that it's obviously catered to the I HAVE NEVER TOUCHED A VIDEOGAME IN MY LIFE, HOW DO I PRESS THE START!?!? crowd (which Namco thinks is the Wii Casual audience), which explains the horrrrible tutorials you're forced to continually sit through.
The first hour of this game is by far THE WORST first hour of any rpg. Hell it's a good deal worse than Suikoden V's first hour.
It picks up a little after that. I'd say it's almost at Tales of the Tempest level of fun. Should be there soon. Definitely starts out far below Tempest and the worst Tales game to date though.
The main culprit is that it's obviously catered to the I HAVE NEVER TOUCHED A VIDEOGAME IN MY LIFE, HOW DO I PRESS THE START!?!? crowd (which Namco thinks is the Wii Casual audience), which explains the horrrrible tutorials you're forced to continually sit through.
It's funny, because Nintendo told them not to make the game casual.
Anyway, I've yet to find an RPG with a good first couple of hours, so I doubt this will bug me much.
The first hour of this game is by far THE WORST first hour of any rpg. Hell it's a good deal worse than Suikoden V's first hour.
It picks up a little after that. I'd say it's almost at Tales of the Tempest level of fun. Should be there soon. Definitely starts out far below Tempest and the worst Tales game to date though.
The main culprit is that it's obviously catered to the I HAVE NEVER TOUCHED A VIDEOGAME IN MY LIFE, HOW DO I PRESS THE START!?!? crowd (which Namco thinks is the Wii Casual audience), which explains the horrrrible tutorials you're forced to continually sit through.
On the one hand, Star Ocean 2 currently has (far and away) my least favorite "first hour" of an RPG and that turned out to be my favorite action RPG. On the other, SO2's post-game content didn't involve replaying to get things that players missed the first time, so a bad first hour for ToS: DotNW is going to hurt significantly more. Unless it's skippable on replay, of course, but I'm not exactly holding out hope for that.
Oh well. I put up with solving the same puzzles repeatedly in Symphonia.
Rpgmonkey said:
-Seems to be a lot of minigames and sidequests. Marta even gets a "pettanko" (flat-chested) title. :lol
Game definitely gets better after you get through all the tutorials. Wish the loading wasn't near Abyss-length though. That was tolerable 3+ years ago. Now it just irks.
Battle system is pretty limited at the start. AI settings are VERY limited at the start. Can't even set the monsters to attack the same enemy as you >_<
Game definitely gets better after you get through all the tutorials. Wish the loading wasn't near Abyss-length though. That was tolerable 3+ years ago. Now it just irks.
Battle system is pretty limited at the start. AI settings are VERY limited at the start. Can't even set the monsters to attack the same enemy as you >_<
Finished transcribing so here's the staff list. Please note that I only include Romanization in cases where some official Romanization is known, to avoid the pitfall of multiple readings. I guess I should be able to fully Romanize it once the game is out in the West.
Noteworthy is that on the Tales Studio side besides all the new staff there are also plenty graphic artists from Team Destiny (not yet Romanized as no Team Destiny game ever made it to the West).
I've tried the game and the animations are very good, it also use motion capture for the dialog. The graphics is not bad: good texture, good models, good environments, good effects and good frame rate. Only the colors are too faded...
I think that the graphics engine is the same of Abyss...Also the style of characters looks very similar.
I've tried the game and the animations are very good, it also use motion capture for the dialog. The graphics is not bad: good texture, good models, good environments, good effects and good frame rate. Only the colors are too faded...
I think that the graphics engine is the same of Abyss...Also the style of characters looks very similar.
Animations are good. But don't go in for the graphics. They are nowhere near Abyss or even Symphonia level. You can tell this was made by some random dudes on a low budget and not a Tales team.
The best part is 60fps, 480p. The worst part is empty looking everything, weak character models, simple effects, plain art. Looks like an early PS2 rpg.
That's not at all what the staff list I linked above is reflecting. One needs to keep in mind that apparently the game had a development time of only around a year until they decided that it's a little more than a mere spinoff and released it this summer instead last financial year as initially planned when it was announced.
That's not at all what the staff list I linked above is reflecting. One needs to keep in mind that apparently the game had a development time of only around a year until they decided that it's a little more than a mere spinoff and released it this summer instead last financial year as initially planned when it was announced.
Just curious. How come you are always so on top of everything regarding the terms "Tales" and "staff". I'll just throw this out there then - are both Sakuraba and Tamura composing Dawn of the New World and Vesperia?
That's not at all what the staff list I linked above is reflecting. One needs to keep in mind that apparently the game had a development time of only around a year until they decided that it's a little more than a mere spinoff and released it this summer instead last financial year as initially planned when it was announced.
I just watched those and nothing seemed very spoiler-ific. I'm going to have to stop watching videos though as some stuff was spoiled for me where I didn't expect it
Game looks freakin' hot, though. To hell with the expectations that were lain down, I'm actually more interested in this than Vesperia as of now.
It's late and I got work tomorrow, but put in about 2-3 hours. Definitely loving it, and the monster system was a lot more than I bargained for. Hopefully can toss in more thoughts later. But it feels good to play a console tales game again.
It's late and I got work tomorrow, but put in about 2-3 hours. Definitely loving it, and the monster system was a lot more than I bargained for. Hopefully can toss in more thoughts later. But it feels good to play a console tales game again.
I just try to keep up with with any staff info I can easily get. As I don't have any talkative inside source this and logic are the next best tools I have for keeping the official site up to date. (Back when I started doing this I didn't even believe that Sakuraba was involved in the Tales series all along past ToP SFC. <_<)
I'll just throw this out there then - are both Sakuraba and Tamura composing Dawn of the New World and Vesperia?
As for Dawn of the New World just look at the staff list, the staff roll movie is already findable on niconico even. As for Vesperia one can "only" do educated guesses, but based on the tracks available in the demo I'd say Sakuraba (field, battle and boss music) and Tamura (comedic danger music) are definitely involved.
Jarrod said:
Just wanted to say awesome site btw... I had no clue before that Neverland and MediaVision were at all descended from/related to the Telenet groups.
Thanks. There are actually tons more connections, many are just hard to confirm due to the lack of easily available game staff lists. Years ago there was an effort on 2ch outlining all those connections, they all turned out to be correct where verifyable.
I played a few hours last night. I never progressed far into the story but I'm enjoying it so far. The battle system doesn't seem like too much a departure from any of the previous iterations (though I do find it easier to stack combos and juggle enemies). The controls are also quite comfortable (in case anyone was wondering. Though I did find it pointless for them to add the option of guiding the character with the Wiimote.
The monster/evolution capture system is a nice addition. However, for the most part
class changes are merely palette-swaps whereas specific monsters will get a noticeable change in appearance and boost as well as some additional attacks. The chain of evolution will be in tiers like I originally thought.
Even though you can't control the monsters they know how to hold their own.
[not-detrimental-to-gameplay]
Graphic wise, not particularly great. There are lots of muddy textures competing with each other for muddy supremacy. The models are quite weak, though the mo-cap sequences and facial expressions give them a lot of personality* Locales look quite a bit nicer than they did in ToS. That said, I don't play tales games for the graphics.[/not-detrimental-to-gameplay] Some may not mind the exclusion of the world map but that leaves grinders with one less option of power-leveling
katz missions and main dungeons being the only two at the moment
. Then again grinding in this game is quite a pain when battle transitions take a few moments (as with Abyss)
*Note: (because someone asked me earlier) No, not all sequences are mo-capped. Only scenes that are crucial to the storyline receive that treatment, a few end-battle sequences/cut-ins. Otherwise, it's like any other tales game.
The music is awesome (from what I've played thus far). Themes from both Symphonia and Phantasia with melodic variations.
Anyway, great game so far. Id recommend it any fan of the series or jrpg player in general. I'm going to go pour a few more hours into the game right now see what else I can find out.
I can't wait to start seeing vids for Hi-ougis in Tales of Vesperia, but maybe I prob shouldn't spoil the surprise of what they are like since the game is so close to release.
Thanks for the impressions Ryuuga. I assume they're probably going to perform mo-cap or better keyframed animations for important story scenes in Tales of V as well, but if not, I wont mind too much.
From what I've read, Emil & Regal (woot!) are the only ones that are currently confirmed to have more than one outfit. Emil's outfit change is dictated by story. I haven't been able to find out how to change Regal's, though I read somewhere that in may be random. (?)
It seems they made enemies way too easy to stagger and didn't even make it so they have some way of breaking out of the combo once it goes on long enough.
Usually it takes a little while for someone to reach the max number (or some other absurdly high number), this was done only two days after the game released. No idea if I should be impressed or disappointed to hear this.
It seems they made enemies way too easy to stagger and didn't even make it so they have some way of breaking out of the combo once it goes on long enough.
Usually it takes a little while for someone to reach the max number (or some other absurdly high number), this was done only two days after the game released. No idea if I should be impressed or disappointed to hear this.
