Buy Tales of Zestiria

I tried for over 28 hours, and I still don't understand the fighting system. I'm not a smart man, but I know what overly complicated is. I've played hundreds of games in my life, and none have made me feel so Gumpy. There are a ton of explanations on every aspect of the game, but there's so much to take in that it all just kind of jumbles together and confuses the hell out of me.

I can't say that I don't recommend it. Just be aware that when it comes to learning curves, this is not just a curve, but sets a completely new standard. Even online, I've seen multiple people complaining at how complicated the fighting system is and the detractors simply say, "Mash buttons!" ... Ummm... nope.

Aside from this crazy fighting system, the game itself is flawless. You have wide open spaces, big towns, tons of dialogue, and good fun. I do get the sense that I'm simply missing something and if I could just hang in there, I'd be rewarded with an awesome game with great mechanics, but I just can't keep playing something that I feel like I have no real control over, other than mashing buttons. I'll likely keep it installed and keep trying to figure this mess of a fighting system out, but I don't have any real high hopes. It seems like one of those games where you just keep replaying a boss and you'll end up luck killing them eventually.

First of all, okay, I didn't finish the game, but I played quite a lot.
As somewhat a fan of the "Tales of" series (I played Tales of The Abyss (3DS), Symphonia Chronicles (for PS3), Xillia, Xillia 2, both for PS3 too), I can say that the fans of it will like this game to. I think people who like J-RPGs in general will like it.

It's not the game I liked the most of the series (I think the Xillia ones are my favs), but how can you not love "Tales of"? ♥
Okay, if you don't like "slow" games (a lot of story, I mean A LOT), neither the ones with some puzzles and repeteable things, and only play action games... This game is absolutely NOT for you. Seriously, you'll waste your money, time and will give Zestiria a negative review. DON'T DO THAT! </3

But for J-RPGs' fans, I recommend that you see some gameplay/walkthrough/stream/etc. to see if you'll like it. Not the best of the stories, but quite enjoyable and will be loved by this genre fans. Even more if you are an avid fan like me, who can't get a lot of game and envy Japanese people who can have a lot and before us. Seriously, let's all move there? I'm being serious here, Tales of Berseria will be released soon and I REALLY WANT TO PLAY IT. Anyone with meeeeee?

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-Plays for 19+ hours after two days.
-Finds a Shiba Ino tail, but never reads the description.
-Reads the description, and figures out that its a reference to a meme.
-Gets a couple laughs before realizing how stupid it is.
-Continues.
10/10
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Great game now that it runs at 60fps

On sale or not, this game is worth buying. The world is enormous, a lot of DIFFERENT enemies, i`ll say it agin, DIFFERENT. For every ruin, forest, desert, town, etc.= different enemies. It has a great and very LONG story. I played it for about 19 hrs, and it feels like I barely scratched the surface of it. t`s one of the best single-player games I have played in a long time. It has a variety of normal, special attacks and combos, wheather you are armatized (fused with a Seraphim) or not. You can put together your own tactics for every ally you get. You can tell them to charge forward, to lay back, or to use range attacks. You can power-up attack damage, defense speed etc. for yourself and you allies by collecting plants. I can guarantee you that you won`t be bored after a couple of hours, because the story is so good you won`t be able to wait until the next time you play it.

P.S. 60 FPS. Need I say any more?

100/10

A beautiful installment into the 'Tales of' series that follows the adventures of young explorers Sorey and Mikleo.

This game leaves an exquisite mark on JRPGs and third-person explorers, as the artstyle and combat system has vastly been improved in this game, and the story line, although slightly odd at some points, is definitely not predictable; and unique in its own way. If you're a fan of the 'Tales of' series, or JRPGs with attractive soundtracks and deep combat systems, then Tales of Zestiria is for you.

7/10; But with the DLC attempting to fix Alisha's lack of development, 8/10.

gonna review the game after i finish it but for now here are some troubleshooting for common problems (i didn't encounter any of them)

1. Screen tearing: Force v-sync through nvidia/amd control panel
2. Audio issue: Set audio frequency to 48khz or below, 98khz will give you the problem
3. AVG issue: AVG is detecting false positive for Zestiria files, put the game folder to whitelist
4. Crash issue: switch to Windows sound Config or take off your headphones
5. No voice when character speak: turn the audio to stereo not surround and it should work.
6. Rebinding keys doesn't work: try restarting the game after rebinding.

don't rush into refunding, try those fixes for now till the devs patch the game soon.

We Need more JRPGs on Steam. Please.

You can put a cat on your head.


Edit:
Due to certain induviduals expressing their displeasure with my review, and probably many others as can be seen from one out of every 4 people finding it not helpful in any way, i have decided to expand upon this comment on the game, and give my true opinion.

This was my first tales game. I have long been a fan of RPGs, mostly in the form of final fantasies, but i have never found the oppurtunity to play from the tales series, mostly due to the lack of them on PC.

While this may be common knowledge to some, it will not be to all. To start off, i will talk about the battle system. To be honest, i found it very confusing at first. It's all real time fighting, and everything is based off of combinations of clicks and certain keyboard keys. you use your left click for basic attacks, and your right click for attacks such as special techniques or spells. later, after learning more abilites, you will be able to set certain skills to different combinations of buttons. for instance; right+mouse button = a move, left+mouse button = a different move. when you get the hang of what keys to press for what move, you will have a LOT more fun. It's simply learning the games mechanics. While this takes time, when you learn how, you will have an amazing experience exploiting weaknesses and finding cool technique combos.

Combat summary - difficult at first, but very fun when you learn how to use your techniques well. Doesn't take a lot of time, but be prepared to learn new things. 8.5/10

Now, we come to the equipment and skills it comes with. Each piece of equipment you find in either a chest or an enemy drop will have some ability on it. Examples being; +4% attack, +10% attack against this certain type of enemy, +10 hp gained when blocking, etc. While these may be useful, it does not make or break fights. The certain item you get is far more important, leaving the little perks it comes with to be fairly insignificant. You can also fuse two of the same items together, allowing the new item to be everr so slightly stronger, and with perhaps new abilites. I went through the entire game without fusing a single piece of equipment or trying to find the best setup of abilites. The ONLY time i needed to make custom gear with lots of fusing was for the most difficult, optional, and final boss. Also, it's confusing as ♥♥♥♥. Here's an example of what you can get if you spend 10 hours farming for specific equipment.


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=586438763


Equipment/fusing summary - interesting, but too confusing to pay attention to. Can easily go through the game without having to worry about it. Unless you're a min-maxer, don't worry about fusion unless you really want to. 6/10

Finally, the story and characters. I've heard many complaints about the characters, and how it's difficult to be attached to them. I, on the other hand, absolutely love them. This may be because i have little experience in the tales games, but i found the main protagonist to be a perfect fit. Naive, courageous, a little innocent, and an incredibly strong willed induvidual. While i don't like some as much as others, there is a lot of variety among the group. you'll get a lot of good laughs with certain interactions and side conversations, while also feeling quite emotional at points. I'm keeping this vague because i would like to keep this review as spoiler free as possible. Which is why, with the story explanation, i will keep it short. I very much enjoyed the story. While the pacing seemed a little weird at times, and some things were a bit rushed, hard to follow, and sometimes never even explained, it was largely unnoticeable due to the large amount of positives you'll find throughout your journey. If you read all of the dialogue (no skipping please), you'll find the storyline very interesting with some very unique concepts.

Storyline/characters summary - against popular opinion, i found the characters to be very funny and easy to get attached to. While the story is a little rushed at times, it's overall a very cool experience. Don't skip the dialogues. 8.5/10


Would i recommend this game to a friend? Of course. Would i recommend this game to everyone who is even a little interested? Of course. As long as you're willing to put a bit of time and effort into learning the mechanics, and have previously had an RPG or JRPG that you have played and enjoyed, this is a must have.

Also, you can put a cat on your head. :3 Love the costumes. Love cats.

And you can do this
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=592402361

And this
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=592402153

This is a great game for JRPG fans. This is NOT good for casual gamers. If you're already familiar with the "Tales of" series, you know exactly what you're getting into. For those of you who only know Tales of Symphonia, this game is very similar, with a very improved combat system, and a bit shorter. If you liked other entries in the series, you'll probably enjoy this one as well. It's a little bit more complicated than the others, though. If you like JRPGs and aren't familiar with Tales games, this is a good place to start.

Fun: 8.5/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 10/10
Audio: 10/10
Replay Value: There's a New Game+ option with extra difficulty modes and other options that you can change from one playthrough to another, so if you're a completionist, you might want to replay up to 3 or even 5 times. There's also a DLC chapter focusing on a minor character. 10/10

Let's get this out of the way first: Tales of Zestiria is a JRPG, but it does not have turn-based combat and is not a grindy game. In fact, your characters' levels matter much less than what equipment they use and how you control them in the real-time battles, both of which are based on some systems that are difficult to understand at first and brushed a lot of people the wrong way (see below for an overview). The lack of a need to grind, the presence of a good Quick Travel system and the lack of needlessly big, empty regions (except for one) mean that the game flows very well, and except for a single bit near the end which doesn't even take 15 minutes total to clear, it never feels like battles and simple puzzles are being tossed at you just to increase play time, as it often does with so many other games of the genre.

The game's localization was very well-done. One particular character has a thing for puns and "dad jokes", which are very hard to localize because often they can't be translated and you have to come up with a new one along the same lines. The English versions of those might be one of my favorite parts of the game. The English voice acting is also very good for the most part. I don't know Japanese, so I can't compare, but the English language audio and text are on point.

The story is nothing exceptional, but good enough and well-told. The soundtrack is really good.The game world is immersive, there are interesting NPCs and sidequests, and I had fun just going out to explore places instead of actually following the story on several occasions. A big part of the game are the correlated Skills and Fusion systems, which I enjoyed playing around with, but which also frustrated many people. I'll get into those below.

There's an unofficial patch that allows the game to run at 60fps if you care about that sort of thing.

SPECIFICS
As I mentioned, character levels aren't as important in Tales of Zestiria as they are in the average JRPG. It's possible to take down an enemy twice your level or to be defeated by an enemy half your level, all depending on how you fight and on what equipment you have. Equipment stat boosts are much larger than your stat growth when you level up, but even more important than that are the Skills that your equipment comes with. Two otherwise identical weapons that happened to drop with different Skills on them can be significantly different from each other, depending on what other equipment you're wearing. In the beginning of the game, Skills aren't that important, but as the game progresses, they become more and more relevant. Certain bosses simply can't be beaten if you don't have the right Skills equipped.

THE BATTLE SYSTEM
When you encounter an enemy, a wide circular area will be closed around you to form the field of battle. You can move around freely,dodge, block, attack and defend in real time, and issue generic commands to the party members you're not controlling directly (spread out, focus on the same enemy, focus on attacking, focus on defense). By pausing the battle, you can enter a menu and order any non-controlled character to use a specific "arte" (the game's name for attacks, special moves and magic). You can also change which character you control mid-battle. There are five elements (Void/Non-Elemental, Fire, Earth, Water and Wind) to which enemies can be weak, neutral or resistant. In addition, each element is associated to a status ailment (e.g. Water to Poison) and a character stat (e.g. Void to Attack). Every single arte you use will have one or more elements, and every arte of a given element has the potential to cause the respective element's status ailment or give you a buff to the corresponding stat when used. Enemies also have Types (e.g. Flying, Armored, Beast) against which certain attacks are strong. An attack that's strong against an enemy type will deal bonus damage even if that enemy is strong against the attack's element. There are three numbers to keep an eye on during battle: your HP, your SC (Spirit Chain) and your BG (Blast Gauge). BG is used for certain especially powerful artes and for a unique mechanic called Armatization. SC is what you use for actually fighting. Your maximum SC is always 100 and everything you do in battle except running and blocking costs some SC. SC recovers over time during the battle, but if you attack too quickly or too often, you'll run out and have to wait. The lower your SC goes, the slower it recovers.

SKILLS
Each character has five different equipment slots, and each piece of equipment has four Skill slots. There are a total of 50 different Skills that can give you anything from stat boosts to increased HP recovery, protection against an element or status ailment, added damage against certain enemies, etc. These Skills are organized into a 5x10 grid where each of the 5 lines corresponds to an element and each of the 10 collumns corresponds to a theme (e.g. the first collumn is stat boosts, the 9th collumn is increased damage of the respective types). Every Skill from currently equipped gear will be active on that character's Skill Chart.

Skills can be combined for added bonus effects, which can be even more dramatic than the basic Skills themselves (such as reflecting 30% of all damage of a particular element, having an extra Blast Gauge or gaining a 20% Max HP increase). The Bonus Skills depend on where skills are on the 5x10 Skills chart. There are three types of Bonus Skills: Stack (multiple copies of the same Skill), E-Union (two or more adjacent skills in the same horizontal line) and G-Union (all five Skills on the same collumn). Equipping two of the same skill, for instance, reduces the time you spend staggered by 6%. If you have multiple stacks of two, their effects add up - a stack of stacks, if you will. This means you can become completely immune to certain status ailments by equipping the right skills.

FUSION
Every piece of equipment you get will have at least one skill and up to four. In weapon shops, it's possible to fuse two pieces of equipment and combine their skills, while also improving the equipment's stats with each fusion. Slots that have the same skill in both fused weapons, or any skill in one weapon and a blank slot in the other will keep that same skill in the resulting fused weapon. Slots that are empty in both weapons will continue empty. Slots that have different skills in each weapon will end up with a third skill that is different from both. Because of this mechanism, through fusion you can create equipments with the Skill set you want, to match your play style or enable a specific strategy against a particular foe.

CONCLUSION
If the above description of game mechanics didn't scare you, and you enjoy JRPGs, you'll probably enjoy Tales of Zestiria. If not, then you've probably stopped reading already anyway, but don't buy the game. That is all.