this game really messes up the concept of good vs evil

[Mr Fantastic]

the dudes who wrote this game think that good and evil is in people's thoughts and not their actions, what kind of BS is this?

I'm getting close to the end on my first playthrough having beaten the two legates to revive the 4 elemental god thingies, playing on chaos, swordsman guy was a joke, magilu's father was quite a decent fight had to use revive a couple times.

Gameplay is kinda repetitive but it's still fun, but the story and all the nonsense about food during critical moments is really killing me. How can the exorcists cause the death of thousands and NOT be evil??? The game disguises the player characters as evil when they are the heroes, and the bad guys as good when they are the ones committing most of the evil actions, really lame story telling. In the end instead of a good story and some plot twists or exposure we just get straight lame fights without proper development. It's actually something I've felt in all other tales of games, I wish they would get decent writers that could give us a decent story from start to finish. It's always an exciting start with a lukewarm development and an atrocious forced ending plot......

[Sup3rNo7a]

Originally posted by Cesar:

lack of a good narrative

lol, okay.

[Giro]

Emotion = Velvet and the others abandoning reason because all they care about is revenge or some other desire they have (magilou is magilou)

Reason = Artorius and the Abbey prioritising saving the world while disregarding their own feelings and the feelings of others.

Good vs bad is a matter of perspective. In any other Tales game Velvet would be the bad guy and artorious would be the protagonist.

[H]

ToZ has a lot of story problems too, so it isn't surprising that the prequel would fail tremendously in areas.

I like the story but one of my biggest issues with it is that it boils down to BUT DAH ABBEY IS THE BADDY instead of actual writing this series has had since ToP that made me actually care about the antagonist or at least be interested in the vision I can see.

Heldalf and Artorious are blanket characters with "important" tied around their necks. They don't really do anything too important most of the time and whenever they show up they act menacing and then we are shown how bad they are.

The argument that the game's theme is Emotion vs Reason doesn't work since that is only referring to Velvet's inner struggle which is shown like 6 times before just dropping all pretenses that your party is evil. The Abbey is straight up evil and there are no attempts to sugar coat it anywhere. It's really boring since Tales of the Abyss also had an evil church thing going and it did it way better and way more complex and interesting. Same as Symphonia. These modern Tales of games just blow.

[Sup3rNo7a]

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

ToZ has a lot of story problems too, so it isn't surprising that the prequel would fail tremendously in areas.

I like the story but one of my biggest issues with it is that it boils down to BUT DAH ABBEY IS THE BADDY instead of actual writing this series has had since ToP that made me actually care about the antagonist or at least be interested in the vision I can see.

Helfdalf and Artorious are blanket characters with "important" tied around their necks. They don't really do anything too important most of the time and whenever they show up they act menacing and then we are shown how bad they are.

The argument that the game's theme is Emotion vs Reason doesn't work since that is only referring to Velvet's inner struggle which is shown like 6 times before just dropping all pretenses that your party is evil. The Abbey is straight up evil and there are no attempts to sugar coat it anywhere. It's really boring since Tales of the Abyss also had an evil church thing going and it did it way better and way more complex and interesting. Same as Symphonia. These modern Tales of games just blow.

LOL, considering you only have 15 hours of playtime in this game, and in your review you mention how Seres is supposedly 100% Lailah from Zestiria, except this game never touches on it, is absolutely laughable. I stopped reading your review right there because your lack of playtime, and how wrong you are with that detail shows how little you played and how little you payed attention to anything going on in the game from what little you did play.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

ToZ has a lot of story problems too, so it isn't surprising that the prequel would fail tremendously in areas.

I like the story but one of my biggest issues with it is that it boils down to BUT DAH ABBEY IS THE BADDY instead of actual writing this series has had since ToP that made me actually care about the antagonist or at least be interested in the vision I can see.

Helfdalf and Artorious are blanket characters with "important" tied around their necks. They don't really do anything too important most of the time and whenever they show up they act menacing and then we are shown how bad they are.

The argument that the game's theme is Emotion vs Reason doesn't work since that is only referring to Velvet's inner struggle which is shown like 6 times before just dropping all pretenses that your party is evil. The Abbey is straight up evil and there are no attempts to sugar coat it anywhere. It's really boring since Tales of the Abyss also had an evil church thing going and it did it way better and way more complex and interesting. Same as Symphonia. These modern Tales of games just blow.

I agree with most of this, pity I haven't played abyss and unless they port it to PC don't see myself playing it anytime in the future.

[power of youth]

Originally posted by Cesar:

Originally posted by Sup3rNo7a:

Indeed. Good vs Evil isn't the point. It's about the morally grey, and more specifically Reason vs Emotion.

Otherwise good or well-meaning people can do some very horrific things because it seems like (or even is) the "logical" thing to do or because they were left with no other choice; or because they were overcome by a feeling of rage, grief, or jealousy over something that happened to them or someone they care about.

By the same token, The worst people in the world can just as easily do something charitable because they have a solid reason for doing so, because it either helps themselves, or someone or something they care about, etc.

It's all about good and evil, the major forces in the game are called purity and malice ffs. But the people who emit these are almost completely random instead of it being tied to their actions like when whole villages transform into monsters because of malice, the plot forcing is so big and illogical it kills the game mood if you really thing about. They even mess up the opportunity to make plot points vital and twist them, like velvet's sister and nephew being killed by monsters, which would be a much more significant event if we later learned it was all schemed by melchior.

What is morally grey in: killing a woman for stealing a loaf of bread, controlling the minds of people and make them commit suicide, transform children into monsters, betraying your own brother and try to kill him, sacrificing children to some weird god, torture apprentices, make your followers transform into self destructing killer machines, binding living creatures in cages for all eternity?

The side of "reason" has nothing to do with reason and the side of emotion has very little to do with emotion. Arthur wants to enslave humanity because he lost his wife and child killing thousands in the process, is this something logical or something emotionally deranged? The "anti" heroes go around using logical decisions trying to fight for the continuation of free will and thought for the rest of humanity, and besides the forced moments when they have these really awkward breakdowns they act very logically most of the time. If you play the game from start to finish you'll see there's a ton of personally holes in most of them, one of the most "duh" moments being everyone screaming for velvet to stop when she protects laficet from teresa and kills her in the process, or this other one when the most "logical" dude in the game interrupts his spell to "protect his grand plans" to avoid stepping on a flower o__0

I'm probably trying to think it out too much, this game is like the equivalent to a 2nd rate anime that can be nonetheless entertaining. I'm at the point where I just want to finish the story asap and move on to another game (octopath, greedfall, blasphemous already waiting)...

[H]

Originally posted by Cesar:

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

ToZ has a lot of story problems too, so it isn't surprising that the prequel would fail tremendously in areas.

I like the story but one of my biggest issues with it is that it boils down to BUT DAH ABBEY IS THE BADDY instead of actual writing this series has had since ToP that made me actually care about the antagonist or at least be interested in the vision I can see.

Helfdalf and Artorious are blanket characters with "important" tied around their necks. They don't really do anything too important most of the time and whenever they show up they act menacing and then we are shown how bad they are.

The argument that the game's theme is Emotion vs Reason doesn't work since that is only referring to Velvet's inner struggle which is shown like 6 times before just dropping all pretenses that your party is evil. The Abbey is straight up evil and there are no attempts to sugar coat it anywhere. It's really boring since Tales of the Abyss also had an evil church thing going and it did it way better and way more complex and interesting. Same as Symphonia. These modern Tales of games just blow.

I agree with most of this, pity I haven't played abyss and unless they port it to PC don't see myself playing it anytime in the future.

I'd really love another excuse to play ToTA myself, actually. Scamco refuses to port older titles normally. Considering a big chunk of the series isn't localized also doesn't help. Hopefully it happens and the port isn't complete balderdash.

[H]

Originally posted by Sup3rNo7a:

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

ToZ has a lot of story problems too, so it isn't surprising that the prequel would fail tremendously in areas.

I like the story but one of my biggest issues with it is that it boils down to BUT DAH ABBEY IS THE BADDY instead of actual writing this series has had since ToP that made me actually care about the antagonist or at least be interested in the vision I can see.

Helfdalf and Artorious are blanket characters with "important" tied around their necks. They don't really do anything too important most of the time and whenever they show up they act menacing and then we are shown how bad they are.

The argument that the game's theme is Emotion vs Reason doesn't work since that is only referring to Velvet's inner struggle which is shown like 6 times before just dropping all pretenses that your party is evil. The Abbey is straight up evil and there are no attempts to sugar coat it anywhere. It's really boring since Tales of the Abyss also had an evil church thing going and it did it way better and way more complex and interesting. Same as Symphonia. These modern Tales of games just blow.

LOL, considering you only have 15 hours of playtime in this game, and in your review you mention how Seres is supposedly 100% Lailah from Zestiria, except this game never touches on it, is absolutely laughable. I stopped reading your review right there because your lack of playtime, and how wrong you are with that detail shows how little you played and how little you payed attention to anything going on in the game from what little you did play.

Alright pro gamer, thanks for ignoring my criticisms and opinions.

Edit: I actually have more I want to add. 15 hours+ into a game is a long time especially since I play this game in bursts. Regardless of whatever you think, I'm playing a game I don't like and only just to say I've beaten it. Not as a bragging right or a way to say "I'm superior," purely as a way to say that I'm one step closer to finishing the Tales of games that have been released state side that I have access to. And many many games aren't 15 hours long. Sorry to burst the bubble here but I have my problems with the story and universe both ToZ and ToB share. These are MY OPINIONS and I respect your opinion enough to read out your posts in full. If you don't respect mine enough and are willing to go through my reviews to read them, then really what are you doing?

I'm not downplaying and trying to belittle you over playtime. That's inconsequential and nonsense. I can like and dislike something without having to sink my whole life into it.

[Dedlok]

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

Originally posted by Sup3rNo7a:

LOL, considering you only have 15 hours of playtime in this game, and in your review you mention how Seres is supposedly 100% Lailah from Zestiria, except this game never touches on it, is absolutely laughable. I stopped reading your review right there because your lack of playtime, and how wrong you are with that detail shows how little you played and how little you payed attention to anything going on in the game from what little you did play.

Alright pro gamer, thanks for ignoring my criticisms and opinions.

Edit: I actually have more I want to add. 15 hours+ into a game is a long time especially since I play this game in bursts. Regardless of whatever you think, I'm playing a game I don't like and only just to say I've beaten it. Not as a bragging right or a way to say "I'm superior," purely as a way to say that I'm one step closer to finishing the Tales of games that have been released state side that I have access to. And many many games aren't 15 hours long. Sorry to burst the bubble here but I have my problems with the story and universe both ToZ and ToB share. These are MY OPINIONS and I respect your opinion enough to read out your posts in full. If you don't respect mine enough and are willing to go through my reviews to read them, then really what are you doing?

I'm not downplaying and trying to belittle you over playtime. That's inconsequential and nonsense. I can like and dislike something without having to sink my whole life into it.

15 hours is long in most games, but for RPGs, especially JRPGs) you could either be still in tutorial zone or just getting out of tutorial zone.

Hell, I myself am at around 15-20 hours right now and I know that there is still game systems I haven't even accessed or unlocked yet.

Regardless, 15 hours is not really a good amount of time to accurately say how the story will go.

[Giro]

Originally posted by Dedlok:

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

Alright pro gamer, thanks for ignoring my criticisms and opinions.

Edit: I actually have more I want to add. 15 hours+ into a game is a long time especially since I play this game in bursts. Regardless of whatever you think, I'm playing a game I don't like and only just to say I've beaten it. Not as a bragging right or a way to say "I'm superior," purely as a way to say that I'm one step closer to finishing the Tales of games that have been released state side that I have access to. And many many games aren't 15 hours long. Sorry to burst the bubble here but I have my problems with the story and universe both ToZ and ToB share. These are MY OPINIONS and I respect your opinion enough to read out your posts in full. If you don't respect mine enough and are willing to go through my reviews to read them, then really what are you doing?

I'm not downplaying and trying to belittle you over playtime. That's inconsequential and nonsense. I can like and dislike something without having to sink my whole life into it.

15 hours is long in most games, but for RPGs, especially JRPGs) you could either be still in tutorial zone or just getting out of tutorial zone.

Hell, I myself am at around 15-20 hours right now and I know that there is still game systems I haven't even accessed or unlocked yet.

Regardless, 15 hours is not really a good amount of time to accurately say how the story will go.

All of this ^

[H]

Originally posted by Dedlok:

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

Alright pro gamer, thanks for ignoring my criticisms and opinions.

Edit: I actually have more I want to add. 15 hours+ into a game is a long time especially since I play this game in bursts. Regardless of whatever you think, I'm playing a game I don't like and only just to say I've beaten it. Not as a bragging right or a way to say "I'm superior," purely as a way to say that I'm one step closer to finishing the Tales of games that have been released state side that I have access to. And many many games aren't 15 hours long. Sorry to burst the bubble here but I have my problems with the story and universe both ToZ and ToB share. These are MY OPINIONS and I respect your opinion enough to read out your posts in full. If you don't respect mine enough and are willing to go through my reviews to read them, then really what are you doing?

I'm not downplaying and trying to belittle you over playtime. That's inconsequential and nonsense. I can like and dislike something without having to sink my whole life into it.

15 hours is long in most games, but for RPGs, especially JRPGs) you could either be still in tutorial zone or just getting out of tutorial zone.

Hell, I myself am at around 15-20 hours right now and I know that there is still game systems I haven't even accessed or unlocked yet.

Regardless, 15 hours is not really a good amount of time to accurately say how the story will go.

I'm not in the "tutorial zone." I've watched an 100% playthrough multiple times before I ever played this game due to not being able to play it.

You are going to constantly be unlocking mechanics and boosts in ToB which is unnecessary since they should have just introduced them earlier but it's whatever, it gives me a reason to go after those stupid tough map bosses that are boring and fairly easy.

I'm closing in on mid game due to how slow I'm going. If I had all the free time available for this, ToZ, and FFXIV at the exact same time as college, that'd be lovely.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Cesar:

How can the exorcists cause the death of thousands and NOT be evil??? The game disguises the player characters as evil when they are the heroes, and the bad guys as good when they are the ones committing most of the evil actions, really lame story telling.

That's what reality and world history is like too...

The ones in control decide what is good and evil, and this is the point of the story. Velvet and co are considered evil because that's what the Abbey says.

Also this:

Originally posted by Skarp129:

The game's concept is will vs reason, they spoon feed this to you.

That's not lame storytelling, its realistic storytelling.

Originally posted by Cesar:

The only playable character who's "evil" or f'ed by our society's standards would be rokuru

There's your issue right there. What are you that you judge different (not even real) cultures by your own society's standards, and nothing else? That shows you clearly lack perspective.

Originally posted by Cesar:

Originally posted by Skarp129:

The game's concept is will vs reason, they spoon feed this to you.

will and reason are kinda synonyms buddy, think you meant reason vs emotion, there's no point going there, they throw so much cheese into it that makes it distasteful, no point discussing the lack of a good narrative, just enjoy the mindless fun

It's not emotion that Velvet chooses, its ''individuality'' or her own personal perspective (aka will/ego). That's DEFINATELY not a synonym for ''reason''

Reason and Ego (lets use this word instead, since Will seems to confuse a lot of people) are pretty much opposites of each other, tho they are not mutually exclusive.

To put it in layman's terms:

Velvet believes in doing what she wants, and Artorius believes in doing what makes the most sense. He also believes that do what they do because they simply are that way, whereas Velvet believes its their choice.

Artorius's mindset is pretty often refered to as ''reason'' or alternatively, ''logical''
Some refer to Velvet's mindset as ''emotion'' and others as ''will'' (aka, free or unique/individual will; whichever you prefer. )

As you can tell, in this context there's no similarity between Will and Reason aside from being mindsets/perspectives. Considering most of these concepts and definations aren't amazingly well defined (blame linguistics) you always have to take in mind context when considering their meaning.

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

I'm not downplaying and trying to belittle you over playtime. That's inconsequential and nonsense. I can like and dislike something without having to sink my whole life into it.

Definately. However mentioning Berseria and Zestiria in the same breath when discussing quality of the story/plot does make your opinion rather questionable in value. Berseria does have a much more coherent plot then Zestiria.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Originally posted by Cesar:

How can the exorcists cause the death of thousands and NOT be evil??? The game disguises the player characters as evil when they are the heroes, and the bad guys as good when they are the ones committing most of the evil actions, really lame story telling.

That's what reality and world history is like too...

The ones in control decide what is good and evil, and this is the point of the story. Velvet and co are considered evil because that's what the Abbey says.

Also this:

Originally posted by Skarp129:

The game's concept is will vs reason, they spoon feed this to you.

That's not lame storytelling, its realistic storytelling.

Originally posted by Cesar:

The only playable character who's "evil" or f'ed by our society's standards would be rokuru

There's your issue right there. What are you that you judge different (not even real) cultures by your own society's standards, and nothing else? That shows you clearly lack perspective.

Originally posted by Cesar:

will and reason are kinda synonyms buddy, think you meant reason vs emotion, there's no point going there, they throw so much cheese into it that makes it distasteful, no point discussing the lack of a good narrative, just enjoy the mindless fun

It's not emotion that Velvet chooses, its ''individuality'' or her own personal perspective (aka will/ego). That's DEFINATELY not a synonym for ''reason''

Reason and Ego (lets use this word instead, since Will seems to confuse a lot of people) are pretty much opposites of each other, tho they are not mutually exclusive.

To put it in layman's terms:

Velvet believes in doing what she wants, and Artorius believes in doing what makes the most sense. He also believes that do what they do because they simply are that way, whereas Velvet believes its their choice.

Artorius's mindset is pretty often refered to as ''reason'' or alternatively, ''logical''
Some refer to Velvet's mindset as ''emotion'' and others as ''will'' (aka, free or unique/individual will; whichever you prefer. )

As you can tell, in this context there's no similarity between Will and Reason aside from being mindsets/perspectives. Considering most of these concepts and definations aren't amazingly well defined (blame linguistics) you always have to take in mind context when considering their meaning.

Originally posted by King Kazuya:

I'm not downplaying and trying to belittle you over playtime. That's inconsequential and nonsense. I can like and dislike something without having to sink my whole life into it.

Definately. However mentioning Berseria and Zestiria in the same breath when discussing quality of the story/plot does make your opinion rather questionable in value. Berseria does have a much more coherent plot then Zestiria.

Come on dude those are some cringe arguments, rokuru is clearly inspired by samurai mithos, where family and tradition are the highest values anyone can uphold. It's one the main Bushido premises. To distort and corrupt such a source of inspiration only makes the game look even worse.

Bersesia is not a bad game, but I would rate it as 6.5/10 maybe one of the best in the tales of games, but very far from way more enjoyable titles in the same genre.

[Sup3rNo7a]

There isn't much point discussing this any further.

There's 2 pages of detailed arguments and responses to every issue or complaint that the OP has with the story/characters, and rather than respond in kind to any of it, he simply ignores them outright or dismisses them without any additional thought or consideration. No point trying to change a mind that's closed off.