Is This Game a Button masher?

[ItachiDeltaForce]

i dont have enuff money for a new controller?

[Giro]

Well it does have strategy so its not mindless mashing, but it is probably more button mashy than most other tales games

[Good Night Owl]

Sometimes yes, other times no. Depends on the character you use, and circumstances. Velvet (the protagonist) is actually very button mash oriented. While Rokuro and Eizen have special abilities focused on precised timing. So it depends.

Personally, I thought the PC controls sucked really bad. If you don't have a mouse with multiple functions, you're going to be using keys for some of your combos, while you other hand will be totally dedicated to rotating the camera. Just A heads up if you don't have a controller.

[Kiru]

It depends more on the difficulty setting. On normal? You literally don't have to play. On hard? You'll probably die.


On higher difficulties you'll realize how important chaining and weakness chains become. Weaknesses can be abused by using specific attacks against them, every attack has an element and often an enemy type it's good again, as well as an ailment. Comboing a weakness into a different weakness will start a chain for heavily increased damage. Certain ailments are also more likely to trigger against a specific other debuff, like paralyze is 4 times as likely to trigger against an enemy with attack down on it, while it's unable to affect enemies that resist the neutral element.
Due to essentially no healing existing in battles (at least not in the standard way), getting hit will quickly lead to your demise against strong enemies. Also, attacking enemies that block will drastically reduce your resource for attacking, and if that goes to 0 you get interrupted and possibly attacked. There's also the fact that if you get hit with stuns, ailments and whatnot, your attack combo counter goes down, requiring defensive play. (perfect dodging an enemy attack spawns an orb that refills yours by 1, just like putting an ailment or stun on the enemy, which just immediately refills yours by 1)
It's a very nice system that both rewards defense and offense. Defending for a second also doubles the efficiency of the status ailment of your next attack, also leading to interesting ideas. (chain dodging allows you to start you combo wherever you want in your combo tree, skipping early attacks in it that may not have what you want to put on the enemy)

I'd argue this, like any "graces esque" tales is the least button mashy you can find. Vesperia for example is a LOT worse. That game could just as well be turn based, seeing how your own attack recovery is longer than enemy damage recovery is. (you attack -> they attack you, until one side is dead)
But unlike Vesperia, you really need to amp the difficulty here. It leads to certain things becoming quite impossible early on (combining encounters, the special spawns), but that's hard mode for you. The game actually kinda works as intended at that point, seeing how those special enemies that you get rewards for are possible. (though they HURT on hard mode)

[tracksone]

Its a button masher, dont let fans tell you otherwise. Even on the hardest setting there is a ton of mashing going on, just because you gotta side step occasionally doesnt negate the fact that its a masher.

[spike86]

I agree with Kiru, you CAN'T button mash at higher difficulty, if someone says the opposite, he never played past normal, or never have gone too far in the game

[Giro]

Originally posted by tracksone:

Its a button masher, dont let fans tell you otherwise. Even on the hardest setting there is a ton of mashing going on, just because you gotta side step occasionally doesnt negate the fact that its a masher.

You only played 5 hours...lol

The game introduces new combat mechanics at least until 11hours in but it takes even longer for some people to get there

[tracksone]

Originally posted by Giroliro3:

Originally posted by tracksone:

Its a button masher, dont let fans tell you otherwise. Even on the hardest setting there is a ton of mashing going on, just because you gotta side step occasionally doesnt negate the fact that its a masher.

You only played 5 hours...lol

The game introduces new combat mechanics at least until 11hours in but it takes even longer for some people to get there

Yeah, on steam. I owned this on ps4 and have probably 3-400 hours and moved to pc to enjoy higher quality, you know ppl do do that.. I love the game but i dont deny that its a button masher even on the harder settings. It is what it is, that doesnt make it bad.

[Kiru]

^Maybe you don't understand what button masher means. It's something like dynasty warrior, where you mash buttons without much aim.
Given how important it is, which button you hit when, as well as timing, means it's not a button masher. Of course, you will hit a lot of buttons in quick frequency, but that's just how it goes in fast paced systems.

If you play normal mode, you can play it like a button masher, or look at your AI fighting. But hard mode is a little different, and it goes even further, should hard become too easy eventually.

[nanami]

i play this game on Intense difficulty currently and i have to change a lot of skills and know which artes combos to do. I tried mashing buttons but it made me lose a lot of battles so i have to be careful

[Giro]

I can't even mash buttons on hard difficulty lol. Not to mention my party gets wiped out really quickly too