Best in "Tales of" series and you will never convince me otherwise.

peak game peak velvet

This game is utter garbage at all levels. Kept playing because of the praise it receives but it never delivered for me. If it's top 3 in most "Tales of" list the whole franchise must suck beyond comprehension. It never stopped sucking in the whole playthrough which is an achievement on and by itself.

- The premise is utterly moronic but it's a JRPG so no suprise here.
- The story is bland. Go somewhere, do ♥♥♥♥. The game throws bull at you. Go back.
- The characters are as plain and straight as they can get. Zero development.
- The map and level design is bonkers. Massive and empty at the same time. "Let's put a POI in the furthermost end of a dungeon just to waste the player's time" "Do you see that treasure chest in the corner of the map? It's not a treasure chest, it's a garbage chest full of ♥♥♥♥ you can buy in the town's shop" "Do you think this is a maze? Think again, kiddo. The locks to every door are around the corner. Much security, very safe"
- Combat consist in putting a kind of damage in a combo and pushing R1 to see what you have to deal and what not. The combat is the worst thing about this game and you can't even begin to imagine how incredibly bad that is. Whenever I got tired of the game I just let the CPU play for me. Thanks for giving us the option, I guess.
- Skill are, again, retarded. You keep earning them but they are no different from one another so what's the point? The only ones that made a difference were the resurrecting ones. Go figure.
Itemization is, again, dumb. Gear is almost the same for the whole game. Bonuses are so tiny and pointless that there is no need to check anything, just equip whatever dropped lately every 10 hours or so. There's also the problem of lacking unique items. You spend the whole game getting the same weapons again and again and again.
- Can you guess how is the leveling? You got it right, dumb again. To avoid reaching boss fights underleveled you need to farm. With this dumb combat, with these dumb rewards just so fights don't last an eternity.
- The English dub is puke-worthy. What a cringefest the whole cast.

What a massive waste of time. It would take getting paid to play this POS again.