"It hardly put up a fight" EXCUSE ME?

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

I've not played this game before. I've been really enjoying up up to this moment. I just fought this wolf thing, a boss in the woods, I don't know where exactly. It made me use up all my items, all my revives, everything . I couldn't get a hit in edge ways. It took five minuets to beat cuz its health pool was something like 20kHP. When I finally beat it with my whole party dead and on low health, the kid says in the following cutscene "It hardly put up a fight." and the dialogue was in general agreement. I'm sorry WHAT?! IN WHAT WAY WAS THAT MEANT TO BE AN EASY ♥♥♥♥ING FIGHT???
*EDIT*
I made this post in the spur of the moment. I was PISSED. After doing some research I see now that the boss is called "Gattuso" and lots of people have had the same kind of trouble in this version of the game and the original 10 years ago. Is this ♥♥♥♥ likely to happen again without grinding? Or can I safely put this crap onto easy mode?

[no1schmo]

He's one of the hardest bosses. Although grinding enough to at least have good skills to choose from is a good idea.

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

Originally posted by no1schmo:

He's one of the hardest bosses. Although grinding enough to at least have good skills to choose from is a good idea.

Mmkay then. Still, I wouldn't have been so bothered if the characters hadn't said it was an easy fight. Classic example of the old "ludo-narrative dissonance" if you ask me.

[no1schmo]

I'm not sure, but that might just be a randomly chosen end battle quote from Karol. Or it could also be Karol basically bragging and pretending to be much more awesome than he is (it's kind of his thing, you'll see).

[ShinkuTear]

Gattuso is generally considered one of the hardest/meanest fights for when you encounter it, what options you have available normally, and what the Secret Mission asks.

Gattuso is largely out of nowhere with his difficulty, and Tales of Vesperia largely chills out and tones things back a bit for a while. A few bosses here and there can be problems, but should not be anywhere near the level of Gattuso, they should be reasonable difficulty.

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

Originally posted by no1schmo:

I'm not sure, but that might just be a randomly chosen end battle quote from Karol. Or it could also be Karol basically bragging and pretending to be much more awesome than he is (it's kind of his thing, you'll see).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1785337841
Twern't randomly chosen sir, twas a proper cutscene. The other characters go on to agree, saying something like "maybe it was a push over, but there could be a dozen more around the corner." I'm honestly shocked to learn that there's a general consensus that this boss is tough as balls, and yet the characters go on to say how easy it was. It's utterly ridiculous!

[Telefax]

When the game originally was released for the 360, the wolf boss fight was the end of the demo, i guess they wanted to make a proper endboss for the demo, which can explain the difficulty.

[Doom_Cookies]

When Tales of Vesperia was initially released for the XBOX360, it had DLC released alongside it on day one. Each one of those DLC were meant to give you a huge boon in combat - +5 Levels to all characters, +300,000 Gald, powerful consumable item sets, etc. Vesperia was also the first Tales game to have ANY DLC at all.

So the first Tales game to have DLC, which directly increases combat power, just so happens to have an obviously deliberately heavily overtuned boss early on in the game? That's not a coincidence. It was a marketing tactic to sell the DLC.

It worked fairly well, too. Alongside "grind some levels" and "play on easy", the prevailing strategy for Gattuso given on forums at the time was "buy the level up dlc".

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

When Tales of Vesperia was initially released for the XBOX360, it had DLC released alongside it on day one. Each one of those DLC were meant to give you a huge boon in combat - +5 Levels to all characters, +300,000 Gald, powerful consumable item sets, etc. Vesperia was also the first Tales game to have ANY DLC at all.

So the first Tales game to have DLC, which directly increases combat power, just so happens to have an obviously deliberately heavily overtuned boss early on in the game? That's not a coincidence. It was a marketing tactic to sell the DLC.

It worked fairly well, too. Alongside "grind some levels" and "play on easy", the prevailing strategy for Gattuso given on forums at the time was "buy the level up dlc".

Jesus Christ. That's some top tier industry cancer right there.

[no1schmo]

Why would you buy DLC when changing the difficulty is right there?

[Miraglyth]

I really can't recall the general advice being "use the DLC". Maybe "switch to Easy"? The DLC was pretty much constantly criticised as something only really bad or seriously lazy players would ever need.

Admittedly I'm in Europe, meaning we got the game several months later than everyone else (I do not miss those days). But I'd be surprised if the advice was much different in the early days of the NTSC release.

[ShinkuTear]

Honestly, more often I saw the suggestion for the Level DLC as "Save it until Lv180+ to hit 200 faster" since the last few levels are actually a slow grind, and Gattuso was often "Set to Easy, grind a bit, or maybe try XYZ things" instead.

He's not a good fight, and basically anything that gets rid of him with minimal frustration is good, but suggestions on spending money to burn instant levels to get by isn't something I saw often.

[Miraglyth]

Oh yeah I remember that using the DLC for the last few levels thing. Generally for people who didn't want to play the game through again or didn't know about (or want to grind for) the GRADE option.

For context to anyone reading, keep in mind the 360 version lacked the three best EXP givers in the form of necropolis, team coliseum and critical moment.

[Ravo]

Just went through that boss fight yesterday and this thread has been very insightful. I thought I wasn't properly leading him into the confusion bushes on the outside of the arena or something.

[Nightshade]

Glad I stopped in. This game has not been impressing me in the slightest, and this was about to be the last straw for me. I regularly find myself in stun/knockdown loops, every boss fight seems to be a difficulty spike and the character/story logic is a complete mess. (By the time we got back to and then left Halure, every single character, including the enemies, seemed to have forgotten their motivations, and were just desperately trying to make the plot happen.)

I'll stick it out, since I do love my Tales games, but at the moment, I'm stymied by the claim that this is (one of) the best in the series.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Nightshade:

I'll stick it out, since I do love my Tales games, but at the moment, I'm stymied by the claim that this is (one of) the best in the series.

I agree. I like this game but I don't think it is the best Tales games. I like it mainly for the artstyle, characters and soundtrack. As for the story, not sooo much because the game felt like three different story arcs mashed together into one game.