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About AI, the Boss are fine, but you team is dumb ("strategy" is lackluster in this title). There is a Boss in the ocean, you will struggle keeping allies alive, so you end killing boss by yourself.
The protagonist becomes OP when it unlocks some skills (high risk - high reward skills), you have plenty of combat options with allies.
If you look for challenge, you need to stop leveling, because games with level system work that way.
Good to know, thank you.
We'd sort of need to know what you're comparing to. Like, is it DMC levels of buttery smooth gameplay where you can become an untouchable master? No. And it is possible to break the game later on in a few ways. However, if you avoid doing that, and don't use get/use and of the DLC, it's a decently fun challenge. There are parts where you will probably have to come back later, at a higher level, to win, but those are side-quests and it's deliberately designed that way, not just an oversight. The AI is...okay. It has it's strengths and weaknesses, and you do have to tinker with them to keep them from being TOO stupid.
Story and cutscenes? This isn't the late 90s,early 2000s man. It's a JRPG, we all know the cookie-cutter story.
The thing you'll be doing most is battling - so of course that's the main thing I care about.
Hmm avoiding levelling up to stay motivated sounds a bit punishing honestly. Thanks for the honest opiinon though.
Except you don't know the story, so...
Also, you don't want to grind, but you also don't want to NOT grind? Uh...okay.
Played all tales games, never cared about stories, they all bad, compared to some others jrpgs, this series has one of the most satisfying combat, i'd say tales series is all about combos and stuff.
They kinda cut their challenge/reward system ( which is grade ) in this game, its still very rewarding to perform good in combat, dont get hit, do high combo, dont get K.O.'ed, win faster, win without items etc etc. More exp, more SP. Honestly tales of zestiria has the best challenge/reward system, since you can score absurd grade if you play good > level keepers > farm insane gear x10 easier than player that plays badly.
I actually havent encountered their classic "insane" bosses, but berseria/zestiria had ridiciolus bosses like phoenix and turtles that i cant even imagine killing without 10+ K.O's, prob have smth like that here too, im not that far in game atm.
I think aiming to win all bosses/red bosses without K.O. is a good start, its not easy, bosses here pretty dangerous and AI customization is good enough so it doesnt die randomly. You can also try to main someone other than Alphen, since like in all tales games main protagonist is easiest to play with ( still very fun and good combo potential )
If by "bad" you mean "the best", sure.
The game is still, ultimately, a RPG and stats are important. The game features reviving/healing on combat with quite a bit of it available to cushion you.
While the game has a dodge mechanic which is extremely useful you aren't typically dodging attacks that would be 1-2 shot fatal hits in most cases, and you don't have the strict timing to find windows to self-heal because Shionne (your healer) is an incredibly competent healer and revive user despite being AI (best in the series, or any game I've seen in fact). Shionne is also superbly, by several miles ahead of everyone else, capable when it comes to dodging enemies and staying alive meaning your healer is almost always up and available as long as you keep her TP (MP/mana/etc.) filled enough to support you and don't do so poorly you drain all her TP and TP recovery resources.
Due to the level scaling system as prior mentioned there are effectively soft caps to prevent over leveling. However, this also applies in reverse as you will get more exp the further you are behind. This exp curve is so strong that it actually 100% invalidates exp food (and other exp bonuses) except when post game grinding the last 10 levels on the super boss where its level cap doesn't matter anymore. Devs over did this a bit. Basically, you're guaranteed to be level appropriate for everything except three super dungeons you can access early if you want later in the game and the coliseum content which you can also do at lower level but simply ins't rewarding enough to justify doing it early (a major missed opportunity for some fun and satisfying rewards).
Equipment suffers a similar fate as exp. You never need to buy armor because each new chapter/region the best armor is found in chests and is enough to last until the next set of best armor letting you simply skip the shop armor entirely. Additionally, you can skip all but the best weapons in each chapter because the best weapon of each prior chapter is enough until you got the ability to make the next chapter/region's best weapons. There is no real sense of being much weaker doing this in my experience.
There is a well done combo system ruined by each character having at least one skill so grossly OP it beats any type of combo/combat strategy you can employ even with the spam penalty for using same skill repeatedly, and by overwhelming margin. If you want to boost difficulty you would have to simply not use these specific abilities. Additionally, as another mentioned the Fire skills for MC are OP, but also a trap. The issue is they sacrifice HP to use down to 1 HP... for about 70% of the game they're a trap and should not be used (and disabled if AI is controlling him) because their performance is very poor and does not justify the massive HP wastage, high risk of death, and TP consumption from your healer and recovery items. Then when you can craft custom accessories late in the game it suddenly 1-3 shots everything becoming the defacto mega OP option. You would want to simply skip using it entirely, probably, tbh. It does not have good middle grounds.
As for items and money I felt very rich in any run and almost never had to buy anything at all be it armor or consumables, aside from 1 weapon per character per region. The game also gives you an absolutely immense number of recovery consumabels for a good portion of the earlier game to the extent you either use them or leave them on ground because you drown on them. This initial set should easily last you a good 60-70% of the game aside from life bottles (only if you struggle at times, otherwise even these wont need to be purchased).
Overall difficulty of game even at higher difficulties isn't particularly challenging.
Really, the core aspect of higher difficulties comes down to:
- Dodging to reduce dmg and resource consumption
- Drawing aggro by being aggressive enough so you can then dodge thus reducing total resource/threat stress on rest of party when possible over course of fight
- Setting up other characters correctly so they perform properly, especially with some initial default quirks that can be accounted for to great improvement. Ex. Disable melee moves on caster girl so she is safer unless manual controlled melee range build, configure Dohalim properly, disable the bad ice move on Shionne and customize her artes to your needs, min-max kisara for the type of enemy you are fighting or best tanking capability (ex. revival rings vs % dmg reduction % blah blah), Law with Penetration to juggle normal mobs super safe or for counter attack high dmg output such as on bosses), learning the proper skills like key skills on Law that power him up and not wasting points on useless skills on everyone (you don't have to spend every single point as you progress immediately, give your build a direction and follow it and you can learn the rest later)
- The burst attacks or whatever they were called direction button thing can result in CC'ing bosses making them additionally less of a threat and interrupting more dangerous actions of theirs. There are proper ways to execute this to optimize depending on enemy. This is a cool mechanic that is not overpowered until extremely late where you could actually make a perma CC build, thus this is for the most part one of the best designed mechanics in the game.
- Juggling normal mobs to reduce their threat (esp on stronger enemy types in a battle) and get instant kills prepped
- Using the right elemental accessory presented to counter a given boss if you are struggling with them, like the obvious fire and light bosses early.
- Don't use Dohalim with the intention of being a bonus healer. It is a waste of TP and the extra healing is almost non-existent compared to just Shionne due to her superior healing performance and faster cast times. In fact, it could literally result in him wasting tons of TP on already healed characters and wasting a slot with him doing nothing. Only use him as a solo healer for "fun" if you plan to not use Shionne or not use her in a healing role (aka self controlled DPS, or disabled healing artes). Of note, Shionne isn't just the best support and healer in the game but also one of the top DPS both AI and manually controlled, esp for a good chunk of early game where she is usually doing comaprable or more dmg than the other 3 characters combined. It's pretty absurd. She's basically SSS+ tier.
- Don't overestimate Rinwell's (the mage girl) damage. She is one of the weakest mages in the entire franchise in terms of sheer dmg. She makes up for this with her super safe air walk exploit if manually controlled or as a extra form of dmg to enemies (and eventually entire/most map on regular basis) while having a low death rate second to Shionne once her melee range skills are disabled. Manually controlled her melee skills can be pretty beast. Dohalim is simply weaker than everyone, while Kisara is virtually unusuable at higher difficulties in NG when you first get her due to her shield no dodge mechanic and empty starting skill tree... Kisara becomes very strong eventually, though. Dohalim becomes good enough to utilize AI/manually when properly configured but is by far the weakest always. Law is easily the second best AI character after Shionne, despite dying more frequently than some characters. His overall dmg output and juggling ability starts to become increasingly busted as his skills are unlocked properly and built properly.
- Consider running Revival Ring on all 3 characters, or even all 4 if you don't need another accessory for MC. If you can and are struggling with wiping, at the very least have a revival ring on Shionne thus if your healer dies 50% she comes back for free preventing a major sudden wipe as she revives the others. Additionally, don't use revive items on other characters if fighting a boss you are having issues with. Spend them only on Shionne and then she will revive the others. When factored with the revival ring this means you can seriously stretch and prevent up to 15 wipes + additional wipes stopped by revival ring (statistically due to 50% this would put it around 30 wipes, vs if you used the life bottles on others you probably save yourself from 3-5 wipes...).
Okay, that ended up looking more like a guide then intended. The point is as you can see, ultimately, it isn't a twitch based skill game but rather at its core a RPG with some basic strategy and most of those tips are actually very obvious to the point most players should figure it out unless they simply don't pay attention or think...
If you want a more skill based game consider the Ys franchise (esp the 2d verions like Ys Origin), or Zone of the Enders 2nd Runner on extreme difficulty, Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry games, Nioh (if you don't cheese build, still one of the easier ones imo but closer to what you want than this), Dark Souls/Elden Ring (same as Nioh), Code Vein, etc.
Also consider some online games like Blade and Soul or Black Desert but look into them first to see if they're worth your time for your tastes and their current state of game.
Very bad advice, without channeling they do extremely little self harm and with full party its almost always neglectible. And they do insane damage on non fire resistant enemies aswell as chain into some very cool combos, there literally no reason not to use them. Channeling them is completely optional and in most cases safe.
Most enemies are very fair with their attacks, very easy to dodge, probably easiest tales game when it comes to dodge.
If you aren't charging them then Reigning Slash absolutely trumps the flaming attacks. Even with the most OP flaming attack builds possible Reigning Slash is not far behind them in terms of sheer DPS and accessibility. As for earlier on before you get supporting accessories, before you get better flaming skills, before you get flaming tree buff unlocks the flaming skills are simply incomparably inferior to Reigning Slash. The only fight I would call an exception is the slime boss fight due to the numerous slimes to help cut the number of slimes down to 1 or immediately eliminate them as you don't have good aoe alternatives at that time that do enough dmg.
Channeling them isn't almost always safe. It depends on the type of enemy and which flame one you are channeling. Some of the flame skills are simply awful. Others like the one that swings the flaming sword multiple times means you are locked into one of the longest animations in the game doing massive dmg but at typically low or literally 1 hp where an enemy can turn towards you and slap you into your grave. There is a reason Incineration Wave is the most popular and highest regarded flaming skill, but is also the final one you learn. It's safe due to being fairly fast to cast and ranged while its dmg is one of the higher ones.
Let's compare shall we...
Skill Name -- Dmg Coefficient (total, as in all hits)
Reigning Slash -- 14
Infernal Torrent (tap) -- 13
Infernal Torrent (charged) -- 29
Rending Flash (tap) -- 16
Rending Flash (charged) -- 36
Rising Phoenix (tap) -- 12
Rising Phoenix (charged) -- 27
Searing Gale (tap) -- 13
Searing Gale (charged) -- 29
Explosive Ring (tap) -- 18
Explosive Ring (charged) -- 43
Incineration Wave (tap) -- ???
Incineration Wave (charged) -- ???
Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n8UQbohEGyjAFIBdbWa1gxeJVT0AYoGazPd29PqHSGw/edit#gid=278363053
Note: Incineration Wave data wasn't completed before they stopped updating the spreadsheet but we know its just a bit behind Explosive Ring but is widely considered as the best flame art.
Reigning Slash is extremely spammable and very short animation allowing it to be cast
Infernal Torrent is the flaming art that starts it all, yet it sucks. It looks cool in terms of animation and feels cool because of the weight behind the pause in the animation before cleaving through the ground and unleashing flames... even though combat, itself, does not pause as well (hence an issue). The animation is long, the dmg is one of the worst, and it puts you at significant risk. By the time flaming arts get stronger from skill tree perks and accessories its is already outclassed. In fact, it is almost immediately outclassed for most players by their next flaming art.
Rending Flash is that one flaming art people forget exists. Pretty much sums it up. It isn't bad, though it has a long animation. The dmg is decent when charged and it has some okay range. It is merely placed so early in learning that most will neglect it and by the time they start to care about flaming arts they're using the slightly riskier but stronger explosive ring probably. In truth, this is one of the better ones though. It is also a quick significant step up from the awful Infernal Torrent.
Rising Phoenix actually has solid AoE range unlike Searing Gale and is acquired early enough to use on the slime boss in sewers. Unfortunately, overall use is kind of limited due to the sharp angle when dropping meaning it can be a bit iffy to control who all it is hitting. It is safer than some others to cast due to being so high into the air when casting. Due to jump factor taking time plus cast time and descent time it is kind of slow and doesn't afford high dmg in general. Overall, decent but kind of niche.
Searing Gale is arguably the worst of all the flaming arts. The AoE may initially look large but it is pitifully tiny, the move takes so long to cast it can actually miss a surprisingly lot of enemies/bosses, the move locks you in one spot for a really long animation proving perhaps the most fatal of all flaming moves (even more than explosive ring that moves a bit as it goes), and has lackluster dmg in exchange for all of this IF it hits.
Explosive Ring has, as seen, the highest dmg per cast but it has such a long animation the risks of fatality are quite high against most bosses, especially aggressive/fast bosses. You would have to be extremely picky about when to cast this against bosses to avoid punishment in contrast to other better options. The animation is along so long that this only wins in the highest dmg per cast category, but it fails in DPS category.
Incineration Wave was already explained, but it is so late into the game when you get it that it hardly matters for this discussion. Once you get it, however, it is very powerful, safe, and pretty fast though I'm willing to bet a properly setup Reigning Slash will still out dps even Incineration Wave but only vs 1 target. At this level of DPS it doesn't matter though because you can just cast it a second time if something is actually still alive and move on. It can instantly end most mob battles without ever moving a single step. Again, this unlocks around 80% through the game... It's overall value is extremely limited in NG runs.
Conclusion:
- You gave incorrect information about tapping. On the list only 2 of the flaming arts show a value higher than Reigning Slash if you tap it but its more complex. Reigning slash is a single skill, one that will be spammed far more frequently than HP (even low tap) flaming arts allowing you to upgrade its proficiency and thus dmg performance beating even those quickly. It has no HP cost whatsoever which is a huge plus. It is faster to cast than all of those, and fast enough that it can be cast more than twice for some of those that are being tapped.
- Charged flaming arts require you to factor charging time plus the already longer animations and recovery period (which can't be bypassed until very late game when Shionne gets her instant 100% HP heal effect and can cast near instantly) thus they can't even be spammed readily at charged. In contrast, Reigning Slash can be spammed repeatedly, at no HP expense, at no cooldown, at far less risk, with far greater mobility between boss attacks and thus less downtime. It doesn't take rocket science to see it mathematically surpasses the flaming arts naturally.
- It has no elemental resistance.
- Reigning slash is one of the first abilities that can be learned in the entire game...
- Due to being fast it works on all enemies including mobile bosses.
- Absolutely no resource requirement such as HP sacrifice, nor eating into TP/recovery items.
- Extremely safe to use.
- Combos infinitely better than any flaming art combo chain, granted that combo is ironically self-looping because it is that broken.
In fact, even if we remove Reigning Slash from the equation just the weak performance despite their longer animation lengths and even smaller HP tap loss make flaming arts questionable when you could simply use another skill that wont be far behind tapping. As for charging? Unnecessary risk (esp early on which is when most people complain difficulty of sustain) for slightly more dmg and possibly zero dmg if you get popped and die. Statistically speaking, flaming arts just aren't worth it until custom accessories near the final stretch of the game...
Didnt read further, get a clue. Its a fkin single player game, noone cares about reigning slash, all that matters is that everything usable, your original point was that its bad because of hp and its not. Without charging hp cost is basically non-existant. Most of flame attacks are awesome for combos or for example replace artes like mirage/falcon early, so you can land with searing gale.
You can win every fight without getting hit / insane grade etc without using reigning slash, its a crutch for people who for some reason thinks you need to use only overpowered abilities in single player game, like anyone except you having fun.
Its actually very non fun ability outside of boss fights, since its very hard to connect with it in combo once you send enemy flying, with double demon fangs only i think.
Also not everyone main Alphen