These kinds of JRPGs have the highest chance of being someone's all time favorite because they must be doing something different which speaks to certain gamers.
Sometimes these bandwagon opinions are formed by the more experienced players (in the franchise in discussion) who are revolted by certain changes in the franchise. They tend to become more stubborn and defensive about changes for the sake of nostalgia, their own personal feelings and memory. There are valid discussions about changes in franchises, good changes and bad changes, etc... It's a case by case thing. But that people join discussions stuck to the stance of "old is good, new is bad".
I have a difficult time accepting those opinions because anything can be different from the norm, but that doesn't mean it's good. In the end it's the execution of its mechanics and story telling that matter, and the fact it's different from the norm means it could very be just bad or a disaster! There's a manga called "Tsuihou Suru Gawa no Hanashi," which is an interesting take on the trope of the guy getting banished from the adventuring party where the main characters are actually the party that banishes the guy and now has to deal with his absence. That is different from the norm and does sound interesting, which is why the original Web Novel, the licensed Light Novel and the manga adaptation all got the attention it did both in Japan and the West, but that only served to highlight how BAD the narrative was because there were so many eyes on the work discussing its flaws. It was so bad, it ended up killing the mangaka's career as he's reportedly not done anything ever since and even deleted his social media accounts! Sometimes a work can be more of the same, but if more of the same is more of good stuff with great gameplay loop and engaging stories, the more the merrier. Things can get stagnated (Zelda fans know that, with how hard Aonuma insisted on handholding the players more and more with each new release), but overall the games are always fun to play. But when you get _too_ experimental and differ from the norm just to be different, you end up ignoring lessons learned from the norm that you should pay attention to and end up creating issues for yourself that you had no business having, such as the Tales of Berseria combat system refusing to repeat the heavily praised Tales of Graces combat! Taking risks is important, but being different just for the sake of it is nothing to praise it for.
@@astrea555Seriously I wanted Pyra and Mythra in Super Smash Bros and that phrase you said is what it have me worried about their inclusion and the Smash Fandom reaction. I accepted them immediately and love their play style but off course the others only saw their superficial appearance and obviously said: No too much Anime, TOO MUCH FAN SERVICE...I WANTED CRASH BANDICOOT OR RAYMAN (Despite their parent companies went under controversy in those times... Especially Activision which is still having more controversies)
@@astrea555 I agree cute/beautiful women aren't a problem but i think Dahlia is too much. But it isn't a problem since it's a gacha blade. I'm more concerned about poppi v2/v3(forgot their name) but my problem is i'm fed up with that cliche of the pervert.
Let's face it, the vast majority of Xenoblade 2 haters are mad because they don't like the girls outfits or because "it's too anime", as if the first game wasn't . Only a tiny minority hate it for gameplay or mechanics like the blade rng or the combat. It's also the Xenoblade game that has sold the most. So big L to the antis.
I hope a Definitive Edition does away with the Gacha and makes the Rare Blades al obtainable through sidequests, like with Seori and Mikumari. And also that they fix the localization, because goddammit, it sure is a nightmare trying to use the Japanese audio when the localization changes 90% of the names of characters, locales and terminologies! At the very least have the Japanese language as an option!
Surprised ff8 wasnt here but i think its understandable to have 12 as your ff pick since like you said it was the beginning of a trend where every ff after was more divisive and unpredictable than 1-10
The problem with bravely default is not so much the repetitivity of a certain moment in the game, it's that after doing it maybe twice or so, we learn what is going to happen if we continue, plus who is responsible for that... but we still continue to do it anyway until the very end, which is so freaking dumb, like we could just beat a certain character and stop, and the world would be saved, but no...
BD suffered from trying to be too meta. They wanted to communicate "these characters suffered in silence" but they also made YOU suffer in silence with them, which is bad
I mean you kinda can, just keep breaking one of the crystals, but you end up with a different ending and not fighting the actual final boss so there is that.
Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy 12, Kingdom Hearts, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I love all of these so much. It just shows you that "general consensus" or mainstream review sites don't really matter. FF8 is another black sheep I love immensely.
True, but i just want to remind that sometimes a certain stigma comes from a combination of "professional reviews" and the collective community opinion, or sometimes just the collective community opinion. It's not very rare that the own community is the problematic side.
Tales of Berseria does have a lot of needless backtracking, dull dungeons, and an uninspired battle system. However I loved the story, the skits, and characters. I think it's worth playing even for those alone, because it's too tier.
@@skycloud4802 I agree, the gameplay became dull after some time, but I forced myself through it and ended up loving the story and characters. It's a big asterisk, but I would still recommend it to anyone who likes JRPGs.
@@skycloud4802 Less is More. I *like* the "dull combat". I miss the older RPGs, especially from the SNES era because they don't have tons of systems stacked ontop of each other. Berseria does, _kinda_ but you're not forced into any of that if you just keep it on Normal and spam the You Decide buttons rather than tinkering with the combos constantly. As far as backtracking, I didn't really notice all that much backtracking and since battles can usually be skipped especially once you get your magical surfboard, it's not that bad. I also go "wtf?" when people talk about its "bad graphics" ... but then I'm a guy who still plays SNES games, so...
I actually adored Chrono Cross' battle system. And its story, outside of the forced connection to Trigger, had some interesting things going for it. Go figure the parts I disliked were the results of Executive Meddling...
The battle system is... eh, it's ok. What I hate, however, is how most characters are stupidly weak, hitting for single digits damage, and how Serge is the only person on the team that is actually capable of doing anything and he's the one carrying the group. Also, it takes forever to find non-consumable heals IIRC which is kinda stupid too, and I'm not a fan of gating growth behind boss battles.
@@Dhalintbh that's the thing they shouldve mantained like ct did instead of the story, the fact that in ct youncouod make almost any combination work well and there's no useless characters if you play to their strenghts
I still prefer Ringabel myself, but yes both voice acting and character depth were really good for a 3DS game. The zoom out and one of the greatest uses of the 3D option do not even get mentioned. And that is forgetting its using the camera and VR functions as little gimmicks. Still hoping for a Switch remake, even though that would not have many of these kinks.
Alot of people seem to hate Tales of Arise but I loved it. For me Star Ocean 3 was the game I could not get into, tried it 3 times before from finally giving up, it's just not me me I guess. Didn't like the restrictive battle system.
Eh I enjoyed arise to an extent but tying forced map actions to the same limited Giage as healing/recovery and them making enemies not just be random or respawn over time pushed me away from the post game heavily. Adding on the diminishing exp as you gained levels felt like needless padding. I agree with so3 though
About Berseria: If you just stick to Normal difficulty, you can just set "You Decide" on all 4 combo parts on one of your buttons and most battles, and even most bosses, you can just spam that button and you will do a decent enough job at it. There are maybe a few bosses where this might not work that are extra-gimmicky, that's where you use one of the other buttons and set it up for that boss specifically.
I thought the battle system was well made imo. It was easy to simplify it if that's the root I wanted to go. Like how you set it up. But it was also easy to set up the combo bar to get to any move I needed. As long as I understood where each move was and how to access it. It did take some time to learn. This is why i played almost exclusively as Velvet unless it was to work on stuff I had to personally do with other characters to plat the game. I can say. It felt super rewarding to master the system and smash the whole game on the hardest difficulty. It surprises me to here people had trouble with it.
@@jesseherman5540 : I've heard a lot of people say they were easily able to just smash through stuff with Velvet. I rarely used her, instead playing as Rokurou the most, along with Elanor and Eizen. Honestly, after several Tales games with weakness combo systems, I was getting tired of basing combos so heavily off of weakness check marks, especially when it felt like things didn't always work in some of the games because of factors that were never explained. A lot of the games seem to just tell you 'smash things and match weaknesses' and never bother to talk about the other details, even when I'd go looking in the manuals for more info.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was amazing to me. The game had a simple easy to understand map and the little bits of fanservice were absolutely annoying to me at points and others they were funny. The game itself is still a masterpiece though. As for FFXII I agree entirely, it is still a great game but didn't feel like a mainline FF game. I think a lot of reason it gets so much hate is because people believe it is what cause FF to go down the route it has gone down today.
Gachablade Chronicles 2 is a far cry from a masterpiece unlike its respective DLC. While it definitely is not impossible to appreciate, the backloading of basic combat features towards the end of the game, the poorly executed character weapon mechanic that basically was little more than a F2P gacha mechanic, and the obnoxious HM slave party management makes it that much harder to do so. If they made the first 20 hours of the game play a bit more like the last 20 leading up to the final boss and treated optional Blades like actual characters instead of loot, and removed the HM slave-checks, game would've arguably been on par with the first game which is saying a lot when comparing a genuine masterpiece to a would-be masterpiece plagued with problems that didn't need to exist in the first place, but ultimately held the game back. XBC3 is exactly what XBC2 should have been except the Blades are classes and that's why the game popped off as well as it did. 2 was a victim of bad design choices.
Vanilla FF12 was a bit of a disappointment because it was a step away from the turn-based roots (but I loved it anyway), its interpretation of Ivalice isn't really consistent with anything (even itself at times - especially how they depict the viera) and I had a friend who was disappointed that it he couldn't play a moogle in a game set in Ivalice. Mechanically, the game suffered from performance issues and the summoning/MP system was too unreliable to use. Its story is a little too close to Star Wars for comfort at times and I do hear people complain about Vaan not being an important character. Frankly, after a decade of romance sub-plots, I was glad that the game was focused around global politics beyond 'empire bad', and Vaan was a less annoying audience surrogate than Tidus. Zodiac Age fixes most of the mechanical problems (Espers are actually worth using now!!), but I hear the odd complaint about people being put off by the job system, mostly because of choice paralysis (which is why PS4 v1.4 onwards allowed you to switch jobs via Montblanc). Frankly, it's like a night & day difference with all the QoL improvements and design changes.
@@EduFirenze All 3 tactics games and both MMOs (11 & 14) are set in Ivalice, as well as FF12 and its spin-off. The public clearly did warn up to Ivalice, but the problem is that Ivalice changes radically between games, and SQEX flip-flops as to whether Ivalice is one world or many.
Hated it, felt betrayed by Square because it was the first game I ever did a "presale" on because I trusted them. They were the developer that forced me to learn you can't trust developers to just keep making good games because they made good games in the past.
Tales of Bersaria was one of those games where I watched a full story playthrough, and then bought and played the game myself. I loved it and got to post-game content, but there was one boss which I had so much trouble with that I ended up having Velvet run around avoiding attacks while letting the rest of the party handle the battle. It took like half an hour for that fight to end.
Was hoping to see Valkyria Revolution here. I loved that game even though it wasn't much like the VC games, and i think youre one of the few other people I've seen state their love for the game too!
Chrono Cross is a pet peeve of mine - the more it tries to tie itself with the story of Chrono Trigger, the more I hate it! "Deleting Prometheus!?" ARE YOU NUTS!? And why are Chrono, Marle and Lucca time ghosts blaming Serge for something he had no control over!? And seriously, Porre and Termina are at war with each other!? The region isn't even supposed to be tropic, how the hell do they have jungles in goddamn PORRE!? Okay, fine, at least the story outside of Chrono Trigger is good, right? Eh, not really. Since the game focuses on shoving a crapton of playable characters in your party, none of them have a longstanding impact in the narrative and they can't be made relevant for the parts of the story aside from their recruitment and specific sidequests. That means when Serge and Lynx trade bodies, no one reacts to the shift like they should! Sure, during the whole thing happening when everyone is confused, it makes sense they would continue to fight Serge in Lynx's body. Nobody had any reason to even think they had traded bodies in the first place. But afterwards, when you meet all of the old recruited characters in their respective places, despite having fought against Lynx to the death (or with that intention), all of their responses can be resumed to "Silly cat, you're not Serge. Serge isn't a cat!" SHOULDN'T YOU GUYS HAVE MORE OF A REACTION TO LYNX'S PRESENCE!? Shouldn't you guys demand proof that the Lynx standing in front of you is actually Serge!? Or at least fight against him without listening to his side, that way at least it's justified as to why you can't use the old characters anymore! But alright, after you get your body back you can just rerecruit everyone, right? Well, yes... because they automatically join the party like they never left. And nobody ever comments on the fact SERGE WAS CAT!!!! But what takes the cake for me are the goddam dwarves! The dwarves are supposed to be the protectors of nature and chastise humans for polluting the swamp where the hydras used to live. In one world, they're extinct, in the other one there's only one survivor, and it's all humans who are at fault because humans don't protect nature and pollute everything! Except all human settlements are in perfect harmony with nature, even the evil ones. The only ones using machines to destroy everything and killing outsiders at first contact without listening to their side of the story are the dwarves! And after you kill the last hydra to get what you went there for, the dwarves leave the swamp and decide to exterminate fairies because "humans taught us that you can just take what you want with force," or something like that. THE BASTARDS JUST WENT ON A GENOCIDAL RAMPAGE AND BLAMED HUMANS FOR IT ONCE AGAIN!!! And the worst part is that the fairies SIDE WITH THE DWARVES!!! The surviving fairies blame the player for the actions the dwarves took, despite the player being the one that put a stop to their rampage in the first place! This is because the game came during the 90's and early 2000's boom of environmentalist message, where the message was just that "humans are bad because of pollution, so you should feel bad because you're a human and humans pollute, and that's bad, so you should feel bad about it." And don't even get me started on the right way to beat the last boss, that's such a convoluted mess you have no way of figuring out without a guide...
@therealjaystone2344 The first game was great but RPG fans were hit and miss on the overly long cutscenes. I just completed the second game last week and despite flaws (and man I can name a good amount) its still a great game and I enjoy the story alot. I thankfully have the 3rd title so im going to complete that next
Berseria is the perfect divisive Tales game for me because I pretty much love it as much as I hate some parts of it. XD Excellent work on the cast and story, and because I like Zestiria well enough, it was even more enjoyable since there's a lot of major and minor crossovers between Berseria and Zestiria. It also feels very distinctive, even in a very diverse series (which I also liked about Xillia 2). What you said about the combat is extremely accurate, and I feel it's symptomatic of some problems that were accumulating in the Tales series leading up to Arise and its reassessment of combat mechanics. I tend to describe it as being 'fragile'. The combo mechanics were geared toward allowing players to do longer and longer combos, but also tried to find ways to balance that by stopping players from getting and continuing combos, as well as balancing out enemy stats to account for this. As a result, combat could be way too easy for someone who knows how it's designed to work, or a total mess to someone who doesn't. Partly, but not fully understanding it kind of made the combat feel all over the place since things were either working or not with little in-between, and other mechanics like the stun status were very all-or-nothing. I also had issues with their item upgrade system. Felt like they mashed a couple ideas together that didn't really play off each other, kind of like Soul Calibur 4. (Design characters - but the clothing affects performance - then after you finally get it right, your pants break right away and you look stupid regardless). XD
For Breath of Fire 2, I know I didn't finish it but I didn't rage quit. More of I forgot about it hahaha.. Never played Persona 3 but kinda want to. I like some of the music. Never got into Kingdom Hearts... I actually loved Chrono Cross. Only played and finished once tho.
SMT IV is great, both games. FFXII is amazing, for 2006 was a mindblow, they are the genesis to a complete new genre or RPGs that Xenoblade took to themselves, FF6 is my favorite from the pixel art era, and FFXII still my favorite of all times. XC2 is the only Xenoblade that i tried twice, and couldn't pass de 20 hour mark. Torna is a great stand alone game.
Surprised to see Persona 3 on this list, considering it was acclaimed enough at its original release to launch the Persona series to mainstream heights of popularity and pave the way for Persona to become one of the bigger RPG franchises. I can definitely see your point about Tartarus. Personally, the single huge dungeon is part of what made the game memorable to me. It really set the tone for the story - it felt so oppressive and frightening because you knew you had to go back there every night, and it was just going to get more difficult the further you explored. I would love to see the one dungeon concept explored in some other games, but perhaps with different sub areas in the dungeon that change up the vibe from time to time. Not sure if there is a game for it, but the anime "Made in Abyss" evokes a very similar vibe, but with the dungeon evolving as the protagonists get deeper. The AI teammates were probably one of the few things I disliked about it in retrospect. It was super frustrating at times to lose a couple hours after your teammates fail to combo chain and you get blown out of a winnable fight. However, it was not a deal breaker for me because it executed so well in every other area.
I was introduced to the series by a friend around the time Persona 4 came out, and even back then he warned me that the AI team mates would be annoying but worth persevering through. I think its inclusion on a list like this is that anyone who played Persona 4 or Persona 5 first would find this a frustrating mechanic. Still better than the forced partner AI in Final Fantasy 13.
@@TheBlackSeraph Yeah, I agree. I have a soft spot for Persona 3 because it introduced me to the franchise, but it would be hard to go back to playing it after playing 4 and 5 (haven't checked out the remake yet, maybe it fixes the problems mentioned in this video).
Trigger and Cross are both masterpiece. There also exist people who accept Cross as Trigger's weird sequel. And we are many... Some said Cross is Trigger's alter dimension sequel. Some said it's just a great game but with unfinished and rushed connections to Trigger. I love Chrono Cross just like I love Xenogears even with its rushed disc 2. I miss squaresoft...
I personally like flawed, divisive games because if they are more interesting than an average and competently-executed game that takes no creative risks. Not a JRPG, but my favorite divisive game is probably Heroes of Might and Magic IV. Wonderful, flawed masterpiece of a game. Incredible soundtrack (maybe a top 10 soundtrack of all time, its just incredibly beautiful) and storytelling, interesting new hero combat mechanics, but sadly it was a rushed title with somewhat ugly unit graphics, and lacking polish and balance in many areas.
i think you overestimate the remaining hatred for FF13. To me it feels like a lot of people came around to like or at least accept it by now. You're in fact one of the only people i see still holding such a grudge/distain against it. Though my perspecitve may be a bit biased considering i absolutely love it together with its sequels.
While I don't *hate* 13, I find it incredibly difficult to get into. I played up until you unlock magic, and the whole system seems so jank. If you don't turn healer mode on, Lightning can die in less than 3 seconds flat and it's game over. Instantly. If you turn healer mode on, it takes forever to kill anything but at least you'll never die. Doesn't seem to be any kind of decent middle-ground between the two, it just seems stupid. Also, the character progression system seemed confusing as frick, multi-layered maps you have to spin around in 3d... why not just lay that out on a 2D plane so you can see wtf you need to do to get stuff? I miss the days where *I* controlled my party members, and when mobs couldn't all spam attacks constantly. Turn based RPGs were just plain better. Or, better yet, ATB like 4 through 9. But I really dislike this stuff starting from 12 and then into 13 where they wanna make the characters just randomly choose their own actions.
@@Dhalin i also like turn-based rpgs, but that's not coming back for big budget games, but we can still and will always find it in smaller games and don't have to rely on FF for it. as for your point on FF13 directly: - the cristarium (progression system) is essentially a one-dimensional progression line for each role with minor offshoots. it's not really convoluted, you just choose which role to level and then do so. it's just 3D to make it look nice, which explains many design decisions. they tried to make a big leap when starting out on the then new generation of consoles. - the party member ai isn't all that bad. it has some issues, but they generally perform well for the role you assign them. there lies also the control you have over them, the paradigm system essentially aims at creating strategic decision without stopping the flow of battle. - you don't need lightning as a healer much, i very rarely use her in that role, let alone level it up. it sounds like you underutilized the chain/stagger-system. i won't explain it here, but this allows you to skyrocket your damage by cleverly switching between your role-comps (paradigms) in the first phase of the fight.
@@Dhalin Not to mention that you'll eventually get to one of the Barthandalus fights where Thanatosian Smile is an insta-kill attack and as such there's a 1/3 chance that he'll target the primary character causing an unavoidable game over. AFAIK there's no reason for this design choice beyond 'Persona did it and Persona's popular rn'. HumanLucifer is right in that hatred toward FF13 and the Lightning trilogy has softened, but I think that's more because FF13 was the first true stinker of the series and since then most FF projects have either sucked (FF15, Dissidia NT) or have had their praise dwindle quickly over time (I'm noticing more people are willing to say that FF7R is crap, and FF16 was viewed highly upon release but already that praise is fading). FF13 was also willing to try a few new things, and their characters are still good (even if the mechanics, lore and story are lame). FF15, in comparison, was a disaster with weak characters that looked like a Korean boyband and character development so bad that it required DLC to fill in the gaps. I still think that it is more "hated" than of divided opinion, however, because I rarely see it presented positively and most people online who talk about FF13 are either derisive or deliberately neutral. @humanLucifer If you don't think turn-based combat is coming back in AAA games, then clearly you haven't heard of a publisher called "Atlus" :D . I also disagree that the paradigm system was good since you couldn't swap party members for the most optimal class combinations and you had to set up the paradigms for your party in advance (I think it was max 3 or 4). The game was also too reliant on the stagger bar which even after several hours I couldn't reliably get to work well and I got to final Barthandalus without even knowing how I managed to survive the mandatory Eidolon battles.
@@TheBlackSeraph It's also quite telling that in FF14, a game that has many, MANY callbacks to older Final Fantasy games... they did callbacks to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, Tactics, but *not* 7, 13 or any of its sequels, except for a very short event where you help Lightning out and a short event with 15's main character. The rest of the callbacks and references are permanent while the 13 and 15 ones were only temporary. That should say something itself, that 13 and its sequels were pretty much left out in 14's extensive callbacks, references, and straight up ripping half the plot/story/locales out of 4, 9, and even having a section devoted to Ivalice. Heck, 14 has a whole raid based on NieR: Automata! But pretty much nothing from 13 or its sequels. And the new raid is going to be centered around FF11. Even 11 gets a callback/reference, but 13 doesn't. EDIT: I lied, there is a callback to 7, the Gold Saucer. So, 10, 13 and 15 remain the only games I can't think of any references or callbacks to except for temporary events that were only available for a limited time. I will admit though, FF14's version of the FF13 Lightning Battle theme was dope AF. And maybe one or two of the weapons you got for that event looked cool. Too bad you'll never hear the theme again or get the weapon glamours unless they bring the event back which is unlikely as it's been years since it was last run.
@@humanLucifer So, as an update, I decided to give 13 another shot, and it seems to be going better this time.I don't recall the last time I tried it all that well, I could have been distracted, tired, etc... but I've since gotten about 6 hours into the game and... eh. It's still not my favorite, but at least it seems playable and maybe I can finally put this one to rest and actually finish it lol.
Berseria's worst problems, for me, are the dungeons (worst in the franchise after Legendia and Xillia), lack of difficulty and MMO style upgrade system. It's a great return to form with perhaps the best story in the franchise. Yes, more than Symphonia. Also, Final Fantasy 12 plays like a precursor to Xenoblade, but feels like, indeed, a Matsuno game (mostly Ogre Battle, also bits of Vagrant Story, probably because they share artists). Fight me.
Your explanation of FFXII is pretty spot on. It’s where the franchise wandered into the void looking for itself and never came back. Also it’s divisive because it could’ve been good, and the squandered potential is just right there alongside you for the ride til you drop it.
As for my own RPGs that I love that everybody else hates: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom: Some people like me love this game, because unlike most other JRPGs, esp. for the SNES era, there's reasonable challenge to be had and it feels great once you master the game and get the hang of it. It tests your memory when it comes to mazy dungeons, and yes maybe it also tests your patience with the random battles, but at least the main battle theme is catchy AF. 7th Saga: Yet another infamous game. It really, *really* is not that hard if you give it a chance, and/or get some advice/tips on how to make it easier on you (such as a let's play I did). Once you "get" the game, it feels great to destroy bosses that once seemed impossible. And don't use the rebalance patch... that just turns it into another challenge-less braindead JRPG like all the rest. You'd be doing yourself a great disservice with that. Secret of Evermore: I really don't get the hate with this game. People complain about the combat and "bad hit detection" but to be honest, I think that just comes from players failing to observe how enemies move and the animations of their own weapons. Once you get the hang of it, if you miss... you know exactly why you missed. Yet another game that feels great once you master it.
@@steveperry2321 To be fair, you can only sprint after you get the ring from the guy near the quicksand fields. I don't know if you ever found this out, but you can _infinite_ sprint if you charge a weapon attack up before you start to sprint. And yeah, SoE makes your character move faster and it has a profound effect on combat and gameplay in general due to the faster movement, it just feels more fluid and nice. SoM is cool and all, and it still has its strong points, but general gameplay, I think I favor SoE too.
@Dhalin never knew that and that's a nice trick. It was a fluke I even figured it out tbh. I enjoy grinding and seeing how strong I can get and all the different alchemy and weapons etc made for an excellent time sink . Ended up maxing out several of the alchemy recipes that were buyable all weapons levels and even had a TON of all of the currencies
@@steveperry2321 Yeah I did that once too. Though these days I just use Crush, Cure, and Heal... and nothing else until the final boss (that spell that instantly maxes out weapon charge, forget the name of it).
Would have liked Berseria more if it wasn't so incredibly Tales of Predictable in story, combat and characters. Was a great Steam sale pickup for a fiver tho!
I remember seeing lots of people on forums recommending Bravely Default, and I could have sworn Berseria was considered one of the best Tales of games with "The Big Three". Same with Breath of Fire 2 being a classic masterpiece. Then again, Xenogears is one too, and it's got its issues.
I honestly cannot defend Tetsuya Nomura's convoluted story telling or the festering gangrene that Disney became, but i have a soft spot for Disney from the 90s and the early 2000s, and i was a fan of final fantasy, so i loved Kingdom Hearts despite all of the complaints about the series.
Can be summed up by "when mainstream audience gets their hands on a franchise". Fe probably 3ds era. Pokemon same. Tales of Zestiria and after. When bad takes are really abound when people think "well I liked it" as an argument since it's baby's first video game and baby tends to protect its first. Some get rightful hate when the translation is localization mess changing the core story or cast. Fates has the best combat system in all of fire emblem and we didn't even get the last dlc either making non jp players not get the full picture since some od those dialogues really flesh out the cast. Dot hack series never got how it got this far. Played it and it was bland and basic. Same with dq series
The issue I have with Tales of Berseria, is the over-simplistic combat. It seems too simple, even by Tales standards. Zesteria has armatization, Tales of Arise has boost attacks and overlimit. Tales of Xillia 1/2 have a 5 teir overlimit, stuff like that. Boost souls don't seem to do much. I wonder if they intended to add armatization with EiZen, and Laphicet near the end-game. I think it might have been fun seeing an Armatized Velvet/Laphi munching demons, or Magilou armatizing with her little spud.
About Tales of Berseria 10:19 "[i don't understand the love of this game]" You can reply " well *YOU* 🫵 the one who seems never experience Zestiria and complaint" 11:24 "there is just lack of balance" Don't worry Erick. Even in Tales of Arise half end is just you spam with Rinwell. Tominaga of God Eater seems still cannot save Tales
Tales of bersteria doesn't have good villains. The inccest siblings are bland and we hardly get much on them either same with the old man. Only arty is given some development but the sister just loses her life in the prologue which was a wasted opportunity to see her side to things. Abyss and xillia you get a ton of development and battles against the god generals and chimeriad showing your and their progress in story as well as interesting connections. Even Leia who isn't as invested in story has agria that goes into the second game of what ifs . Story wise doesn't help Zestiria that was a trash fire.
Tales of Berseria is my favorite of the Tales games… You are basically playing the villains. Even when Elenor joins the party, Velvet is continuously hostile towards her. The whole group has nothing to lose and Velvet does not give a f about anyone that stands in her way.
Honestly I got bored with FFXII when I hit a difficulty spike with the judge boss. Seemed obvious I was incredibly under-leveled and leveling wasn’t fun.
Tartarus (the dungeon), and that you only control your main character during battle, are two major drawbacks of Persona 3 which makes it a good game instead of a great game.
As far as Final Fantasy series goes, I thought Final Fantasy 8 was the most divisive. The issue I had with 12 was actually they way it made spell casters feel unplayable. The combat feels sort of like MMORPG combat systems, but with no cost effective ways to recover your MP out of battle. So casters go through 2-3 battles and then they are useless.
FF12 was also divisive because the gambit system could automate so much of the gameplay that the second half felt boring like the game was playing itself. Also, the story and characters were wasted potential. You brought up Vaan but the truly ignored character was Penelo. Aside from being Vaan's friend you literally don't learn a single thing about her.
There's 2 main things I dislike with SO3's story: the ending of course (which was something that ws gone over in the video) and the way they handled the optional characters in the story after leaving the main planet...they become almost completely removed from the story to the point they're shown off screen in many main story cutscenes...granted this is an issue with almost all games with optional characters in the series besides maybe SO6 (since that one you only get 2 optional characters and one or the other is locked out depending on the PoV character you choose at the start and play a major role in the story at some point unlike some of the optional characters in other SO games).
Hey man, good video. Although, with all due respect, I don't think P3, Chrono Cross and FF12 are divisive. The fan bases are strong and, although, of course, there are many haters out there, like with most games, they remain good entries with lots of fans and pretty decent revenue
@@NinoNakanoSupremacy i like Velved. She is right to be angry even if it coulc have been more subtle. Eleanor i think i ended liking her (or at least being neutral) but i the beginning i hated her(like Alisa in Trails of cold steel 1).
zestiria and berseria was victim of woke movement in early era xenoblade series' true divisive nature is the grinding. the fanservice complaint is because of woke
The interesting part to me is when a franchise of mostly repetitive sequels get some different type of sequels, and the community shows different opinions about changes in the franchise. There are those who dislike changes, those more or less indifferent, and those who are mostly pro changes.
That's because fans of a franchise, are fans of the franchise because they *like* what the franchise is. When you change the formula up so much, people who liked the franchise for what it was, might not like it anymore. I enjoyed the ATB and turn-based nature of Final Fantasy. But when they started making it AI-controlled and full real-time and only allowed you to issue vague commands, then it stopped being Final Fantasy and started being something else. Kinda like FF7R where they went from ATB to.... something more in line with Kingdom Hearts. If I wanted KH, I'd play KH, thanks.
@@Dhalin That is a valid reply... still your description highlights those purist tendencies that i mentioned earlier. There are good kind of changes and bad kind of changes... and there are even good radical changes and bad radical changes. The distinction exists, though sometimes it's not quick and easy to identify under a completely mature, cold and unbiased perspective. Purists basically just want the game to stay the same for the sake of their nostalgic feelings... as if the "ultimate form" of every game had been reached already, and it was coincidentally during their child or teen years, so that any change from that point on is negative. But the reality is that deep down even the purists are contradictory and selective. There is a tolerance margin for changes in the sequels. After all, very few franchises (outside of more repetitive genres like puzzle and sports) remain the same, in the most strict and literal meaning. In the case of FF, even the Sakaguchi FFs are not literally just FF1 with new graphics. So that means the purists accepted some changes along the years and rejected others. Which is what meant in the beginning... that there are all kinds of changes, that are perceived differently. So there is no good reason to make up a kind of general anti-change attitude, that is common to find in purists.
@@carlosaugusto9821 It has a lot to do with how much a change, changes the general feel of the game. I mean, compare FF1 to FF4. You still input commands to your characters when they have a turn. However, in FF4, you don't go through rounds, characters get their turns in time-passed. They didn't coin the term "ATB" until 6, but that's what 4 and 5 are, they use the same system. People accepted that change, because it's similar enough to the old way, it's like the old way, only slightly different and many would agree, better. But, compare FF4-9 to FF10. Suddenly, it's a whole different system. It was at least somewhat divisive, though it helped that Final Fantasy Tactics used a very similar system, which helped people warm up to it a little better. Then, FF12 comes along and they kept it be more-or-less ATB, only your characters always auto-attack unless you input a different command. Some people were "eh" about it, others didn't mind. It was the first time they dipped their toes into AI controlled characters in your active party. And then... came FF13 and the "WTF is this!?" because they chucked everything previous FFs did right out the window and instead brought in something ENTIRELY new. Previous FFs took concepts and morphed them a little. FF13 chucked everything and decided to try something entirely different, and wouldn't you know it, it was divisive AF. Changes are good when you take a model and make improvements to it but you can still tell what the original model was. Changes aren't received anywhere near as well by veterans if you can't even recognize the source material. It feels like an entirely different game. Nothing about FF13 says "Final Fantasy" to me, because most of the areas seem very linear, and the battle system is entirely unrecognizable from any other FF game before it. And again, with FF7R, other than maybe FF15 (which I don't like the look of either), again, not even close to what FFs used to be in the past. It looks, again as I said, more like Kingdom Hearts than FF. Here's another example for you: Metroid. Up until Metroid Prime, Metroid games were all 2D sidescrollers. Then Prime comes out and it's First Person Perspective. Some people thought that was an entirely strange idea, and even I myself was like "I dunno about this..." ... I wound up liking it, but only because of the lock-on feature. Without that, it would have been unplayable especially on controller. My cousin, however, hated it and we both loved Metroid up until that point. Huge radical changes are just like that. What helped me accept Metroid was the fact that they kept true to the rest of what Metroid was, how its areas are, how its powerups affect map exploration, etc. They kept true to all that. All they did was transition to FPS in Prime, the rest of the game was still recognizable as being Metroid. But with Final Fantasy, 13, 7R, and 15... it just doesn't look or feel like Final Fantasy anymore. There's very little recognition there. A few chocobos, and a few eidolons are not gonna suddenly make me feel like I'm playing Final Fantasy again.
I'm seeing more hate for Arise than Berseria lately, Arise was one of those cases where people started playing it when it came out and enjoyed it, but the more they played as time went on, and the people who actually finished it, found much more flaws with it
SMT IVA isn't just divisive because of it's characters. In the original, you literally had conversations with children in which they had a very negative outlook on the world they inhabited. This is completely flipped in Apocalypse. Apocalypse does away with that established lore building. They even go so far as to retcon an important character's personality so that it fit the tone of the new game. Tonally inconsistent in between the two entries. The game is mostly a rehash of the the original, not very much new in terms of demons. Most of the random encounters are hordes. The affinity system is not well developed in this entry. Your silent main protagonist from the original is now voiced. Your new main protagonist is an relatively unimportant NPC from the original. Enemy health pools are larger which leads to longer random encounters and by the 70% mark, the game just becomes a glorified boss rush mode. That last dungeon, is also in the running for worst final dungeon in a JRPG, just go ask reddit. So yeah, the division among fans is more than just a simple change of cast.
BoF2 is a game that did not age well. The story is well executed and lore / atmosphere is top notch for its time. However, you have two mandatory solo dungeons (Sten, Nina), three mandatory solo bosses (Sten, Rand, Nina), and mandatory sections with certain characters (Sten, Rand, Spar). If you have not used those characters, the game is PAAAAAAIN. And the boring bog-standard battle system coupled with the insane enemy encounter rate makes the game just not hit the mark. Just watch an LP of it. More fun that way.
I seriously thought Tales of Zestiria was gonna be the pick of the Tales series! Because much like Xenoblade 2 you either defend it to death (there's a reason why that game got an anime adaptation made by Ufotable and gets lots of representation on crossovers of the series) or hate it, want to destroy it, uncanonize it and punch it's protagonist in the face... BUT both lovers and haters agree... The music is beautiful! 😅
3:43 Ahhh..... Breath of Fire 2. One of my favorites! You'll need to do some grinding and use a guide to get all the shamans (and a secret reoccurring character 😉) but other than that, the only problem with this is, the frequent battles, something that is a sort of a staple of the series (3 is the same in that with 4 just a bit behind).
What I genuinely hated about Breath of Fire 2 is that Ryu's dragon forms are just situational AOE attacks that depletes all of the ap on Ryu, with the attack decreasing by the difference between max AP and current AP, while the dragon forms in BoF 1 remained throughout the battle as long Ryu doesn't get KOed. Some might find the latter OP, but that's what dragons are meant to be- overpowered.
@@csargent31 The reason why is actually covered in the story... in BoF1, Ryu and Nina fell in love and it diluted both clans' blood, so that dragons are weaker, and so are the bird people. This is why in BoF1 Nina can freely change between a bird and her demihuman form, but in BoF2... Nina's sister sacrifices herself to become a bird permanently and it's even mentioned in the game that this is because the clan's blood was diluted by their ancestors. As far as grinding, if you exploit the orange crabs near Simafort for like 15-30 minutes, you can just walk through the rest of the game killing everything in your path and you'll remain beefy enough you won't need to do much of any grinding for quite awhile. Also, in BoF1.... Ryu's dragon forms were overpowered AF. Once you got the 2nd tier dragon forms, and especially the final dragon power, the game's challenge takes a nosedive and I'm sure the developers noticed that. BoF3 fixes the problem by letting you actually enjoy your dragon forms, but yet keeping challenge throughout the game, though certain late-game transformations (coughWarriorcough) are still a wee bit bonkers if you stack buffs.
@@csargent31 Figured I'd put this in a separate post, but what I meant by the orange crab thing... when you first get to Simafort, you're supposed to go go to Witch's Tower and get the curse lifted from Jean so you can actually go to Simafort. Instead of doing that, get Nina to 11 so she learns her Tier 2 thunder spell (she might already have that by now) and then go as far east from the campfire near Simafort as possible and a little south to near the signpost you find there and you'll run into those orange flat crabs. You are NOT supposed to be fighting these yet, but Nina can one-shot them with her Tier 2 thunder spell, but you gotta save often as the crabs can one-shot her (have everybody else defend), but if you can survive, they give 1400-1700xp (whereas the stuff in and near the tower only gives 200-300) per battle and you can get 5 or so levelups really fast. Once you do that, don't get lazy -- kill everything in your path to maintain that lead that you have on XP levels to keep stuff way easier and smoother than it'd be otherwise.
I love Star Ocean 3. It was my first Star Ocean game too. There are some balance issues in some places, but you can get around it. Berseria is in my top 3 Tales games. Bravely Default 1 and 2 I tried and played for a while, but couldn't finish them because I got bored. XBC2 is awesome. FF12 is my second favorite Final Fantasy game. At first, I was meh on the story, but I ended up really liking it and the combat is my favorite in the series.
Maybe I'm a masochist, but I think Berseria is best experienced on the highest difficulty, yes, you do get one shot at every corner and you will need to engage with upgrading your gear, AoE spells are terrifying and it feels like you have to play in a very specific way to attempt not to die so much. But once you get the hang of it, you feel like such a badass, and Velvet, when correctly played, is pretty much invulnerable, at least until you make a single mistake, then she's just dead.
Absolutely agree. This is the reason why I always promptly suggest my friend to play any Tales games on hard difficulty. Not because for the sake of challenge but more of what can you discover from the game mechanic. I myself never touch Rokuro until at some point encounter enemy that immune to physical and need to be countered, this work different in normal mode. From there I learn how each character works and it feels like different game everytime I switch to them.
For Star Ocean 3 for me, my problems stem less from the game mechanics (I loved the combat), but the characterization was very rough. The only character I really clicked with was Maria. Very good game, and surprisingly intriguing! Not as good as the Second Story, of which every character I really liked.
I love so3 i have played many times my bigest problem whit the game is how to unlock the harder dificulties and normaly you dont notices but the enemies are brain dead and so the alies if you only use one character
I thought i had to play some games of the list , but was surprised having played that much. I played 8/10 of the list and the 2 i didn't finish was So3 and FFX2 but i don't remember why. Maybe i was bored.
Chrono Cross had good music. The rest? The combat system was a disaster. The story was almost non-existent. The alternate dimension idea sounds great, but the only do one alternate world instead of really having fun with it. When they finally touch on Chrono Trigger it probably isn't going to make fans happy. The biggest issue which could have resolved a lot of the story problems? Too. Many. Characters! Chrono Trigger had a few character, but they all had very distinct characters with their own reasons for joining you, and their story played out. Chrono Cross? I remember a big black lady with a frying pan joined my team because her son didn't like us. Most of the characters had little to no background or story. I'd have been far happier with three characters who had a story to tell than 45 who show up, shrug, and then wind up waiting in the wings for the game to end. At least with Suikoden collecting the characters was it's own reward, and the primary cast would show up for plot related events while the bit players would help you at least unlock more of your city if not mini-games, stores, or other diversions. But, yeah. The music was good.
I am actually playing Xenoblade 2 for real for the first time (after 3 tries just not getting into it, now in chapter 6). My main gripe is the gatcha that I'll never get behind. When playing casually, it's not THAT big of a deal, but knowing that there are blades including most likely KOS-MOS and their quests I'll never get is just downright bullshit. I'm also still always opening the map when I want to open the menu. I know it's petty, but annoying nonetheless. Other than that, it's really great! A solid 8/10.
almost all the games here are my favorites of all time, lol. what the fck is wrong with me. tbh, it is what makes them unique from other genric JRPGs in the first place. and that's why. I love them. also no one shts on XENOBLADE series. i'll defend it with all my life.
FF12 was a radical departure, removing the turn-based combat was VERY divisive, a lot of people hated it... including me. Since then I've gone back and given it another chance and... now all these years later It's become one of my favorites. Does it have problems, yea, lots of them... but for me it is an interesting story, and an interesting setting. I also love the characters (no not Vaan) See the thing is Vaan/Penelo are you, the audience, they are just there so you can tag along and see the story... This is really Basch and Ashe's story, they are the main characters. Vaan and Penelo are not, Vaan in particular is just there so you can tag along and see these events through his eyes. Is that the best of even a good setup, no... Would I prefer to have Basch just be the main character, yes. Hiroyuki Ito & Hiroshi Minagawa wanted Basch to be the main character, intended for him to be the main character, but Square said you can't have a 32-year-old character be the main character, and they made them shoehorn in younger protagonists... 12 had TONS of these kind of problems, this game was troubled from the beginning and went through development hell. It could have been much better, so much was cut to get it out the door, despite all of that I think that what they finally released was a good game. 12 could have been great, a 10 out of 10, but with all the problems behind the scenes that version never saw the light of day, still what we got for me at least is a solid 8 out of 10.
Well, I DO have issues with berseria's characters. Everyone is super edgy, super trophy and seems like if they don't say their catch phrase at least once on every interaction they will die. The combat was horrible indeed, but that wasn't even the most infuriating part, it was the equipment. It was overly complicated and annoying that I just ignored it and ended the game with everyone's starting equipment because I didn't have the time to figure out what was best or not. And let's not forget about how for the first 1/3 of the game, whenever you arrived at an inn there was always a tutorial that went on forever. The only good thing I can say about it is that I hated it less than Zestiria in most aspects.
Tales of Berseria: "Barely anyone criticizes the story or characters" Ain't sure how I should feel to be part of the Barely Anyone crowd :). But that's the Tales of Game series problem, either you like the characters or you end up disliking the game and even the story. Oh well, I'm just glad people like the tales of series anyway. Those are well-made games (even if Zesteria went through development hell). I'm excited for the Tales of grace remake, as I've never been able to play it.
'There isn't a perfect version of this game [Persona 3]' Sad but true. I managed to beat the main quest in FES and FeMC's storyline in P3P (PSP) and I love the game but the uncontrollable party members were a problem even back then (P4 and P5 players would have a fit going back to this). I was hoping that the PC/PS4 version of P3P would actually be a 'best of all worlds' remake, but no. Eventually got P3 Reload, but now knowing that the game has been censored and that "The Answer" is now DLC only (Episode Aigis) makes me not want to play it.
Fire Emblem Engage would have been perfect for this list. Some JRGP/Fire Emblem fans hate bc of the character designs, story, gameplay ect while others love it.
@@therealjaystone2344 but i saw a video saying Engage isn't the worst fe game and those ppl are defending it. So we can all agree to disagree when it comes to Engage.
Honestly, I think the only part of Chrono Cross that really ticked off fans of Trigger was the end. Even the CT ties beforehand worked well (the sequence where Crono, Marle, and Lucca show up and start yelling at you for ruining all their hard work is one of my favorites in any game). That ending, though? Just out of the blue turning the whole game into a gaiden to resolve the disappearance of one character from CT? It not only took a giant dump on CT, but it made Chrono Cross itself all but meaningless.
zestiria is hated? 81% positive on steam i was gonna try it at some point since i beat berseria and... well kind of had a love hate relationship with that game update: just beat Zestiria, i dont get the hate, was pretty solid about on par with berseria but not as polished and the stories compliment each other well enough, maybe tales fans are just super picky?
I love Star Ocean in general, 4 being my favorite. Been like 20 years since I played 3. Wait, people hated Zestiria? Also, people don't just button mash?
These kinds of JRPGs have the highest chance of being someone's all time favorite because they must be doing something different which speaks to certain gamers.
A big reason I try to just form my own opinion about games, even ones that are generally hated.
Final Fantasy XII was my favorite (until Xenoblade), so yeah, you're accurate. XD
Sometimes these bandwagon opinions are formed by the more experienced players (in the franchise in discussion) who are revolted by certain changes in the franchise. They tend to become more stubborn and defensive about changes for the sake of nostalgia, their own personal feelings and memory.
There are valid discussions about changes in franchises, good changes and bad changes, etc... It's a case by case thing. But that people join discussions stuck to the stance of "old is good, new is bad".
I have a difficult time accepting those opinions because anything can be different from the norm, but that doesn't mean it's good.
In the end it's the execution of its mechanics and story telling that matter, and the fact it's different from the norm means it could very be just bad or a disaster!
There's a manga called "Tsuihou Suru Gawa no Hanashi," which is an interesting take on the trope of the guy getting banished from the adventuring party where the main characters are actually the party that banishes the guy and now has to deal with his absence.
That is different from the norm and does sound interesting, which is why the original Web Novel, the licensed Light Novel and the manga adaptation all got the attention it did both in Japan and the West, but that only served to highlight how BAD the narrative was because there were so many eyes on the work discussing its flaws. It was so bad, it ended up killing the mangaka's career as he's reportedly not done anything ever since and even deleted his social media accounts!
Sometimes a work can be more of the same, but if more of the same is more of good stuff with great gameplay loop and engaging stories, the more the merrier.
Things can get stagnated (Zelda fans know that, with how hard Aonuma insisted on handholding the players more and more with each new release), but overall the games are always fun to play.
But when you get _too_ experimental and differ from the norm just to be different, you end up ignoring lessons learned from the norm that you should pay attention to and end up creating issues for yourself that you had no business having, such as the Tales of Berseria combat system refusing to repeat the heavily praised Tales of Graces combat!
Taking risks is important, but being different just for the sake of it is nothing to praise it for.
@@fenniken5381 As I always say, you are, more often than not, the best critic for whether or not you like a game
I'll defend Xenoblade 2 until I die. If it gets a definitive edition to fix the technicals that would make it loved.
b-b-but the women are cute and that's bad! Apparently!
@@astrea555Seriously I wanted Pyra and Mythra in Super Smash Bros and that phrase you said is what it have me worried about their inclusion and the Smash Fandom reaction.
I accepted them immediately and love their play style but off course the others only saw their superficial appearance and obviously said: No too much Anime, TOO MUCH FAN SERVICE...I WANTED CRASH BANDICOOT OR RAYMAN (Despite their parent companies went under controversy in those times... Especially Activision which is still having more controversies)
@@astrea555 I agree cute/beautiful women aren't a problem but i think Dahlia is too much. But it isn't a problem since it's a gacha blade. I'm more concerned about poppi v2/v3(forgot their name) but my problem is i'm fed up with that cliche of the pervert.
Let's face it, the vast majority of Xenoblade 2 haters are mad because they don't like the girls outfits or because "it's too anime", as if the first game wasn't . Only a tiny minority hate it for gameplay or mechanics like the blade rng or the combat.
It's also the Xenoblade game that has sold the most. So big L to the antis.
I hope a Definitive Edition does away with the Gacha and makes the Rare Blades al obtainable through sidequests, like with Seori and Mikumari.
And also that they fix the localization, because goddammit, it sure is a nightmare trying to use the Japanese audio when the localization changes 90% of the names of characters, locales and terminologies! At the very least have the Japanese language as an option!
Surprised ff8 wasnt here but i think its understandable to have 12 as your ff pick since like you said it was the beginning of a trend where every ff after was more divisive and unpredictable than 1-10
Good call with 8. Lots of people have warmed up to 12 with Zodiac Age.
@@TheLegendofLeo 8 is my favorite so I know firsthand how divisive it is lol
FF8 isn’t really divisive. You either know how to play it or you don’t. It’s a legitimate bad gameplay mechanic.
@@mramisuzuki6962 No it's just more free at the cost of being less easy to initially understand. FF7 and 9 are more beginner friendly
I thought the same thing lol
People either love 8 or really hate it
Tales of Berseria is so beautiful. I loved every second playing it.
The problem with bravely default is not so much the repetitivity of a certain moment in the game, it's that after doing it maybe twice or so, we learn what is going to happen if we continue, plus who is responsible for that... but we still continue to do it anyway until the very end, which is so freaking dumb, like we could just beat a certain character and stop, and the world would be saved, but no...
BD suffered from trying to be too meta. They wanted to communicate "these characters suffered in silence" but they also made YOU suffer in silence with them, which is bad
@@straypaperBD is literally a final fantasy wannabe
I mean you kinda can, just keep breaking one of the crystals, but you end up with a different ending and not fighting the actual final boss so there is that.
Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy 12, Kingdom Hearts, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I love all of these so much. It just shows you that "general consensus" or mainstream review sites don't really matter. FF8 is another black sheep I love immensely.
True, but i just want to remind that sometimes a certain stigma comes from a combination of "professional reviews" and the collective community opinion, or sometimes just the collective community opinion. It's not very rare that the own community is the problematic side.
I love some of those games but FF8 is really bad.
Tales of Berseria is the only Tales of I like lol
Tales of Berseria does have a lot of needless backtracking, dull dungeons, and an uninspired battle system. However I loved the story, the skits, and characters. I think it's worth playing even for those alone, because it's too tier.
@@skycloud4802 I agree, the gameplay became dull after some time, but I forced myself through it and ended up loving the story and characters. It's a big asterisk, but I would still recommend it to anyone who likes JRPGs.
@@led-0185 absolutely, me too. I'd recommend it to anyone.
@@skycloud4802 Less is More. I *like* the "dull combat". I miss the older RPGs, especially from the SNES era because they don't have tons of systems stacked ontop of each other. Berseria does, _kinda_ but you're not forced into any of that if you just keep it on Normal and spam the You Decide buttons rather than tinkering with the combos constantly. As far as backtracking, I didn't really notice all that much backtracking and since battles can usually be skipped especially once you get your magical surfboard, it's not that bad. I also go "wtf?" when people talk about its "bad graphics" ... but then I'm a guy who still plays SNES games, so...
Me too
I actually adored Chrono Cross' battle system. And its story, outside of the forced connection to Trigger, had some interesting things going for it. Go figure the parts I disliked were the results of Executive Meddling...
The battle system is... eh, it's ok. What I hate, however, is how most characters are stupidly weak, hitting for single digits damage, and how Serge is the only person on the team that is actually capable of doing anything and he's the one carrying the group. Also, it takes forever to find non-consumable heals IIRC which is kinda stupid too, and I'm not a fan of gating growth behind boss battles.
@@Dhalintbh that's the thing they shouldve mantained like ct did instead of the story, the fact that in ct youncouod make almost any combination work well and there's no useless characters if you play to their strenghts
I actually didn't know that about Berseria. It was always Zesteria I heard hate about.
Same! Berseria is mostly a positive opinion from the fandom 😅
Brave Default in 3DS is a gem
Edea was the star of Bravely Default. That was the first time I noted great voice acting since I’d played The Witcher 3.
Murgrgrrrr girl is best girl
I still prefer Ringabel myself, but yes both voice acting and character depth were really good for a 3DS game. The zoom out and one of the greatest uses of the 3D option do not even get mentioned. And that is forgetting its using the camera and VR functions as little gimmicks. Still hoping for a Switch remake, even though that would not have many of these kinks.
Alot of people seem to hate Tales of Arise but I loved it. For me Star Ocean 3 was the game I could not get into, tried it 3 times before from finally giving up, it's just not me me I guess. Didn't like the restrictive battle system.
What do you mean by restrictive? Are you talking about how you learn a bunch of combat skills but you can only bind 4 of them?
Eh I enjoyed arise to an extent but tying forced map actions to the same limited Giage as healing/recovery and them making enemies not just be random or respawn over time pushed me away from the post game heavily. Adding on the diminishing exp as you gained levels felt like needless padding.
I agree with so3 though
Who hates Tales of Arise? It is amazing and reviews for it are generally favorable across the board and nearly every review site.
@landolondon3978 gamefaqs player reviews are quite mixed for example. I don't trust most "critics " anymore
I never understood why people dislike Arise. I love the game so much that I got the platinum trophy for it.
About Berseria: If you just stick to Normal difficulty, you can just set "You Decide" on all 4 combo parts on one of your buttons and most battles, and even most bosses, you can just spam that button and you will do a decent enough job at it. There are maybe a few bosses where this might not work that are extra-gimmicky, that's where you use one of the other buttons and set it up for that boss specifically.
One such boss, ironically, can be bested by lowering the difficulty even further, effectively switching off is gimmick. XD
@@theoaremevano3227 Is that the optional boss that's seemingly invincible that takes 0 damage from anything you throw at it?
I thought the battle system was well made imo. It was easy to simplify it if that's the root I wanted to go. Like how you set it up. But it was also easy to set up the combo bar to get to any move I needed. As long as I understood where each move was and how to access it. It did take some time to learn. This is why i played almost exclusively as Velvet unless it was to work on stuff I had to personally do with other characters to plat the game. I can say. It felt super rewarding to master the system and smash the whole game on the hardest difficulty. It surprises me to here people had trouble with it.
@@Dhalin : Yep, the crystal guy. :D
@@jesseherman5540 : I've heard a lot of people say they were easily able to just smash through stuff with Velvet. I rarely used her, instead playing as Rokurou the most, along with Elanor and Eizen.
Honestly, after several Tales games with weakness combo systems, I was getting tired of basing combos so heavily off of weakness check marks, especially when it felt like things didn't always work in some of the games because of factors that were never explained. A lot of the games seem to just tell you 'smash things and match weaknesses' and never bother to talk about the other details, even when I'd go looking in the manuals for more info.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was amazing to me. The game had a simple easy to understand map and the little bits of fanservice were absolutely annoying to me at points and others they were funny. The game itself is still a masterpiece though.
As for FFXII I agree entirely, it is still a great game but didn't feel like a mainline FF game. I think a lot of reason it gets so much hate is because people believe it is what cause FF to go down the route it has gone down today.
Gachablade Chronicles 2 is a far cry from a masterpiece unlike its respective DLC. While it definitely is not impossible to appreciate, the backloading of basic combat features towards the end of the game, the poorly executed character weapon mechanic that basically was little more than a F2P gacha mechanic, and the obnoxious HM slave party management makes it that much harder to do so.
If they made the first 20 hours of the game play a bit more like the last 20 leading up to the final boss and treated optional Blades like actual characters instead of loot, and removed the HM slave-checks, game would've arguably been on par with the first game which is saying a lot when comparing a genuine masterpiece to a would-be masterpiece plagued with problems that didn't need to exist in the first place, but ultimately held the game back. XBC3 is exactly what XBC2 should have been except the Blades are classes and that's why the game popped off as well as it did. 2 was a victim of bad design choices.
I love FF12. Can’t praise it enough.
Vanilla FF12 was a bit of a disappointment because it was a step away from the turn-based roots (but I loved it anyway), its interpretation of Ivalice isn't really consistent with anything (even itself at times - especially how they depict the viera) and I had a friend who was disappointed that it he couldn't play a moogle in a game set in Ivalice. Mechanically, the game suffered from performance issues and the summoning/MP system was too unreliable to use. Its story is a little too close to Star Wars for comfort at times and I do hear people complain about Vaan not being an important character. Frankly, after a decade of romance sub-plots, I was glad that the game was focused around global politics beyond 'empire bad', and Vaan was a less annoying audience surrogate than Tidus.
Zodiac Age fixes most of the mechanical problems (Espers are actually worth using now!!), but I hear the odd complaint about people being put off by the job system, mostly because of choice paralysis (which is why PS4 v1.4 onwards allowed you to switch jobs via Montblanc). Frankly, it's like a night & day difference with all the QoL improvements and design changes.
I love 12 and tactics advance. Too bad the general public didn't warm up to ivalice
@@EduFirenze All 3 tactics games and both MMOs (11 & 14) are set in Ivalice, as well as FF12 and its spin-off. The public clearly did warn up to Ivalice, but the problem is that Ivalice changes radically between games, and SQEX flip-flops as to whether Ivalice is one world or many.
Loved the ps4 version so much that I platted that beast. The end-game bosses are so fun to fight.
Hated it, felt betrayed by Square because it was the first game I ever did a "presale" on because I trusted them. They were the developer that forced me to learn you can't trust developers to just keep making good games because they made good games in the past.
Tales of Bersaria was one of those games where I watched a full story playthrough, and then bought and played the game myself. I loved it and got to post-game content, but there was one boss which I had so much trouble with that I ended up having Velvet run around avoiding attacks while letting the rest of the party handle the battle. It took like half an hour for that fight to end.
Was hoping to see Valkyria Revolution here. I loved that game even though it wasn't much like the VC games, and i think youre one of the few other people I've seen state their love for the game too!
Chrono Cross is a pet peeve of mine - the more it tries to tie itself with the story of Chrono Trigger, the more I hate it!
"Deleting Prometheus!?" ARE YOU NUTS!? And why are Chrono, Marle and Lucca time ghosts blaming Serge for something he had no control over!?
And seriously, Porre and Termina are at war with each other!? The region isn't even supposed to be tropic, how the hell do they have jungles in goddamn PORRE!?
Okay, fine, at least the story outside of Chrono Trigger is good, right?
Eh, not really. Since the game focuses on shoving a crapton of playable characters in your party, none of them have a longstanding impact in the narrative and they can't be made relevant for the parts of the story aside from their recruitment and specific sidequests. That means when Serge and Lynx trade bodies, no one reacts to the shift like they should!
Sure, during the whole thing happening when everyone is confused, it makes sense they would continue to fight Serge in Lynx's body. Nobody had any reason to even think they had traded bodies in the first place. But afterwards, when you meet all of the old recruited characters in their respective places, despite having fought against Lynx to the death (or with that intention), all of their responses can be resumed to "Silly cat, you're not Serge. Serge isn't a cat!"
SHOULDN'T YOU GUYS HAVE MORE OF A REACTION TO LYNX'S PRESENCE!?
Shouldn't you guys demand proof that the Lynx standing in front of you is actually Serge!?
Or at least fight against him without listening to his side, that way at least it's justified as to why you can't use the old characters anymore!
But alright, after you get your body back you can just rerecruit everyone, right?
Well, yes... because they automatically join the party like they never left.
And nobody ever comments on the fact SERGE WAS CAT!!!!
But what takes the cake for me are the goddam dwarves!
The dwarves are supposed to be the protectors of nature and chastise humans for polluting the swamp where the hydras used to live. In one world, they're extinct, in the other one there's only one survivor, and it's all humans who are at fault because humans don't protect nature and pollute everything!
Except all human settlements are in perfect harmony with nature, even the evil ones. The only ones using machines to destroy everything and killing outsiders at first contact without listening to their side of the story are the dwarves!
And after you kill the last hydra to get what you went there for, the dwarves leave the swamp and decide to exterminate fairies because "humans taught us that you can just take what you want with force," or something like that.
THE BASTARDS JUST WENT ON A GENOCIDAL RAMPAGE AND BLAMED HUMANS FOR IT ONCE AGAIN!!!
And the worst part is that the fairies SIDE WITH THE DWARVES!!! The surviving fairies blame the player for the actions the dwarves took, despite the player being the one that put a stop to their rampage in the first place!
This is because the game came during the 90's and early 2000's boom of environmentalist message, where the message was just that "humans are bad because of pollution, so you should feel bad because you're a human and humans pollute, and that's bad, so you should feel bad about it."
And don't even get me started on the right way to beat the last boss, that's such a convoluted mess you have no way of figuring out without a guide...
The Xenosaga games were always devisive as hell (especially the second one) mainly because each entry looks and plays vastly different
Everybody love the first game but hate the second game and nobody play the third game
@therealjaystone2344 The first game was great but RPG fans were hit and miss on the overly long cutscenes. I just completed the second game last week and despite flaws (and man I can name a good amount) its still a great game and I enjoy the story alot.
I thankfully have the 3rd title so im going to complete that next
@@immitationstation3369 and it will be shown more value than the demakes that’ll show censorship
Man I wish they could just port it to pc.
@@cnett486 just emulate
Berseria is the perfect divisive Tales game for me because I pretty much love it as much as I hate some parts of it. XD Excellent work on the cast and story, and because I like Zestiria well enough, it was even more enjoyable since there's a lot of major and minor crossovers between Berseria and Zestiria. It also feels very distinctive, even in a very diverse series (which I also liked about Xillia 2).
What you said about the combat is extremely accurate, and I feel it's symptomatic of some problems that were accumulating in the Tales series leading up to Arise and its reassessment of combat mechanics. I tend to describe it as being 'fragile'. The combo mechanics were geared toward allowing players to do longer and longer combos, but also tried to find ways to balance that by stopping players from getting and continuing combos, as well as balancing out enemy stats to account for this. As a result, combat could be way too easy for someone who knows how it's designed to work, or a total mess to someone who doesn't. Partly, but not fully understanding it kind of made the combat feel all over the place since things were either working or not with little in-between, and other mechanics like the stun status were very all-or-nothing.
I also had issues with their item upgrade system. Felt like they mashed a couple ideas together that didn't really play off each other, kind of like Soul Calibur 4. (Design characters - but the clothing affects performance - then after you finally get it right, your pants break right away and you look stupid regardless). XD
Loved Star Ocean 3! My favorite in the series.
For Breath of Fire 2, I know I didn't finish it but I didn't rage quit. More of I forgot about it hahaha..
Never played Persona 3 but kinda want to. I like some of the music.
Never got into Kingdom Hearts...
I actually loved Chrono Cross. Only played and finished once tho.
SMT IV is great, both games.
FFXII is amazing, for 2006 was a mindblow, they are the genesis to a complete new genre or RPGs that Xenoblade took to themselves, FF6 is my favorite from the pixel art era, and FFXII still my favorite of all times.
XC2 is the only Xenoblade that i tried twice, and couldn't pass de 20 hour mark. Torna is a great stand alone game.
FF12 was released in 2006, and it really put a strain on the PS2.
FF12 was even older than that, it came out at 2006 on PS2, absolutely mind-blowing
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had its flaws, but it’s still one of my favourite JRPGs of all time.
Surprised to see Persona 3 on this list, considering it was acclaimed enough at its original release to launch the Persona series to mainstream heights of popularity and pave the way for Persona to become one of the bigger RPG franchises.
I can definitely see your point about Tartarus. Personally, the single huge dungeon is part of what made the game memorable to me. It really set the tone for the story - it felt so oppressive and frightening because you knew you had to go back there every night, and it was just going to get more difficult the further you explored. I would love to see the one dungeon concept explored in some other games, but perhaps with different sub areas in the dungeon that change up the vibe from time to time. Not sure if there is a game for it, but the anime "Made in Abyss" evokes a very similar vibe, but with the dungeon evolving as the protagonists get deeper.
The AI teammates were probably one of the few things I disliked about it in retrospect. It was super frustrating at times to lose a couple hours after your teammates fail to combo chain and you get blown out of a winnable fight. However, it was not a deal breaker for me because it executed so well in every other area.
I was introduced to the series by a friend around the time Persona 4 came out, and even back then he warned me that the AI team mates would be annoying but worth persevering through. I think its inclusion on a list like this is that anyone who played Persona 4 or Persona 5 first would find this a frustrating mechanic. Still better than the forced partner AI in Final Fantasy 13.
@@TheBlackSeraph Yeah, I agree. I have a soft spot for Persona 3 because it introduced me to the franchise, but it would be hard to go back to playing it after playing 4 and 5 (haven't checked out the remake yet, maybe it fixes the problems mentioned in this video).
Trigger and Cross are both masterpiece. There also exist people who accept Cross as Trigger's weird sequel.
And we are many...
Some said Cross is Trigger's alter dimension sequel. Some said it's just a great game but with unfinished and rushed connections to Trigger.
I love Chrono Cross just like I love Xenogears even with its rushed disc 2.
I miss squaresoft...
I’d been waiting all day to watch this video! Haha! FF12! Perfectly placed! (It’s Waab, btw, had a name change).
I personally like flawed, divisive games because if they are more interesting than an average and competently-executed game that takes no creative risks. Not a JRPG, but my favorite divisive game is probably Heroes of Might and Magic IV. Wonderful, flawed masterpiece of a game. Incredible soundtrack (maybe a top 10 soundtrack of all time, its just incredibly beautiful) and storytelling, interesting new hero combat mechanics, but sadly it was a rushed title with somewhat ugly unit graphics, and lacking polish and balance in many areas.
12:50
Lmao "never let Nomura watch Netflix and cook" is still a trope
i think you overestimate the remaining hatred for FF13. To me it feels like a lot of people came around to like or at least accept it by now. You're in fact one of the only people i see still holding such a grudge/distain against it.
Though my perspecitve may be a bit biased considering i absolutely love it together with its sequels.
While I don't *hate* 13, I find it incredibly difficult to get into. I played up until you unlock magic, and the whole system seems so jank. If you don't turn healer mode on, Lightning can die in less than 3 seconds flat and it's game over. Instantly. If you turn healer mode on, it takes forever to kill anything but at least you'll never die. Doesn't seem to be any kind of decent middle-ground between the two, it just seems stupid. Also, the character progression system seemed confusing as frick, multi-layered maps you have to spin around in 3d... why not just lay that out on a 2D plane so you can see wtf you need to do to get stuff? I miss the days where *I* controlled my party members, and when mobs couldn't all spam attacks constantly. Turn based RPGs were just plain better. Or, better yet, ATB like 4 through 9. But I really dislike this stuff starting from 12 and then into 13 where they wanna make the characters just randomly choose their own actions.
@@Dhalin i also like turn-based rpgs, but that's not coming back for big budget games, but we can still and will always find it in smaller games and don't have to rely on FF for it.
as for your point on FF13 directly:
- the cristarium (progression system) is essentially a one-dimensional progression line for each role with minor offshoots. it's not really convoluted, you just choose which role to level and then do so. it's just 3D to make it look nice, which explains many design decisions. they tried to make a big leap when starting out on the then new generation of consoles.
- the party member ai isn't all that bad. it has some issues, but they generally perform well for the role you assign them. there lies also the control you have over them, the paradigm system essentially aims at creating strategic decision without stopping the flow of battle.
- you don't need lightning as a healer much, i very rarely use her in that role, let alone level it up. it sounds like you underutilized the chain/stagger-system. i won't explain it here, but this allows you to skyrocket your damage by cleverly switching between your role-comps (paradigms) in the first phase of the fight.
@@Dhalin Not to mention that you'll eventually get to one of the Barthandalus fights where Thanatosian Smile is an insta-kill attack and as such there's a 1/3 chance that he'll target the primary character causing an unavoidable game over. AFAIK there's no reason for this design choice beyond 'Persona did it and Persona's popular rn'.
HumanLucifer is right in that hatred toward FF13 and the Lightning trilogy has softened, but I think that's more because FF13 was the first true stinker of the series and since then most FF projects have either sucked (FF15, Dissidia NT) or have had their praise dwindle quickly over time (I'm noticing more people are willing to say that FF7R is crap, and FF16 was viewed highly upon release but already that praise is fading). FF13 was also willing to try a few new things, and their characters are still good (even if the mechanics, lore and story are lame). FF15, in comparison, was a disaster with weak characters that looked like a Korean boyband and character development so bad that it required DLC to fill in the gaps.
I still think that it is more "hated" than of divided opinion, however, because I rarely see it presented positively and most people online who talk about FF13 are either derisive or deliberately neutral.
@humanLucifer If you don't think turn-based combat is coming back in AAA games, then clearly you haven't heard of a publisher called "Atlus" :D . I also disagree that the paradigm system was good since you couldn't swap party members for the most optimal class combinations and you had to set up the paradigms for your party in advance (I think it was max 3 or 4). The game was also too reliant on the stagger bar which even after several hours I couldn't reliably get to work well and I got to final Barthandalus without even knowing how I managed to survive the mandatory Eidolon battles.
@@TheBlackSeraph It's also quite telling that in FF14, a game that has many, MANY callbacks to older Final Fantasy games... they did callbacks to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, Tactics, but *not* 7, 13 or any of its sequels, except for a very short event where you help Lightning out and a short event with 15's main character. The rest of the callbacks and references are permanent while the 13 and 15 ones were only temporary.
That should say something itself, that 13 and its sequels were pretty much left out in 14's extensive callbacks, references, and straight up ripping half the plot/story/locales out of 4, 9, and even having a section devoted to Ivalice.
Heck, 14 has a whole raid based on NieR: Automata! But pretty much nothing from 13 or its sequels. And the new raid is going to be centered around FF11. Even 11 gets a callback/reference, but 13 doesn't.
EDIT: I lied, there is a callback to 7, the Gold Saucer. So, 10, 13 and 15 remain the only games I can't think of any references or callbacks to except for temporary events that were only available for a limited time. I will admit though, FF14's version of the FF13 Lightning Battle theme was dope AF. And maybe one or two of the weapons you got for that event looked cool. Too bad you'll never hear the theme again or get the weapon glamours unless they bring the event back which is unlikely as it's been years since it was last run.
@@humanLucifer So, as an update, I decided to give 13 another shot, and it seems to be going better this time.I don't recall the last time I tried it all that well, I could have been distracted, tired, etc... but I've since gotten about 6 hours into the game and... eh. It's still not my favorite, but at least it seems playable and maybe I can finally put this one to rest and actually finish it lol.
Berseria's worst problems, for me, are the dungeons (worst in the franchise after Legendia and Xillia), lack of difficulty and MMO style upgrade system. It's a great return to form with perhaps the best story in the franchise. Yes, more than Symphonia.
Also, Final Fantasy 12 plays like a precursor to Xenoblade, but feels like, indeed, a Matsuno game (mostly Ogre Battle, also bits of Vagrant Story, probably because they share artists).
Fight me.
Didn't Berseria have 6 difficulty settings? I remember chaos being completely ruthless, level 30 enemies became like level 70 or something.
Fantastic list. I feel divided on some of those myself and the ones that I enjoy are not flawless.
Ah good old Dot Hack GU, Tales of Berseria, Also huh, never knew Berseria originally came out for the PS3 in Japan
Your explanation of FFXII is pretty spot on. It’s where the franchise wandered into the void looking for itself and never came back. Also it’s divisive because it could’ve been good, and the squandered potential is just right there alongside you for the ride til you drop it.
As for my own RPGs that I love that everybody else hates:
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom: Some people like me love this game, because unlike most other JRPGs, esp. for the SNES era, there's reasonable challenge to be had and it feels great once you master the game and get the hang of it. It tests your memory when it comes to mazy dungeons, and yes maybe it also tests your patience with the random battles, but at least the main battle theme is catchy AF.
7th Saga: Yet another infamous game. It really, *really* is not that hard if you give it a chance, and/or get some advice/tips on how to make it easier on you (such as a let's play I did). Once you "get" the game, it feels great to destroy bosses that once seemed impossible. And don't use the rebalance patch... that just turns it into another challenge-less braindead JRPG like all the rest. You'd be doing yourself a great disservice with that.
Secret of Evermore: I really don't get the hate with this game. People complain about the combat and "bad hit detection" but to be honest, I think that just comes from players failing to observe how enemies move and the animations of their own weapons. Once you get the hang of it, if you miss... you know exactly why you missed. Yet another game that feels great once you master it.
I love all of these games. Evermore was even made in America.
I LOVED secret of evermore. More than secret of mana tbh. Ended up stuck at one point for monthes until realizing I could sprint😂😂
@@steveperry2321 To be fair, you can only sprint after you get the ring from the guy near the quicksand fields. I don't know if you ever found this out, but you can _infinite_ sprint if you charge a weapon attack up before you start to sprint. And yeah, SoE makes your character move faster and it has a profound effect on combat and gameplay in general due to the faster movement, it just feels more fluid and nice. SoM is cool and all, and it still has its strong points, but general gameplay, I think I favor SoE too.
@Dhalin never knew that and that's a nice trick. It was a fluke I even figured it out tbh. I enjoy grinding and seeing how strong I can get and all the different alchemy and weapons etc made for an excellent time sink . Ended up maxing out several of the alchemy recipes that were buyable all weapons levels and even had a TON of all of the currencies
@@steveperry2321 Yeah I did that once too. Though these days I just use Crush, Cure, and Heal... and nothing else until the final boss (that spell that instantly maxes out weapon charge, forget the name of it).
Would have liked Berseria more if it wasn't so incredibly Tales of Predictable in story, combat and characters. Was a great Steam sale pickup for a fiver tho!
I like the designs of xc2, but the story never gripped me even after 30 hours where I dropped.
I remember seeing lots of people on forums recommending Bravely Default, and I could have sworn Berseria was considered one of the best Tales of games with "The Big Three". Same with Breath of Fire 2 being a classic masterpiece. Then again, Xenogears is one too, and it's got its issues.
A big strength in the Tales games is the storytelling and characters. I think Bersera nails that perfectly, even if the gameplay wasn't the best.
I don't agree with this list:
Tales of Phantasia
Tales of Destiny
Tales of Berseria
Best Tales of all series ❤
And Symphonia and Vesperia...and don't forget The Abyss and Xillia 1
I honestly cannot defend Tetsuya Nomura's convoluted story telling or the festering gangrene that Disney became, but i have a soft spot for Disney from the 90s and the early 2000s, and i was a fan of final fantasy, so i loved Kingdom Hearts despite all of the complaints about the series.
ohh man, what did they remove from Person 3? Was about to start it.
Can be summed up by "when mainstream audience gets their hands on a franchise".
Fe probably 3ds era. Pokemon same. Tales of Zestiria and after. When bad takes are really abound when people think "well I liked it" as an argument since it's baby's first video game and baby tends to protect its first.
Some get rightful hate when the translation is localization mess changing the core story or cast. Fates has the best combat system in all of fire emblem and we didn't even get the last dlc either making non jp players not get the full picture since some od those dialogues really flesh out the cast.
Dot hack series never got how it got this far. Played it and it was bland and basic. Same with dq series
Xenoblade chronicles 2 is my favorite in the series ngl most of the hate comes from people on twitter who cry about fan service
The issue I have with Tales of Berseria, is the over-simplistic combat. It seems too simple, even by Tales standards. Zesteria has armatization, Tales of Arise has boost attacks and overlimit. Tales of Xillia 1/2 have a 5 teir overlimit, stuff like that. Boost souls don't seem to do much. I wonder if they intended to add armatization with EiZen, and Laphicet near the end-game. I think it might have been fun seeing an Armatized Velvet/Laphi munching demons, or Magilou armatizing with her little spud.
About Tales of Berseria
10:19
"[i don't understand the love of this game]"
You can reply " well *YOU* 🫵 the one who seems never experience Zestiria and complaint"
11:24
"there is just lack of balance"
Don't worry Erick. Even in Tales of Arise half end is just you spam with Rinwell. Tominaga of God Eater seems still cannot save Tales
Star ocean ttot was one of my favourite games as a teenager, i get why people didn't like the main plot twist but i just found it unique.
Tales of bersteria doesn't have good villains. The inccest siblings are bland and we hardly get much on them either same with the old man. Only arty is given some development but the sister just loses her life in the prologue which was a wasted opportunity to see her side to things.
Abyss and xillia you get a ton of development and battles against the god generals and chimeriad showing your and their progress in story as well as interesting connections. Even Leia who isn't as invested in story has agria that goes into the second game of what ifs . Story wise doesn't help Zestiria that was a trash fire.
Zestiria is good actually
Tales of Berseria is my favorite of the Tales games… You are basically playing the villains. Even when Elenor joins the party, Velvet is continuously hostile towards her. The whole group has nothing to lose and Velvet does not give a f about anyone that stands in her way.
Honestly I got bored with FFXII when I hit a difficulty spike with the judge boss. Seemed obvious I was incredibly under-leveled and leveling wasn’t fun.
Are you planning on doing a video on Metaphor ReFantazio?
Ironically, Tales of Berseria is the only tales I played on the hardess difficulty.
Bravely Default soundtrack is mostly forgettable? 😂😂
Man sm4ta is so freaking good, i can see some people not liking the party cast but OMG dagda and the endings just worth it IMO.
Starting off with a plot twist that drove me crazy
Tartarus (the dungeon), and that you only control your main character during battle, are two major drawbacks of Persona 3 which makes it a good game instead of a great game.
As far as Final Fantasy series goes, I thought Final Fantasy 8 was the most divisive. The issue I had with 12 was actually they way it made spell casters feel unplayable. The combat feels sort of like MMORPG combat systems, but with no cost effective ways to recover your MP out of battle. So casters go through 2-3 battles and then they are useless.
Im a huge advocate for Tales of Zestiria, game was just amazing to me. Alot of people hate alot of the games i absolutely loved so its a common trope.
FF12 was also divisive because the gambit system could automate so much of the gameplay that the second half felt boring like the game was playing itself. Also, the story and characters were wasted potential. You brought up Vaan but the truly ignored character was Penelo. Aside from being Vaan's friend you literally don't learn a single thing about her.
There's 2 main things I dislike with SO3's story: the ending of course (which was something that ws gone over in the video) and the way they handled the optional characters in the story after leaving the main planet...they become almost completely removed from the story to the point they're shown off screen in many main story cutscenes...granted this is an issue with almost all games with optional characters in the series besides maybe SO6 (since that one you only get 2 optional characters and one or the other is locked out depending on the PoV character you choose at the start and play a major role in the story at some point unlike some of the optional characters in other SO games).
9:30 there is, actually. Playing Persona 3 FES with the controllable party members mode on PCSX2
Feel the same about SMT IV Apocalypse, the story isn't good enough to be a sequel of the original, but the gameplay is far better
SMTVV too
Hey man, good video. Although, with all due respect, I don't think P3, Chrono Cross and FF12 are divisive. The fan bases are strong and, although, of course, there are many haters out there, like with most games, they remain good entries with lots of fans and pretty decent revenue
Tales of Berseria is awesome enough said
In terms of combat I'd definitely agree but story and characters? That said I do love Eleanor and Laphi.
Well said
@@NinoNakanoSupremacy i like Velved. She is right to be angry even if it coulc have been more subtle. Eleanor i think i ended liking her (or at least being neutral) but i the beginning i hated her(like Alisa in Trails of cold steel 1).
zestiria and berseria was victim of woke movement in early era
xenoblade series' true divisive nature is the grinding. the fanservice complaint is because of woke
Excellent video!
The interesting part to me is when a franchise of mostly repetitive sequels get some different type of sequels, and the community shows different opinions about changes in the franchise. There are those who dislike changes, those more or less indifferent, and those who are mostly pro changes.
That's because fans of a franchise, are fans of the franchise because they *like* what the franchise is. When you change the formula up so much, people who liked the franchise for what it was, might not like it anymore. I enjoyed the ATB and turn-based nature of Final Fantasy. But when they started making it AI-controlled and full real-time and only allowed you to issue vague commands, then it stopped being Final Fantasy and started being something else. Kinda like FF7R where they went from ATB to.... something more in line with Kingdom Hearts. If I wanted KH, I'd play KH, thanks.
@@Dhalin That is a valid reply... still your description highlights those purist tendencies that i mentioned earlier. There are good kind of changes and bad kind of changes... and there are even good radical changes and bad radical changes. The distinction exists, though sometimes it's not quick and easy to identify under a completely mature, cold and unbiased perspective.
Purists basically just want the game to stay the same for the sake of their nostalgic feelings... as if the "ultimate form" of every game had been reached already, and it was coincidentally during their child or teen years, so that any change from that point on is negative.
But the reality is that deep down even the purists are contradictory and selective. There is a tolerance margin for changes in the sequels. After all, very few franchises (outside of more repetitive genres like puzzle and sports) remain the same, in the most strict and literal meaning. In the case of FF, even the Sakaguchi FFs are not literally just FF1 with new graphics. So that means the purists accepted some changes along the years and rejected others. Which is what meant in the beginning... that there are all kinds of changes, that are perceived differently. So there is no good reason to make up a kind of general anti-change attitude, that is common to find in purists.
@@carlosaugusto9821 It has a lot to do with how much a change, changes the general feel of the game.
I mean, compare FF1 to FF4. You still input commands to your characters when they have a turn. However, in FF4, you don't go through rounds, characters get their turns in time-passed. They didn't coin the term "ATB" until 6, but that's what 4 and 5 are, they use the same system.
People accepted that change, because it's similar enough to the old way, it's like the old way, only slightly different and many would agree, better.
But, compare FF4-9 to FF10. Suddenly, it's a whole different system. It was at least somewhat divisive, though it helped that Final Fantasy Tactics used a very similar system, which helped people warm up to it a little better.
Then, FF12 comes along and they kept it be more-or-less ATB, only your characters always auto-attack unless you input a different command. Some people were "eh" about it, others didn't mind. It was the first time they dipped their toes into AI controlled characters in your active party.
And then... came FF13 and the "WTF is this!?" because they chucked everything previous FFs did right out the window and instead brought in something ENTIRELY new. Previous FFs took concepts and morphed them a little. FF13 chucked everything and decided to try something entirely different, and wouldn't you know it, it was divisive AF.
Changes are good when you take a model and make improvements to it but you can still tell what the original model was.
Changes aren't received anywhere near as well by veterans if you can't even recognize the source material. It feels like an entirely different game. Nothing about FF13 says "Final Fantasy" to me, because most of the areas seem very linear, and the battle system is entirely unrecognizable from any other FF game before it.
And again, with FF7R, other than maybe FF15 (which I don't like the look of either), again, not even close to what FFs used to be in the past. It looks, again as I said, more like Kingdom Hearts than FF.
Here's another example for you: Metroid. Up until Metroid Prime, Metroid games were all 2D sidescrollers. Then Prime comes out and it's First Person Perspective. Some people thought that was an entirely strange idea, and even I myself was like "I dunno about this..." ... I wound up liking it, but only because of the lock-on feature. Without that, it would have been unplayable especially on controller. My cousin, however, hated it and we both loved Metroid up until that point.
Huge radical changes are just like that. What helped me accept Metroid was the fact that they kept true to the rest of what Metroid was, how its areas are, how its powerups affect map exploration, etc. They kept true to all that. All they did was transition to FPS in Prime, the rest of the game was still recognizable as being Metroid.
But with Final Fantasy, 13, 7R, and 15... it just doesn't look or feel like Final Fantasy anymore. There's very little recognition there. A few chocobos, and a few eidolons are not gonna suddenly make me feel like I'm playing Final Fantasy again.
I'm seeing more hate for Arise than Berseria lately, Arise was one of those cases where people started playing it when it came out and enjoyed it, but the more they played as time went on, and the people who actually finished it, found much more flaws with it
Ngl for second there i read the title as diverse instead of divisive I thought you'd gone woke for second then eric lmao
Great video was always :)
SMT IVA isn't just divisive because of it's characters. In the original, you literally had conversations with children in which they had a very negative outlook on the world they inhabited. This is completely flipped in Apocalypse. Apocalypse does away with that established lore building. They even go so far as to retcon an important character's personality so that it fit the tone of the new game. Tonally inconsistent in between the two entries. The game is mostly a rehash of the the original, not very much new in terms of demons. Most of the random encounters are hordes. The affinity system is not well developed in this entry. Your silent main protagonist from the original is now voiced. Your new main protagonist is an relatively unimportant NPC from the original. Enemy health pools are larger which leads to longer random encounters and by the 70% mark, the game just becomes a glorified boss rush mode. That last dungeon, is also in the running for worst final dungeon in a JRPG, just go ask reddit. So yeah, the division among fans is more than just a simple change of cast.
BoF2 is a game that did not age well. The story is well executed and lore / atmosphere is top notch for its time. However, you have two mandatory solo dungeons (Sten, Nina), three mandatory solo bosses (Sten, Rand, Nina), and mandatory sections with certain characters (Sten, Rand, Spar). If you have not used those characters, the game is PAAAAAAIN. And the boring bog-standard battle system coupled with the insane enemy encounter rate makes the game just not hit the mark.
Just watch an LP of it. More fun that way.
You should try the persona 3 FES mod that lets you control all your party members
I seriously thought Tales of Zestiria was gonna be the pick of the Tales series! Because much like Xenoblade 2 you either defend it to death (there's a reason why that game got an anime adaptation made by Ufotable and gets lots of representation on crossovers of the series) or hate it, want to destroy it, uncanonize it and punch it's protagonist in the face... BUT both lovers and haters agree... The music is beautiful! 😅
FF X-2 was a fun game, the dress sphere system was great!
3:43 Ahhh..... Breath of Fire 2. One of my favorites! You'll need to do some grinding and use a guide to get all the shamans (and a secret reoccurring character 😉) but other than that, the only problem with this is, the frequent battles, something that is a sort of a staple of the series (3 is the same in that with 4 just a bit behind).
What I genuinely hated about Breath of Fire 2 is that Ryu's dragon forms are just situational AOE attacks that depletes all of the ap on Ryu, with the attack decreasing by the difference between max AP and current AP, while the dragon forms in BoF 1 remained throughout the battle as long Ryu doesn't get KOed. Some might find the latter OP, but that's what dragons are meant to be- overpowered.
@@csargent31 they were made into an ultimate attack pretty much..
@@csargent31 The reason why is actually covered in the story... in BoF1, Ryu and Nina fell in love and it diluted both clans' blood, so that dragons are weaker, and so are the bird people. This is why in BoF1 Nina can freely change between a bird and her demihuman form, but in BoF2... Nina's sister sacrifices herself to become a bird permanently and it's even mentioned in the game that this is because the clan's blood was diluted by their ancestors. As far as grinding, if you exploit the orange crabs near Simafort for like 15-30 minutes, you can just walk through the rest of the game killing everything in your path and you'll remain beefy enough you won't need to do much of any grinding for quite awhile. Also, in BoF1.... Ryu's dragon forms were overpowered AF. Once you got the 2nd tier dragon forms, and especially the final dragon power, the game's challenge takes a nosedive and I'm sure the developers noticed that. BoF3 fixes the problem by letting you actually enjoy your dragon forms, but yet keeping challenge throughout the game, though certain late-game transformations (coughWarriorcough) are still a wee bit bonkers if you stack buffs.
@@csargent31 Figured I'd put this in a separate post, but what I meant by the orange crab thing... when you first get to Simafort, you're supposed to go go to Witch's Tower and get the curse lifted from Jean so you can actually go to Simafort. Instead of doing that, get Nina to 11 so she learns her Tier 2 thunder spell (she might already have that by now) and then go as far east from the campfire near Simafort as possible and a little south to near the signpost you find there and you'll run into those orange flat crabs. You are NOT supposed to be fighting these yet, but Nina can one-shot them with her Tier 2 thunder spell, but you gotta save often as the crabs can one-shot her (have everybody else defend), but if you can survive, they give 1400-1700xp (whereas the stuff in and near the tower only gives 200-300) per battle and you can get 5 or so levelups really fast. Once you do that, don't get lazy -- kill everything in your path to maintain that lead that you have on XP levels to keep stuff way easier and smoother than it'd be otherwise.
BoF gameplay is so slow i can only play it in an emulator in x8 speed i tried to play it on the swich but it was soo slow
I love Star Ocean 3. It was my first Star Ocean game too. There are some balance issues in some places, but you can get around it. Berseria is in my top 3 Tales games. Bravely Default 1 and 2 I tried and played for a while, but couldn't finish them because I got bored. XBC2 is awesome. FF12 is my second favorite Final Fantasy game. At first, I was meh on the story, but I ended up really liking it and the combat is my favorite in the series.
i hope you make a vid on the romancing saga 2 remake would love to hear your opinion
Tales of Berseria. Loved the story, but my hate for the game itself is heavier on the scale
In my country FF12 is acclaimed. I think ok. but better FF is exaggeration.
Maybe I'm a masochist, but I think Berseria is best experienced on the highest difficulty, yes, you do get one shot at every corner and you will need to engage with upgrading your gear, AoE spells are terrifying and it feels like you have to play in a very specific way to attempt not to die so much. But once you get the hang of it, you feel like such a badass, and Velvet, when correctly played, is pretty much invulnerable, at least until you make a single mistake, then she's just dead.
Absolutely agree. This is the reason why I always promptly suggest my friend to play any Tales games on hard difficulty. Not because for the sake of challenge but more of what can you discover from the game mechanic.
I myself never touch Rokuro until at some point encounter enemy that immune to physical and need to be countered, this work different in normal mode. From there I learn how each character works and it feels like different game everytime I switch to them.
For Star Ocean 3 for me, my problems stem less from the game mechanics (I loved the combat), but the characterization was very rough. The only character I really clicked with was Maria. Very good game, and surprisingly intriguing! Not as good as the Second Story, of which every character I really liked.
I love so3 i have played many times my bigest problem whit the game is how to unlock the harder dificulties and normaly you dont notices but the enemies are brain dead and so the alies if you only use one character
Black wings Nina is best Nina. BOF2 isn't without its flaws, but I still love it.
I thought i had to play some games of the list , but was surprised having played that much. I played 8/10 of the list and the 2 i didn't finish was So3 and FFX2 but i don't remember why. Maybe i was bored.
Chrono Cross had good music.
The rest? The combat system was a disaster. The story was almost non-existent. The alternate dimension idea sounds great, but the only do one alternate world instead of really having fun with it. When they finally touch on Chrono Trigger it probably isn't going to make fans happy.
The biggest issue which could have resolved a lot of the story problems?
Too. Many. Characters!
Chrono Trigger had a few character, but they all had very distinct characters with their own reasons for joining you, and their story played out.
Chrono Cross? I remember a big black lady with a frying pan joined my team because her son didn't like us.
Most of the characters had little to no background or story. I'd have been far happier with three characters who had a story to tell than 45 who show up, shrug, and then wind up waiting in the wings for the game to end.
At least with Suikoden collecting the characters was it's own reward, and the primary cast would show up for plot related events while the bit players would help you at least unlock more of your city if not mini-games, stores, or other diversions.
But, yeah. The music was good.
I am actually playing Xenoblade 2 for real for the first time (after 3 tries just not getting into it, now in chapter 6). My main gripe is the gatcha that I'll never get behind. When playing casually, it's not THAT big of a deal, but knowing that there are blades including most likely KOS-MOS and their quests I'll never get is just downright bullshit. I'm also still always opening the map when I want to open the menu. I know it's petty, but annoying nonetheless. Other than that, it's really great! A solid 8/10.
I get not being a fan of job/class systems, but I'd still give Metaphor reFantazio a solid try. I think you'd like the evolved persona-style combat.
Metaphor have Press Turn Battle System from SMT III Nocturne (2003) mixed with Trails system.
almost all the games here are my favorites of all time, lol. what the fck is wrong with me. tbh, it is what makes them unique from other genric JRPGs in the first place. and that's why. I love them. also no one shts on XENOBLADE series. i'll defend it with all my life.
FF12 was a radical departure, removing the turn-based combat was VERY divisive, a lot of people hated it... including me. Since then I've gone back and given it another chance and... now all these years later It's become one of my favorites. Does it have problems, yea, lots of them... but for me it is an interesting story, and an interesting setting. I also love the characters (no not Vaan) See the thing is Vaan/Penelo are you, the audience, they are just there so you can tag along and see the story... This is really Basch and Ashe's story, they are the main characters. Vaan and Penelo are not, Vaan in particular is just there so you can tag along and see these events through his eyes. Is that the best of even a good setup, no... Would I prefer to have Basch just be the main character, yes. Hiroyuki Ito & Hiroshi Minagawa wanted Basch to be the main character, intended for him to be the main character, but Square said you can't have a 32-year-old character be the main character, and they made them shoehorn in younger protagonists... 12 had TONS of these kind of problems, this game was troubled from the beginning and went through development hell. It could have been much better, so much was cut to get it out the door, despite all of that I think that what they finally released was a good game. 12 could have been great, a 10 out of 10, but with all the problems behind the scenes that version never saw the light of day, still what we got for me at least is a solid 8 out of 10.
Xenonlade 2 is a good game and i loved fan servica.
Well, I DO have issues with berseria's characters. Everyone is super edgy, super trophy and seems like if they don't say their catch phrase at least once on every interaction they will die. The combat was horrible indeed, but that wasn't even the most infuriating part, it was the equipment. It was overly complicated and annoying that I just ignored it and ended the game with everyone's starting equipment because I didn't have the time to figure out what was best or not. And let's not forget about how for the first 1/3 of the game, whenever you arrived at an inn there was always a tutorial that went on forever.
The only good thing I can say about it is that I hated it less than Zestiria in most aspects.
I loved Xenoblade 2, it was one of the few jrpgs I finished, I enjoyed it a lot....on the other hand, I hated xenoblade 1.
Same, I played all 3 Xenoblades, but 2 is the only one I finished.
star ocean till the end of time was awesome played it last month :)
Ya know what jrpg I loved everyone else seemed to hate, white knight chronicles
Tales of Berseria: "Barely anyone criticizes the story or characters"
Ain't sure how I should feel to be part of the Barely Anyone crowd :). But that's the Tales of Game series problem, either you like the characters or you end up disliking the game and even the story.
Oh well, I'm just glad people like the tales of series anyway. Those are well-made games (even if Zesteria went through development hell).
I'm excited for the Tales of grace remake, as I've never been able to play it.
'There isn't a perfect version of this game [Persona 3]'
Sad but true. I managed to beat the main quest in FES and FeMC's storyline in P3P (PSP) and I love the game but the uncontrollable party members were a problem even back then (P4 and P5 players would have a fit going back to this). I was hoping that the PC/PS4 version of P3P would actually be a 'best of all worlds' remake, but no. Eventually got P3 Reload, but now knowing that the game has been censored and that "The Answer" is now DLC only (Episode Aigis) makes me not want to play it.
The biggest wall you have on xenoblade chronicle 2
Its the UI
GOD DAMM WHAT I DID FOR 100 HOURS?
Fire Emblem Engage would have been perfect for this list. Some JRGP/Fire Emblem fans hate bc of the character designs, story, gameplay ect while others love it.
He already made a video and we all agree engage is the worst fe game ever
@@therealjaystone2344 but i saw a video saying Engage isn't the worst fe game and those ppl are defending it. So we can all agree to disagree when it comes to Engage.
Honestly, I think the only part of Chrono Cross that really ticked off fans of Trigger was the end. Even the CT ties beforehand worked well (the sequence where Crono, Marle, and Lucca show up and start yelling at you for ruining all their hard work is one of my favorites in any game).
That ending, though? Just out of the blue turning the whole game into a gaiden to resolve the disappearance of one character from CT? It not only took a giant dump on CT, but it made Chrono Cross itself all but meaningless.
Bravely Default is fun the first playthrough and then it just re[eats itself to death...
zestiria is hated? 81% positive on steam
i was gonna try it at some point since i beat berseria and... well kind of had a love hate relationship with that game
update: just beat Zestiria, i dont get the hate, was pretty solid about on par with berseria but not as polished and the stories compliment each other well enough, maybe tales fans are just super picky?
Nah, zestiria is just the worst game in the franchise. It's bad, but it's bad but not the worst game ever
@@cyanryann64 its not bad at all tho
I love Star Ocean in general, 4 being my favorite. Been like 20 years since I played 3.
Wait, people hated Zestiria? Also, people don't just button mash?