For those that were still waiting for it, I'm sorry to say that I've decided to cancel the Tales of Zestiria critique. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it no longer fit the current trajectory of the channel and that on a personal level, I simply had no desire to work on it or videos of that nature anymore. I apologize to those that were looking forward to the rest of the video series, but I feel it's best for me to drop it and move on. I hope everyone reading this can understand and respect my wishes.
@@Flareboxx Don't worry, I still love JRPGs and plan to make videos about them in the future, what I meant about this "no longer fitting the current trajectory of the channel" was more specifically these long, negative critiques. I'm more interested in making videos that dig deep into something that I think is interesting, rather than just crapping all over it.
@@Flareboxx I have a video on FFXIV coming out soon and I'm working on another video about how important the Skits are in the Tales series, so don't worry, more JRPG content is coming.
Now I imagine the Lord of Calamity holding the camera trying to get the right angles and getting stuck on the walls whenever the characters are fighting.
this is entirely spot on. While I can see how they would have gone wrong with most of these things, it still blows my mind how they didn't see the issue of giving your party members hard elemental affinities. It doesn't take a genius to say "maybe players will want to use their favorite characters" instead of the one that's strong against the enemy. Berseria at least somewhat fixed this by giving each character two elements.
Heck yeah, I've been waiting for this! And just in time for my lunch break, too. I had little doubt Graces f was going to come up in the conversation about this game's combat, and it wasn't even two minutes in. xD I think the Armitization, though a cool concept in-universe, really trivializes so many of the game's combat encounters. One thing I wanted to mention on the subject is that Armitization can also revive an unconscious player character, and with my initial playthough on Normal difficulty, I could literally Armitize my way past pretty much any problem, and that's... really unsatisfying. I still remember the very moment Graces' combat clicked for me. The skit where Hubert challenges you to a 1 on 1 battle. I realized I couldn't just "mash Circle to win", so I had to reload until it all made sense: Dodging, the CC system, everything. It just hurts that I could never get that experience from Zesteria
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Are you able to "spoil" the topics of the other two parts you're making? I'm assuming one is story, but I can't imagine what the other would be.
@@Mr._Matt I'm actually gonna shorten it to just 3 parts instead of 4. Originally, I wrote this to be one big video, wherein I was going to tackle 4 main points, level design, combat, progression systems (leveling, crafting) and then finally the story. After releasing my School Days video though, I didn't want to make big videos like that anymore, so I decided I would just release it as separate videos instead. However, I realized when making part 3, that a video all about menu navigation would be really boring to watch, so I am gonna axe it and just release part 3 focusing on the story.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Haha yeah, I think that menu navigation is definitely important, but far less "entertaining" for most audience-folk. Ugh, you mentioned the crafting, so now I'm thinking about the randomized weapon stats and that bizarre system again. Anyway, yeah, a focus on the story will definitely be excellent. My disappointment when I realized that Heldalf really was the villain, that there was no big plot twist to justify the middling plot, and that every reasonably-hinted-at or implied plot twist never came to fruition. The game makes you think that Lailah was going to end up being the lover/wife of Michael. Nope. Also, the "direction"/cinematography of so many scenes left me either confused about what was going on at times, or it just completely failed to make certain moments emotional. The ONE time Sorey almost had to do something dark and the story could benefit from it, the game gives him an easy out by having another character do the dark thing for him. Also, the in-game lore alleges normal humans can't kill hellions...then normal humans kill hellion dog things in that town with the creepy mansion early on. Virtually every narrative decision in this game hurts my soul. If not for Edna, I would hate the whole thing, I think...
So sad to discover this video series only to read that it was dropped. I the first 2 were so interesting and I was looking forward to parts 3 and T_T These were well thought out and interesting.
I was never able to explain why hitting a button over and over again to initiate attacks felt wayyy better than just holding down a button. This doesn't just apply to Zestria. You explained that part better than I ever could.
I was a bit concerned writing that part since I didn't want people to think I was being overly nitpicky, but I'm glad to see that part resonated with someone.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Not to be overly dramatic, but I would go so far as to call that part "enlightening." An epiphany of sorts for most of us in the audience who had never contemplated the matter.
The Rock-Paper-Scissor system really doesn't get criticized enough. There is no good combat system that can be built out of a RPS system where Scissor is much stronger against Paper than Paper is against Rock and Rock is against Scissor. It causes the arte distribution to fail, it causes the enforced formation of Sorey/other human partner/2 Seraphs to fail, it causes the Armatization system to fail. The other reason that the RPS system failed is the way it counters each other. In every sensible games with a RPS system, you usually see OFFENSIVE types countering DEFENSIVE types (and vice versa), weapons types countering armor types, elemental types countering elemental resistance types, etc... Zestiria's system is OFFENSIVE types countering OFFENSIVE types. This means it's never clear at any moment what you have to counter the enemies with. You have to wait for them to attack to get a split second to determine what kind of attack you should counter with. Each enemy can have all 3 attack types in the RPS system so you have no way to know ahead of time walking into a battle. On top of having only split seconds to determine enemy's attack types, the attack types themselves are not clearly distinctive on first sight. So you end up having a RPS system that you cannot humanly take advantage of.
In regards to the camera system, it was stated they were simply not used to it. There are documented producers commenting on the games development issues
Considering how Berseria got PlayStation Hits status in North America, Bandai Namco could capitalize on Berseria's and Zesteria The X's popularity by patching in a controllable camera! I'm playing both Z&B at the same time and Z is shaping up to be one of my favorites in the series despite the flaws. But good lord, yesterday I had a battle start in a hall of a dungeon's door frame. The camera just went into seizure mode. Also you make all the wide open spaces to have monsters spawn in a group of trees,by rocks or by a wall? The battle system is at it's best when you play as single character in those trials with the big circular battlefield. The battle system is top notch in those segments.
It's highly unlikely for them to patch the game at this point given that it came out 5 years ago and even if they did. it would take more than a simple patch to fix the camera because the nature of much of the level design would still make it difficult to deal with. While I agree that the combat is at its best in wide open areas, to say the combat is top notch even in its most ideal state is a huge stretch, there are still a lot of critical issues with it, but more power to you if you're enjoying the game regardless.
I've recently considered to just make one last part and leaving it at that, I don't think a video explaining how the item fusion sucks would be interesting to watch, lol.
To touch on some more specifics of the combat system, namely the three different types of artes. In the Battle Tips Book (or whatever it’s called in this game) it goes over how the three artes work in a rock-paper-scissors type format and that certain characters have certain arte types depending on who they are and if they’re armatized or not (Humans have only Martial and Hidden, Seraphs have only Martial and Seraphic and Armatized characters have only Hidden and Seraphic) Going back to the Rock-Paper-Scissors thing. It goes Martial > Seraphic > Hidden > Martial again tho this showcases in only one meaningful way where Seraphic artes are more easily interrupted by Martial ones while Hidden artes have the annoying habit of making enemy Seraphic artes charge faster. So if ever found yourself in a situation where say you were taking one of the many optional over world mini-bosses, Armatize your characters because why wouldn’t you and when they’re charging a spell you try to interrupt them only to find “WHAT THE FUCK, WHY IS IT SPEEDING UP!!”, this system is why. In theory I think you’re supposed separate and use Martial artes to stop them but you’d more likely tank the damage staying Armatized so it’s not really that helpful.
The battlefield area was such a pain when you had to go to an area that was in it’s path because it was blocked for most of the game. You had to go out of your way to find another way around it repeatedly. It shouldn’t have been located in a path you have to cross to progress the story. Glad they rectified this issue in Berseria and Arise. Well, among others.
I actually kinda like the arena approach of older RPGs. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a cool combat location, realism be damned. Incidentally, notice how in games like Metal Gear, you will fight minions wherever but bosses will have arenas of sorts.
I've always wanted to see a series of deep dives on Tales games but most retrospectives focus on Nintendo, FPSes, or maybe Final Fantasy so I'm happy I came across your channel. Zestiria wasn't my first Tales, thankfully, but my third and left me wondering if Symphonia and Vesperia were quality outliers. To its credit, it did make for a *fun* bad game to play while drinking in that it's easy to play and the story has so many strange beats later on it was like scenes were missing (in fact, I believe they are from my looking into the game's development.)
Even though Zestiria has its issues, I honestly prefer it over Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness. I honestly felt that Star Ocean 5 is one of the more weaker entries in that series and that was my first ever star ocean game. Luckily it didn't dissuade me from the series as a whole and now I am interested in getting the hd release of star ocean 3 (I know it was released 3 years ago).
I think the RPS of the arts in zesty is okay, but the enemy attacks arent always easy to read for "what type of attack is hidden or martial arts". The armatize stuff ends up being a crutch for death or spamming element weakness. It's almost impossible to keep going as team of 4 rather than just fuse
Man, the balancing issues gave some parts of the game a lot of dificulty spikes in places where it should've been more fair. Armatization is a game breaker (although I do like how it plays and the character design that the armatus provides) goes hand in hand with the problems of balancing that I mentioned earlier by making it absolutely easy or down right impossible. it's literally a free revive if you die while the seraph lives, it's ridiculous! Even with it's faults, I still had a good time playing the game.
When it comes to battle systems in the tales series Graces f reigns supreme. I hated Graces f story, it was disappointing on so many levels, but the gameplay kept me coming back. When it comes to story in the tales series, Legendia is still my favorite. This is my opinion but Legendia had the best story. I wish they would remake Legendia and give it A more polished version of Graces f battle system. That would be the number Tales game, at least for me.
Late to the party but I'm surprised you didn't touch on the party spread of 2 humans/2 seraphim. Not too noticeable for the most part, and it's been a while since I played Zestiria, but I distinctly remember a large chunk of game time being forceably handicapped by the limitations. There's a long stretch where you have multiple seraphim party members, but Sorey is the only human, forcing you to only have two usable party members until Rose joins.
At the time I didn't felt it was worth touching on, I wanted to focus more on the nuts and bolts of the mechanics. That said in retrospect, I probably should've talked about since it does have an impact on combat.
What bothered me the most is that they went from strict horizontal to strict vertical movement. With horizontal movement, it's easier to judge distance than when your character's back is blocking the camera from displaying the distance. At least Graces had a top town camera with both horizontal and vertical movement, this game's movement is just horrible.
I never knew how to put it into words, I just knew that this game's combat was basically ToGf's but literally so much worse, somehow. God damn it I want to replay Graces f
perfect explanation of the problems with combat. I'm about 50% of the way through the game and contemplating not playing it anymore because just like you said, ever battle is the same. Hold down button to determine weakness, armatize (is that the word) to said element, spam attack and if it is a boss MAYBE dodge a bit. and that's the game!
I'm replaying Zestiria on PC right now with a Mod that allows the game to run at 60FPS. So it is possible and there is no excuse for it not be there from the start.
Considering Berseria uses the same engine and also runs at 60fps, it's fairly obvious that it's entirely possible. I was simply giving and explanation as to why I thought the PC and PS4 versions were locked at 30.
30fps was fine, I've been used to less. What I hated was the iron stances and wasting so much BG, because the iron stance would turn on for the next 10 seconds of combat.
I'll put my two cents in on this. I remember being excited hearing they would be using the same combat system as Graces since that's the best one in all of tales being very active based and aside the limit system it was very enjoyable for the most part. Zesteria was fine but a lot of the enemeis were too tanky and that didn't make it as well. The camera I never had issues with but more so how the team was forced to use sorey and rose in all parties to use the most of your abilities were not good. Same with the fusion system as getting less party members is never a good thing overall. Character wise Alicia is still the worst tales main of all time no matter how much I dislike a few others. Glad the dlc system was free for me but overall she was useless to the overall story and basically a red herring as if tear was the main girl and then left to do paperwork or Estelle was revealed as princess and then sent home. That bad overall. Glad they knew how horrible it was in the states and made the dlc free for ealry players. I loved Alicia's style and combat so it was horrible to see her go. Storywise it's not that good and plenty of plot holes in the pack g forcing you to go see all of the Lord of calamities backstory in order to Force feeling sympathy for him instead of naturally getting to know him was a big mistake. Side villains were pretty bad as it was a basic black vs white with sorey not being able to "kill" someone or see the gray in life as roses company fell to the side was not good. Glad bersteria was made as even those enemies were not god general or giaus chimerisd group level of great but the overall world was more lusu with green and better overall as sorey left like a lost world disater as all tales games are post a great futuristic empire but the zesteria world was especially bad overall. Bestria set up for great stuff but nothing in zesteria was fixed.
@@turquoisemoon3654 not the best in a tales sense in story or gameplay. It's not bulky like Symphonia but Symphonia is an old game so that makes sense. Zesteria is really the drop as if you did the same thing with a main female in any other tales game the story would change drastically like if Estelle said she would leave and actually does or anyone else. So yeah it's still the worse in all accounts with he world being so dry. Story meh and Alicia existing especially when her kit was actually kinda cool. Gameplay is ok but it's not Grace's level
The mash/hold button change should be an option. Not every player can mash, and not every player can hold, so making it option would make it most accessible.
I enjoyed Zestiria though I thought the antagonists were pretty generic. Sorey is the worst tales of protagonist so far. The camera in battle got very bothersome.
@@makotoyuki345 People don't like Emil because he's weak-willed and whiny. Granted there's good reason in the narrative as to why he acts the way he does, but it can be frustrating to watch him act so pathetic for most of the game.
Can confirm movement is linked to frame rate, when I booted it up for the first time at release, both zestiria and berseria chugged, and the movement felt so awful.
Zestiria conceptually had a decent combat system (With the Martial Arts Crashing Seraphic arts and in turn crashing hidden arts) it mainly had the awful concepts of: Axing 2 party members which completely removed your support characters if you set both Human Chrs at Hold Nothing Back or Prioritise Attack. Which forces Sorey and Rose to use BG to use the Healing Arte included with the Armatus locked behind 1BG, or de-armatising and switching seraph just for their BG. The Armatus by design makes it impossible to counter spell casters and on higher difficulties can 1 shot you with quick cast spells. This in its concept wouldn't be too much of an issue if the balancing wasn't always based on Armatuized combat. (Although some of the seraphic artes were able to be reversed on the opponent: 'Crown Fire' vs Turtles). Probs why Magilou was so important in Berzeria The camera was shockingly bad as they should have added encounter zones as they knew it was borderline unplayable which is why every boss was in a empty room. The devs realised the camera was horrific and they added a free running button think it was L1 which made Sorey reposistion himself, and you could enable it in battle add ons called Free and Free (Actually it made the combat enjoyable sometimes). For the 30FPS thing there is a mod that allows for 60FPS whilst also addressing some of the issues with the PC port like sound sampling and anti aliasing issues, this does improve the combat as it makes the characters feel a lot more snappy and responsive more than anything but that doesn't help a lot as the camera is still shit. If you want to enjoy Zestirias (possibly) combat lower the difficulty to Hard or Intense of Chaos (Theres not any point) enable Free and Free and then add the 60fps Mod. One thing I do prefer on Zesty compared to Berseria (which is the direct patch to the Zestiria combat and should have more cinematic MA) is the Mystic Artes which are all much better and had more of cinematic flair to them like comparing Excelion Pierce to Divine Wrath, but the Armatized Mystic Artes were absolutely the best thing out of Zestiria like Flamberge or Slyphestia and all of them were awesome but that doesn't make up for the poor combat.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis I know it just that the mod has existed for years as people thought that Bandai wouldn't patch the Zesty frame rate (because improving the fps only makes the combat go from uhhh to ehhh) due to its problem with the camera. I enjoyed Zesty although the flaws are extensive maybe Zesty could have been playable if they had battle arenas instead of the crappy dungeon corridors as the camera shouldn't need to be as consistenly good. Also you know 60fps is required on any game ever....
eh, idk I get some of the critcisms /most even First half of the video about the tech. problems and the problem of Baleancing the Armatus and Elemental attacks. Needing to hold down a button for a specific attacking action is really nitpicky imo, I never saw it as a problem and it felt more like something just there to strecht out the video and to give yourself an extra argument to make your point. I think it helped that when I first played it that I never made as much use of the Armatus as I could have, because the combat initself is still alot of fun imo espeacially the combo tree thing that is tied to the directional input is still one of my favourites, it makes you remember it and then study it furthermore I like how these attacks then are Attacks in the inputted direction something that was missing for me in berseria. For me its still my second favourite after Bersiria from the games I have played, wich are all of those currently available on steam. it honestly still makes me sad that my introduction to the series is so looked down upon for sometimes good and sometimes kind of unessary reason.
I didn't put it there just to pad out the video. Fair enough if you felt it was nitpicky, but I included it because it was something that genuinely bothered me and took away from my experience with the game. It's fine if it doesn't bother you, but I was trying to explain why it bothered me and I went into a lot of detail to get that across.
I have never stopped playing Graces F, when I got it back in early 2013. It was my first ever tales game and I haven’t regretted it ever since. Honestly Graces F is the game I’ve have so many hours invested in playing it. I think the appeal for me is that I absolutely love the battle system and personally I find battles are fun (except for some bosses *cough* Emeraude *cough*). The story is decent and I'm pretty neutral about it. Still, I do have many favourite characters such as Pascal, Malik and Hubert.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis I do agree that story definitely has its moments and I personally find it charming. I should clarify that I'm mostly neutral towards the story and will edit my earlier comment about it. I'm honestly glad we got the PS3 version rather than the Wii version. I have come across a tiny minority of people (outside Japan) online who felt that playing the wii version on an emulator was somehow better than the PS3 version due to the graphics.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis i remember seeing a video where someone was playing on the dolphin emulator and people commenting about how the game looked better on the emulator But this was a long time ago since I saw that video and the comments section and I can't find the specific video and the comments. It was because the emulator ran the game with 1080p (full HD) quality, whereas the the PS3 version is capped at 720p only.
I like the battle system and the actual same environment fights, except the camera angles. Yea you're right thats annoying when the camera gets stuck where you can't see, they should've had a adjust a camera option and then it would've been fine.
Tales of graces f has always looked amazing to me. Just by looking at the combat I can tell it's one of the best in the series, my only concern is alot of people say the story is childish shounen crap
The story isn't crap, but it's not amazing. I think the cast is very likable though and it makes up for the plot being kind of by the numbers. There's an epilogue chapter after the main game that has some great story moments though.
That's a false equivalence. Climbing a ladder is an insignificant part of the game, the combat is a core part of the experience. Holding a button down and watching your character do an entire combo is not fun or engaging.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis but you understand that u dont have to hold the Button and u can still choose to link the other artes on the other Direktions, right? Just because they give u an elevator doesnt mean u cant take the stairs.
@@RealEvilLordExdeath But you're locking yourself out of being able to use all the abilities. If you put the first tier of ability, then you can use all the other abilities in the combo tree, it just makes more sense to do it that way. The caveat is that you have to hold down the button and watch your character do the entire combo, which as I stated, isn't really great for an action RPG. Sure, you don't *have* to do this, but then you're limiting what you can potentially do in combat.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis if u play any other tales of besid3s berseria, wich did the same "hold Button for next arte" thing u can never Equip all artes. As much as u talk about graces u should know that. So i find it kind of nice to be able to do all the artes because i hate if there are more artes than i can equip and i dont mind Holding down a Button, i just dont see why this is such a big thing to you. So in lets say Graces you Performance a B arte and Asbel makes multiple Hits, literally multiple slashes with his sword, After u just Pressed the B Artes Button once, that doesnt feel wrong to you?
@@RealEvilLordExdeath Yes, I remember Graces had some abilities where you could hold down the button to initiate some attacks, but I don't think it's for an entire combo string? I don't think it's the same for one attack here and there to have to hold down the button, my issue is just that I don't like for an entire combo string to be initiated with holding down the button. Also, I don't think this is a "big deal", it's just something I didn't like about the game.
I’m going to die on the hill that Zesteria’s combat is lightyears better than Vesperia’s (which gets universal acclaim). Zesteria has some flaws (which in my opinion you purposely blew out of proportion because you wanted to justify hating this game, when in reality you can just say you don’t like it without inventing problems that really don’t exist- like “I can’t button mash, 0/10”), but my characters feel like they actually do stuff. Everyone in Vesperia feels like they’re moving around in quicksand all while feeling like you’re shoved in a 1-square foot closet. The movement sucks, the combos suck (even late game when you supposedly “get cool stuff”), and the freedom that games like Zesteria and Berseria give you simply doesn’t exist. This is why Rita is considered the most viable character because you can just sit back and fire spells without having to worry about moving.
Come on dude, it's fine if you disagree with me, but it ain't cool to misrepresent and misconstrue what I said. I didn't invent problems or blow things out of proportion. It's okay if you don't agree with my points, but don't accuse me of making things up when I didn't.
I recently played some of tales of zestiria and I really like it Edit: also, I hope at some point you play the games from Freebird games. I’m hoping you do an analysis of A Bird Story in particular since the game uses so much symbolism what was happening went right over my head Edit 2: one other solution to your issues with the camera is to make the stage “geometry”(walls, pillars, etc.) transparent when they’d be in the way
Daniel Santos: Analytical Editorials I imagine it would take you roughly 9-10 hours to play all three commercial games(he’s got some games from before To The Moon up on his website that are free as well as some mini-sodes, but he’s only fought three you pay for)
For those that were still waiting for it, I'm sorry to say that I've decided to cancel the Tales of Zestiria critique. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it no longer fit the current trajectory of the channel and that on a personal level, I simply had no desire to work on it or videos of that nature anymore. I apologize to those that were looking forward to the rest of the video series, but I feel it's best for me to drop it and move on. I hope everyone reading this can understand and respect my wishes.
At least I won't have to keep waiting anymore. Over a month and a half was enough for me to forget more than once.
That's definitely a bummer. Does that mean you're not really interested in making videos for JRPGs anymore?
@@Flareboxx Don't worry, I still love JRPGs and plan to make videos about them in the future, what I meant about this "no longer fitting the current trajectory of the channel" was more specifically these long, negative critiques. I'm more interested in making videos that dig deep into something that I think is interesting, rather than just crapping all over it.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Ok awesome! I love your style of videos so I hope we still get to see more JRPG videos from you in the future! :)
@@Flareboxx I have a video on FFXIV coming out soon and I'm working on another video about how important the Skits are in the Tales series, so don't worry, more JRPG content is coming.
The main antagonist of Zestiria is the camera itself
Now I imagine the Lord of Calamity holding the camera trying to get the right angles and getting stuck on the walls whenever the characters are fighting.
this is entirely spot on. While I can see how they would have gone wrong with most of these things, it still blows my mind how they didn't see the issue of giving your party members hard elemental affinities. It doesn't take a genius to say "maybe players will want to use their favorite characters" instead of the one that's strong against the enemy. Berseria at least somewhat fixed this by giving each character two elements.
Didn’t Velvet and Rokorou have 3 or 4 though
Good points though
Destiny ps2 kinda did that but only the swordian master's had that and they have multiple elements.
Heck yeah, I've been waiting for this! And just in time for my lunch break, too.
I had little doubt Graces f was going to come up in the conversation about this game's combat, and it wasn't even two minutes in. xD
I think the Armitization, though a cool concept in-universe, really trivializes so many of the game's combat encounters. One thing I wanted to mention on the subject is that Armitization can also revive an unconscious player character, and with my initial playthough on Normal difficulty, I could literally Armitize my way past pretty much any problem, and that's... really unsatisfying.
I still remember the very moment Graces' combat clicked for me. The skit where Hubert challenges you to a 1 on 1 battle. I realized I couldn't just "mash Circle to win", so I had to reload until it all made sense: Dodging, the CC system, everything.
It just hurts that I could never get that experience from Zesteria
I got bored and listened to Parts 1 & 2 of this again. =D So good!
Glad you enjoy it!
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Are you able to "spoil" the topics of the other two parts you're making? I'm assuming one is story, but I can't imagine what the other would be.
@@Mr._Matt I'm actually gonna shorten it to just 3 parts instead of 4. Originally, I wrote this to be one big video, wherein I was going to tackle 4 main points, level design, combat, progression systems (leveling, crafting) and then finally the story. After releasing my School Days video though, I didn't want to make big videos like that anymore, so I decided I would just release it as separate videos instead. However, I realized when making part 3, that a video all about menu navigation would be really boring to watch, so I am gonna axe it and just release part 3 focusing on the story.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Haha yeah, I think that menu navigation is definitely important, but far less "entertaining" for most audience-folk. Ugh, you mentioned the crafting, so now I'm thinking about the randomized weapon stats and that bizarre system again. Anyway, yeah, a focus on the story will definitely be excellent. My disappointment when I realized that Heldalf really was the villain, that there was no big plot twist to justify the middling plot, and that every reasonably-hinted-at or implied plot twist never came to fruition.
The game makes you think that Lailah was going to end up being the lover/wife of Michael. Nope. Also, the "direction"/cinematography of so many scenes left me either confused about what was going on at times, or it just completely failed to make certain moments emotional. The ONE time Sorey almost had to do something dark and the story could benefit from it, the game gives him an easy out by having another character do the dark thing for him. Also, the in-game lore alleges normal humans can't kill hellions...then normal humans kill hellion dog things in that town with the creepy mansion early on. Virtually every narrative decision in this game hurts my soul. If not for Edna, I would hate the whole thing, I think...
So sad to discover this video series only to read that it was dropped. I the first 2 were so interesting and I was looking forward to parts 3 and T_T These were well thought out and interesting.
Sorry! I did fully intend on finishing this series, but I just couldn't bring myself to play, write or think about Zestiria anymore.
I was never able to explain why hitting a button over and over again to initiate attacks felt wayyy better than just holding down a button. This doesn't just apply to Zestria. You explained that part better than I ever could.
I was a bit concerned writing that part since I didn't want people to think I was being overly nitpicky, but I'm glad to see that part resonated with someone.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Not to be overly dramatic, but I would go so far as to call that part "enlightening." An epiphany of sorts for most of us in the audience who had never contemplated the matter.
The Rock-Paper-Scissor system really doesn't get criticized enough. There is no good combat system that can be built out of a RPS system where Scissor is much stronger against Paper than Paper is against Rock and Rock is against Scissor. It causes the arte distribution to fail, it causes the enforced formation of Sorey/other human partner/2 Seraphs to fail, it causes the Armatization system to fail.
The other reason that the RPS system failed is the way it counters each other. In every sensible games with a RPS system, you usually see OFFENSIVE types countering DEFENSIVE types (and vice versa), weapons types countering armor types, elemental types countering elemental resistance types, etc... Zestiria's system is OFFENSIVE types countering OFFENSIVE types. This means it's never clear at any moment what you have to counter the enemies with. You have to wait for them to attack to get a split second to determine what kind of attack you should counter with. Each enemy can have all 3 attack types in the RPS system so you have no way to know ahead of time walking into a battle. On top of having only split seconds to determine enemy's attack types, the attack types themselves are not clearly distinctive on first sight. So you end up having a RPS system that you cannot humanly take advantage of.
Thanks for the insight, it's another reason why the combat falls flat.
In regards to the camera system, it was stated they were simply not used to it. There are documented producers commenting on the games development issues
I wasn't aware that the devs came out and said that, but it's not hard to believe considering how the game turned out.
Thank you so much for continuing this!!
Considering how Berseria got PlayStation Hits status in North America, Bandai Namco could capitalize on Berseria's and Zesteria The X's popularity by patching in a controllable camera!
I'm playing both Z&B at the same time and Z is shaping up to be one of my favorites in the series despite the flaws. But good lord, yesterday I had a battle start in a hall of a dungeon's door frame. The camera just went into seizure mode.
Also you make all the wide open spaces to have monsters spawn in a group of trees,by rocks or by a wall?
The battle system is at it's best when you play as single character in those trials with the big circular battlefield. The battle system is top notch in those segments.
It's highly unlikely for them to patch the game at this point given that it came out 5 years ago and even if they did. it would take more than a simple patch to fix the camera because the nature of much of the level design would still make it difficult to deal with. While I agree that the combat is at its best in wide open areas, to say the combat is top notch even in its most ideal state is a huge stretch, there are still a lot of critical issues with it, but more power to you if you're enjoying the game regardless.
Thanks for part 2! Can't wait for part 3!
This did NOT age well.
@@227someguy Yeah, definitely a bummer. I really enjoyed Parts 1 and 2
I'm really sorry about that, but if it makes you feel better, I have another Tales video in the works.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Awesome! I'm looking forward to it!
Looking forward to the next two parts.
I've recently considered to just make one last part and leaving it at that, I don't think a video explaining how the item fusion sucks would be interesting to watch, lol.
To touch on some more specifics of the combat system, namely the three different types of artes. In the Battle Tips Book (or whatever it’s called in this game) it goes over how the three artes work in a rock-paper-scissors type format and that certain characters have certain arte types depending on who they are and if they’re armatized or not (Humans have only Martial and Hidden, Seraphs have only Martial and Seraphic and Armatized characters have only Hidden and Seraphic) Going back to the Rock-Paper-Scissors thing. It goes Martial > Seraphic > Hidden > Martial again tho this showcases in only one meaningful way where Seraphic artes are more easily interrupted by Martial ones while Hidden artes have the annoying habit of making enemy Seraphic artes charge faster. So if ever found yourself in a situation where say you were taking one of the many optional over world mini-bosses, Armatize your characters because why wouldn’t you and when they’re charging a spell you try to interrupt them only to find “WHAT THE FUCK, WHY IS IT SPEEDING UP!!”, this system is why. In theory I think you’re supposed separate and use Martial artes to stop them but you’d more likely tank the damage staying Armatized so it’s not really that helpful.
I actually wasn't aware of this, thanks for the added info!
The battlefield area was such a pain when you had to go to an area that was in it’s path because it was blocked for most of the game. You had to go out of your way to find another way around it repeatedly. It shouldn’t have been located in a path you have to cross to progress the story. Glad they rectified this issue in Berseria and Arise. Well, among others.
Thank you for your hard work!
I actually kinda like the arena approach of older RPGs. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a cool combat location, realism be damned. Incidentally, notice how in games like Metal Gear, you will fight minions wherever but bosses will have arenas of sorts.
Are parts 3 and/or 4 out yet? I take great joy in seeing Zestiria's wretched corpse dissected piece by piece.
The script for part 3 is done, just need to put it together as a video.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis Awesome! I look forward to checking it out. =D
I've always wanted to see a series of deep dives on Tales games but most retrospectives focus on Nintendo, FPSes, or maybe Final Fantasy so I'm happy I came across your channel. Zestiria wasn't my first Tales, thankfully, but my third and left me wondering if Symphonia and Vesperia were quality outliers. To its credit, it did make for a *fun* bad game to play while drinking in that it's easy to play and the story has so many strange beats later on it was like scenes were missing (in fact, I believe they are from my looking into the game's development.)
If you enjoyed Symphonia and Vesperia, I'd strongly urge you to play Tales of the Abyss aswell, I think you enjoy it just as much!
Even though Zestiria has its issues, I honestly prefer it over Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness.
I honestly felt that Star Ocean 5 is one of the more weaker entries in that series and that was my first ever star ocean game.
Luckily it didn't dissuade me from the series as a whole and now I am interested in getting the hd release of star ocean 3 (I know it was released 3 years ago).
I didn't like Star Ocean 5 either.
I think the RPS of the arts in zesty is okay, but the enemy attacks arent always easy to read for "what type of attack is hidden or martial arts".
The armatize stuff ends up being a crutch for death or spamming element weakness. It's almost impossible to keep going as team of 4 rather than just fuse
Loved the videos, recently finished playing through this game and i just needed to make sure my extremely mixed feelings were justified.
I assure you, your feelings are entirely justified.
6:45 i would argue that armatizing with Mikleo in a hallway qualifies this game as an FPS.
Man, the balancing issues gave some parts of the game a lot of dificulty spikes in places where it should've been more fair. Armatization is a game breaker (although I do like how it plays and the character design that the armatus provides) goes hand in hand with the problems of balancing that I mentioned earlier by making it absolutely easy or down right impossible.
it's literally a free revive if you die while the seraph lives, it's ridiculous!
Even with it's faults, I still had a good time playing the game.
Finally!!
I hope it's worth the wait =)
When it comes to battle systems in the tales series Graces f reigns supreme. I hated Graces f story, it was disappointing on so many levels, but the gameplay kept me coming back.
When it comes to story in the tales series, Legendia is still my favorite. This is my opinion but Legendia had the best story.
I wish they would remake Legendia and give it A more polished version of Graces f battle system. That would be the number Tales game, at least for me.
Late to the party but I'm surprised you didn't touch on the party spread of 2 humans/2 seraphim. Not too noticeable for the most part, and it's been a while since I played Zestiria, but I distinctly remember a large chunk of game time being forceably handicapped by the limitations. There's a long stretch where you have multiple seraphim party members, but Sorey is the only human, forcing you to only have two usable party members until Rose joins.
At the time I didn't felt it was worth touching on, I wanted to focus more on the nuts and bolts of the mechanics. That said in retrospect, I probably should've talked about since it does have an impact on combat.
What bothered me the most is that they went from strict horizontal to strict vertical movement. With horizontal movement, it's easier to judge distance than when your character's back is blocking the camera from displaying the distance. At least Graces had a top town camera with both horizontal and vertical movement, this game's movement is just horrible.
Even without the camera issues, the movement just feels bad.
I never knew how to put it into words, I just knew that this game's combat was basically ToGf's but literally so much worse, somehow. God damn it I want to replay Graces f
Hopefully my video was able to put to words how you felt about it.
Part 3 soon?
Working on it!
I will beat this game..... one day. Another great video sir!
perfect explanation of the problems with combat. I'm about 50% of the way through the game and contemplating not playing it anymore because just like you said, ever battle is the same. Hold down button to determine weakness, armatize (is that the word) to said element, spam attack and if it is a boss MAYBE dodge a bit. and that's the game!
No shame in dropping it, there are much better entries in the series to play instead.
I'm replaying Zestiria on PC right now with a Mod that allows the game to run at 60FPS. So it is possible and there is no excuse for it not be there from the start.
Considering Berseria uses the same engine and also runs at 60fps, it's fairly obvious that it's entirely possible. I was simply giving and explanation as to why I thought the PC and PS4 versions were locked at 30.
I almost thought you forgot about continuing this project, finally!! 😄😄
Nope, in fact part 3 has already been written actually!
@@DanielSantosAnalysis awesome man, can't wait for it! 😊
30fps was fine, I've been used to less.
What I hated was the iron stances and wasting so much BG, because the iron stance would turn on for the next 10 seconds of combat.
I'll put my two cents in on this.
I remember being excited hearing they would be using the same combat system as Graces since that's the best one in all of tales being very active based and aside the limit system it was very enjoyable for the most part. Zesteria was fine but a lot of the enemeis were too tanky and that didn't make it as well. The camera I never had issues with but more so how the team was forced to use sorey and rose in all parties to use the most of your abilities were not good. Same with the fusion system as getting less party members is never a good thing overall.
Character wise Alicia is still the worst tales main of all time no matter how much I dislike a few others. Glad the dlc system was free for me but overall she was useless to the overall story and basically a red herring as if tear was the main girl and then left to do paperwork or Estelle was revealed as princess and then sent home. That bad overall.
Glad they knew how horrible it was in the states and made the dlc free for ealry players. I loved Alicia's style and combat so it was horrible to see her go.
Storywise it's not that good and plenty of plot holes in the pack g forcing you to go see all of the Lord of calamities backstory in order to Force feeling sympathy for him instead of naturally getting to know him was a big mistake.
Side villains were pretty bad as it was a basic black vs white with sorey not being able to "kill" someone or see the gray in life as roses company fell to the side was not good.
Glad bersteria was made as even those enemies were not god general or giaus chimerisd group level of great but the overall world was more lusu with green and better overall as sorey left like a lost world disater as all tales games are post a great futuristic empire but the zesteria world was especially bad overall. Bestria set up for great stuff but nothing in zesteria was fixed.
@@turquoisemoon3654 not the best in a tales sense in story or gameplay. It's not bulky like Symphonia but Symphonia is an old game so that makes sense.
Zesteria is really the drop as if you did the same thing with a main female in any other tales game the story would change drastically like if Estelle said she would leave and actually does or anyone else.
So yeah it's still the worse in all accounts with he world being so dry. Story meh and Alicia existing especially when her kit was actually kinda cool. Gameplay is ok but it's not Grace's level
The mash/hold button change should be an option. Not every player can mash, and not every player can hold, so making it option would make it most accessible.
I wasn't thinking about it in terms of accessibility, I think you make a fair point.
There will be a part 3?
part 1 and 2 were well made, congrats.
Yes! There will be a part 3! The script is done, I just need to get around to turning it into a video.
I enjoyed Zestiria though I thought the antagonists were pretty generic. Sorey is the worst tales of protagonist so far. The camera in battle got very bothersome.
I dislike Emil much more than Sorey, I find Sorey to be more bland than actively bad.
That’s fair though I still like Sorey (camera is still shit though)
@@DanielSantosAnalysis I haven’t played it yet so I was just curious, why is Emil hated? Is it specifically Emil or Ratatosk too?
@@makotoyuki345 People don't like Emil because he's weak-willed and whiny. Granted there's good reason in the narrative as to why he acts the way he does, but it can be frustrating to watch him act so pathetic for most of the game.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis oh ok I see, thanks for the insight
Can confirm movement is linked to frame rate, when I booted it up for the first time at release, both zestiria and berseria chugged, and the movement felt so awful.
Berseria runs at 60 though, at least on PS4 it does.
Zestiria conceptually had a decent combat system (With the Martial Arts Crashing Seraphic arts and in turn crashing hidden arts) it mainly had the awful concepts of:
Axing 2 party members which completely removed your support characters if you set both Human Chrs at Hold Nothing Back or Prioritise Attack. Which forces Sorey and Rose to use BG to use the Healing Arte included with the Armatus locked behind 1BG, or de-armatising and switching seraph just for their BG.
The Armatus by design makes it impossible to counter spell casters and on higher difficulties can 1 shot you with quick cast spells. This in its concept wouldn't be too much of an issue if the balancing wasn't always based on Armatuized combat. (Although some of the seraphic artes were able to be reversed on the opponent: 'Crown Fire' vs Turtles). Probs why Magilou was so important in Berzeria
The camera was shockingly bad as they should have added encounter zones as they knew it was borderline unplayable which is why every boss was in a empty room. The devs realised the camera was horrific and they added a free running button think it was L1 which made Sorey reposistion himself, and you could enable it in battle add ons called Free and Free (Actually it made the combat enjoyable sometimes).
For the 30FPS thing there is a mod that allows for 60FPS whilst also addressing some of the issues with the PC port like sound sampling and anti aliasing issues, this does improve the combat as it makes the characters feel a lot more snappy and responsive more than anything but that doesn't help a lot as the camera is still shit.
If you want to enjoy Zestirias (possibly) combat lower the difficulty to Hard or Intense of Chaos (Theres not any point) enable Free and Free and then add the 60fps Mod.
One thing I do prefer on Zesty compared to Berseria (which is the direct patch to the Zestiria combat and should have more cinematic MA) is the Mystic Artes which are all much better and had more of cinematic flair to them like comparing Excelion Pierce to Divine Wrath, but the Armatized Mystic Artes were absolutely the best thing out of Zestiria like Flamberge or Slyphestia and all of them were awesome but that doesn't make up for the poor combat.
Even if there's a mod that ups the framerate, it wouldn't be enough to solve the slew of problems with the combat.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis I know it just that the mod has existed for years as people thought that Bandai wouldn't patch the Zesty frame rate (because improving the fps only makes the combat go from uhhh to ehhh) due to its problem with the camera.
I enjoyed Zesty although the flaws are extensive maybe Zesty could have been playable if they had battle arenas instead of the crappy dungeon corridors as the camera shouldn't need to be as consistenly good. Also you know 60fps is required on any game ever....
I wouldn't say 60fps is required for *every* game, but if you're making any sort of action game, or even action RPG, 60fps is very damn important.
eh, idk I get some of the critcisms /most even First half of the video about the tech. problems and the problem of Baleancing the Armatus and Elemental attacks. Needing to hold down a button for a specific attacking action is really nitpicky imo, I never saw it as a problem and it felt more like something just there to strecht out the video and to give yourself an extra argument to make your point. I think it helped that when I first played it that I never made as much use of the Armatus as I could have, because the combat initself is still alot of fun imo espeacially the combo tree thing that is tied to the directional input is still one of my favourites, it makes you remember it and then study it furthermore I like how these attacks then are Attacks in the inputted direction something that was missing for me in berseria.
For me its still my second favourite after Bersiria from the games I have played, wich are all of those currently available on steam.
it honestly still makes me sad that my introduction to the series is so looked down upon for sometimes good and sometimes kind of unessary reason.
I didn't put it there just to pad out the video. Fair enough if you felt it was nitpicky, but I included it because it was something that genuinely bothered me and took away from my experience with the game. It's fine if it doesn't bother you, but I was trying to explain why it bothered me and I went into a lot of detail to get that across.
I have never stopped playing Graces F, when I got it back in early 2013. It was my first ever tales game and I haven’t regretted it ever since.
Honestly Graces F is the game I’ve have so many hours invested in playing it.
I think the appeal for me is that I absolutely love the battle system and personally I find battles are fun (except for some bosses *cough* Emeraude *cough*). The story is decent and I'm pretty neutral about it.
Still, I do have many favourite characters such as Pascal, Malik and Hubert.
I think you're being fairly harsh saying the story is "meh" at best, it's not an amazing story, but it does have good moments.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis I do agree that story definitely has its moments and I personally find it charming.
I should clarify that I'm mostly neutral towards the story and will edit my earlier comment about it. I'm honestly glad we got the PS3 version rather than the Wii version.
I have come across a tiny minority of people (outside Japan) online who felt that playing the wii version on an emulator was somehow better than the PS3 version due to the graphics.
I've never heard anyone say the Wii version was better, it looks like the exact same game.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis i remember seeing a video where someone was playing on the dolphin emulator and people commenting about how the game looked better on the emulator
But this was a long time ago since I saw that video and the comments section and I can't find the specific video and the comments.
It was because the emulator ran the game with 1080p (full HD) quality, whereas the the PS3 version is capped at 720p only.
Great analysis and breakdown on both vids. I can't wait for you to rip the story to shreds (looking at you Rose).
Part 3 will break down the skill/item/progression systems first and then the fourth and final part will be on the story.
I know I mentioned this before, but it really feels like if I were to play it at all, I'd play it for about 4-5 hours then give up.
Just dont even bother at all with this one.
Im dying to the endgame enemies in one or two hits... On easy
I like the battle system and the actual same environment fights, except the camera angles. Yea you're right thats annoying when the camera gets stuck where you can't see, they should've had a adjust a camera option and then it would've been fine.
Tales of graces f has always looked amazing to me. Just by looking at the combat I can tell it's one of the best in the series, my only concern is alot of people say the story is childish shounen crap
The story isn't crap, but it's not amazing. I think the cast is very likable though and it makes up for the plot being kind of by the numbers. There's an epilogue chapter after the main game that has some great story moments though.
Losing battle Arena was a very bad step.
Sooooo if u climb a Lader in a game, u want to push a Button for every step, or else you feel disconnected from the Charakter? 😂
That's a false equivalence. Climbing a ladder is an insignificant part of the game, the combat is a core part of the experience. Holding a button down and watching your character do an entire combo is not fun or engaging.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis but you understand that u dont have to hold the Button and u can still choose to link the other artes on the other Direktions, right?
Just because they give u an elevator doesnt mean u cant take the stairs.
@@RealEvilLordExdeath But you're locking yourself out of being able to use all the abilities. If you put the first tier of ability, then you can use all the other abilities in the combo tree, it just makes more sense to do it that way. The caveat is that you have to hold down the button and watch your character do the entire combo, which as I stated, isn't really great for an action RPG. Sure, you don't *have* to do this, but then you're limiting what you can potentially do in combat.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis if u play any other tales of besid3s berseria, wich did the same "hold Button for next arte" thing u can never Equip all artes.
As much as u talk about graces u should know that.
So i find it kind of nice to be able to do all the artes because i hate if there are more artes than i can equip and i dont mind Holding down a Button, i just dont see why this is such a big thing to you.
So in lets say Graces you Performance a B arte and Asbel makes multiple Hits, literally multiple slashes with his sword, After u just Pressed the B Artes Button once, that doesnt feel wrong to you?
@@RealEvilLordExdeath Yes, I remember Graces had some abilities where you could hold down the button to initiate some attacks, but I don't think it's for an entire combo string? I don't think it's the same for one attack here and there to have to hold down the button, my issue is just that I don't like for an entire combo string to be initiated with holding down the button. Also, I don't think this is a "big deal", it's just something I didn't like about the game.
Multiplayer a joke in this game and they still havent fixed the camera angle
This is a game that came out in 2015, we're far beyond the point of them ever going back to fix anything.
This the worst tales game I have ever played f this game.
It's not the worst one for me, but it's somewhere at the bottom.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis right honestly symphonia the worst for me compare to others now
For the record Grace's is basically a worse 2d Tales of Destiny ps2 but it is still good
That facts I cant wait for a remake
I’m going to die on the hill that Zesteria’s combat is lightyears better than Vesperia’s (which gets universal acclaim). Zesteria has some flaws (which in my opinion you purposely blew out of proportion because you wanted to justify hating this game, when in reality you can just say you don’t like it without inventing problems that really don’t exist- like “I can’t button mash, 0/10”), but my characters feel like they actually do stuff.
Everyone in Vesperia feels like they’re moving around in quicksand all while feeling like you’re shoved in a 1-square foot closet. The movement sucks, the combos suck (even late game when you supposedly “get cool stuff”), and the freedom that games like Zesteria and Berseria give you simply doesn’t exist. This is why Rita is considered the most viable character because you can just sit back and fire spells without having to worry about moving.
Come on dude, it's fine if you disagree with me, but it ain't cool to misrepresent and misconstrue what I said. I didn't invent problems or blow things out of proportion. It's okay if you don't agree with my points, but don't accuse me of making things up when I didn't.
I recently played some of tales of zestiria and I really like it
Edit: also, I hope at some point you play the games from Freebird games. I’m hoping you do an analysis of A Bird Story in particular since the game uses so much symbolism what was happening went right over my head
Edit 2: one other solution to your issues with the camera is to make the stage “geometry”(walls, pillars, etc.) transparent when they’d be in the way
I've never heard of Freebird Games or A Bird Story, I'll look into it!
Daniel Santos: Analytical Editorials he/they developed To The Moon
Daniel Santos: Analytical Editorials I imagine it would take you roughly 9-10 hours to play all three commercial games(he’s got some games from before To The Moon up on his website that are free as well as some mini-sodes, but he’s only fought three you pay for)
Oh okay, I have To The Moon but haven't tried it yet.