Tales of Innocence.Follow

Well, one thing's for sure. After having played Symphonia (1), Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Vesperia, Tales of Eternia and some Tales of the World (which was meh). I'd buy any mothership title they release.

The music is great, the stories are engaging and the combat system is incredibly fun. I'm long overdue for another Tales of the Abyss playthrough. It's quite possibly my favorite RPG out there, nothing was ever as awesome as Spoilerbeating up Asche in Hod with Meaning of Birth in the background. I have Legendia around somewhere, I should still play that too. I'm looking forward to Innocence.

The only one I haven't figured out yet is From the New World. I fear it'll suck. But it's tales.

To answer the question after reading your post, no, I do not think they'll help out the studio by just opening up to all players. However, I do think more advertising would help their cause. Their games are brilliant, with a seemingly increased popularity of anime over the past few years, there should be plenty of room for Tales of. to develop a bigger fanbase.

It even feel it may help increase JRPG's popularity, which has actually dwindled the last few years. The games are very expansive, yet the combat is very much unlike regular JRPG. Long story short, the Tales of. games need a boost, they're very deserving of one.

Edited, Jul 3rd 2010 3:35pm by BlackyLakshmi

Eh, that's fine. The Tales of Innocence patch is more than people could have ever begged for. I'll play it a bit before I head to bed tonight, I think.

Yeah, I've been playing it for a bit. Turned the difficulty up to Hard because it was boring as hell (only to get raped by a boss sometime not long after). So far, it's enjoyable. Not as memorable as other Tales games, but still very good.

I suggest keeping your styles levelled. I got a new one after having 3 styles for a character at level 15. So far Iria and Luca have the Innocence Style, Spada's getting there.

Hasta. Raaaaaaage. Dungeon design. Raaaaaaaaage. Walking back after hard as hell boss fight. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE.

I'd suggest making notes on the next dungeon, the one after that's slightly more linear but it's riddled with random encounters. I've spent 1 hour and 20 minutes getting to the end, even missing a branch. (Only to die immediatly after the boss because I lacked items and for another good reason, resulting in having to redo 1/4'th of the dungeon.)

Suffice to say, it killed my motivation and I played through Megaman ZX Advent for the bazillionth time rather than doing Tales of Innocence again.

Actually, I still have the dungeon map I drew with me. If you want I can upload it. Makes life considerably easier.

Map

Took the liberty of making one RQ before heading to bed. Floor 4 might be a bit off, floor 1 and 5 aren't respresented. Floor 1, head left first, follow path till chest. Then head back to the first intersection, head right this time and simply follow the right wall till the next floor.

Yellow is treasure, red is the start, blue is the ending, except for floor 4, I marked the start as blue by accident.

It's not much, but it should save some amount of annoyance. Also, the treasure is done from the top of my head, so it might be a bit off. Rule of thumb is that every dead end holds treasure.

Edit moar: Floor 2, 3 and 4. Left to right. My bad.

Edited, Jul 10th 2010 6:40pm by BlackyLakshmi

I've been swapping between this and DQ IX for a little while each night before I go to bed. (I only find about 20-30 minutes to play a night though). I haven't gotten much farther. I like both, and wish that the DS Tales games would come out in the US.