What are you playing?

[dubiousdisc]

As par for my course, I'm playing Tales of Symphonia about 15 years too late.

Eh... to be honest, I'm surprised by how poorly written it is. I wasn't expecting anything, but I wasn't expecting the exposition fairy convention. Can plotpoints exist without slapping me across the face?

Good-looking, though, and I get that it was an ambitious thing at the time and all its historical value etcetera and all the stuff. It's just that I have critiques in places where I thought it wouldn't be so hard to do it right.

[high seraph]

@dubiousdisc hahahah I'm with you on the played-ToS-later-than-everyone-else train, and I was honestly surprised by how highly praised it is among the Tales fandom. I get it that it's a great game and it probably blew several minds when it came out, but I couldn't put it above some other titles in the series. It IS very visually appealing and fun to play though, so don't give up!!! It also has a great cast -- Sheena and Raine were my favorites, but I remember controlling Zelos the most. :)

As for me, I've finally decided to give Pokémon X a shot. I bought it as soon as I got my 3DS, but I felt like the animations and battles flowed way too slowly, and every thing you want to do takes at least five different menu screens to get through (planting berries is literally the most boring thing to do, the menus and options are sooo convoluted ahrhrhghsk), so I dropped it for a looong time. Also, I used to have a boy character and the boy clothes were horrible. This time, I've started as a girl so I could get some cute clothes, and I'm enjoying it despite struggling with the same issues as before.

[dubiousdisc]

high seraph - Oh boy...
I haven't played any other games in the series, which one would you recommend if I'm having these complaints about ToS?

about the characters -

Show/HideSPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

right now I just want to whisk Colette to a better game where she gets some respect, and actually so far I'm really hating Raine, unless some serious character development happens I'm really disturbed by the amount of random abuse she gives to everyone and by how the game seems to treat it as just cute and wacky and older sister-like to slap a child until he falls to the ground. Like, watching her "antics" actually make me really uncomfortable. My hopes for there to be meaningful and well-written character development are pretty low right now, seen how everything else has been like so far. I'll wait until the end to make an actual judgment of course, but so far, yikes.

[Anise]

I'm playing Xillia 2 and finishing my supports in FE Fates.

@dubiousdisk

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

So Colette deserves better than what this game has in store. She is too pure for this journey. Raine gets some character development but not really enough to explain her physical abuse other than I feel like that was a common thread that isn't limited to her. It's been a while since I played.

[high seraph]

@dubiousdisc

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Looking back, my strongest memories of Raine are her "terrible cook" and "ruins afficionado" quirks that I found really funny, but the story arc that she shares with Genis is pretty nice, although it actually focuses more towards Genis than Raine herself most of the time. Her punishment moments are really awkward though, I feel ya.

And Colette... man this game hates Colette tbh. I wanted so hard to like her but... yikes.

If you're looking for more Tales games, it seems that Graces f, Vesperia and Abyss are some of the most well regarded games in the series, but I haven't had the chance to play any of these yet. My personal favorite so far has actually been Tales of Zestiria, which isn't a very popular opinion as far as I've seen. It has a tropey cast of characters and a straightforward "save the world from the big baddie" plot, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Haven't finished it yet tho.

The other games I've played are Phantasia, Symphonia, the sequel Dawn of the New World, and Xillia.

I wouldn't recommend DotNW at all if you didn't like Symphonia -- it's an ugly mess. I've had a hard time going through Xillia because the characters didn't catch my interest so much, and the game itself felt kinda boring. Phantasia was the first game I've played and it's a real classic; plot, character development and graphics go a bit further than your average SNES-era jrpg (but it's nothing mindblowing for today's standards), and its battle mechanics are simpler than later titles but still solid and fun. Also Phantasia is kind of a sequel to Symphonia??? But in a kind of over-complicated way???? idk its kind of confusing.

[Destinie]

I actually enjoyed DotNW for what it was. It wasn't as great at Symphonia but it had some things I enjoyed like partnering up with monsters and Tenebrae ♥♥♥.

I'm currently playing Pokemon Sun, Horizon Zero Dawn, and I really want to start Tales of Berseria. I feel like I kind of rushed through Zesteria so I would like to play through it again in the future. TOO MANY GAMES.

[Bobbi]

Final Fantasy XV really is the only thing I'm playing at the moment. As in, when I have a chance to really play. I've already beaten it, but I'm going through doing sidquests and mostly just taking lots of stupid pictures.

I started Episode Prompto last night and I need to finish it and do all the sidequests. Kind of taking my time exploring. But it's really really good. ;A;

[Mikari]

I went back to Tales of Berseria on Steam and I'm playing it bit by bit for as long as my laptop lasts without overheating. I also have Final Fantasy World and Asdivine Hearts on hold on the Vita.

[Saya]

The new expansion of ff14 :)

[nyxmidnight]

Back to SMT4: Apocalypse... it's actually quite fun, even if the plot absolutely would not work if the metric ton of BUT THOU MUST! choices weren't there. My partner/sister is so stupid I'm amazed she survived to the age of 16.