Old: Tales of Graces
May. 8th, 2011 00:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mokasuiAssume spoilers for the whole game (Wii version, no Future Arc shenanigans or anything like that) and all optional content.
1/06/2011.
I like bullets for my Tales commentary. Doing my first playthrough on Hard at the demands of a friend.
• Cheria facepalmed a lot as a kid. Why did she stop when she grew up?! It was starting to grow on me. :(
• The kids part of the game is like way easier to understand. I was understanding at least 80% of what was being said AND IT FELT GOOD. But now I'm back to my usual somethinglike60% with lots of nonsenseguesses to make up for that 40%. And I'm probably even overestimating with that 60%.
• I'm not getting punched in the face with fifty skits at once anymore! I suppose I could technically spread out my skitreading in the other games, but I'm always worried that they'll disappear if I ignore them. And usually they do, the few times I try. So Graces and its spacing out of skits is a very good thing for me.
• ASBEL IS ALWAYS FASHIONABLE.
• Team Destiny and their love for lasers strike once again. But it looks like most lasers are the party's, so that's a nice change. You can't just give every enemy a rapelaser forever and never give playable characters anything... Right? Right?
• Malik is an expert troll. So expert I don't even remember any of the things he did to mess with Asbel. But he did things!
• Hubert's attacks are easy to dodge. So easy I almost beat him in that silly notarealfight. Except then he haxed into Arles Break and exploded me with his Blast Caliber. The jerk.
• THE SLIME QUEEN IS A STUPID BOSS YOU'RE STUPID. I don't know if ToDR's Cave Queen is worse. But they're both obnoxious and not particularly fun to lose to. I got bored of dying after getting her to 1000 HP so many times that I gave up and changed the difficulty back to normal.
• I like how your party's all split up and stuff all the time. I'm sure it won't last, but it's cool for character interaction. It's more focused and seems more, uh, "personal." Or some other word that fits. It also probably helps that everyone knows everyone except for Pascal and maybe Malik. So it's not like "oh there's some weirdo, let's listen to their quirks, give them a face that says 'i am never speaking to you again' and then trust them with our lives for the rest of the game." Yeah...
• The more I hear Richard say Reap Will, the more it starts to sound like Rape Will. I SHOULD JUST STOP SPAMMING RANDOM SPELLS AS HIM AND GO BACK TO BEING SOPHIE OR SOMETHING SO I WILL STOP HEARING THIS.
1/12/2011.
TALES OF GRACES IS THE BEST THING EVER. I beat it like on Sunday by the way. I LEARNED THREEEE THINGS:
1. The appeal of all definitions of "moe." WHY SOPHIE WHY ARE YOU IMPOSSIBLE TO NOT LIKE. AND YOU MADE ME FEEL WORSE ABOUT LAMBDA THAN I WOULD HAVE IF I COULDN'T COMPARE HIM TO YOU.
2. Every possible form of the verb "mamoru."
3. Sakuraba can make a Tales soundtrack that is at least 70% good. Reliably (since ToD's soundtrack WAS awesome...). The trick is to not make him compose for Team Symphonia games. True story.
E. TOMODACHIIIIIIIIII!
• Pascal was touching Sophie every time Richard was being crazy. I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ILLEGAL.
• I'm disappointed that they had Malik sing off-screen. I wanted to hear it! Oh well, at least Sophie kind of sang a little in a skit afterwards.
• Pascal and her love of bananas! I think SHE'S bananas.
• I liked the scene where Sophie suddenly remembered what happened seven years ago. It was all touching and stuff. :(
• The snowplace music is kind of cool. I think I like it a bit more than I should, but it reminds me of Lost Kingdom's music in how simplebutcool it sounds.
• I liked it when Cheria was freaking out about being inside of that Rock Gagan monster. A WHOLE DUNGEON OF HER SCREAMING ABOUT EVERYTHING. I'm exaggerating but still.
• I WISH CHERIA WAS A KID FOREVER. I liked her personality as a kid. And she was somewhat interesting at the start of notkidsanymore, I guess, because of how cold and quiet she seemed. But then she went all "ASBEL HAVE MY BABIES SOPHIE EAT THIS FOOD DON'T BE PICKY" for the rest of the game.
• The fake looking clouds in the Spa Resort are cute and silly.
• I am surprised at how easy most of the game was for me, considering I was on Hard whenever I wasn't getting slaughtered by that slime boss. Maybe 3D games are just easier or something since you have more places to run to. Or maybe Cheria's just too good at comboing and stunning things. She's not really that great at anything else, so I guess she has to be. But seriously I didn't even pay attention to weaknesses except when it was something really easy like "THIS ENEMY IS WEAK TO B ATTACKS AND PARALYSIS" since I could never remember the little icons for the attributes for more than half a second. That's not enough time to figure out what attacks to use.
SO YEAH. Tales of Graces is awesome.
1/25/2011.
Did a bunch of optional Graces stuff. I think all that I have left that I would care about is finishing Zowon/Zone/crazytechnodanceland Cage and beating up Rock Gagan. Except I dooon't care. I just don't have the patience for Rock Gagan and Solomos is like, nonexciting other than the "hey I'm five people now!" part. Which I got to see for maybe 20 seconds before everyone died. :( Well, I really enjoyed the fight with Veigue+Reala+Kohaku. Even though Reala somehow avoided all but the last hit of Byakuya Senmetsuken... I don't even know how that was supposed to make any sense, but it happened.
2/21/2011.
I started a second playthrough of Graces using my friend's file so I could have Chaos and all that good stuff, and I somehow managed to save over the only one of my save files that are actually good for anything. The first time I saved. Yeah... Guess I won't be beating Solomos any time soon even if I did feel like it. Cheria only facepalms around five times before growing up and I don't have what it takes to count the number of times "mamoru" or a form of it is said so that's kind of lame. And there was this one scene in Balonia that I don't remember seeing on my first playthrough. Malik shows up, and Richard tries to hide his identity, and Asbel says his name is Tiger Festival. And Sophie goes crazy with her imitations of people, too. ANYWAY I LOVE CHERIA'S FACE. Especially when she's shocked. Or when it meets her palm...
2/24/2011.
This Tales of Graces playthrough is going really weirdly. None of Cheria's healing spells other than Pixie Circle cast fast enough to be useful for anything (though, that was almost true on my first playthrough anyway), and everyone rapes everyone. Double damage on Chaos is just weird. But kinda cool. Because I die a couple of times to most bosses (except Victoria. Poor Victoria didn't get a chance to do anything even) and then totally obliterate them. I'M ALSO ACTUALLY USING MALIK THIS TIME BECAUSE I LIKE HIM MORE THAN HUBERT AND I'M NOT SO BLINDED BY THE AWESOMENESS OF HUBERT'S WEAPON NOW. And uh... that Raymond or whatever guy wears his uniform backwards. Unless everyone else in the game who wears a similar uniform are the ones wearing it backwards. I also like how there's somehow enough pepper in Hubert's tiny little charm to make something as massive as the Rock Gagan sneeze.
2/26/2011.
Tales of Graces is still going well. I think Kurtz was probably the hardest boss so far... but I'm probably screwed for this part without Sophie. Cure and Raise Soul are just so good how can I live without them?! And I finally got that cute kanitama skit. Now I actually want to try kanitama. Maybe they'll have it at that restaurant we're going to for my Japanese class. AND I HOPE THERE'S A PEACH PIE SKIT BECAUSE I'VE BEEN MAKING AND EATING PEACH PIES EVER SINCE I REALIZED PEACH PIE WAS ACTUALLY IN THIS GAME.
3/04/2011.
Even Tales of Graces is punishing me for doing well! I mean I got -8000 SP... why?! Actually I do know why, but it's more entertaining to pretend to be all offended about it. Silly video games and their "overflow" and this miniboss gives way too much SP even under normal conditions. Also, I totally failed at beating the final boss on Chaos. The first part was fine, but the last part... yeah, that didn't work so well.
4/05/2011.
I started a third playthrough of Graces. But this time with x10 damage! And a bunch of other stuff. I somehow forgot to carry over the stone things for Dualizing though. And there were so many good ones on that file, too! Anyway, kidCheria is my favourite character in this game and I wish she could fight. I can totally see her throwing rocks at enemies. AND THOSE BOOTS ARE LIKE MADE TO BE FOUGHT IN. Yeah I don't know. :(
5/08/2011.
So I've decided I must be done with Graces now. Jamming the Wii and all its stuff into a box to send it back to my friend should help me never play it again. Otherwise I don't know how to stop. ALSO I WAS COUNTING STUFF FOR MY LAST PLAYTHROUGH AND THE NUMBERS I GOT WERE WAY LOWER THAN I EXPECTED.
Mamoru: 117
Shinjirarenai: 6
Shichinenmae: 23
Tomodachi: 47
Mamoru is any form of the word. Didn't even match up to all the kureaaaing Rebirth had. :( And that's with all the skits, too. I probably never saw all of Rebirth's skits. Maybe I just accidentally missed half of the game somehow. That's the only way for my mind to cope with this.
1/06/2011.
I like bullets for my Tales commentary. Doing my first playthrough on Hard at the demands of a friend.
• Cheria facepalmed a lot as a kid. Why did she stop when she grew up?! It was starting to grow on me. :(
• The kids part of the game is like way easier to understand. I was understanding at least 80% of what was being said AND IT FELT GOOD. But now I'm back to my usual somethinglike60% with lots of nonsenseguesses to make up for that 40%. And I'm probably even overestimating with that 60%.
• I'm not getting punched in the face with fifty skits at once anymore! I suppose I could technically spread out my skitreading in the other games, but I'm always worried that they'll disappear if I ignore them. And usually they do, the few times I try. So Graces and its spacing out of skits is a very good thing for me.
• ASBEL IS ALWAYS FASHIONABLE.
• Team Destiny and their love for lasers strike once again. But it looks like most lasers are the party's, so that's a nice change. You can't just give every enemy a rapelaser forever and never give playable characters anything... Right? Right?
• Malik is an expert troll. So expert I don't even remember any of the things he did to mess with Asbel. But he did things!
• Hubert's attacks are easy to dodge. So easy I almost beat him in that silly notarealfight. Except then he haxed into Arles Break and exploded me with his Blast Caliber. The jerk.
• THE SLIME QUEEN IS A STUPID BOSS YOU'RE STUPID. I don't know if ToDR's Cave Queen is worse. But they're both obnoxious and not particularly fun to lose to. I got bored of dying after getting her to 1000 HP so many times that I gave up and changed the difficulty back to normal.
• I like how your party's all split up and stuff all the time. I'm sure it won't last, but it's cool for character interaction. It's more focused and seems more, uh, "personal." Or some other word that fits. It also probably helps that everyone knows everyone except for Pascal and maybe Malik. So it's not like "oh there's some weirdo, let's listen to their quirks, give them a face that says 'i am never speaking to you again' and then trust them with our lives for the rest of the game." Yeah...
• The more I hear Richard say Reap Will, the more it starts to sound like Rape Will. I SHOULD JUST STOP SPAMMING RANDOM SPELLS AS HIM AND GO BACK TO BEING SOPHIE OR SOMETHING SO I WILL STOP HEARING THIS.
1/12/2011.
TALES OF GRACES IS THE BEST THING EVER. I beat it like on Sunday by the way. I LEARNED THREEEE THINGS:
1. The appeal of all definitions of "moe." WHY SOPHIE WHY ARE YOU IMPOSSIBLE TO NOT LIKE. AND YOU MADE ME FEEL WORSE ABOUT LAMBDA THAN I WOULD HAVE IF I COULDN'T COMPARE HIM TO YOU.
2. Every possible form of the verb "mamoru."
3. Sakuraba can make a Tales soundtrack that is at least 70% good. Reliably (since ToD's soundtrack WAS awesome...). The trick is to not make him compose for Team Symphonia games. True story.
E. TOMODACHIIIIIIIIII!
• Pascal was touching Sophie every time Richard was being crazy. I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ILLEGAL.
• I'm disappointed that they had Malik sing off-screen. I wanted to hear it! Oh well, at least Sophie kind of sang a little in a skit afterwards.
• Pascal and her love of bananas! I think SHE'S bananas.
• I liked the scene where Sophie suddenly remembered what happened seven years ago. It was all touching and stuff. :(
• The snowplace music is kind of cool. I think I like it a bit more than I should, but it reminds me of Lost Kingdom's music in how simplebutcool it sounds.
• I liked it when Cheria was freaking out about being inside of that Rock Gagan monster. A WHOLE DUNGEON OF HER SCREAMING ABOUT EVERYTHING. I'm exaggerating but still.
• I WISH CHERIA WAS A KID FOREVER. I liked her personality as a kid. And she was somewhat interesting at the start of notkidsanymore, I guess, because of how cold and quiet she seemed. But then she went all "ASBEL HAVE MY BABIES SOPHIE EAT THIS FOOD DON'T BE PICKY" for the rest of the game.
• The fake looking clouds in the Spa Resort are cute and silly.
• I am surprised at how easy most of the game was for me, considering I was on Hard whenever I wasn't getting slaughtered by that slime boss. Maybe 3D games are just easier or something since you have more places to run to. Or maybe Cheria's just too good at comboing and stunning things. She's not really that great at anything else, so I guess she has to be. But seriously I didn't even pay attention to weaknesses except when it was something really easy like "THIS ENEMY IS WEAK TO B ATTACKS AND PARALYSIS" since I could never remember the little icons for the attributes for more than half a second. That's not enough time to figure out what attacks to use.
SO YEAH. Tales of Graces is awesome.
1/25/2011.
Did a bunch of optional Graces stuff. I think all that I have left that I would care about is finishing Zowon/Zone/crazytechnodanceland Cage and beating up Rock Gagan. Except I dooon't care. I just don't have the patience for Rock Gagan and Solomos is like, nonexciting other than the "hey I'm five people now!" part. Which I got to see for maybe 20 seconds before everyone died. :( Well, I really enjoyed the fight with Veigue+Reala+Kohaku. Even though Reala somehow avoided all but the last hit of Byakuya Senmetsuken... I don't even know how that was supposed to make any sense, but it happened.
2/21/2011.
I started a second playthrough of Graces using my friend's file so I could have Chaos and all that good stuff, and I somehow managed to save over the only one of my save files that are actually good for anything. The first time I saved. Yeah... Guess I won't be beating Solomos any time soon even if I did feel like it. Cheria only facepalms around five times before growing up and I don't have what it takes to count the number of times "mamoru" or a form of it is said so that's kind of lame. And there was this one scene in Balonia that I don't remember seeing on my first playthrough. Malik shows up, and Richard tries to hide his identity, and Asbel says his name is Tiger Festival. And Sophie goes crazy with her imitations of people, too. ANYWAY I LOVE CHERIA'S FACE. Especially when she's shocked. Or when it meets her palm...
2/24/2011.
This Tales of Graces playthrough is going really weirdly. None of Cheria's healing spells other than Pixie Circle cast fast enough to be useful for anything (though, that was almost true on my first playthrough anyway), and everyone rapes everyone. Double damage on Chaos is just weird. But kinda cool. Because I die a couple of times to most bosses (except Victoria. Poor Victoria didn't get a chance to do anything even) and then totally obliterate them. I'M ALSO ACTUALLY USING MALIK THIS TIME BECAUSE I LIKE HIM MORE THAN HUBERT AND I'M NOT SO BLINDED BY THE AWESOMENESS OF HUBERT'S WEAPON NOW. And uh... that Raymond or whatever guy wears his uniform backwards. Unless everyone else in the game who wears a similar uniform are the ones wearing it backwards. I also like how there's somehow enough pepper in Hubert's tiny little charm to make something as massive as the Rock Gagan sneeze.
2/26/2011.
Tales of Graces is still going well. I think Kurtz was probably the hardest boss so far... but I'm probably screwed for this part without Sophie. Cure and Raise Soul are just so good how can I live without them?! And I finally got that cute kanitama skit. Now I actually want to try kanitama. Maybe they'll have it at that restaurant we're going to for my Japanese class. AND I HOPE THERE'S A PEACH PIE SKIT BECAUSE I'VE BEEN MAKING AND EATING PEACH PIES EVER SINCE I REALIZED PEACH PIE WAS ACTUALLY IN THIS GAME.
3/04/2011.
Even Tales of Graces is punishing me for doing well! I mean I got -8000 SP... why?! Actually I do know why, but it's more entertaining to pretend to be all offended about it. Silly video games and their "overflow" and this miniboss gives way too much SP even under normal conditions. Also, I totally failed at beating the final boss on Chaos. The first part was fine, but the last part... yeah, that didn't work so well.
4/05/2011.
I started a third playthrough of Graces. But this time with x10 damage! And a bunch of other stuff. I somehow forgot to carry over the stone things for Dualizing though. And there were so many good ones on that file, too! Anyway, kidCheria is my favourite character in this game and I wish she could fight. I can totally see her throwing rocks at enemies. AND THOSE BOOTS ARE LIKE MADE TO BE FOUGHT IN. Yeah I don't know. :(
5/08/2011.
So I've decided I must be done with Graces now. Jamming the Wii and all its stuff into a box to send it back to my friend should help me never play it again. Otherwise I don't know how to stop. ALSO I WAS COUNTING STUFF FOR MY LAST PLAYTHROUGH AND THE NUMBERS I GOT WERE WAY LOWER THAN I EXPECTED.
Mamoru: 117
Shinjirarenai: 6
Shichinenmae: 23
Tomodachi: 47
Mamoru is any form of the word. Didn't even match up to all the kureaaaing Rebirth had. :( And that's with all the skits, too. I probably never saw all of Rebirth's skits. Maybe I just accidentally missed half of the game somehow. That's the only way for my mind to cope with this.
