radiofloyd Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 Not the new one, Berseria, but the last one, Zestiria. Come on, make an effort. After finishing 2016 playing a string of indie games I think this is going to be my palette cleanser to start 2017. Zestiria received quite average reviews and by all accounts is a fairly average entry into the Tales series. I've played four hours and it's very much a by the numbers jrpg, It certainly doesn't feel like a blockbuster jrpg like Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii. The graphics are probably somewhere around the level of the Wii, the music is generic, the combat is awful. But god damn, it's still good. While looking and sounding generic the game still has everything you could want from a jrpg. Probably most importantly, it has a heavy focus on story. So there are regular cut scenes, and the game occasionally throws in some gorgeous animation. Like this cut scene, which launches the game properly after you've played the opening couple of hours. You won't find that in Dark Souls. Best of all, you can play the game with English text, but voiced in Japanese. Japanese is a very phonetic language, words are spelled exactly like they sound, so it's easy to look up (and learn) words just from hearing them. This is a really nice way to learn some Japanese, as opposed to playing the game with Japanese text, which would be tortuous. Another element of Japanese is that boys/men speak differently to girls/women, so playing a jrpg is a really good chance to listen to these speaking styles. Also, it's interesting from a translation point of view. I don't know if the translation here is typical of all jrpgs, or all Japanese games, but this is far from a literal translation. I'm only talking about the parts where there is Japanese audio to compare with, mostly cut scenes.. I think the exposition elements of the dialogue are translated quite literally, but for the rest of the dialogue I would say that the translators have in a way written their own script, using the Japanese script as a base. Obviously it's a conscious decision on their part. In the examples I noticed a direct translation would have been slightly more boring than what they wrote. I shall keep you informed of my opinions on the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiofloyd Posted February 7, 2017 Author Share Posted February 7, 2017 Up to 8 hours in this now. It's not good, it's garbage. Going to give it maybe one more session and if doesn't improve it's getting deleted. It's taking forever to leave this area Ladylake. I've been running around awful environments fighting awful battles to move the story sidewise (the game doesn't really have a main plot as of yet). Vesperia on the 360 was so much better than this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiofloyd Posted February 8, 2017 Author Share Posted February 8, 2017 Lo and behold, it improved a little. I met a new character who likes to take the piss out of everyone else in the team (I wouldn't blame her). Her dialogue is a good example of where the translators made up their own script - she calls them idiots/stupid a couple of times and the translators turned it into a running joke about them being terrible students at university. The combat is terrible but I've kind of stopped caring. I've more or less wrapped my head around everything and I'm not too concerned about the finer points. Up to 10 hours now and I've arrived in the town of Marvind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiofloyd Posted February 12, 2017 Author Share Posted February 12, 2017 15 hours now and I would say the game has hit its stride now. The story has kicked up a few gears, the cut scenes are flowing and I'm even starting to enjoy the game's combat. This game nearly drowned in its own mediocrity at times (I nearly drowned in its mediocrity) but I guess a jrpg is a marathon, not a sprint... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiofloyd Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 Parking this for now after 23 hours. Which is enough to make it my sixth most played game on Steam (and only the sixth game that I have played for over 20 hours). It's an average rpg that I wouldn't particularly recommend. But I probably will finish it sometime as I have devoted so much time to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 it's a horrible feeling isn't it when you feel like you have to stick with a game because otherwise all the time you've already put in is wasted. I'm not saying it's the right way to think about it, but I know I've felt the same Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illdog Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 It's like marriage... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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