Tuesday 24 June 2014

First impressions: PS3 and Tales of Xillia

so.... i'm a little tiny itty bitty bit late to the party when it comes to owning a PS3.... but i promise i kinda sorta have a reason why.

When the system first came out our dollar was in the crapper and the system was easily 100 bucks more then the original (and ridiculous) launch value.
I could afford it.... but spending an insane amount of money on a system was not something i wanted to do... i needed to save for college... plus the system didn't have any games i wanted for a long time.

Then second year of college hit.
and all these games i wanted came out...
unfortunately that was also the year i completely screwed up my arm and was forced to quit my job because between shitty min wage job that i hated and school... school won out.... but that meant that i had to make the amount in my bank account last till the end of the year since i had a summer job lined up. I just couldn't afford a now much cheaper system.

After finishing college i thought about getting one but then i ended up turning that one summer job into a on and off again job.... and while that mean i had more then enough to buy the system.... 7 days a week and 12 hour days doesn't allow for much video game time... so i held off... again.

Then the ps4 was annouced and it had a still unreleased rental system to allow for playing older games.
however there were no price announcements, not hint on how it all would work and in the end there is just nothing on the ps4 that makes me wanna buy the system just yet... a year or two from now... maybe.... but at the time no.

then just a little while ago we started seeing the start of the system and the prices were... well they were less then optimal... I made a joke that it would be cheaper to buy a ps3 and then in a few years when games i wanna play come out i can also get a ps4...
there was no rush because as long as i had a dvd player there was no point in actually buying the ps3 (which will be a glorified bluray player 90% of the time but will also play games so yay)
well the day i said that.... like... within an hour of saying it.... my dvd player died.
considering it has a sony logo on it... i think it heard me and this is all a conspiracy.

anyways.... in need of a new Bluray player and not planning to own a ps4 for at least 2 more years..... i ordered a ps3 and here we are.

So yeah, i like it... it's a good system... the controller works well for my tiny hands and has good weight...
it is refiurbished btu i mean my ps2 which was refurbished is still alive so.... hopefully no problems.
however something odd happened... after set up i noticed it had a game loaded up... it wasn't supposed to come with anything so i hit the eject button and Assassins creed 3 pops out.

well it's not a game i would ever play but hey... wont scoff at a free game... i guess?


Now i did buy a game when i ordered the system.... i was going to get graces f but it was sold out so i got Xillia instead.

i've heard mixed things but honestly... don't really care it's a tales games and even the bad ones *coughsymphoniacough* are decent.

First impression of the game:
It's so pretty..... i'm just happy i get to use my hd tv for... hd stuff.... a novel concept i know. The look reminds me a bit of ToS2 but less Brushstroke feeling which is a bit of a bummer.... so far ToS2 has my fav look/character design of the entire series.
The voice acting is both decent and grating.... some lines are fairly wooden while others work fine... i wish i could switch to japanese voices but that doesn't seem to be an option... i know they added the ability in a recent game but not yet apparently.
I hate Milla's design...
i mean her outfit is fine
but she doesn't have a ribcage..... it really bothers me.... it just looks... wrong....
btu yeah if i ever refer to a character as ribless i am talking about her.
Jude seems fine... typical blank slate (which the series doesn't tend to do so... i hope he gets developed more.)
I did start off with Jude cause... again ribless just doesn't look right but i figure if i get through the game i can play again and ignore the lack of ribs.

and then my other first impression which has pretty much nothing to do with the game... more to do with the series.
I made a quip over on twitter that pretty much went like this.

"We have come a long way from 'iftheir is evil in the world it lies in the hearts of mankind'"

for those who don't know the line i quoted is the very first line in Tales of Phantasia.

then the cutscene goes on (i'm going to paraphrase for a second cause i have only seen ti once)
"everythign is happy and good but if there were evil in the world it would probably be in the heart of hand"

so then i burst out laughing cause yeah.... it was just a return to the start of the series.... which got be thinking.
while the games do tend to recycle spirits names (considering that they all come from mythology) this game reuses Maxwell which i on;y remember being used in Phantasia.... that being said i haven't played many of the tales of games so who knows... maybe maxwell is in every one... but it gives it a major connection to phantasia.... like the other four are also summons in phantasia but i'm pretty certain all of those are common through the games (except maybe gnome...)
so until i am proven otherwise... and hell even after i am proven otherwise i am convinced that this is in the Symphonia, Phantasia world(s)

i mean.... it could be way past phantasia wince it's technologically advanced.... and they could be repeating a mistake from the past by having a weapon that absorbs mana and spirits to be super powerful..... it could happen....
and theres probably a big tree somewhere i can label as Yggdrasil...  which would confirm my theory....
or maybe we are on [major spoilers for a game thats probably over 20 years old... yay] and this is when [still spoiler].... that would be neat...

but yeah... enjoyingthe story so far... it's not as interestign as Vesperia, Abyss or Phantasia but i am barely into it... maybe it changes.

but serious if chameleon shows up..... i'll call my completely wrong fan theory confirmed.

so yeah enjoying my pretty new system so far... i'll be watching some of the blue rays i own thanks to combo pack but i also got a crap load of anime today as well... and there is one dvd i can't watch till second chapter comes out but thats okay.... i'll wait.... i've waited for so long already....

oh and if you have suggestions on jrpgs to try or vis novels.... i'll see if i can find them 

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