Tales of Hearts R Review (Tales of Retrospective Pt 13)
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Finally after way too many delays the review we've all been waiting for is here! I apologize for the long wait but there is lots to look forward to in the coming few weeks.
The Twitter: / gamingpilgrim
The Podcast: thegamingpilgri...
Hearts R has one of the best AI systems in the series, there's so many options for them, its crazy. It reminds me a bit of the gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. Also comboing in this game is so much fun, moreso than most other games in my opinion. I had the most fun in battles with this game so far.
Thanks for getting round to this TGP :) it's because of this retrospective that I picked up my first Tales of game the other week (Xillia 2 Day One edition to be exact) & found a cheap copy of Symphonia chronicles today :D
Loving the fire emblem playthough on the Wii U too, soon as I get payed at the end of the month, I may have to pick that up for my own console. Keep up the helpful work & hope everything is going well/getting better for you now!
Richard Stanley Thanks for the kind words sir! Things are much better now and I'm glad to hear you are enjoying the vids.
Nice review. I liked the game, but it is my least favorite of the series. However, I'm still glad it got localized.
The random encounters didn't bother me, but it was a strange design decision. Random encounters is not a bad thing when the frequency of battles is not too high. But after all of the Tales games that were released without the random battles, it was bizarre to experience it again.
Glad to see a new review from you Darren. ;)
I've only played Symphonia and Hearts R but Hearts R is definitely my favorite. The cast of Symphonia never clicked with me. Hearts' on the other hand has a lot of chemistry with each other and are all pretty much likable (well Kunzite has his moments). I agree with you about the name change causing a lot of dissonance in scenes (they obviously were planning for a dub at one point), but I thought the localization was well done. It reminded me of a Working Design's job where even if everything they translated wasn't 100% accurate it was humorous enough to not matter.
And I feel that the whole power of love trope thats in so many anime or JRPGs actually kind of works here mainly because in universe the spiria is an actual physical object with power which is why Soma users are considered so dangerous in the world due to their ability to mend or break them.
Based
I'm still quite bitter Innocence R never made it over as I feel innocence is the best of the ds games.
I hope you will cover Zestiria and the Other Titles someday
To be perfectly honest, I really enjoyed Tales of Hearts R. The story was pretty decent and although the story in Tales of Hearts R was pretty bland&generic at the beginning, it gets interesting towards the second half to the end of game. After I just recently beaten Tales of Hearts R, I can honestly say that there is more to the story than what people may perceive (I'm playing Tales of Hearts R on my 2nd playthrough to get a better understanding). Also for the negative comments about the game's villain, it isn't fair to compare him to Xillia 2's villian. Every Tales games is different and special in its own way which is what makes every Tales game unique&valuable. Namco does their best to provide us with Tales games and to localize them for us western fans and all you guys do is complain. Now I can understand why the Namco team is hesitant about localizing any Tales game to the west anymore. There is by no means any perfect Tales of game with a perfect story to please nit picky gamer. I played Tales of Hearts R, beaten it, and unlike most of the people in the comments below, I highly appreciated the game and Namco for making an effort on localizing the game for us JRPG fans in the first. It's just real sad that everyone here in the comments below downright hated Tales of Hearts R, a tragedy cause it was different. I really want Tales of Innocence R to be localized as well since I completed Tales of Hearts R but the irony in this is, due to the ungrateful&unappreciated complaining on how how Tales of Hearts R was from reviews, I highly doubt that I will have a chance to play Tales of Innocence R (US Version), all thanks to Tales of Hearts R haters. Well at least I have Tales of Hearts R and I can play&enjoy it as much as I want to until I decide to import Tales of Innocence R or God willing Namco decides to be forgiving and generously localize that game as well.
azoth775 Is it work it, since I'm at gamestop with the game here
The one thing I'll say about this game is the names for Kor, Kohaku and Hisui. They already had official names in Graces F in English. Shing, Amber and Jadeite. Why they did it this way in this game I don't understand but seems these are the official names now...
Also on that note of weirdness translating... why did we get an instrumental for the OP?? The game isnt even dubbed.
Awesome review! I've been on the fence about buying this game for the longest time! Also Kor....that name is just so cringe worthy!
ConnerTheWaffle I really hope they explain that decision to change his name some day, as it was indeed a poor one....
my first tales game pre ordered it loved it so much and brought me into the fold.
Great review TheGamingPilgrimage! Hearts R is not perfect, but I find this as one of the best entries of the series. I love the Battle system and the Leveling Progression system, aka Soma Build. They are kinda like vastly improved versions of Xillia's systems.
Another great video! I've been feeling a bit of burn out as far as Tales games go so I haven't bothered to finish this yet. Of what I played though, your review pretty much mirrors my own thoughts. With exception to maybe the random encounters bit as I am not bothered by them much. I grew up with tons of RPGs on the SNES and PS1 that were chock full of random encounters so I've gotten used to them.
***** I'm definitely feeling a bit of that burn out too, I welcome the wait for Tales of Zestiria to cool off.
TheGamingPilgrimage Same here, while I am sure Zestiria will be great (same combat director as Graces f? Take my money please) I am also glad that the game is taking some time to come over here so I can get around to Hearts R without feeling like I am playing too much of the same thing.
i think the reason for the burn out is because for the past 3 years we have been getting a title roughly ever six months. i personally don't mind it because they are trying to get us caught up and really support the franchise in the west, but i understand why one would be bunt out on the series. once Zesteria is released we will have a much longer wait for the next tales game, so burn out in the future should be a non issue.
Fun fact judas is one of those summons.
Edit:so basically tales of kingdom hearts?
Great review as always. I love the original DS version and definitely prefer it but it's nice that people that don't want translation guides and such can have a chance to play it now in English.
I can't wait until you do a retrospective of Tales of Zestiria!
If they just added voice acting and no random battles this game would be a 9/10, but as is it's only an 8/10. Still worth playing for sure though.
having only ever really enjoyed Symphonia, Abyss and Vesperia and dropped all of the newer ones, this one lasted like maybe half an hour on my Vita before I deleted it. Is there something like Symphonia on it?
3:57 they say shinku. & I think they changed his name to kor because his moms name is kardia
I think you didn't pick the better examples to talk and show battles. This had one of the most satisfying battle systems, it is on par with Xillia, but has a few mechanics that makes it even better.
The way the game introduces these mechanics one by one is also very well done. By the time it is getting a bit stale, a new mechanic is added and you are given time to add it naturally to your arsenal. The launch and chase are what made it more fun than Xillia's, mechanics you barely mentioned and didn't even show.
For those who don't know, after hitting an enemy enough a symbol appears on them signifying they can be launched in the air. You can then teleport behind them in a Dragon Ball Z kind of way to reset your combo string, extending it further while in the air. A timer is shown on the character portrait that lets you know how long until the chase ends, and doing different attacks can extend this time. You can keep smashing and chasing the enemy around until this time runs out. You can even send the enemy back to the ground for more ground comboes or keep sending them higher. There are also cross-chases to do with the aid of another party member that extend the chase time further and also resets the combo string. At the end of all this a Mystic Arte can also be chained together for one massive combo.
All that stuff made battles so fun that I sometimes just kept triggering more random battles because I enjoyed killing enemies so much.
There also wasn't mention of the fact that every character in the party has their own part of the story, giving each one a reason to actually be in the party, developing them further and showing the importance of each one.
On the translation we can all agree. I don't know much japanese but I can pick up single words thrown around. I especially remember this part when Shing (I always called him Shing, even while reading the subtitles I just swapted Kor for Shing in my brain) jumped into a river to save someone. Kohaku finds him on the side of the river and asks "Daijobu?" which simply means "Are you okay?, to what the translation said something like "Thanks goodness you are fine. I was so worried about you, never do something like that again!" or something crazy long like that. It was such a stretch that anyone could notice something wasn't right, lol.
Tales of Destiny (PS1) didn't have a dub either, for the arte voices
I wish this game was on the PS3 but maybe there's a way :)
You would recommend this game for $30?
I wish you showed some more late gameplay! You only ever had two characters fighting at once in your footage :/
I am looking forward to when you review the DS version after the translation (finally...) comes out. It might not ever come out, but that did not stop me from playing and beating it regardless of my garbage japanese skills.
Were is tales of Zestiria?
+KeoTheSoulReaper The game that has been out for a day?
+TheGamingPilgrimage Indeed was expecting a "my thoughts so far kind of video" lol
I could definitely post a first impressions video if people are interested in watching it. The review itself most likely would take a few weeks.
+TheGamingPilgrimage That's a fine idea you got my vote on that =D
TheGamingPilgrimage oi
Thanks for the review. I originally wanted to give this a go on the Vita TV but the Japanese release is for some reason still not compatible, so I'll give the DS one a try instead.
My main problem with this was how dirt cheap the whole game looks,Tales of games have always been on the cheap side, but they still had some decent to even nice looking environments, but this looks terrible, the people in town don't even have any animations when they talk to you, they just pivot on the spot.
CornishCreamtea07 you are comparing a vita game to a full console game.
Nice review, although I have to say I think you were being far to generous with this game. This is by far the worst Tales game I have ever played, and I'd go so far as to say it's my least favorite game of 2014, considering how disappointing it was. Even Legendia and Dawn of the New World were somewhat decent at least, but this... This is the only Tales game I'd actually describe as genuinely bad.
My reasoning for this? Well, lets look at the pros and cons with this game, shall we?
Pros:
- The game had decent voice acting.
- The Soma system is actually a really well thought out mechanic that I hope we'll see again in future Tales games.
- Chalcedony, Beryl and Gall are all rather decent characters.
Cons:
- EVERY other main character in the game sucks.
- Kor/Shing and Kohaku make for one of the most boring and unlikable couples in the entire Tales-series.
- The entire soundtrack is very forgetable.
- The story is stuffed to the brim with very clichèd messages of friendship and love that grow stale after two minutes, yet they keep hammering them in.
- The random battles. Why Namco, why?
- The entire world map is incredibly ugly, and none of the areas and towns you visit are even remotely memorable.
- The translation is sloppy at best, in large part because they only decided to change a few of the names, but keep every other name the same as it is in japanese.
- The humor is incredibly stale, in large part because it keeps repeating the same jokes over and over.
- The game has the worst villain in the entire Tales franchise, both design-wise and personality-wise.
- Incarose and Clinoseraph, the only decent villains in the game, both have their potential wasted. Incarose through being given a weak motivation that ruined her entire character, and Clinoseraph for being given criminally little screentime.
- The game is incredibly easy, even on Hard-mode.
- The ending is almost offensively stupid. I won't spoil it for those of you who plan to buy the game (although you shouldn't), but trust me when I say it's easily among the worst endings I have seen to ANY video game. I'd honestly prefer an ending where they just cut to black compared to what we ended up getting.
I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons that I forgot to mention, but I think I've made my point. Tales of Hearts falls flat in nearly every single category, and even at it's best it never gets past mediocre. This is among my least favorite RPG's of all time, and the fact that I dedicated 40+ hours of my life to this drivel is something I'll always regret.
Is this game's villian even worse than Chronos from Xillia 2?
Pokechao Yes, though Chronos is a somewhat disappointing villain, he's not flat-out BAD like Hearts' villain is.
Thank you for saving some of my remaining life time.... I wonder what hidden JRPG would you recommend for vita :)
Ah yes, another fellow who I agree with. My biggest gripe with this game is how inconsistent the character interactions can be. ESPECIALLY WITH FUCKING HISUI!
I swear he is definitely my least favorite tales character. He goes through the majority of the game not believing what Kohaku has been saying about her spiria. Calling her delusional and not believing her no matter how many times she says it. BUT OH NO, when there happens to be the moment of truth when she brings it up again with the rest of the party, he out of nowhere says that her brother is with her no matter what. When I read that, I had to vent and stop for a bit.
I'm still playing through the game at this moment, but god this games story and character inconsistencies really do get me heated.
gladly you can mute the voice acting in this game so you don't have to listen to the Japanese
I'm not a massive Tales fan, but I did pick this up back when it was released on the Vita. I personally stopped playing after about 8 hours or so, as I was just unable get any enjoyment out of this one. It just feels so generic, so phoned in, so absolutely boring. Everything from the characters, the dungeons, the combat, the story,... it all feels completely phoned in and stuff you've seen a thousand times before in other (and often better) games. As soon as the game makes a "Hahaha this character is hungry" joke in like the first 3 minutes of the game, I knew I probably wasn't going to like it, and indeed I didn't. The only reason I played it for 8 hours because I was still in the phase where I tried convincing myself my Vita purchase wasn't a complete waste of money.
The Vita is only a waste of money if PSP, PS1, and Japanese style games don’t interest you. The Vita has some of the best games I’ve ever played on it Persona 4, FFX, MGS HD, etc. obviously if Japanese developed games don’t interest you well you picked the wrong system.
And even for American developed games you have God of War, Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, Killzone, and much more.
lmao you seriously hate Eternia (my favorite of the franchise) wow as the 1% minority in that, you aren't shy to make it known even though you've played it and reviewed it forever ago. I think you need a fresh new take on it and replay it, I guarantee it will hold a place in your top 3 compared to the rest of the Tales games