What better way to start a series about characters fighting to the death than by pitting two warriors with the same name against each other? The impetus for this battle was set up on Twitter, with an exchange about how … Continue reading Deathmatch: Kratos vs. Kratos
This column originally ran on October 8, 2009. Tales of Vesperia came out a couple years ago for the Xbox 360, the 10th “mothership” (aka major) title game in Namco’s series. With a PS3 release in Japan last month and … Continue reading Checkpoint: Tales of Vesperia
The North American Producer for Tales of Xillia put up a blog post earlier this month saying that voice acting for the 2013 title was finished, bringing the game that much closer to release. What does it mean for Tales fans? Well, voice acting is one of the biggest road blocks to an international release. Other than localization (think of all the text that needs to be translated), it’s also one of the most time-consuming, as the producer notes in the post: Eight hours of voice recording across an eight week span, filled with late nights catching up on emails, … Continue reading Tales of Xillia Recording Finished?
Well, needless to say I’m excited: Tales of Xillia is coming to North America in 2013. This is pretty big news considering how things had been going for the series up until the release of Graces f. Remember, it had … Continue reading Tales of Xillia Localization: Hallelujah
(TL;DR) Hello, I’ll be posting here sometimes. Enjoy. (/TL;DR) In the world of programming, fledgling programmers first make a “Hello World” program which introduces them to the basic requirements of making a program. So Hello World, what follows is a … Continue reading Hello World
NOTE: This is a review of a game in progress. Chris and Co. have put in around 35 hours into the game, which means they’re probably at the halfway point or so. Still, if major media outlets can review the game without finishing it, then so can we!
I’ve made no secret of my love of the Tales series on this site in the past. So you might think that this review is going to be a five-star endeavor, full of glowing praise and endless superlatives about the quintessential RPG of our generation.
You would be wrong.
That’s not to say that it’s Graces’ fault. The game suffers from many of the same problems that other Tales games have: a sometimes too-wordy story, typical anime tropes, lackluster music. But like many other offerings in the series, the battle system comes through in a big way.
In fact, I’ll go a little further: Tales of Graces features the best battle system of any RPG ever made.
How’s that for an opening argument? Continue reading “Review: Tales of Graces f”
Mass Effect 3 is due out on March 6, and some recent news has gamers on edge. Specifically, that Bioware will release DLC on the game’s launch date.
DLC has become something of a running joke in the gaming industry. When executed right, it can be both effective and fun. Left 4 Dead added a couple of campaigns that were well worth the money. Rock Band has one of the most successful models around with a huge collection of music from a variety of artists. Red Dead Redemption added an entire new chapter to the game, bringing John Marston into a world of zombies.
But when companies put together a DLC plan with only their own interests in mind, that’s when the whole thing starts to go downhill. Continue reading “DLC You Later”
My love-hate relationship with the “Tales of” video game series goes back almost a decade now. Don’t get me wrong — there’s a lot more love than hate. But sometimes those emotions are two sides of the same coin, after all.
I was introduced to the series through a ROM of the Super Nintendo’s Tales of Phantasia back in high school. At the time, I was impressed by the idea of a fighting-game-like battle system in an RPG — it seemed like a nice change of pace from turn-based, menu-heavy systems.
That game was decent, but I wasn’t really a huge fan until the summer of 2004, when Tales of Symphonia hit the GameCube and redefined my view of the series and RPGs forever. Continue reading “Tales of Disappointment”
Gray Areas 