ToV: The Overworld Music and Battle Theme changed! Oh shit, that means a new plot arc, which means the game will drop its light hearted "run around the world chasing a thief" fluff plot in exchange for Cryptic World Crisis RPG Cliche nonsense! Its already given me something cryptic to work with too ._.
Bright side, new PC! What the shit? A Tales PC whose ACTUALLY UNIQUE AND PRACTICAL TO USE? I was totally not expecting that!
Ah well, at least the cast remains decent, so hopefully whatever nonsense ToV pulls out can be hidden behind the good interaction its been having so far (something TotA couldn't do for me, I blame Anise.)
You're playing a Tales game and you're upset that you're going to end up Saving The World? That's like watching a Disney movie and complaining that there's going to be singing in it.
Anyway, I'm also playing this and I agree with the assessment of the cast so far. I've only recently met up with the Hunting Blades, so I'm not as far as Meeple. Yuri does his badass thing, only showing vulnerability to children and Flynn. He and Flynn seem like an interesting relationship that's building toward some horrible secret-reveal that'll come out during a 'battle between rivals'. Despite the cliche, the reasoning behind it is sound - they have similar goals, but their methods focus on slightly different priorities. Both of their methods have obvious flaws and it's nice to see the flaws in our main hero's ideals pointed out so clearly.
But apart from Flynn, *no one* gets the best of Yuri, so he manages to remain badass.
Rita is also pretty entertaining to watch, though not necessarily someone I'd want for a friend. She's very blunt, which I really like in a character. While the violent girl cliche fits her, it's still the violent girl cliche. She -does- get a lot of good lines in the skits. Also, it's cool as fuck how they implemented her melee weapon.
Karol waffles between tolerable 'kid' and 'suddenly emo!' - He'd be unsalvagable if it weren't for Yuri's teasing, really. As such, all of his unfortunate character traits are funny instead of painful to watch. Rita plays well with him, too. When he actually does something useful (monster-information, usually), it's enough of a surprise that he becomes 'tolerable kid' instead of 'punching bag'.
Estelle is trope-y, but she gets enough funny lines and sets up Yuri and Rita so often that I find myself really liking her. Though I suspect when the Save The World plot starts, she'll be less entertaining.
Repede is a dog. A great dog. A++
Villains are non-existant so far... Though the Schwann brigade not being total assholes was nice to see. It's nice to see an evil empire where not everyone's evil. Though the ones that -are- evil have a seriously bad case of baby-eating.
Fatal Strikes and Burst Artes are -exactly- what Tales gameplay needed. A little more responsiveness and stronger enemies and the game could be a 3D fighter with AI allies.
'Bohdi Blastia' is a horrible pun and still sounds like something you would go to the hospital for.
And yes, I will probably continue to be effusively ecstatic about this game until I finish it.
-Djinn
Oh, and this!
Braid - While the stars are retardedly obscure (like really really obscure), none of them are as bullshit as the sit in one room riding a cloud for an hour one which is the first one and none of them require remotely as precise platforming as actually finishing the last level of the game (IRONY, doing the bullshit with stars lets you skip the absolutely bullshit platforming part of the final level to boot. Pretty pissed about that.
So yeah, Braid is still a really cool game where Jonathon Blow randomly decides to be a gigantic dick to the player. So I think I love the game but hate the maker.
WARNING: Use of the term 'Art' ahead. Turn back now.
If there's one thing that I can positively state about Braid's meaning, it's that the game is about 'Obsession' in the pursuit of a goal.
Now, I might be a bit presumptuous here, but I'd say waiting around on that cloud (and getting the rest of the obscure stars) just to slightly change the ending (and 'catch' the object of Obsession - the Princess... or if you didn't know that, then collecting them just for curiosity's sake) pretty much encapsulates the basic meaning of the game through the gameplay. It's *waves arms in the air* 'Art.'
In general, the whole game is like this, with the time reversing aspects and perspective switching all being playable allegories for the themes of the game itself. It's the reason -I- liked it anyway. I don't think the star challenge was intended to be cruel, just challenging. For the sake of the message of the game, which cautions strongly -against- pursuing curiosity too far (to the point of Obsession), the challenges -had- to be difficult... you're supposed to feel like you should give up and do something better or more fun at this point in the game. And by -not- doing that, you're realizing your own Obsession once you get the ending and...
Okay, I need to stop, all my organized thought is gone now and wankering has started.
