My activity here has been absent for one reason or another, but thats not to say i dissapeared. I am back bringing the goods on 2 new tales games, one being the sequal to one of my favorite Tales games "Tales of Symphonia" and another being a unique next gen Tales game of it's own called "Tales of Vespira". I am making this topic to honor both of these 2 games as they will be releasing soon this year.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
The much anticipaited sequal is finally coming here but this time on the wii system. Now most of you are probably going to have your "Gimmicky Alert Siren" turned on, but be content as it looks good and introduces lots of new features.
Screenshots:

Two new main characters are introduced in this game, sadly their names are currently uknown. If anyone knows them, please PM them to me and i will modify this post.

The battle system is faithful to previous Tales games but will possibly add in a couple of motion controls to the mix.

It seems that Lloyd and the new protagonist have a rivalry in this game.

Movement will oddly be done with pointing and clicking with the wiimote, but hopefully they will add a nunchuck use of movement.

Not only will you use characters in battle, but you can also use monsters that you breed and take care of in a farm.

In-game cutscenes also are improved. Unlike tales of the abyss, the characters have alot less clipping and distortion in movement.

There is little detail on this game, but more on the story should be revealed later this year. As far as I am informed the game takes 2 years after the events of tales of symphonia and the game will revolve around 2 new protagonists as well as the returning characters. What I REALLY want to know is that has lloyd turned to the dark side? Hopefully they will reveal more later this year.

Tales of Vespira[/size
This game is an Xbox 360 exclusive, which like the wii is a first in the Tales series. There is already an english trailer lingering around the internet meaning that this game will possibly come out before ToS2.
Screenshots:

The cel shaded graphics and lighting are eye candy to anime lovers.

The battle system is inspired by Tales of Innocence's battle system allowing you to move freely in battle.

English diologue for the most part is decent.

The world map has improved textures, much better than previous titles.

Now, even though this game might come out before ToS2 there is even less details on this game. However, we can only hope that we can experience a great next gen Tales game.

Overall, it looks like Namco-Bandai is really pushing their limits with both of these games. I will update this topic whenever I get more info on both games, so stay tuned

so how many darkjaks out of five does this get

I loved Tales of Symphonia. Though oddly enough I didn't enjoy it for its story, but for the gameplay. Co-op fight sequences were so much fun, and it looks like Namco's bringing those back. :>

The graphics caught my eye in a positive and negative way. Positive being how they've managed to successfully translate the art style the game was associated with. It looks just like the concept art of Tales of Symphonia. The negative, however, is everything that's not a character model. I think that once you've seen one next gen JRPG's environments, you've seen them all.

Man, fuck wii and xbox, why not bring it to PS2???

more mindless button mashing combat (so fun so fun...)

so how many darkjaks out of five does this get

ok, please stop. I understand you are joking but now its just annoying and makes you look like a wiseass and I don't mean in a good way.

Man, fuck wii and xbox, why not bring it to PS2???

Well, why ps2?

You're close but not quite right. With the amount of this garbage that comes out, I'd say it's more like once you've seen one JRPG, you've seen them all. Seriously, I think the last time I thought the Tales series was cool was back when Tales of Phantasia was just "that Japanese SNES RPG with the detailed graphics and cool battle system". They keep churning these things out and they are never more than the sum of their parts: bland, generic story, bland, generic anime characters, and horrid Japanese humour that DOES NOT translate to anyone who doesn't pretend they are Japanese. Unintentional boob grabs, pointing out the obvious in a given situation, and incredulous outbursts at being singled out aren't funny.

Mature, older group thinker (usually about 25 years old because that's old in anime years): "OK guys, now make sure you don't touch any treasure chests in these ruins. Bubbly Teenage Adventuring Chick in Skimpy Clothing, that means you!"
Bubbly Teenage Adventuring Chick in Skimpy Clothing: "WHY DO YOU ONLY MENTION ME????"

lol!!!

Ultimately, they seem to keep making them because they follow a successful formula. Make them long enough and use tried and true character designs and you'll have a winner, at least as much as the converted and those apt to conversion are concerned.


OK I'm done shitting on your topic.

That'd be absolutely true, and I'd jump on your bandwagon if I didn't consider the fact that not all JRPGs follow that formula. Though a majority of them DO rely on what's been used time and time again, some attempt to push the envelope and occasionally succeed in doing so. Like for instance, the Mario RPG series. Unique combat system in each game, brilliant writing and story-telling, definitive graphics for each title, so on and so forth.

i don't think citing an snes game that's almost fifteen years old should be an excuse for an entire genre!  it'd be like me saying that modern cars don't suck and then pointing to the quality that went into the very first model Ts or some shit and going "heh... see??".  how many of those games have you see, idk, this century?

I ment them all.

aight cool that brings the grand total up to 3 in the past two decades of rpgs w00t we're on a roll

All right, cool down.

True, I can't think of enough modern RPGs that attempt to push the envelope, but whatever few out there that do are usually enough for me not hate Japanese RPGs completely.

wait Mario RPG had "brilliant writing and storytelling"?

it was whitty but not brillient :/

fuck you marcus all i said was IDK WHY PEOPLE LOVE SUIKODEN because 3 is great but 4 is terrible, 5 is mediocre, and the other two are kind of unexceptional too.  you seem to have this ridiculous perception that i just wander around complaining about everything when, if anything, i would say i spend most of my time making fun of things.  this is especially funny because after long-winded arguments you usually wind up agreeing with me soooo


also is the suikoden 3 manga really worth reading?  and i never beat the game so do i need to know all about that shit to understand it?