Are there any puzzles in Xilla?

So far I have only come across one puzzle and it wasn't even really a puzzle. It doesn't seem to have puzzles like in Legendia and Abyss or does it?

I'm in Lakutan by the way. That's where I'm at in the game right now.

You get to move blocks around, if you want to.

And in an optional dungeon you get to drop yourself down from high places to break seals and open doors.

I think that's it. The days of Symphonia are over.

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Arn wrote:

why make
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Slivendiferious wrote:

You get to move blocks around, if you want to.

And in an optional dungeon you get to drop yourself down from high places to break seals and open doors.

I think that's it. The days of Symphonia are over.

Yeah, I have noticed a distinct lack of puzzles in recent Tales titles. :/ Well, in Graces and Xillia, at least. I kind of hope they bring the puzzles back in Zestiria. Yeah, sure, puzzles can be hard, but hey! The challenge makes it fun, especially when it's something you have to actually do besides running around a ridiculously convoluted maze, wondering if this is really the same room you just left.

Besides, I'm a Zelda player. I solve dungeon puzzles like it's my job, son. Viva puzzles 2014!

IIRC, nothing.

X2 semi-spoils:

Spoiler:

I'd rather have no puzzles than utterly stupid and/or tedious puzzles such as in Symphonia and Tempest.

DreamSword wrote:

I'd rather have no puzzles than utterly stupid and/or tedious puzzles such as in Symphonia and Tempest.

I don't know about Tempest, but the only puzzle in Symphonia I had a problem with was the one in the Balacruf Mausoleum.

In DotNW, there were a few more puzzles I had a problem with: the ones in Balacruf Mausoleum.

I like the puzzles in Golden Sun a lot, so for me that is an example that puzzles can be awesome and add to the gameplay. The same goes for LoZ I guess, but I don't enjoy those as much as the one in Golden Sun: The Broken Seal and The Lost Age.

On the other hand, I hated the puzzles in Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django because they were far too complicated for me.

I think puzzles in RPGs should be challenging and not too long, but not too short and too challenging either. You don't want to feel the infamous "Oh no another puzzle here we go again" feeling and you also don't want to just blitz through them, because "why would you put a puzzle that easy in a game anyway? What does it add?".

tl;dr: Tales of Golden Sun is the way to go in terms of puzzles.

Yeah I'm a Golden Sun fan too and both The Lost Age and the first one were loaded with puzzles but they weren't too bad, kind of confusing at times especially the Lighthouse puzzles but they were reasonably solvable. Golden Sun is just awesome though. There was so much to do in those games, not even the Tales games have that much content and Golden Sun is for the GBA...

Long live Sol Blade and Excalibur...

Golden Sun is absolutely fantastic. The puzzles could be a bit frustrating at times (namely in regards to acquiring certain djinn), but the puzzles were still great. I felt that they were a tad bit weaker in Dark Dawn, but they were still up there.

I admit that Zelda puzzles have become a bit less enjoyable over the years, but in the older titles they were still pretty great. Namely, in the GB titles (Link's Awakening, Oracle of Seasons, and Oracle of Ages), and even the N64 games (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask). Wind Waker was probably the last truly great one in terms of puzzles.

And while I by and large like Symphonia's puzzles, Ymir Forest will haunt me until the day I die. It's a pretty enough place, but that stupid, illogical fish puzzle. That stupid, illogical fish puzzle. You have party members who can fly, the fruit is close enough to just reach down and take it out of the water, but can you? No. No. Instead you have to guide stupid little fish through giant carnivorous fish to get it, and start all over again if you fail.

If I never have to suffer through that again (which I will, the next time I play the game), it'll be too soon.

Scrawlers wrote:

Golden Sun is absolutely fantastic. The puzzles could be a bit frustrating at times (namely in regards to acquiring certain djinn), but the puzzles were still great. I felt that they were a tad bit weaker in Dark Dawn, but they were still up there.

I like how you didn't have to do all puzzles.

For example, there's a puzzle before a fight with a dragon/ serpent, in which you have to shine beams of light on that boss before you fight it. You don't have to shine those beams on him, but he'll regenerate a lot of health for each beam pointed at him.

That trident puzzle in TLA though. The first time I played through the game, I did it by accident and didn't know you needed it until I fought Poseidon. I don't think I ever found any clues whatsoever about how important it is to gather those parts.

In general I like puzzles which have multiple answers, one (or two) which allow you to progress, and a couple which lead to extra loot, though some completionists would probably disagree with me.

Slivendiferious wrote:

DreamSword wrote:

I'd rather have no puzzles than utterly stupid and/or tedious puzzles such as in Symphonia and Tempest.

I don't know about Tempest, but the only puzzle in Symphonia I had a problem with was the one in the Balacruf Mausoleum.

Ohhh, the stupid tile puzzles in Tempest.
They just had to go and put a restriction on the amount of moves you could make. Since I'm not so good at those types of puzzles anyway, I needed more moves at times and took longer on that part than I should have. Considering how short the game is, they probably counted on that happening.

But yes, Golden Sun-like puzzles would be great. Especially in the games where you have party members associated with certain elements. It'd fit in Zesty with the Divine and whatnot, but considering the recent trend of leaving out puzzles, I don't see it happening.

DylDawg wrote:

IIRC, nothing.

X2 semi-spoils:

Spoiler:

*pulls out hair* I forgot about that for a moment and I don't look forward to doing it again in the English version.

Everyone else pretty much already answered the actual question, so I just you know...discussed the other stuff.

Ymir Forest was horrible, I hated that place. Besides it was just stupid, you have party members who could fly and grab it instead of doing all that nonsensical stuff to get it which was a big hassle. I can't even count how many times I screwed up on that puzzle and had to restart it. ><

@Sliv, you're talking about Gaia Rock with the serpent and the orbs and beams where you placed the dancing idol on pedestals to make the beams shine into the orbs. I didn't know that was optional. Next time I play Lost Age I'm going to try to fight the serpent without doing that. It'll be a while though, I have my hands full with other games at the moment.

http://goldensun.wikia.com/wiki/Serpent wrote:

What makes the Serpent unique among bosses is due partly to where it's battled: The Serpent's chamber is deep within Gaia Rock, where sunlight cannot reach...normally. By exploring Gaia Rock and solving its puzzles, anywhere from one to four beams of light can reach the Serpent, significantly weakening it. The Serpent can normally attack three times per turn, but if all four lights are lit it can only attack twice. Also, the amount of HP it recovers each turn depends on how many lights enter the chamber:

   0 lights=2430 HP
   1 light=810 HP
   2 lights=270 HP
   3 lights=90 HP
   4 lights=30 HP

If no more than one or two lights are lit, the Serpent is effectively invincible. However, most players will assume that all of the beams must be uncovered to kill the Serpent, since there is nothing to suggest doing otherwise.

Its attack pattern also changes slightly.

It can be beaten at two lights, but I'm not sure about 1.

The reward will always be the same though!

I think Baba commented on the lack of puzzles once. Something about players wanting the games to be easier or something. I kinda miss them though, but in other ways I don't lol

You know what, early Tales Series games are easy enough. It's not like they were Atlus hard. :/ Bring back the puzzles Baba-saaaaaaaaaaan.

I'm not strong with puzzles (I had to have my brother who's better at em solve them for me sometimes) but I would welcome them back. Having them reduces the linear feeling of dungeons, clearly something the Xillias have forgotten.

Golden Sun type of puzzles will be McCoolio fo sho tho.

And Baba-san, as much as I don't like puzzles, that is a really bad reason to remove them completely. It just proves what Keiji Inafune said about RPGs in one of the interviews I've read: RPG players (well the Japanese audience) want a certain, simple, and sure way to victory IIRC.

DylDawg wrote:

I'm not strong with puzzles (I had to have my brother who's better at em solve them for me sometimes) but I would welcome them back. Having them reduces the linear feeling of dungeons, clearly something the Xillias have forgotten.

Well, if we're not going to have puzzles, then I'd rather the dungeons be linear. Graces didn't have puzzles either, but it instead made every single dungeon a very plain looking maze. So not only were you not solving anything, but you instead got to run around identical looking corridors for an unknown amount of hours until you randomly stumbled upon where you were supposed to go. And the one time you did have a maze? It was in . . . the laboratory on Fodra, I think, and the entire "puzzle" was that you had to keep backtracking to the first couple of floors to get batteries before trekking all the way back. That's not a freaking puzzle. That's . . . that's torture, is what it is. Cruel and unusual--or at least very tedious--punishment.

So yeah, I'd rather the dungeons be straight shots instead of bland, yet infuriating mazes if they aren't going to have actual puzzles. Puzzles are prime, still, but in the absence of them . . .

As long as they don't bring in any Ymir Forest type puzzles in future Tales, I'm cool with puzzles otherwise that nightmare of Symphonia would recur. I kind of skipped most of the puzzles in Legendia, because well you get a title that is worthless for Senel so it wasn't really worth the time to solve the puzzles if the reward wasn't worth it. But solving puzzles for the sake of solving them is fun sometimes.

You know, Graces was good but the story wasn't really interesting. Even Phantasia had a better story. I liked the beginning portion of the game though when Asbel was a kid.

@Sliv I guess I'll just light up all 4 lights then if there nothing new you gain from fighting the serpent with less lights except for a very hard fight at that point in the game with no access to Excalibur or Sol Blade or any decent summons.

Scrawlers wrote:

Graces didn't have puzzles either, but it instead made every single dungeon a very plain looking maze.

And the one time you did have a maze? It was in . . . the laboratory on Fodra, I think, and the entire "puzzle" was that you had to keep backtracking to the first couple of floors to get batteries before trekking all the way back. That's not a freaking puzzle.

There were some block puzzles like the real one in Fodra. I hated that one...   

Graces also had the goddamned colored circuits room in the Desert Ruins.

I may need to replay Graces. I don't think I remember the block puzzle on Fodra . . .

And for some reason, the colored circuits room didn't give me trouble, honestly. I found it to be fairly simple, so it didn't even really register in my brain as a puzzle. :/ I know it's technically a puzzle, but I forgot about it since it didn't really bother me too much. I'm weird, I know.

Scrawlers wrote:

Slivendiferious wrote:

You get to move blocks around, if you want to.

And in an optional dungeon you get to drop yourself down from high places to break seals and open doors.

I think that's it. The days of Symphonia are over.

Yeah, I have noticed a distinct lack of puzzles in recent Tales titles. :/ Well, in Graces and Xillia, at least. I kind of hope they bring the puzzles back in Zestiria. Yeah, sure, puzzles can be hard, but hey! The challenge makes it fun, especially when it's something you have to actually do besides running around a ridiculously convoluted maze, wondering if this is really the same room you just left.

Besides, I'm a Zelda player. I solve dungeon puzzles like it's my job, son. Viva puzzles 2014!

Graces and Xillia do have puzzles, they're just optional for the most part.  Xillia has various box puzzles/warehouse type things that you can do to get extra items.  Some of them even need to be completed to get mysterious jewels to finish a sidequest.  Graces had the shot cube minigame you could do for weapons and titles, as well as optional dungeons with puzzle like areas. In the final area of Gracesyou have to step on the different colored tile things in a certain order.  The early ones are very simple, but I was stuck on the last one for hours.

I can't really say I miss the puzzles much.  Phantasia's mineshaft puzzle with the sorcerer's ring was maddening, the forest/fish puzzle in Symphonia that was mentioned earlier was maddening, and the later optional dungeon puzzles in Graces were maddening.  I had to get walkthroughs for all of them.  Puzzles are best when you're not forced to do them, like in Legendia where you could skip past them if I got too hard or you didn't feel like it.  They're also fine as a way to earn some extra gald, items, or titles.  I don't know that I like them being part of I larger sidequest though as I generally like doing sidequest, but those puzzles are usually far too difficult to figure out without a walkthrough.  Puzzles should be kept relitively simple if they're required to be done.  They don't need to be so easy that it's impossible to mess up, but they shouldn't be so hard that they send most people running for a walkthrough.  Making me think a few minutes and having me mess up once or twice is fine, having me trying for hours and still not getting anywhere is not.

Puzzles aren't a bad thing --- unless we're talking about that last puzzle in ToGf *shivers*. I can't remember doing any hard puzzle in ToX though. Nothing memorable.

Gotta say I disagree with you, Marissa. It's all personal preference, of course, but I like being forced to do puzzles. I like the challenge. Sometimes puzzles are tedious (Ymir Forest, for instance; it wasn't difficult, just long and boring) or annoying because of sound effects or other factors (the Remote Island Human Ranch comes to mind), but I like puzzles that give me a challenge, that make me think. I enjoy the characters and plots of Tales Series games as much as the next person, but I like the gameplay elements to be there as well. The battles are only one part of it for me. The puzzles are another way to incorporate gameplay into the . . . well, games.

So personally, I like having puzzles as part of the main story, as things you have to solve to progress, though I can see why others wouldn't, particularly if you're only there for the story/battles. Maybe Namco could put in a feature like the difficulty slider in Atlus' Catherine? I specifically remember Catherine having a mode that was "if you're only here for the story." Granted, Catherine was obnoxiously difficult, but then again, it's an Atlus game so that in itself didn't shock me. Still, perhaps Namco could do something like that to make the puzzles easier for those that don't want to mess with them, but keep the challenge in for those who do?