Tales of Zestiria (PS3) Speculation/News (Pre-Release)

Is it bad that im more hyped for the Japanese fans'/buyers' reactions than the game itself.

DylDawg wrote:

Is it bad that im more hyped for the Japanese fans'/buyers' reactions than the game itself.

Nope. Because we all know everyone is gonna overreact if it turns out to be true.

The only overreaction would be threats to Namco Bandai employees or anything worse than that. Everything else is fair game with this shit.

If that turns ouf to be true - I'm not sure which version I would buy. Depends on the PS4/Steam extras, I guess.
Could be a lazy port (Symphonia) or good one like Graces'.

http://www.siliconera.com/2015/05/05/tales-zestiria-producer-apologizes-making-fans-worry-series/

I dunno if "worry" is the right word to use after what happened...

Come on Baba, show more (in the next mothership or whatever), and less talking.

I'm laughing so hard right now. More than three months later, all talk about Zestiria is still a total mess.

Zestiria broke the fanbase.

Too bad that its more on waifu reasons instead of discussing why the series has been declining in quality reasons.

Call me when Tempest/Legendia/Eternia Rs come or Namco gets their **** together.

Even though it might not've been the reality check Namco needed, it's still a good thing that they felt the backlash.

Meowzy wrote:

I'm laughing so hard right now. More than three months later, all talk about Zestiria is still a total mess.

I'm laughing with you because honestly, I don't get what this total mess is about in the first place. x'D

Baba is basically caving in to a part of the fanbase because a choice they made in their game was not well received. I would rather see Baba and the team hold true to their ideals than apologize to a very vocal part of a much larger fanbase for something he should not be sorry for in the first place.

I haven't played the game, so I haven't experienced the source of this mess myself, and there was probably a time when I would have been pissed off because of it as well, but I can confidently say that right now, I agree with the choices that were made regarding that character. It's like the vocal part that is lashing out towards Bamco in this case is just so mad about a small part of the grand design of the game that they feel it ruined the entirity of it.

We have always had problems with parts of the entries in the Tales Series. Some of them have been "fixed" (Playable Chalcedny, Flynn) while others have not (no legendia remake, no VePS3ria localization, "terrible LMBS" in Symphonia, wtf is up with DotNW?). Not counting Tempest because that one apparently solely consisted of problems instead of just having a few; DotNW is the only game in which these problems were seen as “unforgivable” by a large (or perhaps just really vocal) majority of fans.

Since then we’ve had Xillia which was an “obvious beta”, but still loved by a large part of the community. Xillia 2 which “fixed” a lot of “problems” Xillia 1 had but was still received with mixed reviews (they changed it now it sucks) and now we have Zestiria which has “broken the fanbase”.

All of the games prior to this point were criticized by vocal parts of the community because of gameplay mechanics that people were irritated with or because they were a sequel to a previous game and did not live up to the original’s reputation. Now this is the curious part, and the part I don’t get:
Zestiria has not broken the fanbase because of a disturbing LMBS, Overpowered Mary Sues, annoying puzzling, or even the god-awful camera glitching. No, it has broken the fanbase because one of the characters in the game made a very valid choice story-wise, which would probably have even been applauded if this had been a book, film or series, but apparently ruined the game for practically everyone who played it. It’s not the game design that has pissed people off, it’s the story telling.

And Baba is going to apologize for that.

._.

What the frick…

Basically people are upset that their waifu isn't a permanent character. Because as we all know, Tales has never had a temporary party member before. It's like how many people claim Dawn sucks solely because of the voice cast change. And as a side note, I also don't see how this game has "broken the fanbase" when the fanbase has been broken for years now.

If I recall correctly, as early back as TotA, people were either annoyed by Luke or they weren't.

Did Bamco ever apologise for that? I don't think they did...

I guess it's much easier to unite and shout in unison at game developers nowadays than it was back then.

I think the difference here is that their advertisement campaign was misleading. imo it's not a writing problem (I think it works well within the story), it's a marketting problem. That's probably why it's blown up so much (not that I agree with all the whining, and especially not with those sending hate to Fujishima etc, but I can sorta understand why some people are angry). If Namco had been upfront about their intentions from the start, it would have been better received.

I'm curious to see how the localization will handle this...

True, it might be marketing instead of storytelling in this case. But they never outright stated or even implied in their marketing that certain characters would be playable throughout the entire game and that certain other characters were not, right?

All they did was introduce the characters, just like they did for the other tales games.

Do you think they should've put a disclaimer up with "warning, this character is only featured in 1/3rd of the game", because honestly, I am really, really glad that they didn't do that.

Did you hear, though? Some Japanese fans started a petition to have Baba removed from his position for the next installment in the Tales series. Like, for some reason they're blaming Baba, who is the nicest and most well-intended guy ever, even though he's not the sole person responsible for a Tales game as well as its promotion. There's a huge team behind it. =/

Poor Baba. They should realize he's not the one responsible for everything.

@Sliv: Yeah, they shouldn't have announced it like that, but, like, they gave Alisha a lot of coverage at first and hyped her a lot as if she was just like any other party member. (But then she seemed pretty removed from later marketting iirc and tbh personally I felt she would not be very important even before the game came out; most people didn't interpret it that way tho). And, correct me if I'm wrong (my memory of V and G's marketing is very vague), it's the first time a temporary character is given so much hype pregame. Which lead to people expecting something different than they got. (She was also the first female character introduced, which is traditionally what is done for the heroine. Did no one in the studio really consider the assumptions fans would make at her introduction?)

It wasn't the only issue. Rose and Zaveid were revealed pretty late, and for a long time we didn't even know if they were playable or permanent or what. Also didn't Baba say at some point that they actually didn't want to show them or something?

I think Namco was torn between its creative team wanting to try something different and wanting to keep the surprise, and the marketing climate demanding that the most be revealed so hype could be created.

(Another personal aside: I really don't like how the fishing for hype kind of kills discovery. Even without following the news attentively, I still knew much more than I'd have liked. To give a silly but upsetting to me example, there were very few beautiful fields to discover that I had not seen a glimpse of yet in trailers/promo pics etc. Also, like, do we really need to know all important named NPC in advance? Can't we discover them as we play? I wish Namco would stop revealing so much ><)

Sadly, their reaction to the backlash only added oil to the fire. Instead of lying about order of appearance or whatever (ffs if you have to pick a lie, pick one that cannot be so easily contradicted) [also that bullshit "the heroine is whoever you want it to be" to appease the fans when they clearly see neither Alisha nor Rose as heroines], they should have explained what was going on clearly. Though I'm not sure it would have changed anything tbh, cuz the Complete Guide interviews give really interesting insight on their choices etc, but haters determined to hate only use them as further amunition to hate (while I personally find them pretty interesting and can understand where the team was coming from, but as with the rest it's just my opinion orz).

Sorry it's a bit rambly ^^;

I'm just so glad a PS4 version is apparently happening!

TalesofHysteria wrote:

I'm just so glad a PS4 version is apparently happening!

I'm not. In my opinion, Zestiria has a lot of problem that a port won't fix. You'd need to rewrite some of the script to change how characters react to certain things and also change a lot of gameplay aspects. Sure, they could try to fix the camera issues in the PS4 version and the way the field is loaded to avoid lag, but... That's about all a port can do, unless they go the full route and add a buttload of new things to make up for obvious flaws, like they did with Graces and Vesperia. Which, tbh, I don't see them doing.

Yume Hanabi wrote:

(Another personal aside: I really don't like how the fishing for hype kind of kills discovery. Even without following the news attentively, I still knew much more than I'd have liked. To give a silly but upsetting to me example, there were very few beautiful fields to discover that I had not seen a glimpse of yet in trailers/promo pics etc. Also, like, do we really need to know all important named NPC in advance? Can't we discover them as we play? I wish Namco would stop revealing so much ><)

Well, I think the big problem here is that Namco needs to promote the game. They need to let potential players know that the game is coming and what to expect from it. The only way to do that is by- well- showing what's in the game. The OVA covering the start of the game was a great alternative, but that's not what most players look for. We want to see a wide array of characters and settings.

I'm glad if a PS4 version is happening in the US because I'd rather not buy a PS3 just for one game, and I already intend on buying a PS4 in the near future anyways.

Collectors Edition revealed!

http://blog.talesofgame.com/en/japan-expo-zestiria-collectors-edition-revealed-pre-order-bonus-symphonia-for-pc-and-more/

Hopefully the differences between the NA and EU versions won't be too big.

At least Steam seems to use the same for everyone.
Now I'm not so sure anymore which version to get. I want to buy a PS4 (I will, but now I think I'll wait a bit longer). On the other hand, I'll get these things, too, for PS4 and I already own ToS... money, why don't I have more of you?

Looks like I was right when I guessed that they'd include the Alisha chapter as pre-order DLC.

Has a NA CE been announced too? I get the feeling Namco's been starting to give NA fans the shaft lately. There aren't any ambassador events as in Europe, no mention of Zestiria's presence at E3 was given, the NA release date wasn't initially included in the post that revealed Europe's. It's just been weird.

Ooops, bumped the main forum Zestiria (PS4 announcement) thread with this, sorry Moontoon.

Almost guaranteed there'll be an NA CE, perhaps announced tommorow:

http://twitter.com/BandaiNamcoUS/status/616441172496510976

Should be Alisha chapter too for launch copies...

As for Bandai Namco giving the shift to NA, does Bandai Namco US even have a community manager? It's possible the European branch of Bandai Namco is just larger for some reason. Also no loyalty program in NA, which is how the Alisha DLC is being distributed in Europe (Bandai Namco VIP.)

Don't need a program to distribute it per se, it should be fine.

So, I will buy the steam version, but I have a question: if they reach the first goal and I pre-order it after that, will I get the stuff from first reward as well?
My problem is that I cannot buy it today anymore.

I'm pretty sure the rewards are cumulative and available to anyone who preorders.