Up to this point, this is my favorite Tales game yet taking the place of Tales of the Abyss. Still have yet to play Xillia and a couple of others, but they would have to be incredible to the extreme to top this one. So much in this particular Tales game just worked for me as it had a great story, great characters and some pretty surprising twists a well. The Tales series now is superior to the Final Fantasy series which used to be my favorite role playing game series. Final Fantasy's decision to eliminate turn based battles and the fact they take forever to release games now just hands the crown over to Tales for me. That and the fact the graphics to me are more more anime looking and the worlds so much more beautiful and more in line with a fantasy realm than FF, plus I prefer turn based, but if I cannot get that I like pure action instead of the not sure what they want to do in a couple of the FF games since they ditched turn based in twelve. They also release games far quicker than does FF, Final Fantasy XV which I thought was the best FF in a long time was originally going to be Final Fantasy XIII: Versus and somehow took so long to make that it became its own game. Meanwhile, the Tales series generally release a came every two years or so. So, this game is tops now in the Tales series for me.
The story has a young woman named Velvet whose living a peaceful life in a small village with her brother and brother-in-law. Her sister and her unborn child were killed several years prior. Well, her brother-in-law sacrifices her brother during a night when the moon is scarlet and after being turned into a sort of demon, Velvet goes on a quest to get her revenge on her brother-in-law Artorius who is a man known as the Shepard and savior of the world. She first must escape from a prison for demons where she meets up with the swordsman named Rokurou and the witch Magilou. She also takes a being called a malak into her care named Laphicet and also joins up with a pirate Malak named Eizen and his crew. They join forces, each with their own reasons, and begin to try and find out just what Artorius is planning and to ultimately get revenge!
The game play is typical Tales as the fighting is action based. Present in this game as in all Tales games is the skits where the characters talk to one another and there is also cooking. Back in this installment is also the weapon system where you upgrade your equipment. Not sure I care for this as you never really feel that you have much of an upgrade when using different weapons and such and the monsters constantly drop weapons and armor. I prefer going to shops and buying stuff and finding more powerful weapons in dungeons where when you equip them, you see a major boost! Just a minor complaint in an otherwise fantastic game.
So, this is now my fave Tales game. There are a lot of elements from the previous Tales game I played, Zestria, that at times I was wondering if perhaps this one was a sequel or a prequel to that game. Shepards, Malak and demons were all prevalent in the previous title and there are a couple of characters in this one that were in that one. The world in this one though is a lot more expansive as it does have a ship in it so you travel to many different areas. In Zestria, the game felt very confined. At the end of the day, though, it was the characters that really made this one my favorite as they were a very ragtag group who in another game would probably have been the villains. They, and the story, are what made this Tales my new favorite.
