EDIT: I have now finished this game and the rating is more like 4.7 outta 5 stars but we'll get to that in this review. Anyways let's go.
I have played Kingdom Hearts ever since I was 6-7 years old. I am now 15 and I'm still waiting for kh 2.8 and 3 to come out so I thought "hey why not get another jrpg to hold me over". Last year I was trying to remember a game I played for like 10 minutes with my older cousin when I was 8 and I knew it was called "Tales of" something and I couldn't remember what it was. I remembered now and I got it maybe 2 or 3 weekends ago, I have now finished it and I loved nearly every minute of it(I'll list the negatives I had at the end). Now there is a ps3 port but I got original for nostalgic purposes. Anyways let's talk about the game.
Story: 5/5 Oh boy this story man this story. Without spoiling anything while the story can be a little confusing at times I'll just say this get ready for a bunch of plot twists to happen like I was saying "What?!" a bunch of times during my playthrough and the only other game series that has made me do that is Kingdom Hearts. Also even though the game doesn't tell you, your actions have an effect on the story whether it's taking a non-canon path or changing the dialogue the game is different every time. Seriously look up different playthroughs on youtube and they'll most likely be very different from yours.
Characters:4.8/5 I love the characters in this game so much all except for one who I guess kind of redeems himself at the canon ending(as said before you can change the story to your liking but the game doesn't tell you that which again is exciting to me anyways) but god for the entire time he was in my party I was like "Omg shut up you pervert"(no literally he's a pervert) but I guess it really just comes down to personal preference. The characters get really really fleshed out and developed as the story goes on and you can activate little skits to see what they are feeling and how the situations surrounding these characters affects them and also how they feel about other characters.
Gameplay: 4.3/ It really depends on what your doing at the time. This game has combat, exploring, and dungeons with puzzles. The combat is so satisfying(I especially love the tutorial one of the best ones in a jrpg like ever) and it is very very customizable with the growth of how your character plays. They'll unlock different special moves each time you perform one specific one X amounts of times and you can do many different comboes to mix it up a bunch. You can also play a total of (by the time your party's full) 8 different characters and they all have different play styles so you can find what suits you best but it'll definitely take some practice.
The overworld is nice and spread out but there are 2 major problems with it. 1. The map sometimes feels like as means of just getting to the next area and letting the next cutscene play which isn't a good feeling especially in an rpg, and 2. much later in the story you get 2 vehicles a boat and a flying machine. You use the boat a total of about 2 times that are necessary to progress the game and once you get the flying machine, walking/running around the overworld and the boat becomes obselete so what's the point of the boat if you can just fly wherever you want (and I do mean wherever the game loops the map back around). I understand the walking but using the boat for a total of about 2 times is kind of pointless wouldn't you say?
Lastly is the matter of the dungeons. It's like The Legend of Zelda except instead of smaller mini puzzles the dungeon is always one big puzzle or maze. The difficulty of the puzzles range from overly simplistic to "Wtf do I need to be doing right now?". Now puzzles in of themselves aren't bad at all hell I even love one dungeon where the entire thing is an escort mission but it is far far better then you would think at first, but man some of these puzzles/mazes can be very VERY obnoxious and I personally don't like most of them. Doesn't help that there's enemies everywhere in the dungeons. I wouldn't blame you if you used guides for some of the puzzles I did that to.
Music: 4.6/5 They'll definitely fit the mood at the time and some I'll hum over and over but some just don't stick out to much especially some of the battle themes.
Graphics: 5/5 For the time these are great graphics. Sure you get blurry close ups at times and the characters move awkwardly to at times but it's still great.
Voice acting: 4/5 The voices fit the characters perfectly but sometimes when a character says something like "Dammit!" I feel the actors try to push to much and try to hard to emphasize the situation.
Overall: 4.7/5 Yes I'm still giving it an about 4.7 rating why? Despite quite the few negatives I had, they hardly detract from the game at all (except for dungeon puzzles/mazes) and really it just comes down to personal preference. Also, and this is not the game's fault it is the seller's fault, the game would crash very frequently on specifically disk 2 and there was a point near the end of the game where I literally had to switch from my wii to gamecube and vice versa just to get past some crashing so that may have influenced my judgement on the game overall. Bug this is a definite must have for anyone who loves jrpgs or maybe even rpgs in general. Thank for taking the time to read this review :).
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Víctor
Excelente juego
Reviewed in Mexico on April 5, 2024
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Reviewed in Mexico on April 5, 2024
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