~*~*The Official Tales of the Abyss Community Thread (Tataroo Valley)*~*~

[Yggdrasill17]

...So uhh, hey there! I know it's been a few months but...at least I have a valid (and very physical) excuse!

It's going to be 35 weeks this Monday, so...not too long now! About 4-5 weeks till I say goodbye to life. ...Well considering the rate that I've been posting here, I'll probably have the little one already by next time. >.>;;

Indeed, and it's not like there's anyone in here to make excuses to anyway! Good luck and do enjoy your last, fleeting moments of free time[hl=black]and the baby too, congrats![/hl]

In regards to gaming news--yeah I was a bit surprised by the release of the 2DS but it does make sense now that I think about it (my cousin is actually trying to convince me to buy the 2DS over the 3DS/XL but I'd rather have some 3D functionality still in the system even if I don't use it much---plus I really prefer the fold-down set-up rather than just having it stay open flat). Actually as of this writing I'm trying to bid on the Zelda LE 3DS that released a couple years ago (not sure why I didn't grab it before 'cause I'm kicking myself now) -- and yeah I know about the gold Zelda XL one coming out but I'm reeeaaaallly not a fan of the XL's design.

Zelda: ALBW has some excellent use of 3D from what I've read(better than Mario 3D Land supposedly), so if that game is of interest to you then I'd definitely go for an OG 3DS. I'm thinking of finally jumping into the 3DS as well, and the ALBW 3DS XL is looking very tempting(OG 3DS is too small and uncomfortable for my hands).

I've finally put some time into Super Mario 3D World today, and...

 

[MightyChicken64]

hey guys, just bought Tales of Xillia for 20 bucks on Black Friday, among other games. Can't wait to play it!

@hhafiz

 

[Yggdrasill17]

It appears that the rest of this board's threads have been consigned to oblivion, so congrats TotA CT for staying just warm enough to fool IGN into believing that this place is still alive.

I was unfortunately unable to find a Zelda 3DS XL as they are sold out everywhere in my area, but Target's 3DS XL sale($149.99) was too good to pass up, so I picked up a Mario & Luigi 3DS system instead.

That's pretty good MightyChicken64, much better than paying full price like I did.

Tales of Zestiria has been announced for PS3; set for worldwide release.

 

[dani_dreamcast]

Damn, this board got obliterated, I'm surprised the CT survived, the ToS board ceased to exist, the (even more dead than this) ToS CT was moved to the Tales series board.

Anyway, I apologize if I don't reply to everyone, some of the stuff being discussed has changed since it was posted (such as PS3-Xbox One) so not much point in addressing points that aren't revelant anymore.
That and there's just so much that's been posted that it's hard to address everything without making a ridiculously huge post.

I guess that's what happens when you wait too long to reply.
But the good news is that this time it only took me a few months rather than a year!
Improvements being made!

The 2DS was a smart move (even though I think the name was another blunder), I'm not a big fan of the shape they went with, it doesn't look particularly confortable, but I haven't had a chance to try the console out yet.
The future of dedicate handhelds has to be cheap and acessible. Hopefully this shows that Nintendo gets that, though I'm thinking that the people at Japan still don't get it and the 2DS only happened due to pressure from NoE and NoA.

There certainly appears to be a growing trend among developers to distort the lines between single player and multiplayer. Always-online games are most likely going to gain more prominence over the course of next gen; to the point where I won’t shocked if anywhere from a third to a half of all games will require an internet connection to play.

There are already released games doing this that are hardly being discussed, NBA 2K14 looks you out of several offline modes if you aren't online.
It's pretty worrying to see the industry keep trying to screw their customers.

The government shutdown is over and old news, but this .gif is so good it's worth posting.

Yes, that was very entertaining to watch, I do love politics. US and my own country politics (my poor poor country) manage to entertain and depress me at the same time.

I hear you on Tales burnout, in fact I’m probably hitting/already have hit that same wall myself(I almost skipped Xillia out of disinterest). Tales of Vesperia was the last Tales game I truly enjoyed, while Graces f and Xillia both fell short in different ways.

Glad I'm not the only one that's been feeling burnt of the series, though I haven't played as many games as you guys, infact I haven't played any of the "current/last" gen (what are we calling the PS360 gen this days?) tales games, still I find that I tend to tire myself faster than most people.

What’s slightly more surprising, however, is the casual dismissal of said differences as “pixel counting” that “no one will notice” from numerous gaming journalists. Really? Apparently, a 56% deficit in resolution(or 125% in Call of Doggie’s case), a less consistent framerate, and less detailed/missing effects are somehow insignificant compared to the much smaller differences between 360 and PS3 multi-plats. Unbelievable.

That coupled with people constant dismissal of the PC, the hypocrisy of this type of arguements used to annoy me, now it just baffle and amuse me.

Either way my hype is pretty low for all three consoles. The software isn't there (to my tastes anyway) and the hardware isn't quite the generational leap we've grown accustomed to. But I guess it's good that PC gaming won't be held back tech-wise with the newer machines.

Same here, I'm thinking of skipping the Xbox one (at least until it's extremely cheap), and probably pick up a PS4 in 2-3 years when it gets a more interesting lineup.
So far none of the consolse have anything that I want, and I'll be avoiding the Xbox one for as long as I can.

I might pick up a Wii U this year or the next though, depending on the price and which games are actually released this year in Europe (I am not particularly confident we'll see X here, or in the US, this year). Plus I expect the price to keep falling, if not from Nintendo side, from stores trying to clear out the console.

.OH, OH, did anyone get the latest Ace Attorney game?? Honestly that's probably the main reason I'm now trying to get a 3DS asap. >_>;

I did, enjoyed it, had some issues with it, but can't go into that too much without discussing spoilers.
With that said, I'd say it's a game worth $30.

Late reply, I know, but thanks~ (and hopefully it won't be too long for you either if you really want one!)

You're welcomed!

And it will probably be a long time before that happens, if ever.
If things don't change, I might just start considering adopting (a year or two after getting a stable job) in the not that-far-away-but-not-immediate-future.

Meh I'm a bit burnt out trying to make people play the game (you're not the only one) so I don't really care anymore (*cough*though you ARE missing out on a great game so nyah*cough* )

Hey, I actually tried and played some 18 hours of it!
That's more time than I spent on games that I enjoyed and ended (some of which several times!)

Zelda: ALBW has some excellent use of 3D from what I've read(better than Mario 3D Land supposedly), so if that game is of interest to you then I'd definitely go for an OG 3DS. I'm thinking of finally jumping into the 3DS as well, and the ALBW 3DS XL is looking very tempting(OG 3DS is too small and uncomfortable for my hands).

I just ended up playing ALBW in 2D, I find that I always go back to 2D in games. I have yet to play a 3D game on 3DS that has impressed me (or didn't hurt/tire my eyes).

It appears that the rest of this board's threads have been consigned to oblivion, so congrats TotA CT for staying just warm enough to fool IGN into believing that this place is still alive.

Sad to see places you spent so many years on just disappeir, even if they're dead now.
Guess it's only a matter of time before this board follows the same fate.

 

[dani_dreamcast]

Today is a sad day.
Eusébio Da Silva Ferreira died today.

He was one of the best football players ever, a national symbol, and a true legend.

It really can't be explained how much he meant in Portugal.

Rest in peace.

 

[dani_dreamcast]

I've posted more in the past few days than I did in the last few yerars!

So, a bit of "live blog" but I don't really have anywhere else to post this, and I feel the need to put this out there. I apologize in advance for it.

START OF PERSONAL RANT

Glad 2013 is over, between my grandfather quick health deterioration between last December and April and eventual death, and DC breaking with me in early April which was a situation that lasted until August (won't really detail it here, not the place to do so, if anyone wants to hear what happen just talk with me via some other way) this was a really shitty year.

To make manners worst I was pretty unmotivated in college as was my one friend that went to the college, and during the summer he decided to drop college and get a job.

So I was back at being by myself in college again when class started, it suddendly felt like my life went back a good 5-6 years into the past.

Decided to focus on the class I actually wanted to do, Design and Development of Games.
There was another class I wanted to take (Natural Language) but it conflicted with the gaming class.

This was by far the best class I ever had., the theorical classes were interesting and covered a wide array of topics that interested me.
The first assigment we had was to do a 5 minute presentation about the "Game of your life", justifying why that was your choice, obviously I went with Metroid Prime (it was the first game to make me consider gaming from a design perspective, so I thought it was a fitting choice).
After that we were drawn into random groups (good for me since I'm awful at socializing and I knew no one) and each group had to do a variation of Hex, the pratical classes themselves was just playing each other groups creations, give feedback, and receive feedback.

The assigment after was (again with random groups) playing a specific board game in the pratical classes (two weeks) and then analizing the board game based on some questions the teachers gave us.

Eventually came the actual game project, each student was to submit an idea, the ideas would be up on the site anonymously, and you voted on the 5 that you wanted to work the most.
Unfortunately most of the ideas came off more as themes than ideas (I can't blame the people though, you had very little space to actual talk about the idea), or just too big for the class.
Somehow my idea went through (just barely), which I wasn't too confident (overheard people that knew each other talking about voting for each other, plus wasn't sure I had explained my idea well enough).
That was a pretty surreal experience, especially since I was the first one to be announced and teacher had told us, literally a few minutes before, that we had to go and talk about the idea to the whole class.
Got a group done, and surprising the project went really well, at the end of semester I got some good feedback from my classmates, and the teachers themselves really liked the result and want us to continue it for the class that follows this one during the next semester (one of the teachers was pretty shocked when I said "Not sure, we haven't discussed it yet" when he asked if we were going to continue the project, must have been the first time he heard a response like that after praising a project).

Apparently next semester we're going to work with people from out of college, such as art student (they had a couple of people, I think teachers, from an art school watching our presentation), so that should be an interesting experience.

So now there's this huge expectation for the project to go somewhere and for us to continue, which is pretty nice, but also a bit daunting. Though at this point I have no choice but to go ahead and make it happen!

Also started going to a gym to try and gain shape and fix some of the issue I did with to my body in the last few years by the amount of time I spent on the time. Haven't been going as much as I'd like, but at least I'm actually going to the gym now. Hoping to be able to get a routine of going there three times a week (rather than 1-2 right now).

I'm also working in a small project for Android with Kirby and DragonStorm, I might post a small web demo for PC soon if you guys are interested in trying it.
Our aim is just to get something out, and I'm planning to have it finished by the end of the month.

I would also share the college project, but since it involves a couple classmates and the college itself I'll (unfortunately) keep it to myself for the moment.

The holidays season has been a bit shitty, just served to make me feel alone and unaccomplished, plus the situation with DC still tends to come up in my mind, and the conjunction of the holidays and a couple dreams about DC lead me to feel pretty down and into a spiral of sadness and depression in the last few weeks. But not much to do regarding that.

Here's hoping for a better 2014.

END OF PERSONAL RANT

I might make a post talking about some of the games I played in 2013 in the coming weeks, but for now I think this posts is big enough, and just wanted to let you guys know I'm alive.

Best news of 2013: The return of Nine Inch Nails
Disappointing News of 2013: No Nine Inch Nails date for Portugal in 2013 and nothing announced for 2014. No SMT IV release date announced.

I'm currently playing Bravely Default and Dust An Elysian Tail, just finished A Link Between Worlds (which I enjoyed quite a bit), Guacamelee and Thomas Was Alone, been playing Long Live The Queen on and off (got to the end a couple of times) as well as Pro Evolution Soccer 2014.

I also have ToS 1+2 Collectors edition pre-ordered, wasn't planning to, but Amazon.co.uk put it up (mistakingly I assume) with the same price as the regular edition, and I was able to do a pre-order before the item was delisted.

More importantly, Dark Souls 2 PC version collectors edition pre-ordered as well (I could really do without the statue, but unfortunately there's too much stuff missing from the Black Armor Edition compared to collectors).

2014 already started badly with Eusébio death. Here's hoping it was just an awful start to a great year.
And with this pictures, I'll end the post, really nothing more needed to be said.

 

[hhafiz]

So in the past four weeks, I have…

- beat Ace Attorney Dual Destinies’ DLC case (beat the main story a couple weeks before that)
- rewatched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
- rewatched Death Note
- And of course, been busy with this little munchkin here…

She’s about one week old in that picture~ <3

Zelda: ALBW has some excellent use of 3D from what I've read(better than Mario 3D Land supposedly), so if that game is of interest to you then I'd definitely go for an OG 3DS. I'm thinking of finally jumping into the 3DS as well, and the ALBW 3DS XL is looking very tempting(OG 3DS is too small and uncomfortable for my hands).

Oh that's good to hear, I will probably end up getting it somewhere down the road.

hey guys, just bought Tales of Xillia for 20 bucks on Black Friday, among other games. Can't wait to play it!

[URL='http://www.ign.com/boards/members/hhafiz.688424/']@hhafiz[/URL]

Awesome, have you played it yet?? Probably already past me by this point

It appears that the rest of this board's threads have been consigned to oblivion, so congrats TotA CT for staying just warm enough to fool IGN into believing that this place is still alive.

I was unfortunately unable to find a Zelda 3DS XL as they are sold out everywhere in my area, but Target's 3DS XL sale($149.99) was too good to pass up, so I picked up a Mario & Luigi 3DS system instead.

That's pretty good MightyChicken64, much better than paying full price like I did.

Tales of Zestiria has been announced for PS3; set for worldwide release.

Haha, we will never die!

Oh that M&L system looks pretty good too! I probably would've gotten that if I didn't get the Zelda LE 3DS that I mentioned.

As for Zestiria...not sure how surprised people will be but I have like, zero interest for this game--I'm disappointed enough that they (again) have to supposedly rely on anniversary milestones to promote their products, let alone something that's a good two years ahead of the 20th anniversary. Couple with the fact that the graphics don't seem to have any improvement over Xillia and, well, this is probably going to be the first Tales that I don't pre-order (besides TotA 3DS but that was a copy of the PS2 game anyway).

I did, enjoyed it, had some issues with it, but can't go into that too much without discussing spoilers.
With that said, I'd say it's a game worth $30.

Yeah I just beat it too and it was pretty good. (SPOILERS) [hl=black]Though I didn't like the "primary" villain -- I would've preferred someone who we actually knew (if it was simply Bobby Fulbright, that would've been interesting, but a part of me died when I heard that the real one was killed <_<;; ) and not someone who we don't really "meet" until the very end.[/hl] (end spoilers)

Hey, I actually tried and played some 18 hours of it!
That's more time than I spent on games that I enjoyed and ended (some of which several times!)

Well at least you played a good bit then. I finally picked up the 3DS version for myself, though it's more intended to be a "back-up" in case something happens to my PS2 disc/file (since I'm not thrilled about having to play through the game again without New Game+ bonuses and all the things I earned from my PS2 playthroughs).

Glad 2013 is over, between my grandfather quick health deterioration between last December and April and eventual death, and DC breaking with me in early April which was a situation that lasted until August (won't really detail it here, not the place to do so, if anyone wants to hear what happen just talk with me via some other way) this was a really shitty year

Sorry to hear about your grandfather. And wow I didn't realize you and DC were no longer together. I'm curious to know what happened actually (you can message me via PM) but if you don't want to talk about it then I understand.

I'm also working in a small project for Android with Kirby and DragonStorm, I might post a small web demo for PC soon if you guys are interested in trying it.
Our aim is just to get something out, and I'm planning to have it finished by the end of the month.

Sounds interesting! Good luck to you guys~

The holidays season has been a bit shitty, just served to make me feel alone and unaccomplished, plus the situation with DC still tends to come up in my mind, and the conjunction of the holidays and a couple dreams about DC lead me to feel pretty down and into a spiral of sadness and depression in the last few weeks. But not much to do regarding that.

Here's hoping for a better 2014.

Agreed!

Also sorry to hear about the football/soccer player's death -- I can imagine that'd be like Michael Jordan dying for us (at least, it would be for me >.>; )

 

[dani_dreamcast]

So in the past four weeks, I have…

- beat Ace Attorney Dual Destinies’ DLC case (beat the main story a couple weeks before that)
- rewatched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
- rewatched Death Note
- And of course, been busy with this little munchkin here…

She’s about one week old in that picture~ <3

Congratulations! Looks like a cute baby, and I'm happy to see that everything (as far as I can tell) went well!

I can't think of any other thing to say that you probably haven't heard a dozen times already so I'll just stick with that



Sounds like some great (and busy) weeks!

Yeah I just beat it too and it was pretty good. (SPOILERS) [hl=black]Though I didn't like the "primary" villain -- I would've preferred someone who we actually knew (if it was simply Bobby Fulbright, that would've been interesting, but a part of me died when I heard that the real one was killed <_<;; ) and not someone who we don't really "meet" until the very end.[/hl] (end spoilers)

[hl=black]I was pretty sad when I heard that the real Fullbright was dead, especially since we "knew" him considering that the villain acted (supposedly) exactly like him. I'm honestly not a big fan of it always being someone we knew, rather than solving the case I end up more busy trying to find out who it is, and it's really not surprising anymore.
It also annoyed me how Phoenix basically did the same as the prossecutors did and just blindly defended Athena, I really wish they would had went with the angle of her accidently killing her mother (while trying to save her), it would had been more interesting both for Athena story and for Phoenix as well.
Especially for Phoenix, he keeps talking about wanting to find the truth but yet he refuses to acknowledge any truth that's inconvient to him, and I thought it was just a convinent a coup-out for them to backtrack with Athena being "guilty" of her mother death. He ended up being right due to pure-luck and nothing more.
[/hl]

As a side note, Athena outift really annoyed me, both Phoenix and Apollo look a bit over-the-top with their hair, but they still dress like how one would imagine attorneys dress. Athena looks nothing like an Attorney, she looks like a highschool kid with a tie. The yellow makes it especially hard to take her serious.
With that said I enjoyed her character, thought it brought something different to the game.

Also the best case was [hl=black] the third one, unfortunately they made the real culprit obvious from the start, which was a shame, but it was still a fun case and a fun character.[/hl].

Well at least you played a good bit then. I finally picked up the 3DS version for myself, though it's more intended to be a "back-up" in case something happens to my PS2 disc/file (since I'm not thrilled about having to play through the game again without New Game+ bonuses and all the things I earned from my PS2 playthroughs).

I'd be shocked if you hadn't picked it up!
You could always look into backing the PS2 disc/file on PC (if you're up for that type of stuff anyway)!
But yeah, I can imagine it being annoying to pay without the stuff you got through the years.
It's a shame that you can't transfer the saves around.

Sorry to hear about your grandfather. And wow I didn't realize you and DC were no longer together. I'm curious to know what happened actually (you can message me via PM) but if you don't want to talk about it then I understand.

Thanks. It was all at once so it was a pretty... annoying time.
Anyway, I'll hit you with a PM, it's a bit of a long story (thus me posting first) so I'll get on it after this post and send it to you soon.

Sounds interesting! Good luck to you guys~

I like how it sounds interesting before I even detail what it is!
Glad to know that the "team" is enough to get people interested
Thanks, we'll need some of that!

Also sorry to hear about the football/soccer player's death -- I can imagine that'd be like Michael Jordan dying for us (at least, it would be for me >.>; )

A bit like that, yeah, now imagine that Michael Jordan was a figure of joy and proud to the "people" during a time of dictatorship and also the biggest symbol of your country for decades

 

[frdrizzt]

Regarding a couple of the comments here: the board will get shut down, but after the CT is moved to the regular tales series board at some unknown point in the future. This thread will remain intact on the other board. Your history isn't going to be deleted.

 

[TheRedDelicious]

Regarding a couple of the comments here: the board will get shut down, but after the CT is moved to the regular tales series board at some unknown point in the future. This thread will remain intact on the other board. Your history isn't going to be deleted.

You're a monster.

 

[kain8972]

anyone excited for tales of symphonia cronicles hope they a new stage to it. Also it gonna both tos and tos 2 hopefully they added more stages and monster and other stuff.

 

[dani_dreamcast]

Shame about this board disappeiring in the future, but hardly a shock.

anyone excited for tales of symphonia cronicles hope they a new stage to it. Also it gonna both tos and tos 2 hopefully they added more stages and monster and other stuff.

It will be the same games as before, the only new thing will be the PS2 additions (which never made it's way out of japan).

 

[hhafiz]

...Can't believe it's been nearly a year since the last post. <.<;;

(Well I did wonder where this thread went after they took down the board, so glad that this is still intact!)

Now to try and get everyone back here again...

 

[MightyChicken64]

...Can't believe it's been nearly a year since the last post. <.<;;

(Well I did wonder where this thread went after they took down the board, so glad that this is still intact!)

Now to try and get everyone back here again...

OMG HI2U

how have you been?!

 

[dani_dreamcast]

...Can't believe it's been nearly a year since the last post. <.<;;

(Well I did wonder where this thread went after they took down the board, so glad that this is still intact!)

Now to try and get everyone back here again...

I guess I was technically the last one to post on the TOTA CT in the TOTA board.
To think I'd beat you on that!

Anyway, I'll be here if you guys will too.

 

[kain8972]

I guess its safe to assumethe majority of us went to the tales of zestira board