Gamespot score:n/a
My score:7.8
(+)Pros:-Superb character roster that is even bigger than the previous game,-character creation is still pretty damn solid ,-story quests don't really take forever to show up anymore,-dueling with other characters is still immensely fun,-new gunner class is stupidly broken and pretty damn fun to play with,-all characters level up along with you.
(-)Cons:-Plays and feels much like Tales of the world 2.5,-quest variety STILL sucks,-much of the content is recycled.
Gameplay time:50 hours+
When it comes to a JRPG with solid combat that isn't turn based, there are 2 franchises that nailed it down perfectly. They are the Star ocean series, and of course, the Tales series. In my opinion I prefered the battle system in the Tales games, because they always feel slighty more balanced. Tales of the world features characters from previous Tales games all in one game, and that is pretty awesome. With the increasing sequels, the step up in quality can be seen from the original Tales of the world to Tales of the world 2, but from 2 to 3, that increase in quality is slighty deminished here. Most players will realise that not much has changed! Everything feels the same, and believe me quite an amount of things are. But still, nonetheless, its a fun game, and I enjoyed my time here from beginning to end. If you like the Tales series, this is another one you should play.Since I have been brushing up on my japanese via animes and school classes, the plot isn't that difficult to grasp :). It starts off mostly the same as Radiant mythology 2, as you, the descender of the world tree of the current world, are found by Kannono, a member of the van elita. As usual, you are brought to the Van Elita, and to prove that you aren't just some freeloader, you work as one of them, receiving quests and helping out folks from all over the world. The members of the Van Elita are characters from previous Tales games, as usual, plus Kanono, the exclusive of the RM games. Of course as the plot thickens you are pushed to bigger and more pressing issues, other than just everyday quests. With mysteries of the red mist, and the emergence of the princesses (Estelle, Natalie etc), and later, the crisis of crystallization, things start to get busy for you and the people of the Van elita as you try to unravel the mysteries of the world.
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| Character creation is nuts! |
Well the first obvious thing to fans of the series that they will expect, is of course, the character roster. Its a relief though that the character roster, has indeed expanded yet again. If you thought that RM 2 had a large roster, think again, the roster in RM 3 will knock your nuts off. Not only are there the new characters from the new serieses (TOS:Dawn of the new world, Tales of grace f etc), there are also additions from older games that make their debut in RM 3. You have characters that you'd never expect to make into a RM game, characters like Van (Tales of the abyss), Flyn (Tales of vesperia) and many more.
Its also worth noting that all the characters level up as you do, so you don't really have to grab a few level 1 characters and grind them like mad anymore. Awesome. As usual you can totally go nuts with your party, mixing the characters around like mad...same with the character creation. If I'm not wrong, this is one aspect they really worked on, you can totally go nuts with the new expressions, hairstyles and colours. You can even make your own Sharingan character! The above picture might give you more info about how crazy you can go.
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| Playing as other characters still feels badass as F**k. |
Now lets go over some of the more gameplay related stuff. For one, the story quests in the game show up way quicker than those in RM 2, and that is of course a good thing. Reduced padding is always a good thing, and everyone wants to get on with the story, rather than do repititive fetch quests. The quest vareity is the same as RM 2, with your basic fetch, kill and occasional mini boss quest. You can also accept quests directly from other Tales characters, which they will take you on more of these basic quests or more special quests. These include quests to recruit other characters, or duels, which are my personal favourite thing in the RM games.
Duels are self explanatory, you talk to a character that gives out a quest, then go out alone to the specified location and fight that character one on one. These are mostly protagonists of the other Tales games (Luke, Stahn, Asbel etc), and these are just as badass as ever. Fighting your favourite protagonist in a 1v1 match against your very own character is just epic, and triumphing over them feels great, especially since most of these fights can be quite challenging (that Emile fight was superb!). Another new addition is the gunner class, which is the master of keepaway. The gunner is STUPIDLY broken, and needless to say, is ridiculously fun to play. While it is the only new class to the game, it makes up for it for being the most fun and unique class in the game.
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| The gunner class is ridiculously fun to play. |
Okay, the big thing about RM 3....is that alot of stuff is recycled. This won't come off as a suprise, since the game feels so much like RM 2! The quest system, the Van Elita, and the way the game plays out....its just RM 2 on steroids. Monster models are recycled, and same with some of the characters. The artes they learn and even on which level they learn it.....its the same and its obvious that they just copy and pasted much of the stuff from RM 2. And, like they ALWAYS do, the quests are friggin repititive. I'll leave it at that, I'm tired of explaining it again.
All in all RM 3 feels a little too recycled. They should have just called the game RM 2.5 and I would have been fine with it, but as it is now it doesn't feel right to call it RM 3. Still, I had a ridiculously good time with RM 3(maybe even more so than RM 2), but giving it more than an 8.0 just seems biased. As it stands giving it a high 7 is fine, because even so, its still boasts a good amount of new content via new the characters and tweaks to the gameplay mechanics. If you liked previous RM games, its safe to say RM 3 will devour your play hours by the dozens, and you won't even know it.
OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! All the little chibi Kanonos in the world! All mine~~~~
Happy gaming!
