Tales of Symphonia: Quick Impressions

Games
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Sorry for the frustrated tone of my post, but god damn is this ever incredibly frustrating. I’m fighting an optional boss, the Sword Dancer, and Genis just INSISTS on running in to take whacks with his utterly worthless little toy weapon, instead of staying at range and using magic as I ordered him to do. I’ve got him set for L-Range Magic, Attack Far, and Use Skills Freely. Do I have something set wrong here? Is there some different setting I need to use that’s the equivalent of HEY STUPID LITTLE DIES IN ONE HIT MAGIC USER STOP SHOVING YOUR FACE UP THE ASS OF THE BOSS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE CASTING SPELLS ON? Really, really, really frustrating.

edit: Also, I’ve noticed that the title guides seem to be pretty inaccurate. I was able to get several of Lloyd’s titles without problem, but Kratos just CANNOT seem to get a single title - not his “don’t dash” title, not his “no special attacks” title, and CERTAINLY not his “tetra slash” title. Irksome.

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How does the story/characters compare to Skies of Arcadia? Or Chrono Trigger?

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I see. I had to boot up my own version to make sure of this, because of translation differences, but I think I know how the Japanese corresponds. Attack Far only has an effect on which enemies they select to attack, it doesn’t make them attack far away from themselves, distance wise. And its not going to have any affect on a battle with one enemy. L-Range Magic is a guideline, when you set it to that, they will still make close-range attacks (most often when 2 or more characters are charging in to the enemy, the AI will “think” it should get in some free hits to keep its TP high while the enemy is stunned by the other attacks, these are called “TP rushes”). If Genis lived longer, you would notice that this would be the case, he would cast long-range magic mostly, but duck in and attack every once in a while. This is also because you’ve put him on Use Skills Freely, which gives him the decision when and where. The thing about the translation I’m not sure is, the first option in every AI column is ALWAYS to tell the character to act as they think should act. You shouldn’t assume its intelligent, either, just intuit from how they act in the storyline. For instance, natural Collete will try clumsy things. Kratos is always taking a lecturely, use-your-advantage, watch-the-battle stance in the story scenes, so you’ll see him concentrate on defensive tactics if you let him act as he wants. Genis is over-eager and gets him itself into trouble, which is why in a boss fight, you seldom ever want to let him “Use Skills Freely.” Just because you asked him to use long-range magic doesn’t mean he’ll use it at long-range distance all the time.

The magic rule in Tales AI, is that characters try to be self-sufficient (TP-wise) and join in combos. Since magic takes charge time, Genis will almost always start the battle rushing in, wait a bit until there’s an opening and then chant a spell, under those settings. The assumption is for normal battles, where he’ll usually start out with less TP and thus try to preserve a certain amount, even if you haven’t set the exact amount.

I’m not sure what its called in English, but there should be a setting for Genis in the same column where you get long-range magic, and it should say something like avoid the enemy or keep distance from the enemy. Now set him to anything else besides “Use Skills Freely,” which will override his personality controls. Since its a really difficult boss fight, maybe the one that tells them to go all out from the start is wise, as they’ll start busting out techniques the second battle starts. I don’t THINK at this point you can get any close-range skills for Genis, though I’m not sure where you are, but if you have some, turn them off in the tech screen.

edit: Also, I’ve noticed that the title guides seem to be pretty inaccurate. I was able to get several of Lloyd’s titles without problem, but Kratos just CANNOT seem to get a single title - not his “don’t dash” title, not his “no special attacks” title, and CERTAINLY not his “tetra slash” title. Irksome.

Err, you can’t get those for Kratos. The only one you can get is Tetra Slash and that you will have to take make a four-hit combo by controlling him, without help from other characters. Just because one character can get titles doesn’t mean every character can the same titles. Kratos gets very different titles from everyone else and seldom do they have anything to do with what he does in battle.

-Kitsune

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Kitsune: The “title” faq’s I’ve seen claim that Kratos can get a title for not dashing in one battle, and can also get a title for using no special attacks. Neither those, nor doing a tetra slash with him (I’ve already unlocked tetra slash as a title for Lloyd, so know how to perform it) work for giving him a title. Pretty irksome, actually.

As far as the AI goes, yeah, I know how Use Skills Freely works, but thought it would basically stick to the “long range magic” setting I gave him. Unfortunately, there seems to be no setting whatsoever that tells him to stay the hell away from enemies, bar the one that makes him not attack at all (hold distance). The “don’t pursue” distance setting doesn’t actually make them stay away from enemies, though you’d think it would. In short, bar taking control of Genis manually, there seems to be no way to keep him away from melee combat with enemies at all times - which is really irksome.

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Actually, this is hilarious - Kratos has a specific command you can select, telling him “do not use normal attacks, only use long range skills and magic”… whereas Genis, the tiny fragile little mage, does NOT. That’s just stupid.

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Well, he can’t. At least not in the Japanese version. If they changed something, I dunno. But its 100% confirmed that he can’t in the Japanese version. Do you know want to know which ones he can get?

As far as the AI goes, yeah, I know how Use Skills Freely works, but thought it would basically stick to the “long range magic” setting I gave him.

It won’t always because Genis himself is too enthusiastic.

The “don’t pursue” distance setting doesn’t actually make them stay away from enemies, though you’d think it would.

Every time I’ve used they will, well, keep their distance from the enemy. They kind of weave in and out and run away from enemies that approach them if they’re not already charging up a spell. I’m not sure what’s different other than telling Genis to “Use Skills Freely.”

Yeah, they should probably give you some of Kratos AI options for Genis too, just to make it more self-explanatory.

Other than that, I don’t know what to tell you. My sages, well, stay away when I tell them to, so if you’ve done everything I said, the same should happen for you. shrugs :?

-Kitsune

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I just ended up setting 2 of Genis’ spells to the C-stick and manually force him to cast that way. If I want his other spells, I’ll open the menu and Tech him to do it. Annoying, yes, but it’s really the only way I can keep the little smart-ass from running up to mobs and hitting them with his toy.

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Kitsune: I’ll give it a shot with some of the settings you suggested. Maybe I just need to hit the “sweet spot” of sensible behavior. And, yes, I’d love to know what titles Kratos is eligible for, since every American source for the info seems to be giving out the WRONG info. Thanks! Now I just have to figure out why Max suddenly vanished on “sudden business” instead of taking me out on his boat like he was supposed to. I suspect it’s because instead of immediatly leaving for the sea voyage, I took the overland route to power up and explore and have some fun, and ended up meeting Sheena a few more times, going to a bunch of different towns, etc. Oh, and promising to go to the tower of mana, which I don’t seem to be able to get to without the mountain pass.

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In order to get the guy with the boat to appear again, you have to either leave immediately without going and doing that stuff in the region, or complete all the quests in that region and then go back to the docking town. The reason why is the slight changes to the storyline don’t make any sense if they let you do both.

You already know Kratos can get Tetra Slash, again, if you’re having trouble, he can’t team up with anyone else to defeat the enemy. This is the ONLY in-battle nickname you can get.

Most of them will appear after events. One will appear after a certain story event, two others will appear after an optional story event. In order not to spoil, I didn’t think you’d want the details on these. ;) Just that they happen and the optional event is kind of obvious.

Three will appear once you reach a certain level with Kratos.

One you will get from the coliseum (come now, this shouldn’t be a surprise, every cliched RPG has a coliseum! ;))

The last one you will get from a certain meeting with the Wonder Chef.

I could get more detailed, but you’re not at any part to get more except maybe his first “level” title.

Two last things to remember in battle concerning long-range attacks with mages is that enemies will often try to get to your mages and since they can’t move while charging a spell, in the heat of battle, it can look like they aren’t avoiding enemies at all. Depending on the enemy, you can either lure them away, or intercept, but when it comes to super-strong enemies like the ones you are facing, sometimes your mages will get stuck between other characters or enemies, or get hit by a long-range attack and not actually be able to get away. You’ll have to watch pretty diligently for this.

The other thing is, when this happens, its often helpful to reverse formations (you know where their heads are listed on a graph where each of the strategies are).

In older Tales games, mages used to stay off-screen and pelt the enemy with magic in most cases, unmolested. In order to advance battle strategy, latter games starting making the enemy AI a little tougher in selecting out mages, so the the battle strategy shifted more to stunning and incapicitating enemies by watching their battle patterns. (I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this yet but every single Tales boss has a predictable battle pattern and that goes for Symphonia as well. Symphonia’s bosses are actually less varied than Eternia’s and Destiny 2’s.)

So if you haven’t been using these things yet, those are some other things you might try. :)

In any case, I’m going to sleep now, so hopefully things work out for you from now on.

-Kitsune

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Hrm. I bet I know which change wouldn’t make sense. Okay, I guess I’ll have to figure out how to get into the tower of Mana. Shouldn’t be a big deal, I’m kitted up fairly well now (for being at level 15), and everyone’s got customized gear. As far as mage attack avoidance goes, frankly, I’d be happy if they just didn’t run AT the enemy. AVOIDING the enemy would just be icing on the cake. Thanks for the information about Kratos’ titles - gamefaqs lists SEVERAL in-battle titles for him, so clearly that guy radically fucked up. Thanks very, very much for the correction, Kitsune. Now, back to trying to get the next “combo” title. I managed to get up to 25 attacks in the Sword Dancer fight, but couldn’t make it to 30, which was quite frustrating. I’m hoping that you-know-who, with the cards, will have some rapidfire attacks I can chain a longer combo off of, or a guaranteed stunner. Angel Feathers is too expensive in TP and doesn’t stun frequently enough to be worthwhile in that role. Or at least, not reliable.

Anyway, thanks again, Kitsune - loving this game, apart from the aforementioned gripes.

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Final Fight?!?!

My question is: How does the fighting work, compared to Tales of Destiny 2 and Star Ocean 2?

In SO2, pressing the action button meant that your character would RUN TOWARD THE ENEMY, and attack it.

In ToD2, I believe the action button worked as it should: simply attacking the area in front of you.

Pretty much anything short of Chrono Cross would be an improvement on those stories/characters :)