Mar 092016
It’s finally time to review Tales of Zestiria.
My screenshot Let’s Play stands as a testament to the way my feelings toward Zestiria changed. It went from being a game I loved to one I can’t honestly recommend. By the end, it left me with many questions, the most important of which is simple:
What went wrong?
See, Tales of Zestiria isn’t a bad game. It’s not like Sticker Star, where I can rant about how awful it was, or even Final Fantasy XIII.
For about 40 hours of Tales of Zestiria, it was fantastic. I thought it might be better than even Tales of Xillia, which I loved.
While Zestiria still doesn’t have a world map, it has much larger areas to explore than Xillia, which made it feel more like I was on an epic journey. The awesome soundtrack helped, too.
You gain certain field actions you can perform, such as casting flames ahead of you. This reminded me a bit of the Sorcerer’s Ring in Symphonia, and I enjoyed using new powers to pass obstacles I couldn’t cross before. This comes into play for puzzles in dungeons, especially the trial shrines. Characters also have support abilities, which allow you to do many things, such as detect discovery points, make recovery items, and (my favorite) increase your movement speed after a battle or overheard NPC chatter.
The combat system is controversial, but I didn’t mind having the two human party members locked into my battle party. Since each seraph was tied to an element and could be switched out instantly, the restriction never bothered me.
And Tales of Zestiria is funny.
I praised Xillia for its humor, but parts of Zestiria felt like outright comedy, such as Sorey’s poor acting attempt where he described himself as the “son of a provincial lard.”
The character interactions are fantastic and led to some of the funniest skits I’ve seen. Whether it’s Edna’s sarcasm or Lailah’s vow causing her to go into random mode, they were thoroughly entertaining.
The story had plenty of potential, with Sorey as the messianic Shepherd up against the Lord of Calamity, and a convoluted “malevolence” system that could have been really cool if they explored the depths of its shaky morality.
And then it all falls apart.
This isn’t like Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, where I can still enjoy and recommend it despite an awful plot twist at the end. I loved Zestiria’s early story, but that love was founded on the belief, the assumption, that it would come together in a satisfactory way… and it doesn’t.
Tales of Zestiria can’t keep track of how malevolence works. Foreshadowing and even plot points come to nothing. Its villains barely get character development (for a full, spoiler-filled rant on how Zestiria fails its villains, go here), loose ends are often wrapped up by characters speculating on what they think might be the case, and a critical plot item is left unexplained because the character involved “forgot.”
Instead of deep, its morality system becomes downright bizarre as it tries to put forth an extreme anti-war message while one of the heroes is an assassin who never feels guilt. The protagonist slowly accepts killing is necessary, while lamenting his lack of alternatives despite never going out of his way to look for an alternative.
The plot slowly falls to pieces, and all the awesome buildup beforehand feels like the scattered remains of a different, better story.
I believe Tales of Zestiria’s story was radically altered during development and the writers had to scramble to finish it. It’s the only explanation I can think of for the sloppy way it handles certain plot points. And don’t expect the DLC to fix anything. Alisha’s Story is one of the most pointless bonus chapters I’ve ever seen.
What happened, Zestiria? What went wrong?
If you asked me when I started the game, I would have recommended Tales of Zestiria in a heartbeat and said its critics just nitpicked minor issues. Now, however, I can’t honestly recommend it. All I can do is look back on those early hours and dream of the game Tales of Zestiria could have been…
Great review. Seems like a good thing that i have been holding off to buy it. So one less game to buy then. Great review. Again really enjoy how you write. Is tales of graces f good btw?
Thanks, I’m glad the review helped. 🙂
I haven’t played Tales of Graces f yet. I’m still new to the Tales series, so the only ones I’ve played are Tales of Xillia, Tales of Symphonia, and Tales of Zestiria. I’m hoping to play at least one more this year, though.
well your far ahead of me then, i have only played sumphonia witch as you and i say is damn awesome.
omg did i really write symphonia wrong… sorry.
Symphonia was fantastic. 😀 I loved it so much, I even cosplayed Martel last year.
I still wonder what happened to this game. I like the beginnings, but when the end (that didn’t feel like a conclusion at all) happened, I was left with a feeling of emptiness and anger.
Yeah. I spent the early part of Zestiria not understanding why it got such negative feedback from fans, because it was great so far! The further I got into the game, the more I started wondering if it could really bring everything together in a satisfactory way… and then after a certain point, it all fell apart and disappointed me.
It’s not even just the disappointment of playing a bad game, but of playing what could have been a great game and seeing it waste its potential.
I still believe they must have dramatically changed the story partway through writing it (and possibly rushed it after that).
When you said you liked Symphonia I realized that maybe you weren’t as objective as I thought.
First of all, Tales of Zestiria’s Rose is not a person incapable of guilt. The fact that she doesn’t show it doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how. I don’t know why we should even expect people who work as assassins to suddenly show remorse like some kid who’s done something for the first time. We expect dramatic moments of remorse but what for? If Rose felt remorse would that lessen her crime?
Would that make her a “more acceptable assassin”? NO. She would be contradicting herself because when she chose to be an assassin she was as resolved as Alisha and Sorey that what she was doing is justified. You only feel guilt if you think that what you did was wrong and if you did then you better stop. Rose didn’t have to feel guilty because she didn’t have reasons to, not because she was a “poorly-developed” character.
Like what I said in my comments elsewhere no one understands the morality of the MCs because that’s exactly the problematic the game wanted the player to figure out on his own, Morality is no straitjacket that you can tie around a thing to keep it going anywhere. In truth morality is vague, ambiguous, and subjective. If it weren’t the world would be a dangerous place where people simply follow the rules of authority as to what is moral or not. Sorey grew up among the seraphim whose concept of morality seemed intutive, not something they’ve consciously taught Sorey. Sorey acts on the basis of loyalty rather than morality, for this reason. Unwittingly he went to war not to end it or favor any political group but to rescue Alisha who was being hostaged. People think he forgot to rescue her eventually but if one were paying attention we know that the hostage thing was just a ruse. Sorey was naive to fall for it but it didn’t mean he was just stupid. More like he cannot take chances when his friends’ lives are on the line. And with Mikleo he was even shown to be more protective.
The Malevolence is not a shitty concept and I don’t know why it’s been thrown around as such. Lord of the Rings has its own version… Starwars’s “dark force” is not far behind… David Eddings’ novels are AMAZING and you don’t see any elaboration or backstory to the “evil” that the hero needs to subdue. Even in our world, have we already answered the problem of evil? If we had, then writers would have little to write about. I think gamers are just used to “evil” as an “enemy” you can slash down or reason with. Again, theories of evil vary and they can be set out as a problematic that we should think about rather than expect writers to dish out to us like we’re incapable of figuring those things out philosophically.
Having said this I continue to be a fan of Zestiria. After all these years, I still believe that it’s the best game I’ve ever played and one that made me realize that the game universe is not all that bad as I thought it was… and then the Tales community started bashing it to bits… I came back to these discussions after 2 years (school is my priority) only to find out how the rabid, exaggerated hate has blown things out of proportion.
If we can talk about our hate 24/7, maybe we can discuss things that we love the same way. All these people selfishly pushing their fave games up the ranks while sh*tting on others’ fave games is UNNECESSARY BASHING. C’mon, I look at other Tales games I see hundred of issues with them, but should I spoil other people’s fun by telling them “your fave game is dumb, it’s illogical and your MC is bland, boring and cliche.” I might feel justified but that’s not a good reason to start a discussion.
The TALES COMMUNITY should be reminded that we are probably forgetting the lessons we learned from the game we ourselves have played. Let’s not use our standard of “fun for me” to break other people’s hearts and tell them “dumb game get out”… I see that a lot you see. Accusations of YOU ARE NOT A TRUE TALES FAN if you like Zesty. Let’s stop the hate. It’s been four years…
Give it a rest. Give my heart a rest. It’s painful to see the same fan community putting up discussions that stretch their hate over miles around…
I wrote this review immediately after I finished Zestiria, so I’m not sure why you’re objecting to people complaining about it after all these years. (Did my review pop up somewhere recent??)
It’s not like I see people discussing their love of Zestiria and interrupt them to tell them they’re wrong. If someone asks me for my opinion of Zestiria, then I’ll tell them. This is my review, about my own feelings on the game, not an attack on people who enjoyed it.
I also loved parts of Zestiria. It had a huge amount of potential, but in my opinion, it just didn’t follow through. The story ended up being a disappointment to me personally. And my issue with malevolence isn’t that it’s a bad concept, but that it’s poorly explained. To me, it felt like Zestiria changed how malevolence worked on a whim depending on what worked best for the plot at any given moment, leading to inconsistencies.