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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-11-30)
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DATE: Thu 10 Jun 2021 21:11 By: HexDSL@Posteo.net
Recently I have been playing a lot of Monster Hunter: Rise on my Nintendo Switch. I have greatly enjoyed getting deep into a game and learning its nuance and subtleties. But the caveat is that I have been playing Monster Hunter with a friend in co-op. Which mean when my friend isn't around, while I could play Monster Hunter, its just not as alluring or as fun.
With this in mind I went into my Steam Library looking for something that I could drop a substantial amount of single player hours in to. The 'Tales of...' series popped up. I had snagged 'Tales of Berseria' a while back in a Steam Sale and now felt like the right time to bask in it.
Berseria seemed to have everything I wanted! A long campaign, Hot anime girl, cute witch, violence, and a story that is told partly in a kind of visual novel form and partly by anime cut-scenes. Also, it runs incredibly well in Proton! I was on-bored, fired up and loading in!
The first few hours of the game were interesting and plot heavy with the right amount of combat vs running around exploring. Except, the combat seemed a but button-mashy to me. I assumed that the tutorial was holding a lot back and went on with my merry exploration and plot "oooooo"-ing.
about six hours of play in an I finally decided to make a video...
My problem with the game is that each button can me mapped to become its own pre-planned combo, so i can but skills 1,2,3,4 or 5,7,4,2 on face button 'A' So pressing that button 4 times will work through the entire combo.
This means that while in theory the combat is more about pre-planning than it is reaction, the reality is that its about pressing one button in multiples of 4.
I'm also pretty sure that its a pretty good combat system for he players who, unlike me, want to get into optimization of attacks and queuing up different skill stacks for different enemy typed. The issue is, that I am no that type of gamer. When I play a JRPG my only plan is ti grind, then grind a little more and finally grind until I literally can not grind any more then one shot all the problems.
So my experience with the game was "press 'A' until fight ends." Not at all ideal. In fact. A bit shit.
I tried a little more after the video, to find some move for the game but as with most games "doing" has to be fun. I partly think that perhaps I would enjoy this game is I could just skip combat sequences. The 'auto' mode doesn't really work for me either as its boring to watch a fight that you are no part of.
I really want the story but really do not want the combat in this case. I feel like if i could add Ys 8's combat into this then I would have a game is LOVE.
Strange thing is that I have very rarely over the years been so annoyed by a mechanic that I literally stop playing a game that I otherwise like.
I'm pretty sure in this case its me not the game that is at fault.
I'll give it another pop later in the year and see if i can warm to it the second time around.