Part 4: Update 4: Jail Time

Update 4: Jail Time

I'll take this moment to explain some stuff about the menu.









Artes are basically just your moves. In older Tales Of games they were sometimes called “techs”, but yeah, your moves.




As we can see, Luca and Iria only have one move each: Demon Fang and First Aid respectively. Demon fang shoots out a projectile (you saw it in the Hypnos fight), and First Aid heals one party member for a mediocre amount of HP.




Next is the equip screen. Standard stuff, here I replace Luca's Tree Branch that he was fighting with (I know, it's weird. In Tales of Symphonia, the main character starts out the game with a pair of wooden swords, and I always loved the idea of the good guy beating people to death with wooden swords...) with the broadsword that Iria so kindly gave me.




Under Library we have a bunch of options. Summery is just a plot synopsis of what's happened so far (which will be useful, let me tell you.), monster book is just a 3D model and information on every enemy you've faced so far, Collector's Book is a list of every item you've ever collected, battle record is just information on your battle stats, and awakening list is a bizarre plot elements that contribute to your “awakening level.”



Next we have “status”. This is a staple of Tales games, basically shows a full body view of your character, in addition to their full stats.






I really like the full body art, it's something I've always liked about Tales games. Innocence has this really neat mechanic of “friendship” that you can see in the top right hand corner.



You can see that Iria and Luca aint very close right now, they're just 'fellow avatars'.


Next is “styles”. This is the cool part. In place of the EX skills from Symphonia or the Special skills from the later games, Styles are how you pimp our your party members. There are in all, 6 styles for each character. You start with Advance (the offense front line one), Wisdom (spellcaster or healer), Guardian (Tank), and Technical (agility, jump height, effectiveness of items, stuff like that). Each style has a level, and as you level them up by grinding battles, you get skills for that particular style. I'll show it off later, but it's really neat stuff like, “more attack for less defense”, “decrease enemy spawn rate”, “increase EXP gained by 90% but lose 90% of your HP”, “prevent staggering”, and more. There are also 2 hidden styles, but we'll get into those later. For now, I'm putting both Iria and Luca on Advance style.



MANDATORY SKIT TIME!
It's just an ingame explanation of styles. Feel free to skip this.





: What, something wrong?

: How exactly do you use that styles section of the menu?

: Oh, that... Well you need to know all your measurements so you can pick the right clothes, nothing you need to worry about.

: You don't sound very sure, do you actually know?

: What? Of course I know!

























I kinda like the 4th wall break here.









Hey, do you like skits? CAUSE SO DO I! Feel free to skip if you don't care.








OH BUT WE'RE NOT DONE, MORE SKITS!






: Maybe if I use a nickname it'll be easier to bridge the gap!

: This is it, I have to do it...

: If I was as smooth as Asura, I could just call her Inanna, but that's impossible for me...























Luca is smooth.

Skit over. From now on, I'm gonna just do all the skits in separate updates, sorry to keep interrupting gameplay!

Anyway, lets go find some items or something.



We have a whopping 100 gald. Not gold, no. Gald. G-A-L-D.
Anyway, standard Tales stuff, Apple Gels are items that restore HP, Orange Gels restore TP (Stands for technical points, basically MP. Back from the days when Artes were called Techs, just weird translation stuff.

Specific and Treat are really neat, they restore HP and TP to the entire party, respectively. They're not as amazing in this game because you can only have 3 people in a battle at once, but they're still useful.

I used our good earned nerd cash to buy a single life bottle, they just revive a fallen ally. Very useful.



These are “Accessories”, they're for sale from the same shop. Extra stuff you can equip on your character, too bad we're too poor for that.



I finally found my way out. I hate not having a map.

MORE MANDATORY SKITS. I would skip it, but its mandatory, so yeah.





Nice. Let's go get the healer!













Luca has it good.






Anyway, now we're on the world map. On the bottom screen we have the world map, and the Navi map. The navi map is literally just a more zoomed in world map. I'm cutting out the bottom screen though, so you don't care.



This is the world map. See those blue dudes? If I touch em, I have to fight 'em.

Let's kill stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ0QMwaXCZc

So as you can see, I was controlling Luca, using our only move at the moment, Demon Fang. Pressing the L button switches your character, so I played as Iria, and shot some people. Pressing R switches your target, and pressing L again switches to the next character, but since we only have 2, we went back to Luca. Then we got to play the “run around and pick up gold” mini game! Shame about that C rank for the fight, though.

After the battle is a cutscene explaining that you can press X while walking around the mainworld to swing your sword. If you hit an enemy with it, they start the battle with less hp. Neat stuff.

They don't mention this until a skit that I skipped, but you can also hold the R button to free run while in battle, it basically lets you walk anywhere outside of the linear target system, like at the end of a battle when you run around and pick up items.

One more thing before we move on, above the HP and TP bars on each character is a red line that fills up and drains depending on how many hits you take, deal, or block in battle. That's called the tension bar. When the tension bar is full, you can press L and R at the same time to “awaken” your character. When in awakening state, you have increased stats, cures all status effects, reduces casting times, and half's TP usage until the tension bar empty's. You can make it last longer by hitting enemies, but it's eventually gonna run out. Think of this like Overlimit in any other Tales game. You can also use your Mystic Arte in Awakening mode, but we haven't even sort of begun to unlock that. We'll talk about that later. Sorry about all the battle exposition, onwards!



Did I say I was done with explaining stuff? Anyway, this is a the Regnum Guild Dungeon. Each major city has a guild, which is basically like a request agency. You can take on requests that are usually “find this dude in the guild dungeon”, “kill this dude in the guild dungeon”, or “wear this armor in the guild dungeon”. Stuff like that. Doing requests levels up your guild rank, and gives you GRADE. GRADE is a currency you gain or lose in battle depending on how well you fought, in addition to getting it from guild quests. GRADE is used to purchase upgrades in the guild shop. Most of it is New Game+ stuff, like keeping items, artes, styles, style points, being able to carry extra items, carrying over battle data, etc. You can also purchase cooking recipes and really powerful weapons from the guild shop. But we have a healer to find, so lets do that instead.




We need to go to the holy city, so lets go south. Oh look, a bridge! And a cutscene!





: Is this the right way to Naos?

: You mean you don't know?

: Miss Animi, I thought that you were leading.

: Man, I was counting on you! Oh, here comes some travelers, lets ask them!





Ew, old people.


: Yes, but it's a fair distance from here, not an easy journey.





Geez.

: Join Arca?






Also, I have a bridge to sell you.


: Fallen? What about the Compulsory Fallen Rehabilitation Program?









: Take care.

…........

: Arca seems to have a good repuation...

: Hmm...

: What's wrong, Miss Ani...

: Stop calling me that!

: Hmm?

: Just Iria is fine.

: …

: I know you're trying to be respectful and all, but we're going to be together for a while.



I'm going to call her Iria, because last dialogue choice I tried to leave her to die. Seems only fair, right?

: S-sure, I understand, Iria.

: All right! Now, lets get a move on.

We walked south some more, hey look, the holy city! Oh shit, cutscene time.









: Hey, that's my companion! You think I'm just gonna let you take him away?



: Like we'd be caught so easily! You have no idea how powerful I am!



NICE GOING LOSER

: I- I can't use my power! I'm just normal, weak me...

: I can't use my Devic Artes either...?





: N-no way...







Hey, it's King Bradley!













Uh oh.

: H-hey, what do you think they're gonna do to us?

: Well... I only think in worst case scenarios. Still wanna hear?

: I-I'll pass.







: Who are you people?!



: Huh? What are you talking about?





: Why are you doing this?! What are you going to do to us?













I like to think that's pronounced, “divas”.



















: Who does that guy think he is?!

: …

: Anyway, there are probably other captured Avatars here, right?

: Maybe there's someone who knows something about the Manifest.

: That's right! We need to get more information some how.



And finally we have control. Welp, we got thrown in mutant jail. Looks like a good stopping place, tune in for the next update! And don't forget to check out the “Update 4 Skits” post, that I'm posting separately from this post.