# Best Tales Game?



## Zaelapolopollo (Aug 17, 2014)

*Best Story?

Best Characters?

Best Gameplay?*


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## Krory (Aug 17, 2014)

*Best Story*: Tales of Phantasia

*Best Characters*: Klarth (ToP), Sheena (ToS), Rita and Raven (ToV)

*Best Gameplay*: ToV

I only played those three.


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## Undead (Aug 17, 2014)

Best Story: Tales of Xillia.

Best Characters*: Gaius (Xillia. Best Tales character hands down.)* Alvin (Xillia) Malik (Graces) Zelos (Symphonia) Moses (Legendia) Jade (Abyss)

Best Gameplay: Toss up between Xillia and Graces.


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## Esura (Aug 18, 2014)

*Best Story:* Tales of Graces f

*Best Characters:* Sophie (Tales of Graces f), Milla Maxwell (Tales of Xillia), Colette (Tales of Symphonia)

*Best Gameplay:* Tales of Graces f

I played Tales of Vesperia, Tales of Symphonia (some of it), Tales of the Abyss (half of it), Tales of Graces f, Tales of Xillia, and Tales of Innocence (some of it).


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## Krory (Aug 18, 2014)

Esura said:


> *Best Story:* Tales of Graces f
> 
> *Best Characters:* Sophie (Tales of Graces f), Milla Maxwell (Tales of Xillia), *Colette (Tales of Symphonia)*
> 
> ...



That explains a lot.


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## The Pirate on Wheels (Aug 18, 2014)

This turned into a bunch of reviews.

My favorite story so far is *Graces f.*


*Spoiler*: _Story Spoiler_ 



You start as the 11 year olds who go against all authority, pick up a mysterious girl, and go one adventures beating everything to death.  Instead of it all working out, you almost all die by encountering a super monster, and the mysterious girl dies saving your lives, and the hero runs off to join the knight academy in a tantrum.  It's a complete subversion of the sassy reckless kid heroes are always right and awesome.

Later you come back as a well meaning mature adult, putting his dreams on hold to take his place for the betterment of his hometown and people, and accepting full responsibility for his childish actions, but all of his childhood friends and family resent him for various reasons.  The only one who accepts his is the prince, and new king, who is now possessed by evil, but ironically still nice to you.  

At the end of this set up, you successfully find yourself in the position of the best friend of the evil overlord helping him take over the world, and that isn't a position any game I know of has ever put you in.  I think that they ease into it so well, people don't realize what it is, so they don't appreciate that.




Game play wise, it's got an enormously steep learning curve to master the combat system, and it's all very flashy and satisfying when you've gotten it down, and the game has opened it all up to you.  But that takes forever, and integrating each new element into your style is a pain.  Of course you can simply turn down the difficulty and button mash and that will probably work too.  It might even work on normal, but that's not how I play.  

*Symphonia* had extremely fun game play and cool characters, but the story was a little cliche and predictable.  It gets a boost for being the only 4 player RPG out during the time.  This doesn't save it from having a terrible camera system that only focuses on Player one, so P1 has to be camera conscious, or you have to master the art of fighting without a camera, but co-op is there, and that's what's important.

*Symphonia 2* is a good game, but not a very good sequel.  It wasn't given much of a budget, I think because it was in production at the same time as Vesperia, which got a lot of money put into it, and it was also a little rushed.  It has a fun Monster Rancher type mini-game to it, and fun cameos from Symphonia cast, and an interesting premise.  The gameplay is fun, and the battle system is so much improved over Symphonia that it's amazing.  *They fixed the camera.*  Much of the interactions and humor are based on the open crush and doting the female lead Marta shows for the male lead, Emil, and the snark of the black dog summon thing I forgot the name of.  I can see you hating those interactions if you're not into those things, but I found them funny and charming, and done in a tasteful way that kept itself fresh and interesting, instead of letting it devolve into something boring and repetitive.  Which is kind of hard to do.


*Xillia*'s plot is enjoyable and interesting, but the story shines most with showcasing characters and their interactions.  It's the first story in a game that nails the persona of a godly character as someone who's worldview and perspective is different from others, and doesn't present it as intentional godly arrogance.  There frequently aren't evil villains, but rather, antagonists.  The conflict later comes more between a divergence on viewpoints, both on what are important qualities in individuals and leaders, and what path should be taken to reach the same goal.  Particuarly with Gaius, neither side is presented as wrong, and both sides respect each other's view point, and make multiple genuine attempts to discuss the philosophies that drive their actions, in an attempt to work together.  That doesn't ever happen in RPG's or fantasy in general, where morality is always clean cut into black and white and good and bad.  It's also the first Tales game to feature an actually old old person.  You get a party member who's in his 60's.  Wow.  The downsides are that it was also admitted to be rushed.  It's a great product, but it could have been far better if the devs had the time to implement all of the ideas you could see them starting on in the first town.  Every location would have been fleshed out and unique, there would have been two massive worlds to explore, and people would be having idle and interesting conversations as you walked by to show you the city and life in the town, that fade in and out depending on your proximity, and it would have made visiting and idling around towns an experience.  Xillia 2 is supposed to fix all that.  We'll see within the month.

*Vesperia* also had a more adult cast, and a more adult story.  That one centered around you, largely chasing after the guy who should be the hero the game.  That the girl you're with meant to go on a journey with instead.  You're also more of dark hero/vigilante.  The characters and world are great, as is the gameplay.  

This is the first Tales game that I saw really raising the roof on skill level in combat.  Exceptionally long, interesting, and cool combos became possible with different set ups.  So you can button mash, yeah, or you can take the enemy into the skies and rack up a 200 hit combo ending with a cutscene finisher.  The low skill floor, high skill ceiling is something that's become appreciated by certain fans in the Tales series.  Oh, except that the battle system breaks when enemies aren't trying to fight you, and all the enemies focus on one person on harder difficulties.  So hard mode becomes a game of chase for player two.  Also you have to screw around in the settings to make the healer prioritize healing you, which is a flaw.  The game also feels a little unfinished in NA release, which is because it is. They fixed everything in the PS3 remake, but I never played that because it never got localized.  Thanks, Namco.  Even still, this was my favorite combat system.  I feel like it hit the right balance between complexity and simplicity.

*Eternia* has been great so far.  I haven't finished it, and so I can't rate it.  It seems to be filled with high quality SNES goodness.  The remakes are supposed to be much improved, and I'll get to them someday.

*Abyss.*  I hate the main character in Abyss.  I need to finish Abyss, because no one will shut up about how good it is, but none of my friends would play it with me, and I need to track down a PS2 copy so I can do multiplayer and not have to be the main character, which will help me tolerate his presence until the story unfolds and hits the greatness everyone promises me.  Gameplay, from the little bit I did, was awesome and felt good coming off Symphonia.

Those are all of the ones I've played.

My favorite characters:

Symphonia:  Regal, Kratos, Sheena.

Symphonia 2:  MartaxEmil

Vesperia:  Judith, Yuri, Raven, Flynn.  I want to drop kick Karol.

Graces:  Pascel, Sophie, Malik Beam.  Richard in Lineage and Legacies is the best. I really like Asbel too.  Hubert can suck a lemon.

Xillia:  Milla and Gaius stand above all.  Jude, Elize/Teepo.  Leia is girlfriend material.  Rowan in cutscenes.  The Muttan Salesman.

Eternia:  The witch that flies on a broom in battle.  SHE FLIES.  Dhaos seems like a good bad guy.


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## Krory (Aug 18, 2014)

So really, nobody has played Phantasia? Srsly?


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## Reyes (Aug 18, 2014)

Esura said:


> *Best Story: Tales of Graces f*
> 
> *Best Characters:* *Sophie (Tales of Graces f)*



This better be sarcasm.


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## Reyes (Aug 18, 2014)

Best Story: Vesperia

Best Charcters: Yuri, Raven, Rita, Gaius, Jade, and Alvin(Even though the constant will eh betray us now or later thing got old after a while.

Best Gameplay: Graces f (The game only redeeming quality)

Played Vesperia, Graces, Xillia, Abyss, and some of Legendia and Phantasia.


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## Krory (Aug 18, 2014)

Which reminds me, I forget Dhaos (Phantasia) for character.


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## Reyes (Aug 18, 2014)

I need to finish Phantasia.


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## The Pirate on Wheels (Aug 18, 2014)

Same here Yusuke.


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## Seraphiel (Aug 18, 2014)

I did krory, I enjoyed it more than everything but vesperia and gameplay(fight) wise xillia.

Started Xillia 2 two days ago.


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## Krory (Aug 18, 2014)

Thank you, Sera. At least *somebody* knows quality.


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## Esura (Aug 18, 2014)

The Pirate on Wheels said:


> My favorite story so far is *Graces f.*







Reyes said:


> This better be sarcasm.



Nope, not at all. I absolutely adore Graces f story. Ironically, when I got the game day one on it's NA release I was thinking the story would be ass considering all the pre-hype the game had before NA release but I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely one of my favorites not only in Tales of series but out of other JRPGs as well.


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## The Pirate on Wheels (Aug 18, 2014)

Esura said:


> Nope, not at all. I absolutely adore Graces f story. Ironically, when I got the game day one on it's NA release I was thinking the story would be ass considering all the pre-hype the game had before NA release but I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely one of my favorites not only in Tales of series but out of other JRPGs as well.





I wasn't expecting what we got either.


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## Scratchy (Aug 18, 2014)

xillia 2 is coming out in a few days, totally forgot.

it's supposed to be much better than the first one, right?


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## Seraphiel (Aug 18, 2014)

Scratchy said:


> xillia 2 is coming out in a few days, totally forgot.
> 
> it's supposed to be much better than the first one, right?



It's le dark and bloody. Pirated it 3 days ago, only played a bit.

I enjoyed the first one gameplay wise, only gripe was Milla's VA.


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## Foxve (Aug 18, 2014)

I have both graces f and xilla. Haven't even gotten past the beginning of graces f (still at the part where they're kids) or even started xilla. Can someone tell me how xilla's story mode works without spoilers? Do you have to choose ether the guy or the girl at the beginning and stick with said character throughout? Or can you switch between them during the story?


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## The Pirate on Wheels (Aug 18, 2014)

The character you choose matters very little.

There are some cutscenes and points in the game where the party is separated.  If you're in Milla's side, you'll see her perspective on those events and conversations.  If you choose Jude, you'll get his.  Example:  Milla and two party members are going shopping.  Jude and two party members are staying at the inn.  Your choice determines whether you spend 5 minutes shopping with Milla, or 5 minuteshanging around with Jude.  For 90% of the game, the party is together and experiencing things together, so you won't even notice.

I still would suggest going with Jude side first, and then playing Milla side, because I think it's nicer from a narrative sense.  But again, it doesn't ultimately matter.


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## Xiammes (Aug 18, 2014)

The Pirate on Wheels said:


> The character you choose matters very little.
> 
> There are some cutscenes and points in the game where the party is separated.  If you're in Milla's side, you'll see her perspective on those events and conversations.  If you choose Jude, you'll get his.  Example:  Milla and two party members are going shopping.  Jude and two party members are staying at the inn.  Your choice determines whether you spend 5 minutes shopping with Milla, or 5 minuteshanging around with Jude.  For 90% of the game, the party is together and experiencing things together, so you won't even notice.
> 
> I still would suggest going with Jude side first, and then playing Milla side, because I think it's nicer from a narrative sense.  But again, it doesn't ultimately matter.



I played Milla's side first.


*Spoiler*: __ 



The part where you enter the battle with Jude during his fight with the real Maxwell left me as confused as fuck, but I imagine if you played as Jude first, Milla coming back must seem like the biggest asspull ever.


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## Seraphiel (Aug 18, 2014)

Xiammes said:


> I played Milla's side first.
> 
> 
> *Spoiler*: __
> ...



It didn't matter to me cuz Jude went full manmode/husbando mode tanked meteors and punched out a god. I just went with: his husbando energy brought her back.


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## Scizor (Aug 18, 2014)

Tales of the Abyss imo: extremely fun battle system, interesting story, awesome characters that are also well designed and tons of rewarding side-quests.

Also, the opening is the most amazing opening of all games, ever.


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## ~Avant~ (Aug 18, 2014)

Tales of the Abyss for me. But Symphonia and Xillia are just behind it. Gaius is one of my favorite Tales character of all time


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## The Pirate on Wheels (Aug 18, 2014)

Xiammes said:


> I played Milla's side first.
> 
> 
> *Spoiler*: __
> ...




*Spoiler*: __ 



They mentioned back at the beginning that when Maxwell dies in human form, her spirit goes back to the spirit world, and she has to grow a new body.  So death isn't permanent, just really inconvenient, and would take her out of the game long enough to screw up her mission.  When Milla showed up in the Maxwell spirit dimension, it kind of made sense that we'd find her spirit form wandering around there.  Even though I wasn't sure how much of that was true anymore after learning there's an old man Maxwell.

But Jude also went full husbando, and punched Maxwell in he face, in what is probably one of the top ten face punches of all time, and then I was just happy to have Milla back.


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## Zaelapolopollo (Aug 21, 2014)

Symphonia is on PSN so maybe I'll give that a try next month.

I was thinking of getting Symphonia Chronicles but I've not heard one good thing about the sequel game so I can just get the first one and save some money.

Annoying they don't have Tales of the Abyss on there too.

Also I guess I should have added another category. Best Voice-Acting.

Symphonia has fucking Cam Clarke. This alone has me intrigued. That guy should be in more things. Like, everything.


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## Zaelapolopollo (Aug 21, 2014)

Ooh but Abyss has Erin Fitzgerald. She was Alys in Mugen Souls and god I loved Alys' voice.


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## Byrd (Aug 21, 2014)

Best Story: *Tales of Phantasia* easily... There hasn't been a Tales Game that has quite live up to the story of the first one.

Best Characters: *Dhaos(ToP), Gaius(ToX), Raven(ToV), Yuri(ToV), Farah (ToE)*

Best Gameplay: *(ToG), (ToV), (ToE)*

Played *Phantasia, Destiny, Vesperia, Xillia, Eternia (Hardest Tales Game), Graces F, *

Playing Symphonia now


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## Byrd (Aug 21, 2014)

> Eternia: The witch that flies on a broom in battle. SHE FLIES. Dhaos seems like a good bad guy.



 Eternia having Dhaos or Arche 

Wrong Tales game


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## Zaelapolopollo (Aug 22, 2014)

Which game had the best soundtrack?


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## Axl Low (Aug 22, 2014)

hoo boy

Symphonia was my first I loved all the characters YESSSSSS

Vesperia is super fun, Carol is the only one i didnt care for. 

Phantasia was great.
CHESTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Abyss
Uh this kinda bored me :I
Ashe and Jade and Tear were the only characters i gave a shit out
i actually wanted the party to lose

ToS2 ruined alot for me
i didnt care for that game


hmmm

havent played xillia / 2 or graces


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## Gaawa-chan (Aug 22, 2014)

Story: Abyss.  It has some character-stupidity-induced plot problems but it's so enjoyable that I don't care.  Though I'm in the middle of playing Xillia 2 and so far it's quickly becoming a contender to beat out Abyss in this aspect.

Characters: Vesperia, then either Xillia 2 or Graces F.  I liked every party member in Vesperia to varying degrees, and their dynamics were entertaining.  Xillia 2 has the same thing.  The characters in Graces F that I liked, I REALLY liked, but it's held back by a few that I don't. Xillia 1 had a good foundation but it went nowhere with most of the characters or outright messed with their characterization for the sake of rushing the game to the ending.

Gameplay: Vesperia PS3, Graces F, or Xillia 2 again.  Vesperia was like the perfected version of the Symphonia style, Graces is a completely different sort of beast, and Xillia 2 is the love-child of both.  Can't quite decide which one I like the most, though I think you have the most customization/freedom in Vesperia PS3, with no limit on party make-up and a very in-depth skill system that Xillia 2's party structure and Graces F's title system didn't provide.




krory said:


> So really, nobody has played Phantasia? Srsly?



It takes me a LONG time to get through Tales of games (clocked in over 500 hours in Vesperia PS3 for my first run) so I haven't played/finished nearly as many of them as I would like to.  I have Phantasia but I only played it for a few minutes because I have too many other things to play. 

I'll try and pick it up again after Xillia 2.


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## St. YatōKiri_Kilgharrah (Aug 23, 2014)

Lets see...

I have a soft spot for Tales of Rebirth, I consider Phantasia to be amazing. Tales of Destiny and Tales of Destiny 2 are really damn good,  Tales of Hearts is the pinnacle of the 2D games imo. Fucking great Tales game.

Also I like abyss but the writing for connecting story segments is poorly handled. The characterization is not too believable. They make it incredibly obvious as well. Hindsight is 20/20 ToA cast. But I loved the character development in this game, the sidequests and Tales games are always full of humorous things. Also I really like Karma.


Any Tales game that has its opening sung by Deen is A-oh-Fuckin-Kay in my book 


Of the HD games I like Graces for its combat (I dont know the story of this game because I played it muted) and Vesperia was a great HD Tales game in all respects.

So all in all,I would say: Play Tales of Eternia and get a PSP for Japanese games


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## Juub (Aug 23, 2014)

Tales of Phantasia in all three. Especially gameplay providing you don't play that sad remake on the PSX or that even sadder remake on the GBA. SNES is where it's at.


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## Krory (Aug 23, 2014)

High-fucking-five to all you fuckers that said Phantasia, rock out with your cocks out.


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## Rukia (Aug 23, 2014)

Not Tales of Xillia 2!


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## ensoriki (Sep 5, 2014)

Played phantasia, eternia, bit of destiny, symphonia 1&2, Abyss and innocence.

Abyss had the best characterization.
Phantasia and Abyss had the best plots. Guess I'll eventually get a ps3. Really wanted to play hearts but I didn't understand chit.


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## Millefeuille (Sep 5, 2014)

Phantasia on ps1 is the only good tales game.


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## Juub (Sep 5, 2014)

Millefeuille said:


> Phantasia on ps1 is the only good tales game.



It was better on SNES. Combat was trash and boring on PS1.


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## Millefeuille (Sep 5, 2014)

Juub said:


> It was better on SNES. Combat was trash and boring on PS1.



Hmm i haven't tried the snes version will have to try it i guess when i find some time.


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## ~Avant~ (Sep 5, 2014)

I dont get why Symphonia and Xillia got sequels and Abyss hasn't.

Also, Abyssion for best secret boss.


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## Enclave (Sep 5, 2014)

Personally?  I'm all about Tales of Destiny.


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## vanhellsing (Sep 5, 2014)

vesperia master race


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## Lord Yu (Sep 5, 2014)

~Avant~ said:


> I dont get why Symphonia and Xillia got sequels and Abyss hasn't.
> 
> Also, Abyssion for best secret boss.



Because Abyss was a complete story and Xillia had a bit of a production mess. Symphonia really shouldn't have had a sequel. I'm really glad Abyss didn't have a sequel. 

Really wish we got Destiny 2. 

Anyway, my top 3 are Symphonia, Vesperia, and Abyss in no particular order. 

Best gameplay would have to be Graces, though. They finally made you pay attention to rhythm in the combat and you couldn't always just mash buttons.


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## ~Avant~ (Sep 5, 2014)

I feel like their was still room for a lot more to see in a sequel.


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## Enclave (Sep 5, 2014)

Lord Yu said:


> Because Abyss was a complete story and Xillia had a bit of a production mess. Symphonia really shouldn't have had a sequel. I'm really glad Abyss didn't have a sequel.
> 
> Really wish we got Destiny 2.
> 
> ...



Phantasian Productions is intending to have a translation patch for it.  They were working on it for a while then put it on hold for some other projects, they've back on it though with Tales of Phantasia for the PSX being complete.

Though, expect them to take years to get a patch out.  They have rather high standards and take their sweet ass time.  However they put out a great finished product.

They're working on Tales of Destiny Directors Cut and Tales of Destiny 2 concurrently at the moment.  Seriously though, this won't be out for a good long time.


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## LivingHitokiri (Sep 7, 2014)

Best Story : Vesperia and Symphonia
Best characters: Yuri,Rita, Lloyd and goddamn Kratos.
Best gameplay: Vesperia,by far.


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## Gaawa-chan (Sep 12, 2014)

On a related note, I just started playing Phantasia the other day. Very good so far.  Once I'm done I'll try and play Destiny, but I don't know if I'll have time because I also am planning on playing Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2, and then Zesteria and I still need to play Bravely Default and...

...

Ugh, my back-log is huge... ;_;


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## ZenithXAbyss (Sep 12, 2014)

Best Mothership Title Game: Destiny
Best Storyline: Destiny
Best Character: Chloe (Legendia)
Best OST: Legendia
Best Character Development: Legendia
Best Gameplay: Vesperia

If anything, i've played almost all mothership titles bar Innocence.


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