I played this game THROUGH with as much as I could find on a single blind playthrough. I hit the casino big time, did optional dungeons and optional bosses. Again, as much as I could find because there was surely much to discover still but I didn't have the energy to go through both worlds after every story beat as I should have done. There are some branching story paths too but I stuck to what felt best for me. I never research a game beforehand or use walkthroughs to get some desired thing to happen. I don't even look through achievements beforehand, so completely blind.
And let me tell you, I didn't really care for the start of the game. Protagonist was a bit of a ♥♥♥♥ and I didn't grow fond of him through the game. I liked many other characters and happenings but Lloyd I tolerated. When you play a single game for 110 hours, you still get some emotional attachment to some members or npcs, well at least I do. That's to do with the excellent writing and storytelling of Tales games, that only get more and more engaging with every game. Background, I have played all tales games from the start up to Symphonia so far in less than two years, so some experience. Minus the real Tale of Destiny 2 as it has never been released outside Japan, not even fan-translated. Excluding Tales of Berseria, that was the first. An impulse buy based on the kickassesness of the intro song. That has a special place in my heart, always. Apart from that I still think Tales of Eternia (Tales of Destiny 2 in the west, stupid naming) is the best so far, damn that pixel child made me cry so many times. I hope the upcoming remaster is good and they don't do it like Chrono trigger. Please, just a port of the ps1 original, maybe so that the pixel art upscales nicely. If an emulator can do it to 4K, I'm sure it can be done.
WOW, sidetrack people. Maybe my review will be just glossing the Tales series and how you should play them. Even the so-called sequels don't sequalize the game they're based on and the games can be played in any order. Try the newest if you want to get in the series and then play older if you feel like it. So far the I have played the nature and the style of the story is always the same so you can can expect the other game to have similar quality and taste of storytelling.
The game has a world, actually two, it's a Jrpg but not turn-based so you control your selected character in real time. If you want you can play with up to three friends on the same console or pc, yes, in battles. Haven't tried it but it has a possibility for it. Engaging story, good/excellent/whimsical/annoying/all kinds of characters. Easy to pick up, easy to learn and if you really want to go deep, very hard to put down.
For this one, I did use Special K TSfix-modpack that smoothens the rough edges, literally and figuratively and has some quality of life-improvements. Not affecting the gameplay or experience, but the running of the game on modern hardware.
I own all the games that have been published to pc minus the newest remasters, but still 5 games and older ones you CAN ACQUIRE. I got all of them on spring sale -26 and for the newest, Tales of Arise, I paid about 5€. They are cheap to boot, so do get and play one if you feel like it in the slightest.
And lastly it took me 8 hours of continuous rolling to get 1000000 chips at the casino.
