sincere | Tales of Zestiria (complete)

I've been watching some GameGrumps liveplays of old Sierra games and every now and then I fantasize about actually doing that sort of thing, but I have no idea how to work the technology in question... People do solo liveplays, right? I don't have anyone with so little going on in their life that they want to be here playing games with me every night.

Also, technology. I guess the PS4 has that livestreaming stuff, right? Would that make it easy? Not that I currently possess a PS4 or have purchased this game for the PS4. Just thoughts.

I'd totally watch you Livestr-- no, wait, I don't get to sit at my computer for longer than an hour these days. I'd watch it in spirit! Which is not unlike the real thing.

Didn't you have a PS4 once?

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OKAY, IT'S INSTALLED.

It's asking me if I want audio in English or Japanese kya kya this is so hard. Tales usually has great English voice acting but... HNGH I think I'll start with it on English and see if I want to switch it up? I assume I'll be able to switch it up.

The legendary Shepherds are always savin' the world from darkness and such. And then they just vanish! Which is why they're legends atm.

But, shockingly, a Tales game will threaten the world!!!

A huge volcanic explosion sends a massive cloud of ash and darkness over the land. Saving them from literal darkness, I see!

omfg I immediately got a Milla and a Jude attachment

I'm so mad I don't have saves from other games on this system to exploit for attachments

This derpy Tales protagonist flips through his dream diary and compares it to a mural, and gets excited, then falls. So, yeah. Derpy Tales protagonists. Actually, I'm not sure we fully had one of those since Lloyd!! Who this kid resembles a little.

His prissy-looking best friend Mikleo rains on his parade. Conveniently, Mikleo has Genis' color scheme and fashion sense.

They're trying to figure out if the ruin is authentically "pre-Asgard" when suddenly the skies go dark, cloudy and stormy. They realize they have to run -- like, now.

Sorey and Mikleo

Sorey and Mikleo run straight into a giant hole, which they're shocked to discover leads to more ruins.

SOREY: Who knew there'd be ruins underground?!

That's where most ruins are in the real world, actually.

omg I have the option to have multiple-choice conversations with Mikleo just while standing around omg is that a thing that's so neat

There is a whole tab in the menu for "Fashion". I like this game's priorities.

Sorey's hair informs me that Mikleo gives him haircuts.
Mikleo's hair informs me that Sorey is not alowed to touch his hair. "Not since the incident."

WHAT INCIDENT OMG

I went into the equipment menu and I'm immediately overwhelmed with information that doesn't sink in.

I think titles do something in this game, though! I liked that in Symphonia. Is this game the spiritual successor to Symphonia.

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These losers are super into ruins. (Symphonia!) Most of their equipment says it was retrieved from ruins they've explored and Sorey is all "But at least I saw an awesome bas-relief!!" and. Losers.

Then Sorey notices that there might be another person in the ruins and they have a conversation that actually made me gasp a little, because I'm also a loser.

SOREY: Mikleo, I-- I think she's a human.
MIKLEO: That's impossible!
SOREY: /starts off
MIKLEO: Sorey, stop. We shouldn't get involved with their kind.

omg they're not human you guys!?!?! Mikleo disapproves of human interaction but Sorey is a Tales protagonist and can't leave this girl there unconscious, so he goes along with it reluctantly.

First battle! Mikleo is shocked to realize that it's a hellion, and we have a flashback to "Gramps" telling tiny Sorey and Mikleo that hellions are monsters created by "the malevolence", but they can only be defeated by a very rare purifying power, so just run if you see one.

Fortunately, by the end of the flashback, the hellion has disappeared.

SKIT! Mikleo figures that the lightning we saw was "Gramps" warning off intruders, e.g. the human girl we found. Sorey still isn't going to leave her there.

SKIT! Ruin nerding. Humans would call people like us who like messing around in ruins "adventurers" or "explorers". Sorey is charmed by "explorers".

I don't see any way to change my audio... I guess I'll start a new save file in a bit to check it out.

We found a shiny, but Mikleo confiscates it because he ~~is a killjoy~~ doesn't want Sorey to gawk at it all day.

The boys bicker but cross an invisible bridge. Mikleo says, "seraphim like me", so I suppose that's what he is -- but does that mean that Sorey isn't a seraph? is he human after all? Mikleo is still (unsure) but Sorey wakes the girl up, and she's super confused -- the last thing she remembers is being in a forest. She's super cute and wearing a lot of armor.

She gets up and starts dusting herself off, and Mikleo gets right in front of her and shouts "BOO!" to which she does not even slightly react.

"Yep, she's human all right," he says.

So [most?] humans can't even see seraphim!

Sorey is so busy staring at her that Mikleo has to remind him that she's asking for his name. She doesn't answer his questions about where she's from, but Sorey awkwardly invites her back to his place, to Mikleo's hissed irritation. Mikleo points out, a heartbeat before the girl does, that she hasn't even offered her name. Sorey figures she has a reason for keeping it from him and she doesn't look evil or anything!

It's super awkward that he can't even answer Mikleo without making her think he's out of his mind.

Edited 2015-10-22 00:08 (UTC)

Mystery girl

When we get out of the ruins, the girl admires the scenery and says, "I half-expect to see seraphim wandering around!" There is one, you just can't see him. Sorey is amused and quotes his book at her about how people call basically everything they don't understand "seraphim".

It turns out she also loved to read that book when she was a kid, and Mikleo jabs him in the ribs maliciously to prod him into getting a move on.

Thus we wander around Elysia, home of the seraphim!

Edited 2015-10-22 00:16 (UTC)

Mikleo spontaneously produced some butter cookies. That was nice of him???

In the item menu it tells me that this is a "good start recipe for aspiring bakers". Are you an aspiring baker?!?

Sorey introduces her to his "family" -- that being the 20 people who have assembled around him. Just when I was beginning to ponder Mikleo's relative state of existence, she goes, "Uh, is this... some kind of performance piece?" and we see that there is no one around him, from her perspective. Sorey is still the only one she can see!

He realizes his mistake and brushes it off sheepishly but she still thinks he is super weird. He sends her off to his house to rest up [while he goes with Mikleo to deal with Gramps] but she'd rather explore a little.

GIRL: I'll behave as if I were in a shrine to the seraphim.

Ahem

Sorey is definitely a human, some of the seraphim here specifically reference it. None so obvious as, "A human girl in Elysia, huh? It's the biggest thing to happen here since Gramps turned up with baby Sorey and Mikleo."

I BET THERE'S A STORY THERE

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Sorey kneels down next to Mikleo in front of Gramps, whose instant response is to shout, "YOU IDIOTS!"

Bringing a human here is like super against the rules, and "her kind is sure to bring nothing but trouble to our domain!" Sorey is hurt by this, but Gramps says he's different. Being raised among seraphim gave him the ability to perceive them and made him... different!

Her not having any resonance means she has no place here, and they can't argue with that. Gramps raised them both from infants because they were needed to protect the shrine, and "any intruders -- no matter how harmless -- must be cast out".

lol a bunch of seraphim have been following her around and staring at everything she does.

Sorey goes to wait at his house. Mikleo comes back and hands over the shiny that they acquired at the ruins that he confiscated; it's a glove with the crest of the Shepherd on it. Sorey puts it on, marveling. "The chosen one who communicates with the seraphim, controlling their incredible powers as if they were his own..." Mikleo isn't quite thrilled. I bet he's worried Sorey might overconnect to his human heritage.

Now to find out why the girl is still out wandering. "It's weird, I felt like I was being watched the whole time." Sorey gives a sidelong look at the assembled seraphim.

It took sixteen seconds to acquire the girl and convince her to come back to eat, but Mikleo is standing outside Sorey's house.

SOREY: Gosh. I hope we didn't worry him.
GIRL: Hmm?
SOREY: Uh, nothing.

MIKLEO: It's not like I was worried.

Losers

Dinner conversation! She says she's from the capital of Hyland, Ladylake, which is the best city name I've ever heard of. Sorey gets excited because IN HIS BOOK that's where the Lady of the Lake keeps the sacred sword that identifies the Shepherd.

She says that it was a lovely city.

But something happened.

Sorey is Yuri-esque in his chill acceptance of things other people doesn't want to talk about without needing to ask any insensitive questions. He still doesn't know this girl's name and now he doesn't ask about what happened. He just offers to help her prepare for leaving tomorrow, and she graciously accepts.

The next morning, Sorey and Mikleo meet outside. Mickey has a lot of chores to do, so he won't be around. The girl comes outside in the middle of their conversation and watches Sorey talk to himself in the middle of a completely empty village that he lives in alone.

Some random seraph observes that it's rare to "see Sorey hanging out with someone other than Mikleo." Inseparable besties!

They run off to kill some prickleboars, and there's a skit wherein the girl asks what school of swordsmanship he learned, and he says, "Prickleboar school!" since he learned everything by fighting prickleboars. They're humble but stern taskmasters, he jokes, and then adds, "OR MAYBE I SHOULD CALL THEM TUSKMASTERS!" and the girl giggles. Cuuuute, he's a loser and she doesn't mind

That... night... (this is not what I thought Gramps meant by "GET HER OUT OF HERE IMMEDIATELY", I mean, it's not like her plans involved moving in, she was only ever going to stay here long enough to recover)

Sorey's incessant reading wakes the girl. His house is seriously just lined with piles of books on the floor. She says everyone who's read the Celestial Record (his fave book) wants to explore ruins, including her, but now is not the time for ruin-exploring.

He waits silently to see if she'll explain more.

She does.

It's been years since everything got fucked up, and fucked up it is! "Mysterious illnesses, incessant storms, people bursting into flames... There are those that say even the dead have begun to walk the earth again." Abnormal climate change, crops failing, and potential war--

And Sorey is like, whoa, uh, WHAT? Spontaneous combustion and zombies are more than, like, the sort of civil-war-type-thing he was probably imagining. He starts actually getting worked up and questioning her ("So that's why you--") before realizing that he's doing so and stopping himself, going to bed instead.

I love characters who know how to self-modulate

The next day they get to work making rations and sleeping bags and such with the prickleboars they hunted, so she'll be able to leave in the morning (again). He cheerfully says he'll go let Gramps know, and she must be realizing that there are invisible people here.

GRAMPS: I see. We'll all be sure to see her off. After all, one must always be hospitable to one's guests.
Me: She won't even know omfg amazing

I'm recapping in a lot of detail, I'll get around to my own self-modulating. But a lot of set-up is happening!

In the morning, as he (and the invisible people) prepares to send her off, she thanks him and finally says, "Alisha." She's ashamed that she was too selfish to introduce herself when he's done so much for her without asking for anything in return, not even knowing who she was.

And then she says, apropos of nothing, that she believes that seraphim do exist and that there really must be a chosen one who can save the world in times like these. She's surprised that he doesn't think she's silly for saying so, but adds that soon Ladylake will be holding the Festival of the Sacred Blade -- and she thinks Sorey might be interested in it.

She just -- thinks the Shepherd would be a lot like him.

As she leaves, Mikleo starts to tell Sorey that he thinks she might be, like, a princess or something idk, but then Gramps (whose name is Zenrus, by the way!) detects a powerful intruder -- possibly a hellion. The village splits up to look for it.

A dude: Hellions are serious business. Make sure you're in a group of at least two-- ...I just realized how silly I sounded telling you two that.
Inseparable bestieeees

Of course, Sorey and Mikleo find it -- a human-shaped hellion, intelligent enough to chat, and with a truly creepy stylized face. It literally eats a seraph from their town. The boys hold it off until the rest of the village gets there and it retreats, muttering about "snacking" while its real target is getting away.

Gramps says that the foxlike human hellion is, in fact, a human hellion -- a human who has been corrupted. Sorey is horrified to learn that such a thing is possible. When Gramps and Mikleo say they should go home and let the village take care of things here, Sorey agrees, but Mikleo and Gramps share a meaningful moment...

It isn't until Sorey has been at home for some time, staring up at the ceiling on his bed, that he realizes that the thing's real objective -- its "main course" -- might be her.

Immediately he's up, packing his stuff, and he leaves, in the dead of night.

For the first time in his life, Sorey steps foot outside the village -- not without backward glances, not without whispered apologies, but decisively.

So when Mikleo pops up in front of him he's taken aback.

Being a smart cookie, Mikleo has also figured out that the fox man was after Alisha, and if Sorey is going, he's going too. Sorey has all the fluffy happy in response to this, and Mikleo mutters about how he's too guileless to go among deceitful humans without someone at his back.

Sorey is still thinking that he'll be back!!, but Mikleo says that Gramps has always known Sorey would leave -- and live with humans for the rest of his life. He gave them his antique pipe to sell if they need it for their lives among the humans, and some final farewell advice: live your life to the fullest and walk the path you believe in.

Sorey has a lot of sentimental feelings, but he bucks up and they go.

The two of them make it through the mists as they descend the mountain, and then they see an incredible sunrise over the wide landscape of a world they've never seen before.

Narration tells us that after the Age of Chaos, a new Shepherd arose. THIS -- IS HIS STORY!

OPENING SEQUENCE!
TITLE CARD!

Mikleo and Sorey do a lot of hanging out together in the intro. Inseparable besties! Wow, literally?!? Mikleo just literally came out of Sorey in one of those scenes. I get that he's a water spirit basically but was he hanging out in your blood or something, I can't even with that.

A lot of cool action is happening and there are people here I don't all know and I'm disappointed that there's no singing whatsoever. Are we not long done with the Tales of the Abyss era "we don't want to dub this and we don't want to give you weird Japanese words so karaoke version" nonsense?

"A title for one who, sword in his left hand, is coaxing--" WAIT, IS SOREY A LEFTIE?

I feel like he's wielding his sword in his right hand?? Confused