I'm totally hooked on this and a bit impressed. I mean, it's still a phone game, so I'm not pretending it's some amazing video gaming experience, but I've enjoyed it enough that I found it worth making this thread.
What is it?
A spinoff of the
Tales of console rpg series (e.g. Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Berseria) which originated in 1995 with Tales of Phantasia. Crestoria
isn't an action RPG like mainline
Tales of games, and doesn't really even have an adventure element (most of its gameplay is playing around in menus and turn-based battles) that one would expect from an RPG, but there's a lot to do.
What is its primary appeal?
At its core it's a collecting game with a strong main story. What you're "collecting" are essentially characters from the nineteen
Tales of games. You don't really need to collect to complete the plot, but it does get addicting to want to make your party stronger.
So far there are:
~35 super rare characters (
SSR) (most are playable, others as support)
~60 rare characters (
SR) (I think the vast majority are playable, a few are support-only)
~90 common (
R) characters (these are not
playable, but can be used as support)
They're drawn at random within the game's lotto system. If you get repeats, you can combine them into a stronger version, which keeps the
R and
SR units useful. These kind of games aren't new by any means, but this one is special IMO.
A party is built with:
6 Playable Characters, each "equipped" with a character of their own
9 Support Characters on a grid that boosts the party stats.
Wait, do I need to collect them all?
No. that would be a hassle. But you'll probably want a bunch of each of the six elements, and you'll want to
hopefully draw a handful of
SSRs, because they have extremely powerful additional attacks (Mystic Artes) that SRs do not have.
What are its strengths?
-
The story is outstanding. It could easily be the plot for a console RPG. That was what made me interested in checking this out in the first place, and I loved the four chapters that are currently out - it's essentially an allegory for modern-day
Cancel Culture in a fantasy setting. It's a very dark story.
-The boss battles are pretty entertaining and the party micro-management is pretty addictive. You can have eight different combinations of parties for different scenarios.
- the script is fantastic. It's funny, it's well-written, and generally topical.
- the cameos of other
Tales of characters within the plot is pretty fun. These are "alternate universe" versions of those characters so don't worry if you've never played a
Tales of game, but the personalities shine through strongly.
- There's a lot to do. Granted, there isn't a ton of gameplay
variety, but there's a lot of different game modes and you'll want to play them all to build a strong party.
- the lotto drops (AKA gacha rolls) are pretty fair. I've only been playing for a week, and pretty passively at that (e.g. multitasking) and I've already gotten eight SSRs (plus a ninth SSR through the time-limited sidequest)
What are its issues?
- The game was just released worldwide a week ago, so there are some definite bugs that need ironing out. In particular, some of the MMO chat elements are currently broken, and it crashes often (though you don't lose much data if it crashes, but you do have to re-open the app)
- The filler monster mobs aren't very fun to battle against. I just set the game to
auto-battle and put my phone to the side while I do other stuff. I've been playing this game on the elliptical trainer as I find the auto-battle mode lets me focus on my ellipticalling in between the story segments. As repetitive as it is, the fact that the game auto-battles will make it perfect for August hockey season
- the music, while entertaining, is pretty repetitive.