Tales of... the Golden Sun

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Something like that, but less over-the-top. Only incantations get to be over the top.

Beast mode ITSELF is over the top, she turns into a FREAKING SIX FOOT SILVER WEREWOLF THING!

[Aile~♥]

rule of thumb: the moves get to be over-the-top, but the characters need to behave like actual people. Unless, of course, your name is Barbatos Goetia. (NO!!! ITEMS! EEEEVAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!) Or Abyssion. Or Decus.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Goddammit, I HATE Barbatos! He counters anything even remotely useful, like "NO!!! ITEMS! EEEEVEEEEEEEEER!!!!!". What a colossal @#$%&*.

[Aile~♥]

Repede with Gale Dog. Or Estelle with Force Field. Solves ALL your problems:

Have Estelle cast Force Field on whoever you want to use an item on, then have her quickly use the item. Then when Barbatos attacks, person says "NOPE!" nopeshuckle.jpg.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Yeah, Force Field is your best friend when fighting Barbatos. He's still a @#$%&* though.

[Rolina]

Aye, I did miss that.  Thanks for pointing it out.

Personally, I like the idea of unleashes being the finisher at the end of a combo, with psynergy acting as a base art, and perhaps an upgraded psy acting as the arcane art...  So it'd be 123-unleash > Ragnarok > Odyssey.  I think some of the more uber unleashes should be instead turned into the ubermoves.  Matt gets Meggido, Sveta gets Shadow Canon (IIRC), Amiti gets Blue Comet, etc...

[Aile~♥]

I was considering that, but then I was left wondering what stopped people from totally cheating and knowing two level 4 Unleashes. I was thinking that Eoleo would get Olympus Rage, Sveta would get Shadow Cannon or Crimson Cut, Himi would get Apocalypse, Karis would get Life Shear or Emerald Blitz, Tyrell would get Legend, and Rief would get Final Nemesis. That way, everyone gets two MAs: one is a high-level EPA, the other a Level 4 Unleash.

And the problem with using Psynergy as a base arte is that, well... Ragnarok works more like Thunder Blade than anything else, so I doubt it'd combo very well, or work very well as a close-combat arte. That said, I was thinking one of the Djinni would enable you to combo spells when in Overlimit, so you could go:

AAA > Sunset Burst > Centurion > Radiant Fire > Spire > Ragnarok > Grand Gaia > Summon/Odyssey

But mages wouldn't bother with the close-combat part. They'd just go, using Himi as an example:

Roaring Dragon > Briar > Reigning Dragon > Summon/Dullahan

The rule is, you don't get to use two spells from the same line in a row.

Or using Karis as an example:

Impact > Resist > Healing Gust > Thunder Mine

Notice how Karis can, once she's cast Impact, immediately follow up with Resist and then Healing Gust with no cast times, and use Healing Gust to trigger her MA. Hurray for spell chaining?

[Rolina]

I was gonna say Vengance for Karis, and Life Shear fits Himi more.

Chaining to a casting art?  Last I checked, you can't just instacast that kind of spell.

[Aile~♥]

Some Tales games allow for instacast of level 1 spells after an arte chain. I believe Tales of Hearts does this. This'd simply be an extension of that when in Overlimit, as long as you have the appropriate Djinni's skill equipped.

[Rolina]

Really?  Hmm.  Interesting.

Personally, though, I'd rather adapt spells to match fighting style.  If we could make Quake act like Demon Sword and Demon Fang, for instance, and have some spells act as parts of physical chains, while other spell families being casting chains, it'd be pretty cool.

[Aile~♥]

I did in fact consider that, but ultimately decided that then you'd have to work with learning different strike artes in different ways, and I REALLY didn't want to deal with that. Besides, if you want to, you can always go Stone Justice > Light Surge > Rising Dragon > Quake, for a full long-range tech chain.

Yeah, in Tales of Hearts, Kohak can totally just spam a bunch of kicking attacks, then follow up with Photon or Wind Blade.

[Rolina]

?

Learning in different ways?  But isn't it always by level and by use?  Why can't we just do it that way?

[Aile~♥]

If you'd read the whole initial post, you'd have seen that I was suggesting that Unleashes be learned by weapon use, similar to how Skills are learned in ToV. Spells, however, would be learned by level as usual. Resulting problem is that if you make some spell series into strike artes, you end up with different strike artes being learned in different ways, which is something I wanted to avoid.

[Rolina]

Actually, hold on...

We don't really have Arcane Arts, do we?  I mean, there is no real skill combos in GS.  As such, you could say then that it's just that and level then.  Since we're doing GS, we'd have no need for skill mastery, you know?

[Aile~♥]

No, there's no need for arte mastery, as we don't have tech series like in Symphonia. But we do have GS's unleash system, which is why I was proposing having Unleashes be learned by using the weapon the unleashes are attached to.

...

Actually, now that I think about it, we DO need Arte mastery. For Psynergy spells, obviously! They come in series, don't they?

Also, I think when you learn a new Unleash or spell, it should be automatically demonstrated on the enemy at no PP/TP cost. You know, like how it works in Symphonia. 'Cause nothing makes the player say "oh H*** yes!" more than "Watch THIS! Hunting... BEAST!" Or in GS's case:

Matthew: "How's this? Titan Blade!"

Rief: "I have an idea! Freeze Prism!"

Karis: "This should work... TEMPEST!"

Amiti: "Let's try this. Undead Bane!"

[Rolina]

Spells in ToS don't work that way, though.  At least not the games I played.  IIRC, in Legendia it was just by level up.  Hell, even arts.  Twin Demon Blade doesn't need Demon Blade to be mastered, you just need to have the right level.

[Aile~♥]

In ToS, Double Demon Fang needs Demon Fang to have fifty uses before it can be learned, and Demonic Chaos requires Double Demon Fang to have fifty uses as well. (Or was it 100?) Eruption needs Fire Ball to have fifty uses before it can be learned. Explode/Explosion requires Eruption to have fifty uses before it can be learned, or maybe I'm misremembering and it needs 100 uses. Either way, point still stands.

Also, I've never seen Demon Fang localized as Demon Blade, ever. Even in Legendia, it's still Demon Fang. When Repede uses it in ToV, it's Demon Dog. When Senel uses it, it's Demon Fist. In the original Tales of Destiny, it's Missile Sword. But I've never seen it as Demon Blade.

[Rolina]

Legendia has two demon abilities.  One for the fist and one for the blade.  Couldn't remember which is called what.  My bad.

[Aile~♥]

Eh, s'fine. That's not the main point of my post, anyway.

[Rolina]

No, but it explains why I keep screwing up the names.

Anywho, that's how it works in ToS, but not all tales games.  In ToL, Demon Fang and Double Demon Fang are two different abilities, and even can be used to create an Arcane arte:  Demon Fang+.  Because of that, I think it'd be a good idea to look at psynergy as just something you learn at level up, and keep unleashes as by-hit in nature.  This way we keep the methods of skill improvement the same as how you were wanting it.