Tales of Innocence is the 9th main entry of the Tales of Series and it's the second instalment in the series to be released on the Nintendo DS after the disaster that was Tales of the Tempest. If you remember from few months ago when I reviewed that game it was that Tales of game that had really bad gameplay mechanics with some of the annoying random encounter rating I have ever experienced in an RPG before alongside other stuff that didn't make the game live up to Tales of standards. Thankfully we can all agree that it was so bad that we never saw it outside Japan and for good reasons and the fact it was given to Dimps really made it doom from the start. Thankfully with Tales of Innocence it was then given to Alfa System who would then go on to work on the Tales of the World Radiant Mythology spin off titles. Tales of Innocence is vast improvement over Tales of the Tempest in many ways and it offers up a pretty good storyline and plenty of content available which will give players plenty of gametime.
The storyline of the game takes place in a world where people have the ability to remember their past lives and live out as avatars. Luca a son of a merchant has dreams and memories of the Demon Lord Asura who in that life was trying to reunite Devaloka and Naraka to make things peaceful again. Luca however finds himself caught in the mess with avatars from their past lives when the Imperials of Regnum use what's called the Fallen Compulsory Rehabilitation Program to round up other Avatars and use them for war. On top of that them as well as other nations end up crossing swords and magic with each other to take the Manifest which can either make the world peaceful or rule the world with an iron grip. The storyline has got a really nice setup to it and a lot of the cutscenes do help to keep things interesting, think of the storyline of Assassin's Creed mixed in with James Cameron's Avatar movie in anime form then you kind of on the same picture. Many of the characters including the antagonists have plenty of good motivation to them and the main characters are also very likeable with some enjoyable personalities. There are some good character development moments as well especially moments from Sparda, Ange and one of the game's most better party members Ricardo who has a scar on his face very similar to Squall from Final Fantasy VIII and will do anything that's within his contracts even it involves taking down his former employer. Luca is a half decent kid even with his crying and whining which you witness during the early moments of the story and during some of the optional skit sequences that you get over the course of the game. He ain't as bad as Emil from Dawn of the New World but his whining does get a little annoying after a while at certain parts of the story. As for Iria while she is great in combat but during some of the story cutscenes and skit sequences she tends to really lose her temper too quickly and at times over such small little things like when Luca wants to talk to her to try and get to know her better making her a little unlikeable. Regardless Tales of Innocence has a really good storyline to it and you grow to like each of the characters as the game progresses. You do get various skits sequences where you can watch other characters express the events of what's going on around them or other ones are just idle chats that are at times comedic and humorous to watch even if the the skits are not fully voiced for some reason which reminds me of the English releases of the early Tales of games. You do get dialogue choices where if you pick the right response will raise the relationship of the party members towards other party members including you. I should let you know that I did play the game with a Fan-Translation English patch and I will say that the English Patch is really good and the character dialogue is really well written. I had no problems getting it to work on an Emulator as well as the DS Flash Cart with the English Patch and didn't encounter any game crashes from playing the game like that. Cause it's a Japanese exclusive you won't expect an English dub audio for it but all of the characters sound really good for those who are not fond of English Dubs in Anime.
Now Tales of Innocence is broken up between town sequences where you rest up, talk to NPCs and learn where you need to go next as well as purchasing new gear and recovery items before heading out. You also have dungeons where you explore areas for treasure to find as well as fight enemies, occasionally a boss battle comes out afterwards and then you watch the next cutscene telling you where to go next and you do the same thing for the next one. While the game allows you to explore more areas as you go along on your adventures even though the game has a kind of linear feel where some areas are closed off due to parts of the story and you don't get to visit other areas till late in the game. What does make up for it is the Guild System which is very similar to the Guild System found in the Radiant Mythology games where you can partake in side quests and by completing them you earn Guild Points which levels your Guild up allowing you to take on more difficult jobs. Quests involve you taking out a strong monster, making deliveries, item collecting and finding lost people and these are actually done in the Guild Dungeons. Now the game's dungeons are basic and easy to navigate through but give you a fork where you can side track to see if there is something else there like maybe Treasure or something. However with Guild Dungeons they are randomly generated meaning that every time you enter one of those the dungeon layout is different and will load up new items in chests as well as providing dozens of spots where you can farm stat boosting Herbs and materials which can be used to customize your weapons. Guild Dungeons also change depending on the quest difficulty level as well as they also change what enemies appear, this ensures that no two dungeons are ever the same which makes completing these side quests rather enjoyable. Tales of Innocence has wireless features which allows other players to cooperate together to complete quests but however the fan-translation patch removes the feature entirely but it's not really a big deal or anything. You do spend the majority of the game travelling from location to location on foot but you do the options later where you can get to new areas on a boat and later airship which you don't get your hands on till very late in the game. It's where then all of the optional content will allow you to tackle various other challenges as well as also unlocking a New Game Plus Mode which you can use the Grade you earned in game at the Grade Shops in Guild to pass over stuff that you unlocked in the game for later playthroughs.
In the field you will also find enemies that spawn in and you start a fight by touching on the field like in some of the previous games, you can also start a fight with an advantage by using the Y button to hit an enemy with a characters weapon and that reduces their health by a certain amount making fights easy but if you are touched from the back you start the fight with your backs turned. Tales of Innocence uses a variation of the series staple Linear Motion Battle System but in this game it's called the Dimension Stride Linear Motion Battle System where this time up to three party members fight against enemies in real time action combat in a closed battle arena. Characters have different abilities known as Artes which range from melee to magic attacks which deal damage to enemies depending on what elemental attributes they are weak to or by unleashing Base Artes following up with Master and Arcane Artes to build up heavy combos alone or with your party members to unleash devastating combos. It also uses the Free Running system from Tales of the Abyss where you can freely run around the arena by holding down the R Button. The system also allowed to juggle enemies in the air with air combos much like the PS2 remake of Tales of Destiny as some of the characters Artes can also be used in midair which gives the combat system quite more depth because doing air combos makes it harder for enemies to react and it's also at times easier to stagger some enemies this way. Some of the elements of the battle system would later be used in future Tales of games including Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World and Tales of Xillia. Dealing combos will boost up the Tension bar which when full puts you in a Awakened state which increases stats as well as dealing more damage temporally. It also allows you to unleash a special unison attack of sorts where you and the other AI controlled party members can unleash a short combo and then switch to another character and then do a small combo on that character and vise versa for the third one till the bar runs out.
Tales of Innocence also uses a Styles system where you can have each of the party members utilise a class style which affects their stats and earns them new skills and gives a character a unique style to use as you see fit, they range from Guardian which specialises Defense and HP, Advance which specialises Attack, Technical which specialises Agility and Luck and Wisdom specializes magical attacks and magic focused stats. As you win battles these Styles earn points which after reaching 100 levels the style up and it earns new skills which can be equipped to your characters. These skills include increased stats and health, alignment resistances as well as unlocking the Awakening Skill which allows you to unleash a powerful Mystic Arte when the Overlimit bar is full. You get to equip more skills when you level up each of your characters. This alongside the strategy screen which allows you to set out specific sets of behavioural patterns to your party members gives out dozens of customizable options for how you want to manage your party members. The AI is capable of holding their own in combat and you can get through the majority of challenges without much trouble on the Normal Difficulty.
Instead of instantly earn Gald and Items from winning battles enemies will drop Gald and Items on the ground as you defeat them and you have to take the time to grab them before they disappear. This ensures that the player stays involved in the battles as the items you might possibly want will disappear if you focus too much on just fighting the enemies.
Another new system is the weapon customization which allows you to add various effects to your weapons. They will grant you weapon skills and also a weapon effects such as elemental damage, being able to inflict poison or stun effects and there many different combinations to try out as long as you have the right materials to use to get the effects you want. Herbs play a role in the game like they do in these types of games and they appear very frequently in Guild Dungeons or dropped from some enemies. While they offer up good bonuses they do however they do lower other stats as well so they need to be used with caution unless you have almost every type of herb that will bring what stats you lost back.
Boss Battles in the game aren't anything too challenging as long you grind a few levels and work on building your Style classes but however some bosses do have an aggressive pattern to take note of and also don't stagger right away when attacking but block and time your dodges often then you'll be fine.
The combat system does have it's issues though, first up is the controls. Now the controls work really well its just that target change and free running are both assigned to the R button while the L button is used for switching characters. It causes some situations to be cumbersome cause you want to have Free Run and Change Target controls to be separate. To Free Run you need to hold down R and to Change Target you need to tap the R button and it takes some time to get used to. Why couldn't character change be on the Select button? Another annoying thing about the battle system and it is the Item interruptions which is something I have had in Tales of the Tempest. You try to use an Item and then an enemy attacks you which interrupts your Item usage animation making it annoying to try and use an item. Wither it's a Magic Lens or a Gel the Item interruptions can be a problem especially if you got plenty of enemies on screen and you need to use an item to heal a party member if your caster is too busy casting and ends up taking too long to heal in time. Even if the item usage animations spark which shows the characters using the item it can still be interrupted by an enemy attack which is just annoying and it makes some fights harder because of it. I had this issue before in Tales of the Tempest and it is just a pain that you have to go through the process of trying to get the item to come out only for it to be interrupted by an enemy and you have to try again just to try and use it without it being interrupted. Changing Targets isn't really a big deal as long as you quickly tap the R button to the closest target that you are trying to fight against. There is also going to be the issue regarding other people that say that the combat system is a button masher and nothing else. Well guess what you might win some battles fine on Normal but what about doing that same boss battle being lower level or by playing it on higher difficulties which is usually encouraged, yeah exactly you'll get counter attacked if you just relay on button mashing tactics and it's better to use Free Run or just change strategies if things don't work out. Dispute some things that I have with the combat system Tales of Innocence's combat is just quite enjoyable and there is plenty of depth to be had with even though it's not as you know refined and improved as seen in Tales of Vesperia.
Visually for a Nintendo DS game Tales of Innocence is an impressive looking game. The character models look pretty decent and they are animated very well, the monster designs some of which from other Tales of games are pretty cool and the attack effects from Artes look nice. The environment are actually pretty good and I actually like the designs for the towns that you see through out the game as well. They have a nice style to them which is pretty impressive considering the game's fantasy style setting and even though there is no lip syncing animations and the game does glitch up but only on rare occasions on emulators but the character models do beat having small deformed models like what we got in Final Fantasy III and IV remakes on the DS. The soundtrack is great for the moments that happen throughout the game but doesn't have as many stand out tunes as other games in the series.
Tales of Innocence is a solid game that has some minor things with the combat system but has a great amount of content on offer plus also a New Game Plus mode when you want to take on the extra challenges. It has a lot of elements that would be used in later games in the series and also the Styles and Strategy systems allow the game to be more in depth then with some of the other games. Again it's a massive shame that we never ended up getting the game in English and that's sad because a DS Tales of game release outside of Japan would have been at least nice. There is also a remake of the game for the PlayStation Vita as Tales of Innocence R which reworks the whole game from the ground up. The storyline was rewritten and it featured new character Kongwai and QQ who were never in the DS original. The battle on that isn't as different compared to the DS original aside from having four party members instead of three and for some reason the developers 7th Chord who worked on the PSVita remake decided to return the series to the classic random encounter system where you simply run through areas till the game throws you to the random encounters. It's not annoyingly frequent like in Tales of Phantasia or Tales of the Tempest but still I can't help but feel that it's a bit of a sad change to go for. It at least had new events as well as costumes that were also never included in the DS original. Even though the Tales Series was really starting to get plenty of attention from Western Tales of fans it was sad that we never got to see Innocence R outside Japan either and it's likely never going to happen because the PSVita platform is dying off and support for the platform is all but gone. However Tales of fans soon rejoiced as we managed to get our hands on a remake of Tales of Hearts on the Vita in the West which was the third and final game in the series to be released on the Nintendo DS. Eventually after I go through the Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition Remaster I will eventually talk about Tales of Hearts and see how the series got a nice Heartful conclusion. As for Tales of Innocence the fan-translation is great and the patching tools help make it work with no issues, just a shame that the patch alongside the Tales of Phantasia and Tales of the Tempest have been removed from Absolute Zero's website but if you do ever find the rom installed with the patch on some emulator websites then Tales of Innocence is a nice innocent tale where it's flashy combat system and dozens of content has plenty of depth and replay value to it and something that future games would follow from.
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Game Score: 8.0/10
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Game Title: Tales of Innocence
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Namco Tales Studio/Alfa System
Genre: Action Role Playing
Age Rating: CERO: B
Release Date: 6th December 2007 (Japan), 29th June 2010 (English Fan-Translation)
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The Good Points:
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1. Unique Styles system allows you to customize your party to your liking
2. Fast paced combat allowing you to do Arte combos in mid-air
3. Great storyline, nicely developed characters and a really good setting
4. Strong amount of content on offer
The Bad Points:
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1. Free Running and Target Change controls can be cumbersome
2. Item Usage Interruptions can be annoying
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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