rainbowarch: (☈ - I got your back)
Cielo ([personal profile] rainbowarch) wrote in [community profile] batheon2012-03-07 03:53 pm

I HAVEN'T USED SPARKLETEXT IN LIKE, YEARS

PIMP MY CANON


Levi, what is this?

This is PIMP MY CANON, a meme for doing exactly what it says on the tin. Here, you are going to sell your canon to your fellow bubble players!

Fellow bubble players, peruse the selection and maybe find a new canon to check out!

Okay how?

HOWEVER YOU HAVE TO. Post reasons why your canon is awesome! Post summaries, post pages, post gifs, post links to videos, post screenshots, post links to playthroughs, WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO.

Just uh, be mindful. Don't insert put too many images in your post (especially if they're big! Link to big things!) and link to videos rather than embed them. We want to make this accessible to everyone and go easy on connections.

Feel free to add to other people's posts with information of your own, or ask questions about a canon that's caught your eye! The idea here is to spread the love, after all!

Try to keep your spoilers to a minimum, too. If you think something might be spoilery, be sure to mark it!

(also be sure to hit preview before posting, broken codes cramping your style sucks)
spiria: (Default)

TALES OF HEARTS

[personal profile] spiria 2012-03-08 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
HI EVERYBODY. I dunno if anyone else is gonna pimp out Vesperia, so I'm gonna wait a little while before starting a thread for that.

HOWEVER, THIS COMMENT THREAD IS ABOUT TALES OF HEARTS.

( cue opening video )


Now, before we get into the story and characters and everything, I want to explain something kinda nifty about this game. Most of us who know the Tales Of series know that it's primarily an anime-styled cutscene sort of game. Tales of Hearts halfway broke that tradition by releasing two different versions of the game: The anime version, and the CG version. Yes, you read that right. There is CG in your Tales Of series.

Obviously, the fanbase enjoyed the anime cutscenes more. As pretty as the CG is, it just doesn't really feel like Tales Of to me, and from what I see, a lot of the fanbase felt the same way. Still, it's pretty awesome, and it's something totally unique to this game. c:

NOW, ONTO THE STORY.

There are two parts to this game, really.

Part 1: While on the run from the Sorceress Incarose, Hisui and Kohaku Hearts find themselves washed up on the shores of a small town called Seable, where they are then found and rescued by Shing Meteoryte. The two of them need weapons called 'Soma' in order to defend themselves, and, long story short, Shing takes them to his mother's grave to retrieve her Soma (Elrond - this becomes Kohaku's soma), Incarose finds them, and in addition to wounding Kohaku's Spiria to a point where she won't wake up, also kills Zex, Shing's grandfather. Shing makes a decision to use his grandfather's Soma, Asteria, to jump into Kohaku's spirune and try to save her, and ends up meeting a woman named Richea inside her spirune. After that meeting Kohaku's spirune shatters, sending shards of it all over the world and causing Kohaku herself to wake up, but to be virtually emotionless save for the emotion of kindness, which stayed with her. Thus, the plot for the first part of the game is pretty much Hisui and Shing traveling around the world in search of shards of Kohaku's spirune, which leads to meeting the rest of the party members and lots of interesting interactions with other people.

Part 2: Once Kohaku's spirune is completed, we get into more plot things, and we finally learn more about Richea! Also, a few really surprising things happen, and I'm not going to talk too much about this second part because it is littered with spoilery things, but take my word for it, it's amazing. c:

So now that we have story down, I'll introduce the characters a little more. Also, their names will include a link to an arte exhibition for all of them, so you get to see their battle styles. c:

* Shing Meteoryte - Awww, lookit him, isn't he cute? This is our derpy main hero, Shing. He's a fairly naive boy, and he hasn't really been outside of his hometown at all in his entire life, but is finally getting his chance to do so with what happened to Kohaku. His mother passed away when he was young, and for most of his life, he was raised by his grandfather, who is a Soma User (not that Shing knew this until shortly before the game starts), and has been training his grandson to have a strong spiria. We find out later why his grandfather wanted him to have such a strong Spiria, but that's getting into spoiler territory. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, and is very pure-hearted and has a strong sense of making up for his mistakes as well. Also, he helps out pretty girls. Especially if they have big chests. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT GRANDPA TAUGHT HIM. No, really, Grandpa taught him that.

* Kohaku Hearts - The official spelling of her name is 'Kohak,' but many people tend to romanize it to 'Kohaku,' since that's how it's pronounced in the game. Either way is correct. I tend to use Kohaku because it makes more sense to me. BUT ANYWAY, I could TLDR forever about this character. And I have before. I mean, really, look at dat personality section. The point here is that Kohaku herself is a very complex and interesting character, and even moreso because she is a case where you get a bit of her full personality at first, and then you're forced to learn many aspects of her personality very slowly. She's got an interesting fighting style, too; she's very well-balanced, being able to do offensive techniques and defensive ones as well.

* Hisui Hearts - Big Brotherrrrrrr 8Db Hisui himself is actually really loud and rude. And he's very overprotective of his little sister. When you learn the history of the Hearts siblings, it becomes really understandable as to why, but yes, Hisui is the siscon of the game who takes his overprotectiveness to all the extremes. He's actually not a bad guy. He just has a hard time really putting on the dere, because he is tough manly man forever. He's so loveable, though, despite how much of an overprotective jerk he can be. c: And his sister knows how to keep him in line ~ ♥

* Beryl Benito - She's our token mage of the game! And our token loli. Though, surpriiiiise, she's actually older than both Shing and Kohaku. 8Db Anyhoot, this is Beryl. Cute, isn't she? She's a soma user (x2, even! her hat and her brush are both Soma), who has dreams of becoming an imperial painter. And apparently, she's pretty damn good at what she does. We meet Beryl when we find that she has a shard of Kohaku's spirune within her, which causes her to act really abnormal. Of course, we fix her and she joins us shortly after that whole thing.

* Innes Lorenz - We actually meet Innes before Beryl, but Beryl joins our party first. Innes is a merchant and the owner of a shop called 'Every Day is a Peaceful Day', and also a soma user herself. She deals in selling soma, actually, and this is how Hisui got his. We also find out later that she's part of the military, and there are a lot of heartbreaking spoilers concerning that as well, but I won't mention those. Innes overall is kind of the token troll/big-boobed chick of the game, and she's actually a really fun character. c: She and Beryl often get into little arguments that end up resulting in mass hilarity.

* Kunzite - GUESS WHAT GUYS, IT'S AN ANDROID. The last member to join the party, Kunzite is nothing short of badass. He's also laden with spoilers himself, because his mistress is Richea, who is ... spoilers. And I don't want to spoil too much. But yes, he's pretty badass.

This is our Main Party! Richea Spodune ends up joining us later on, but she doesn't fight. She's a plot-pivotal character, and a lot of the second half's plot revolves around her. We find out why she was in Kohaku's spirune, how she got there, what her mission is, and how it involves everyone else in the party, and even how it involves people in the past! Specifically, Kohaku, Hisui, and Shing's mamas and Shing's grandpa. 8Db

There are also other characters in this game who are just as amazing; some of them are temporary enemies, some of them are full-fledged enemies, and some are recurring NPCs who are amazing and wonderful. Seriously, I can't say the words 'amazing' and 'wonderful' enough about this game.

I realize this thing must be a monster by now, so I'll try to hurry up with the rest of this.

Tales of Hearts was, unfortunately, never localized. There are ways to play the game and understand what is being said despite that, however: [livejournal.com profile] vesperia did an actual full-on script translation of the main game (no skits, just the main game), which can still be found on the internet (I will be linking to it, by the by). There is also playing the game via emulator or buying it yourself, though I'm pretty sure it's region locked, so you'd need a Japanese DS to play it if you buy it. However, R4s are a wonderful invention for the DS, so as much as I don't want to advocate piracy in such a beautiful game, unfortunately, those who are short on cash may want to look into emulations or R4s. If anybody wants the nds file for the game, I will be happy to hand it over, but it's really pretty easy to find.

Also of note, there is a Translation Patch in the works for this game! It might not seem like it because the guy heading the project tends to do a lot of trolling (I really don't blame him, his trolling is pretty hilarious), but yes, it is happening!

There have also been rumors about a remake of the game for the PSVita being in the works. I sincerely hope it is true. :B

My last point of note before I end this monstrosity here is more of a pimpage for my baby girl, Kohaku. She's going to be a cameo battle in Tales of Graces f, which is coming to America for the PS3 in about a week. And I need to say it.

She is going to kick my ass and I am going to be so proud of her for it.

Especially if that name change is a thing. AUGH. So irrationally upset over it.

RELEVANT LINKS:
* Vesperia's LJ post regarding the ToH script (links are down now because megaupload)
* But not to worry, I have the script uploaded here for those of you who want to read it.
* Translation Patch Progress Site
* Tales of Hearts @ Aselia Wiki
* Tales of Hearts: Hard Mode Playthrough (Bosses Only)

Unfortunately I can't find an actual completed playthrough. :( Any questions, please feel free to ask me! I don't claim to be an expert on the game, but I've done my best to make sure I know as much as I can to be able to play Kohaku as best as I can.
spiria: (Default)

[personal profile] spiria 2012-03-08 01:14 am (UTC)(link)
OH, IT'S BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT DS GAMES ARE NOT REGION LOCKED.

SO.

* Tales of Hearts: Anime Edition @ Play Asia
* Tales of Hearts: CG Edition @ Play Asia
spiria: (Default)

Re: TALES OF HEARTS

[personal profile] spiria 2012-03-08 01:37 am (UTC)(link)
Also, I messed up on one of my links.

Anime Opening