Costume Contest Update:

Thanks to everyone who sent in a costume pic, they were awesome!  I will contact the winners before the week is over, so keep an eye out!

While the dungeons themselves can get kind of maze-y, most of traveling in Tales of Zestiria boils down to “go to the star on the map, watch scene, go to next star.”

This would alright if the scenes taking place were interesting… but I think any hope I had for Zestiria is starting to fall off a cliff.

Time to complain!

The equipment system sucks.  Outside of equipment having general stats, you can level up your proficiency with them to make them more useful.  These items also have up to four abilities on them which in addition the perks themselves, the abilities are plotted on a chart (each character has one) that grants additional perks for completing ability columns or row adjacent combos.  Equipment can also be combined with other equipment, but if they have the same skill in not the same slot, you don’t get the additional bonus when fused…

…this is too much.  Each of those things needs to be kept separate because a single change of item can completely ruin a character’s effectiveness.  Change one item and you can lose tons of stats due to having a high proficiency with it, or losing a column of abilities, or losing a row of abilities, or losing the particular stat that you needed, or the particular ability that you needed.

Also, it discourages you from getting new, more powerful equipment as often for those same reasons.

Finally, I think I’ve played enough of the game to say that the story is totally lame, rarely makes sense, and no amount of Edna awesomeness is going to fix it.

I will finish the game… it’s a Tales mothership game, so I owe it that much… but god is this one disappointing.  I was having more fun with Tales of the Abyss than I am with Zestiria, and Abyss didn’t have an Edna.