Holy crap, anyone starting this game better read all the guides, especially how to obtain secret achievements... A total of 540gs (3 ach) can be missed and you have to restart the game to get those.

>_> I don't know there is any English guides out there... but i suggest you wait for a bit, the official guide is planned to be released on 15th (no idea delayed again or not), so lots of information will be flooding out.

The missable quests i know are
Disc 1:
- baulson (do it as soon as you see him)
- emma (before nest of eagle)
- melphina knight guild quests (must choose the lower option every time)
The rest just complete before boss fight (jager and hell gate).

Disc 2:
- ghor lord (start before base fight, must follow exact sequence during bass fight)
- the fallen (after mt vakel appears, before entering undelwalt)
- haruko (before the quest in darken forest)

If you really finished all the quests, you'll get a new quest (you very last quest) in athlum pub from the secret lady (the onewho gave you first quest. Finish that, you can fight with absolute conqueror.

So, 140gs for the fallen, 200gs for the final quest, 200gs for absolute conqueror.

A guide for those who are frustrated and angry on the game:

http://bbs.a9vg.com/read.php?tid=1057445&fpage=1

Continue to read if you are be prepared to restart the game...

Too lazy to explain the in depth concept , but the general rules is:

Do NOT engage monsters that you do NOT need to fight, like when doing a quest, only engage the boss at the end, do NOT engage the mobs on your way. If you are trying to gather components, only fight the monster once, if the component doesn't drop or the mob is not captured, reload save until it is.

The leveling process:
< BR30 - Blackdale's Oblivion, first vulture mob, one group of two
< BR45 - Numor's 5th zone, after escalator turn left scavenger mob, one group of one
< BR60 - Ancient ruin level 1, go straight second junction turn right first black-flying-octopus, one group of four
< BR120 - Ancient ruin level 3, turn left at first junction second giant mob, one group of three

The only problem you might run into is probably holy servant (need to beat it to gain access to ancient ruin level 3). It took me 1.5 hours at BR55, wasted dunno how many herbs...

It's best that you start the leveling after you assemble your full team with the leaders you wanna use. For soldiers, choose 12 and stick to them, do not change.

Well, yes, in a way, but you can always move to the next stage once your team is strong enough to survive them, like if you can take the scavenger down at BR20, by all means, go for it.

This post has been edited by zhiyung: Dec 23 2008, 10:24 PM

Yes, that one, that particular one. So you kill it, you move back to previous zone, save, reload, kill it again, repeat. Yea, damn stupid process, but maximum gain.

Linking mobs will not lower stat gain, but it will increase BR gain. So for example, there are two mobs:
1. you link and kill them - you get stat gain, and you get BR gain.
2. you kill them separately - you get stat gain twice (2 battles), and you BR might not increase. Even increase also, you get twice the stat gain in the end, still better than linking.

Zoning to respawn existing mobs and zoning to spawn different set of mobs are different.

For the vulture example, you want to fight the same vulture again, so you can just move one zone away, save/load, it'll respawn. For rare monsters also, if you already got the mob spawned and wanna fight it again and again, so just zone out and save/load.

But to spawn a rare monster that didn't show up in the current map config, you'll have to go back from world map.

But still, Tales of Vesperia and this are probably the best RPG available for Xbox360.

Well... lots of people prefer LO over TLR, but personally i prefer TLR.

Story wise, both have crappy story, no one is better than the other one.
Gameplay wise, TLR definitely better, the battle system, the rare monsters, guild task and all, way way more things to do than LO.
In TLR, a lot of people are having trouble with most bosses. But of course, once you actually learn the system, they are not that difficult, but i wouldn't call them cake walk. In LO, most people only struggle against the first 2 bosses, the rest of the bosses... close one eye.

Oh yea, some people will say TLR is technically inferior, slow frame rate, graphic glitches, but to me, what do i care, it's a freakin RPG, not a shooter.

This post has been edited by zhiyung: Dec 24 2008, 11:45 AM

Not really. Not to say playing it normally is difficult, but if you do the maximum stat grinding, you will definitely notice the difference.

Just to let you know, my first run characters at BR120 have lesser stats then my second run characters at BR70. The only things that they (second run) are lagging behind are combat arts and weapons.

Oh yea, torgal, ceadmon, baulson literally destroy everything once they have their weapon arts. The other guys' weapon arts are not as effective as theirs.

Yes, you can, in fact, I'm doing that, because of my puny 20gig hdd.

Personally i don't think the technical problem is that serious. After installing to HDD, it's within my tolerable limit. This is a RPG, does the slow frame rate (occasionally during battle), texture popping matter that much? And frequent loading, lots of 360 titles are too..

The only real problem of this game is not player friendly. Lack of documentation and the system is more to the hardcore players.

The first floor. The mobs you encounter upon entering are either rockgraters (scorpion thingy) or the charb... (whatever, octopus thingy).

Oh btw for the giants at level 3, turn left at first junction, you will encounter 2x2, 1x3, 1x2 and another 1x2. I usually go for 2nd 3rd and 4th.

You probably passed the intersection.


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If you want to have the absolute strongest possible team, yea, you probably doing it wrongly. But as long as you still less than BR30-40, it's not too late to correct, you'll still end up with a pretty good team.

There are so many things to consider building your team, so many things you can miss in the game. I suggest you spend some times, hours if needed, reading gamefaqs forum. If not, you'll probably need to restart after spending tens of hours.

PLEASE read the quest list, there are quests that can be missed. There is NO new game plus, you will have to restart and go thru a FULL playthru if you missed something.

Hmm holy servant, i managed to beat it at BR55, the battle took 1.5 hour, my hardest battle in this game. Buy lots of herbs, have lots of patience, prepare a pot of hot tea, play a relaxing music album. Keep healing and reviving your team, do not attack unless you can use unique attack, OR make sure whichever union that attacks can survive three consecutive attacks (current turn's counter - current turn's end - next turn's raid or splash).

The brady game guide or the japanese one? If the brady, better be careful, some claimed it has some mistakes and unspecified critical information.

Some of the information are just plain wrong, ok, not really wrong, but wrong in the way if you want the best possible setup. Some of them have no idea or don't intend to obtain the ultimate team. However, those info will be really helpful in your first playthru, and after that you will finally grasp the entire system, and if you do start a second playthru, you will be able to formulate much much improved strategies.

Try not to use groups with less than 3-4k hp, they will become a burden. Memorize the pattern of fallen's attack, plan accordingly. I took it out at Br9x in 4 turns. Anyway, at your BR, doesn't any of your general have weapon art? They will make the fight extremely easy.

AFAIK you only need to score about 300 (or 400k) of damage within 6 turns.

I suggest you screw Pagus, move one soldier to the other group, make 3 groups with 5k over hp, which can take 2 turns of punishment without healing. A 3k hp union will probably need to heal every turn (after first turn), so they are useless.

Honestly, the damage of your weapon art is at the low side, because caedmon's hd should be able to do 200k upwards, and baulson's 100k upwards. But anyway, one thing you can try is get a group without weapon art to deadlock fallen, the rest standby, then on second turn, unleash weapon art, then just heal and use weapon art. Exploit the unit that can do weapon art.

Bloctor can use a accessory that can auto cancel status effect on next turn, utilize that if you need. And, Torgal's weapon art can do miracle also.