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Information on Tears To Tiara?


Zodai

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So, having noticed the first one on Fuwa's site, and with the recent buzz about the sequel getting localized, I suppose I should inquire about this - the art style/gameplay reminds me of Disgaea to an extent, and as the consoles are currently outside of my bedroom, a PC SRPG of similar tastes may be useful.

 

What's the gameplay like, is the first one localized as well (assuming not) is playing the first required to understand the second, is the second console-only or is it PC as well, etc etc.

 

A general understanding of the quality in terms of the series as a whole would be useful as well.  Thank you for your assistance.

 

--Minor mental inconsistencies of whether this was VN enough to be posted in VN talk.  Hopefully this will not be of too much concern.

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VNDB exists for a reason. :)

http://vndb.org/v238

http://vndb.org/v7719

 

You can see that there is a translation of the first game, which has a PC version, and the second game is PS3 exclusive. I haven't played them, but I highly doubt that the first holds much relevance to the second, considering they felt like they could get away with officially localizing the second without there being an official localization of the first. Also, I heard that the first game has rather lackluster gameplay that isn't very fun. The art style doesn't do it for me. The sequel seems to be better received.

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I beat every title in this series on PS3, namely the first game Tears To Tiara: Kakan no Daichi, the spinoff Avalon no Nazo, and the sequel Tears To Tiara II: Haoh no Matsuei.

 

You can find out the relationship among these titles in my thread (just search "tears to tiara"):

https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/6255-random-rant-and-recommendation-from-a-console-vn-player/

 

Simply put, the PC version of the first game is much inferior to the PS3 remake. Also, you don't need to finish the first game to understand the sequel, although in the sequel there's some reference to the plot of the first one (or to be more specific, the PS3 remake of the first game, Kakan no Daichi, since the PC version is rather outdated and instead the PS3 remake is considered canon in the PS3 exclusive sequel) . IMO the first game (I mean the PS3 remake) is the best in terms of story.

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Speaking of upcoming Tears of Tiara II on the PS3, how is it in terms of story and characters?

I'm thinking of getting it but honestly my wallet has been bleeding too much with all the game releases and I have to be careful... if you know what I mean XD

 

You can spoil to me as much as you want, I won't mind. ˇˇ

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Speaking of upcoming Tears of Tiara II on the PS3, how is it in terms of story and characters?

I'm thinking of getting it but honestly my wallet has been bleeding too much with all the game releases and I have to be careful... if you know what I mean XD

 

You can spoil to me as much as you want, I won't mind. ˇˇ

The characters are definitely interesting. The first game has a better male protagonist(Auron), while the second game has a better female protagonist(Tarte).

 

The story is pretty long in both games. The second game looks quite promising at the beginning, but feels a bit lackluster toward the end, while the first game gets increasingly better as the story progresses.

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I beat every title in this series on PS3, namely the first game Tears To Tiara: Kakan no Daichi, the spinoff Avalon no Nazo, and the sequel Tears To Tiara II: Haoh no Matsuei.

 

You can find out the relationship among these titles in my thread (just search "tears to tiara"):

https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/6255-random-rant-and-recommendation-from-a-console-vn-player/

 

Simply put, the PC version of the first game is much inferior to the PS3 remake. Also, you don't need to finish the first game to understand the sequel, although in the sequel there's some reference to the plot of the first one (or to be more specific, the PS3 remake of the first game, Kakan no Daichi, since the PC version is rather outdated and instead the PS3 remake is considered canon in the PS3 exclusive sequel) . IMO the first game (I mean the PS3 remake) is the best in terms of story.

 

How inferior is the PC version as opposed to the PS3 one?  Have the graphic improvements in the PS3 version mentioned in the thread ever been patched into PC?  If the PS3 version didn't exist, would the PC one still be worth recommending, and how difficult will the second one be to understand if one has played the first on PC, but hasn't touched the PS3 version in any regard?

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How inferior is the PC version as opposed to the PS3 one?  Have the graphic improvements in the PS3 version mentioned in the thread ever been patched into PC?  If the PS3 version didn't exist, would the PC one still be worth recommending, and how difficult will the second one be to understand if one has played the first on PC, but hasn't touched the PS3 version in any regard?

The gameplay is completely different from the PC version. PC has realtime gameplay while the PS3 ver is turnbased.

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Are there any major story differences between the PC and console version of the first game aside from ero scene removal?

I never played the PC version, but according to Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, both the gameplay and the story underwent a major overhaul (gameplay changed from RTS to SRPG, and they modified and added a lot to the story and graphics), so you can treat the PS3 version as a completely new game.

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I never played the PC version, but according to Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, both the gameplay and the story underwent a major overhaul (gameplay changed from RTS to SRPG, and they modified and added a lot to the story and graphics), so you can treat the PS3 version as a completely new game.

 

Ah, understood.  I suppose I'll be skipping the first one, then.

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I'm coming in to offer my take on this

 

First, as far as I can tell PS3 Tears to Tiara 1 has the same rewrite amount as PS2 Utawarerumono. That is, everything already written on the PC version is unchanged, while a few stages are added and a new subplot written in (and quickly resolved).

PS3 version should be treated as a new game because it's TBS, not PC's RTS, but as far as the story portion goes, it should be treated as more-or-less the same.

 

I can see why one might like Tears to Tiara 1 more, so I'll give my personal take on this, ranking Aquaplus' RPGs from favourite to least. Note I'm talking about story only.

Wall of Text Warning! Skip to conclusion if you don't need details!

 

Tears to Tiara II is definitely my favourite. But I echo hellish in that the ending isn't as strong. Quality wise it sort of starts off high, then steadily climbs until it reach Mt. Everest Level at the half way mark, before jumping onto a plateau and wobbles a bit, before climbing high again but never reach what it was before. The story after half-way is also less relatable. The second half has one or two too many cop-outs, making the ending bland except for the voice acting, which alone rescues the part.

So why is it my favourite? It is an epic literature. It dumps the harem (I like harem, but I'll explain later). The story has two themes: religion, and sacrifice. The first half is almost entirely the latter, and is so well written that on second reading even some really small things like mannerism of the villain that was easily ignored on first reading becomes clear that it's actually foreshadowing the twist. The second half turns up the theme of religion, and becomes philosophical, without getting in the way of the story. The first game clearly says "Religion is Bad". But this one asks "Or is it?". It asks also "What's the role of religion in a society" and even at the end never gives you an answer. If you like thinking, as I do, this is bunch of extra points for it. Of course if you don't care for it, then all it does is slow down the story. Then, going for epic, the story drives for scale and politics and awesome. It's good to see once in a while a military genius who can walk the walk in fiction, not just make up stuff that wouldn't work irl half the time. I have to echo Hasdrubal's CV in his commentaries after the end in that rather than a game plot, TtT2 reads like heavy literature.

And as a history buff, this one has a lot more references.

 

Utawarerumono comes a close second. In fact I am really torn on how to place these two and could easily place Utawarerumono first.

Utawarerumono has basically no themes and no philosophy. It is not an epic, and the plot is straightforward(-ish). But it goes for the other path. The story is written as in-universe "normal" people get thrust into situations good and bad that they have to respond to. It has the best comedy, the best slice of life parts (TtT2 has none), and even its harem in a way makes sense, which is super rare in a VN. It successfully builds and fleshes out every single character, where both TtT games only does this for a handful of main characters, and this makes all the characters extremely relatable from start to end.

It is basically the best telling a "traditional" harem, personal-relatable romance story in a RPG setting. As such it starts high quality and keeps it all the way through.

 

Finally, Tears to Tiara I

It is last because it's really obvious that the author is trying so hard to write an epic (TtT2 style) but doesn't get there. It has a very forced harem. Harem itself has no place in an epic, just like love-triangles has no place in a war movie. All it does is take away screen time from the epic plot. And thankfully the harem drops off as the female cast stops being haremettes and starts being soldiers, improving the quality of the story steadily, and just demonstrates that the harem was redundant in the first place!

The writing itself is a bit barebone, and many of its attempt at slice-of-life falls flat. Where-as Utawarerumono fleshes out the entire main cast and many side ones, and TtT2 fleshes out its 2 villains and 3 to 5 of the main cast, TtT1 fleshes out only the two male protagonists (PS3 at best fleshes out 2 more characters). This fleshing, however, is very well done. Its theme of comradery is easily relatable. And this part does have a lot of epicness to it.

Once they enter the last arc of the story, however, the quality drops off again as the protagonists finish their development one arc too early and neither the supporting cast nor the villain picks up the slack, turning what was an original story very traditional, which while not mattering to a lot of people, gets it ducted points in my books because it doesn't do what it strives to do. My biggest grip with this work is that the plot naturally lends itself to some philosophical musing, yet through one single line before last boss, the author recons the villains' motivations already previously established for something traditional and cliche.

It pains me to say this but IMO the anime version is superior to both PC and PS3.

 

 

 

In conclusion/Tl;dr: Tears to Tiara II - Heirs to the Overlord is an epic. Utawarerumono is the epitome of transfering a personal, slice-of-life romance into an RPG setting, and Tears to Tiara (Garlands of the Earth included) is basically the author not having enough conviction to abandon traditional VN story telling in order to tell the story that he wants to tell. It wants to be an epic at the same time as a traditional VN harem slice-of-life, and doesn't quite get both right. So I am really glad he has taken the step and dumped most of the unnecessary things to tell the story he wants to tell for Heirs to the Overlord.

 

 

 

As for why I put Tears to Tiara II above Utawarerumono. I will admit Utawarerumono is more emotionally moving and relatable.

However I have always been of the opinion that Visual Novel is an art form with way too much untapped potential. It combines the best parts of novels, picture books, and screen, without having to take on a lot of their flaws. Therefore it can be used to tell all sorts of story, better than any of the other art forms. But it's burdened with its origins of being made for harem h-games, so too many authors feel they must make it at least a harem, slice-of-life story to satisfy their target demographics. So when a work like Tears to Tiara II comes along and says willingly breaks boundaries and takes risks to tell the story it wants to tell, even if it ends up not selling well because of it, it should be applauded.

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I'm coming in to offer my take on this

I'm glad that someone here played this series, and I'm gonna elaborate a little more on why I prefer Tiara 1. Also, whenever I talk about the first game, I refer to the PS3 version unless stated otherwise.

 

I'm wondering if you played the PS3 or PC version of the first game, since presentation (voice over, graphics, music) can sway one's opinion on the story. You testified to this as well:

 

The second half has one or two too many cop-outs, making the ending bland except for the voice acting, which alone rescues the part.

The massive presentation improvements in the PS3 remake help the reader connect with the story much more easily. I glanced at the screenshots of the PC version and can't find myself interested to play this primitive version.

 

As for character development, I still find that Tiara 2 only fleshes out the two protagonists well, and the delineation of the female villain is somewhat similar as the male villain in Tiara 1 (the general of the empire). In fact I don't remember much about the cast in Tiara 2 except the two protagonists, while I can still clearly call out the names of most characters in the first game, despite the fact that I played Tiara 1 much earlier than Tiara 2. This may be because:

1. There are several sub events in Tiara 1 that talk about the daily event of the cast. These slice-of-life episodes contribute to the development of the sub characters. No such events exist in Tiara 2.

2. I played the spin off of Tiara 1, which further strengthened my impression on the cast.

 

The theme of the first game also focuses on religion. It explains the foundation of the world that Tiara 2 inherits, and the past events that shape the world and the personality of the two protagonists. The writer spends much screen time during the second half of the game telling an epic backstory that can be easily related with, and the game soon reaches its ending after the backstory scenes. So the curve of the story quality starts off normal, then steadily climbs until it finally reaches the peak around 3/4 of the game time, and drops off toward the end. That's why the ending didn't disappoint me much because I was still thrilled at the epic backstory and maintained strong identification with the two protagonists during the end.

On the contrary, I tingled with excitement at the fantastic scenes (the uprising during the midnight ritual) in the early chapters of Tiara 2, saw great potential in the two protagonists and yearned for more of such epicness, but unfortunately my craving went unfulfilled all the way to the end. My biggest gripe with Tiara 2 is that it shows its cards way too early and fails to satiate the tantalized reader later. Should the writer create another epic climax near the end, the story would have been much more entertaining.

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Please keep in mind I respect your opinion, and I am not trying to convince you of mine. I am just explaining my opinion.

 

I'm wondering if you played the PS3 or PC version of the first game, since presentation (voice over, graphics, music) can sway one's opinion on the story. You testified to this as well:

The massive presentation improvements in the PS3 remake help the reader connect with the story much more easily. I glanced at the screenshots of the PC version and can't find myself interested to play this primitive version.

Both. Yes you are right, the CG and sprites of PC version was quite bland. However the CG for the two important parts are good enough. And the three voices that matter: Arawn, Arthur/Pwyll, and Rhiannon/Primula were unchanged. In fact the only voices that were changed were the forgetable supporting female cast. At least Octavia is less forgetable in PS3 since she gets her own arc.

 

 

As for character development, I still find that Tiara 2 only fleshes out the two protagonists well, and the delineation of the female villain is somewhat similar as the male villain in Tiara 1 (the general of the empire).

Gaius was a cool arc 1 villain. That's it. That's not bad, and he is cool, and he is better developped than Lector (another reason in TtT taking a nose dive last chapter). However he doesn't have a complicated motivation. He's straight forward in it as a worthy opponent, and if he had been in charge of the empire it would have been a lot better. Of course he's after the throne too. Anyway I won't duct any points off him, but he doesn't get any added either.

Izebel on the otherhand has a complicated motivation, with lots of foreshadowing towards it.

She turns out to be protecting Hispania, training Hamil, and looking forward to her own death. All of which she hides behind a facade of a blood thirsty traitor to her own people and snarky subbordinate to the empire.

She gets her own complicated back story that brought me to tears. And I did read through blogs and plays of Japanese players and I wasn't the only one.

TtT2 also develops Dion immensely, while all of the original from Tamar gets very important backgrounds and insights to their thoughts, characteristics, and back story. (The ones not from Tamar definately weren't developed enough). Besides Arawen and Arthur, only Taliesin and Octavia develops to any extent, and Octavia only in PS3. One can make a case for Rhiannon's development, but I don't buy it.

 

In fact I don't remember much about the cast in Tiara 2 except the two protagonists, while I can still clearly call out the names of most characters in the first game, despite the fact that I played Tiara 1 much earlier than Tiara 2. This may be because:

1. There are several sub events in Tiara 1 that talk about the daily event of the cast. These slice-of-life episodes contribute to the development of the sub characters. No such events exist in Tiara 2.

2. I played the spin off of Tiara 1, which further strengthened my impression on the cast.

The SoL episodes fell very flat for me. It's quite clear Maruitakeshi was a newbie when writing it (which he was) and couldn't pull off what a veteran writer like Suga Munemitsu did for Utawarerumono's SoL episodes. Because it fell flat for me, all it did was slow the plot down. And really, an epic doesn't need SoL episodes.

I didn't start Avalon's mysteries yet. But I am of the group that believes gaiden should be treated seperately.

 

The theme of the first game also focuses on religion. It explains the foundation of the world that Tiara 2 inherits, and the past events that shape the world and the personality of the two protagonists. The writer spends much screen time during the second half of the game telling an epic backstory that can be easily related with, and the game soon reaches its ending after the backstory scenes. So the curve of the story quality starts off normal, then steadily climbs until it finally reaches the peak around 3/4 of the game time, and drops off toward the end. That's why the ending didn't disappoint me much because I was still thrilled at the epic backstory and maintained strong identification with the two protagonists during the end.

 

That's not theme. That's just backstory. Mind you it's important, and the back story is good. But it's still not a theme because its not explored. It could have been, but it wasn't.

Let's assume it is a theme though (I will explain why it isn't, but let's start here). At best one can say "Religion is Bad" is a theme. That is hammered again and again in TtT1. That in and of itself is not a bad thing. But it is a simple theme.

And then Maruitakeshi just decided at the last second to recon the entire thing out. So turns out it's not even simple, it's just disney villainy. Which doesn't fit anything he created up to the point. Really the last chapter of TtT1 is bad except the action.

If you have to rely on emotions created one to three chapter ago, that's bad.

In contrast TtT2 explains and describes all different sides and range of religion.

Simon is an atheist yet helps a ton of people by creating a religion. Arawn is agnostic and passes his thoughts to the incredibly religous Ba'al and set them on the same path Simon will later take. Eshmun abandons religion but ends up failing and regrets doing so. Izebel is a church member and fatalist, but ends up saving the rebelling and the people of Hispania in her own way. Whether Valentinus is religious or atheist is up to debate but he works tirelessly to help the world. Abraxas ends up raging against heaven, but does so by pretending to be heaven's representative in order to better the world. He goes astray due to Metatronus but was he so wrong in the beginning? And just when you think the game might be just slightly leaning towards religion is bad, it's faith that allowed Hispania's rebellion to succeed in Chapter 1 and saves Tarte's life in the last Chapter.

In the end all TtT2 says is fundamentalism is bad, which was already established in the beginning. It keeps examining different facets of religion and yet never gives a definate answer. It's complicated and gives the audience a lot to think about. That's a step into the realm of heavy literature.

While both 1 and 2 drops off near the end. TtT takes a plunge last chapter, and nothing can save an entire chapter (another reason why the anime's superior). In contrast TtT2 only drops off in the last scene before the conclusion, and one scene can be saved, in this case by Matsuoka Yoshitsugu, even if it had to resort to its own version of LotR's eagles.

Now back to TtT1's religion. Why isn't religion a theme? Because the theme of comradery in TtT1 is "Fight not for religion or tradition. Fight for your friends." Therefore all its religion stuff is just a footnote to comradery. And really it's treated as such.

 

 

On the contrary, I tingled with excitement at the fantastic scenes (the uprising during the midnight ritual) in the early chapters of Tiara 2, saw great potential in the two protagonists and yearned for more of such epicness, but unfortunately my craving went unfulfilled all the way to the end. My biggest gripe with Tiara 2 is that it shows its cards way too early and fails to satiate the tantalized reader later. Should the writer create another epic climax near the end, the story would have been much more entertaining.

It is of course everyone's opinion. However the general feeling with Japanese audience from blogs, forum posts, and reviews I read, and I agree, is the story after the rebellion gets better and better until Izebel's death at the half way mark. To me her death was flawless, and it turned out to be too strong, and overshadows the rest of the game. The reason being Maruitakeshi chickened out again. Of four cop-outs, all he had to do was pick one, maybe two, and have them played straight and the story would have ended much stronger (though personally I think it still wouldn't have matched Izebel's death).

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Again I'm happy that there's finally someone I can discuss this game with. It's one of my favorite RPG series.

 

So we have similar reasoning, huh? The backstory of the first game is too strong for me and overshadows the last chapters.

 

Of course I'm not convincing you of my opinion either, and I'm absolutely fine with your statement. I'm surprised to read your insightful review on this series, since I didn't dig too much into its plot. Your review is a very pleasing read.

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  • 4 years later...

I apologize for posting such an odd and late question, but I’ve always been a fan of TtT and wish to know that compared to the anime, how different were the deaths of Gaius and Lydia in the ps3 remake? It would mean the world if anyone can answer my question 

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