Anyway, the reason why I enjoyed this is because I’m a fan of storytelling, and I see action as merely a tool of this storytelling. The first installment of the OVA already showed that the fights wouldn’t take priority, so the ones in this episode shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Also, I think that the fact that Collette’s story was changed has been done in order to write Pronyma out of the story. She’s just a minor villain anyway, and spending time on her would take time away from the major characters. In the same way Yuan has been written away. This isn’t indeed the best solution, and I’d rather have that the creators would solve this in the same way as Tales of Phantasia did, but then again, there’s only so much you can do in four episodes.

I do agree with you that this OVA is mostly for the ones who played the game, unlike ToP.

The real storyline of ToS is definitely within the Tethe’alla arc, where all the clichédness built in the first arc collapses. This is, in my opinion, the REAL storyline of ToS.

Then I told myself : “Wait a little bit. Zelos is a pretty popular character in Japan : Namco is mocking her fans by giving them this piece of crap, but they have to satisfy them at least.”

Heck, they found a way to give Zelos screentime WITHOUT even going to Tethe’alla : making him come to Sylvarant with Sheena. Even though it doesn’t make sense, who gives a damn ? The fans will see their beloved Zelos animated.

(By the way, I LOVE Zelos. I think it’s one of the only characters in the game who has personnal story AND personnality.)

Theses OVAs seem to be nothing more than goodies for the fans. Just look at the second episode : I don’t think someone who didn’t play the game would get anything anyway. Where are the characters ? Who knows. Those who pplayed the game may recognize some backgrounds from the game to understand what’s going on, for example, Palmacosta’s architectural art. I mean, no clear explanation is given. AT ALL.

Furthermore, they choose to change some major parts of the storyline. And these part became very stupid. For example, colette losing her humanity.

ALERT ! SPOILERS FROM THE GAME AND FROM THE OVAS !!!

In the game, Colette regains her humanity when Pronyma steals her necklace made in Lloyd. Kinda funny, I’d even say cheesy.

But in the anime… Colette loses her humanity JUST by using an “Angel’s Feather” spell (which she uses constantly in the game, “human” or not), but she actually gets HEALED by Raine by a stupid “Heal” spell ! She places her hand over Colette’s chest, energy flow. Genis : “Daijôbu, Coretto ?” ; Colette : “Hai ! Daijôbu desu ! =D ”

Give me a break, I beg you.

END SPOILERS !!

Being a huge fan of action, I expected from this OVA to AT LEAST satisfy me in terms of fighting. But fights against BOSSES are just finished within 30 secondes. There is no strategy at all, even though Kratos howls what some MAY cal a strategy. For me, it more sounded like : “Raine, you stay in backlines, you protect Colette (even though she won’t get a single hit) and you heal us (even though we won’t get a single scratch) ; Genis, you cast a spell (only one, even though this single spell is only to impress the viewer and won’t do a single scratch to the enemy, heck, it can even easily miss) ; Lloyd, you stay with me. Let’s run like idiots (the enemy will have a golden opportunity to BBQ us, but he won’t, don’t worry, he’s too impressed by Genis’s spell) and kill him in a single hit !”

For me, this is a complete dissapointment. I’m a fan of the game (who had his flaws, indeed, but remained very good with its anti-clichés, especially during the Tethe’alla part), but I can’t even understand how people can enjoy this…

And dont forget Raine/Refill’s bad cooking abilities, that was vaguely referenced in one of the fast-forward scenes…

I also share your views for Colette as well as the other characters and the music~