Tales of Vesperia ... that's really far away... Publisher: Namco Tales Studios Publisher: Namco Bandai Games Genre: Japanese Role Playing Game Every game has a story to tell – everything from the latest, greatest role-playing adventure to ye olde Custer’s Revenge (there’s a plot – really), there has to be some sort of reason to make whatever your task seem worth it, be it to slay some dragons or cure some mysterious disease. In the Japanese Role Playing Game, the story is the defining factor, even more so than the actual gameplay. Of the JRPGs to grace the shores of countries other than Japan and Japan, the Tales series is one of the best known propagators of fantastical settings, characters and plots. Unfortunately, Tales of Vesperia does little to follow suit. Upon booting up the game, you’re treated to one of the highlights – a beautifully drawn anime opening with a surprisingly awesome theme to boot. While few and far between, when these animated cutscenes do appear, they are extremely well done, putting the more common CGI cutscene to pale in comparison. The actual, in-game graphics are somewhat reminiscent of Eternal Sonata by being extremely colorful – each location is rendered in a classic, cel-shaded Tales style where color makes every detail pop, shine, and sparkle, oftentimes too much. When you look past the lovingly animated characters, you’ll notice that the backdrops, while oftentimes very original, don’t always carry a lot of detail, making them feel sort of empty, save for a few set pieces that, when played in high definition, range into the overly, blindingly bright. Lush, colorful and bright – a classic Tales landscape, complete with ridiculous giant tree. The opening theme sets up a pretty high standard of musical quality that is unfortunately not carried throughout the entire game – while each track conveys the mood of the current area, none of the tracks are particularly memorable, serving only to give your speakers a job, rather than blow you away. Sound effects follow the same suit of being fairly well done, but not ever outstanding, as does the voice acting, thankfully not horrible as in most other JRPGs, but not of the best quality. The actual story of Vesperia begins in the lower quarters of the capitol building and the theft of a fountain’s blastia. These blastia are technological masterpieces that blend ancient knowledge and the magical aer that is all around us to create various effects, chief of which is to generate a barrier that prevents the monsters of the outside world from rampaging in on cities. Without its aque blastia, the fountain spews forth dirty water, forcing those in the lower quarter to stop the flooding and find another source of water far from the safeties of the capital’s barrier – a problem that leading character Yuri wants to stop. The plot starts out interestingly enough, and, for the first few hours, it builds up with the introduction of an escaping princess and a nice trip in the castle, but as the hours begin to drag on and more characters are introduced into the fold of things, the plot begins to drag on more and more to the point where it stretches way to thin for way to long. Yes, Rita and Karol, continue to walk – you’re more interesting on your own. Granted, each character you meet is, individually, interesting, but everyone stays interesting only as an individual – each person that joins your party never actually joins to help you, but because doing so is convenient to their current task, and, when that task is finished, something just so happens to come up that makes their next exit along the way. Time after time, you are forced to wander around a new town, talking to each person to find out what they want to do or wanted to do, which is always fine – characters having their own personal interests prevents them from becoming an emotional gray, but the other extreme of the group not coherently bonding until certain actions force them into a common bond makes it feel as if everyone is just tagging along, whining the entire time. Even so, the story does breach this annoying baggage and break into a few surpassingly mature topics, class struggle and privilege, political corruption, and the true meaning of justice, occasionally making it extremely involving, but the outcome of these events drives everyone back into the swamp of individual desire where no one cares just how bad things are for someone else when that barrier blastia is on the fritz. This ultimately evolves into a story that’s fairly decent, but because it touches on epicness, those awesome moments make the rest just seem like filler – even halfway through the game, events don’t really pick up and it still feels as though you’re wandering around, distracted by every little nuance because you are indeed just wandering around, and nothing is helped when Vesperia panics and starts to play cliche cards. An oftentimes poor translation or a moment of bad pacing doesn’t serve to help this. Lawls, someone forgot to translate entirely – I’m sure whatever she’s saying would be awesome, if only we knew what she was saying. Perhaps the highlight of the story is the occasional CGI cutscene. But, much like how the story branches into perfection, these movies are trumped by the extremely rare, fully animated and voiced scenes. While far and between, these are amazingly well done, putting the non-game engine cutscenes to shame, as they oftentimes look even worse than what the normal engine could have come up with… But, the saving grace of a Tales game is its combat – unlike other JRPGs, or most RPGs in general, Tales utilizes a real-time combat engine to bring you right into the fray, giving it a completely addictive nature. While in a three-dimensional ring, your character is defaulted to a linear path between yourself and the current target with the ability to break into the third dimension in free run mode. Combat boils down to running up to foes and beating them up with whatever weapon you fancy, pressing B to perform basic combos, spiced up with the ability to perform “artesâ€ÂÂ, special techniques with powerful effects such as Shining Fang with Yuri, First Aid with Estelle, or Fire Ball with Rita, all assigned to the A button and a directional input. These are powerful additions to combat that makes even simple skirmishes entertaining, as each attack is flashy and unique, so much so that several effects onscreen at once can slow the game down considerably… if you can get the camera, oftentimes content to show you the backside of a giant beast, will even show the slowdown. Rita conjures a Stalagmite that devours everyone else on the team. While this basic formula hasn’t changed much since the series conception, just enough is changed to make it all seem new and exciting – each weapon has a set of “skills†that can be learned from it, such as the ability to perform backsteps, an increase in physical defense, or the occasional boost to one’s health, that can be equipped in sets, allowing you to customize your character as you see fit. Certain combinations of these skills unlock additional bonuses or arte transformation, keeping you on your toes and looking for new, better skills. Other updates to the combat system include a multi-level overlimit – as you deal and take damage, you build up an “overlimit†bar that, when enabled, allows you to ignore staggering effects and punish your foe even faster, with higher levels dealing more damage and offering new effects. Burst Artes are extremely powerful moves that can be performed at the end of a combo in overlimit mode, giving you a deviously powerful attack to throw out when things get tough. Still though, a free, from-start free run ability is most appreciated. A few additional features are also implemented to mix things up outside of combat. Cooking is back in full force with a number of recipes that each character can learn and perform to recover health or raise stats, a minor, but extremely handy, feature. Item synthesis lets you obtain a number of synthesis items to combine them into new items and weapons, greatly expanding your equipment catalogue as most of the items remain easy to find. A number of “secret missions†can also be performed, unique objectives for boss fights that net you Achievement points and rare synthesis items, but those objectives do remain secret until the mission has already been completed. Skits remain intact, additional, optional dialogue between the characters that either flushes out the story or adds some humor – only, this time around, they are fully voiced. Titles can be earned by completing story events or side quests, providing alternate costumes and stat bonuses, allowing for even further customization of each character. Gasp! Something new in a JRPG! One of the more interesting, rather hilarious, additions is the ability to buy all of the above on the Live Marketplace, allowing you to bypass item, recipe, title and synthesis material collection with a monetary fee – you can even purchase levels! At the end of the day, Tales of Vesperia is a good game, but it is definitely nothing out of the ordinary, save for the combat, which still remains addictive as ever. The visuals are relatively bland, the soundtrack is underwhelming, and the story only occasionally breaches into truly interesting topics, otherwise staying in a constant tug-of-war battle between at least six different interests. If you’ve enjoyed pervious Tales titles, you might want to consider picking up this one, seeing as how the core battle system is improved to near perfection, but don’t go in expecting too much else. Presentation, 8/10: While most menus are easy enough to navigate, text doesn’t fare well with older displays, oftentimes dropping into the “illegible†range of things, a la Dead Rising on standard definition. And while more related to gameplay, I would consider the translation and it’s under average quality to be of the game’s presentation as a whole. Graphics, 8/10: The visuals remain in a charming, colorful Tales style that everyone can fall in love with, but when you start to look closely at these environments, many of them lack the detail to make them truly lively. Sound, 7/10: One of the greater disappointments, the soundtrack doesn’t every really carry as much weight as it does in other Tales games, making it seem more like filler than anything. Thankfully, the voice acting is good enough to carry you though some otherwise uninspiring tunes. Gameplay, 7/10: While the gameplay remains ever addicting, refined to a point where it feels almost perfect, the story continues to drag the game down – while, as individuals, each character is likable, they remain as individuals at all times, giving your group no sense of conformity or unison that serves to make Yuri little androgynous errand boy. Replay Value, 6/10: Assuming that you even beat it the first time, there is very little reason to go all the way back through it again, even with the standard GRADE store that allows you to purchase or carry over data or modifiers from your first run through. Total, 36/50: Tales of Vesperia is by no means a bad game, but it certainly could have been a lot more. You’re oftentimes tantalized with grand expectations – beautiful animated cinimatics, an excellent opening theme and some surprisingly epic story moments – but these are always pulled back to give you the rest of the game, that, because of the greatness it so rarely exemplifies, seems drab when they’re really quite decent. Recommendations Family, "I <3 Wii Sports", gamer: While the game does offer multiplayer, it is limited entirely to battles, meaning that, unless your friends are content to just sit back and have already been playing or keeping up with the story, there’s no real family aspect to it. Otherwise, the game features some rare sexual, violence and language that would otherwise make this for somewhat more mature audiences. Casual, "I like games", gamer: Vesperia is a lengthy game, filled with a long story and many sidequests, so you’re sure to get your money’s worth out of it. A handy synopsis is also available to remind of you of the story, should you ever forget. Hardcore, "Gaming is my passion", gamer: With multiple difficulty levels, you’re sure to find this game challenging, or at least be able to make it challenging while you chug along the plethora of content. Dude, I don’t even think that qualifies as “clothingâ€ÂÂ. ~~~ Well, that's it for me - this has been almost done for about a week, but I've been putting it off and off for some odd reason. All wells. At least it's finally over and done with... ... anywho - thoughts, questions, concerns or anything else that floats your boat - post 'em here. I'm sure to answer... ... maybe... ... I love ellipsis...
Another fantastic review Ninebreaker. Wow you're good at this. In spite of the faults I would still love to play this.
I'm a big fan of the "Tales of ____" series, so I definitely want to play this one. If I ever get a 360, this would be one of the first games I'd buy for it. By the way, nice review.
This is probably going to be one of the first 360 games I get if I do grab one at some point. Nice review as always, keep up the good work.
Yeah - it does have it's problems, but it's still a good game when it comes down to the nitty-gritty. But because I have an extremely frugal allowance and no job (as of yet), I'm usually extremely critical of games, seeing as how it takes me two months to get the cash for a full-price title. If you're a fan, I wouldn't stop you - it seems as if everyone on the Vesperia forum on GameFAQ/Spot are having a good time of it. I liked Symphonia, but I couldn't stand Abyss for the life of me - I don't think I'm even going to bother with Symphonia 2. I'd suggest that you do pick up a 360 - it has a great catalog of games, ranging from family friendly to obscenely violent (Viva Pinata to The Darkness), extremely deep to the mindless (Bioshock to Castle Crashers), and everything in between. For those of you who are picking up systems, I'd recommend the titles above: Bioshock for it's deep story and fantastic gameplay, The Darkness for some interesting powers and a surprisingly powerful story, Viva Pinata for a colorful, cheery, and dare I say it, cute game that everyone can enjoy, and Castle Crashers (available from the Xbox Live Arcade, a subscription to which can be free) for some good old, classic fun.
Japan being land of the JRPG, I'm sure that they'd be having quite a ruckus over it. What with the country owning most every modern role-playing game franchise. That could help... maybe... Meh, I didn't particularly care for it - it's not bad, but after spending full price on it, I'm a little disappointed. Kind of like hearing a song you really like, only to buy the entire album and find that the rest of it isn't all that great - you might have got what you wanted, but what about the rest of it?
