The Empire Gets Struck - Tales of Vesperia
Written: Dec 12 '08 (Updated Dec 12 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great characters and battle system as per usual for the Tales franchise
Cons: Predictable formulatic story as per usual for the Tales franchise
The Bottom Line: Main characters named Yuri always seem to be awesome. I miss Shadow Hearts.
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| awoolcott's Full Review: Tales of Vesperia for Xbox 360 |
After a generation that saw a pair of successful Tales games (along with one mediocre release), the long-running franchise has made its High Definition debut in Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox 360. With a working formula in place, Vesperia does little to shake up the works, and in general fans of the franchise will know what to expect, only with the added benefit of a beautiful visual presentation. On the whole, ToV is a great JRPG that is arguably the best the 360 has seen, though that's not saying much, seeing the mediocrity of the genre so far on the system. It's lengthy, entertaining, and full of side objectives and random events, but at the same time falls so in line with the “Tales Formula” that it becomes predictable and almost too long and exhausting by the time you reach the final portion. Those getting into the series for the first time won't notice, but longtime Tales players certainly will. Still, if you want a 360 RPG, this is probably the best place to look until Final Fantasy XIII...whenever that is. It's not like any console is swimming in upcoming RPG releases or anything.
Vesperia starts in a way that's familiar – main character Yuri Lowell, a resident of the Lower Quarter in the capital city of the Empire, is hunting down a thief that stole an “aque blastia” that supplies water to the area. On the hunt for someone called Mordio, he encounters Estelle, who asks to escape from the castle to find someone named Flynn, an Imperial knight who just happens to be Yuri's best friend. Ultimately it's revealed that Estelle is an heir to the Imperial throne, explaining why she needs to get out of the castle quietly. By the time the duo encounter Flynn and catch up with Mordio – who is revaled to be genius mage Rita Mordio, yet possibly not the one responsible for the theft, things have changed drastically, and of course, the world is at stake and the ragtag party are the only ones that can save the day. Not very original, but at the very least they did a fantastic job as always with the characters, a staple of the Tales franchise. Unlike the last game, Tales of the Abyss, featuring one of the worst main characters ever in any game, Yuri is probably the best the series has ever seen. He's not whiny, or hateful, or stupid; instead he's a reasonable, stand-up kind of guy who is also a total bad***. Brownie points there, making up for the relative generic plot. The rest of the cast is solid; it lacks a Jade from Abyss delivering seriousness and comic relief, but characters like Judith and Raven deliver in similar ways.
Also familiar is the battle system, which is a tweaked version from Tales of the Abyss. Like always, it's a 2D perspective real-time “beat 'em up” style, with limited movement and hordes of special attacks that can be customized to choose the special moves you want on command. Though party members are controlled through AI, they can be issued orders, yet tend to be pretty smart; they'll use health and MP items as necessary and attempt to cure status effects and revive unconscious characters. The AI can be customized up to the spells they can use, where they base themselves during a battle, etc. So even though you don't get direct control of your other allies, you can still affect their performance and of course issue orders which they readily follow. Like always, the battles are fast-paced and oftentimes easy to get lost in, with so much happening on the screen at one time. Surprisingly enough, this is the first Tales game that's really challenging; Symphonia and Abyss could be beaten without dying once, but Vesperia has some rough boss battles that take a lot of strategy and AI customization to really succeed in.
Like all the other Tales games, Vesperia is rather lengthy, taking about 40 hours to finish if you spend your time only doing the story and not much progression. As always, the game offers an excellent recap if you don't play for a while, making it simple to get back into things. The problem is, while the characters are great, and the battle system is as fun (if not repetitive) as always, it all seems to be too long. By the halfway point, the story gets predictable, and it falls into the Tales Formula, where very specific things are bound to happen...and they do. If I had reviewed the first 25 hours alone, this is a five-star game; but the story eventually hits a brick wall and here we are at four instead. By the time the final part begins, I was just weary of playing the story and spent more time screwing around with sidequests and grinding levels in preparation for the final dungeons; it took an extra couple weeks to finally get around to completing the game. Somehow this wall was not present in Abyss or Symphonia, two games that were long yet interesting all the way through. Vesperia just got predictable and dull with little payoff, showing that some changes are needed to keep things fresh. A great cast can't carry a game all the time. That said, if you're a new Tales player, and that's possible with the move to Xbox 360, you won't notice these similarities between the games and this won't bother you, so like...ignore all that rambling.
Yet because of the old-school style, it's easy to get lost in everything else and ignore that final dungeon. The hunt for sidequests, hidden areas (such as the hilarious hot spring), finding new titles for the party which tend to also reveal new costumes, and randomly wandering around to trigger more skits is easy thanks to the inclusion of the world map again, something that hopefully won't disappear anytime soon. The sidequests range from being a waiter/waitress in a busy bar to something exhaustive, a quest revolving around ultimate (and they really are) weapons that actually affect the final boss battle of the game. Though the amount of locations seems smaller than in the past – there's just not many towns (something that makes the story drag, revisiting the same place all the time) and a handful of dungeons, there's a lot of hidden items and goodies if you really explore. Find Nam Cobanda Isle and you've successfully navigated the large world, and opened up another cache of hilarious moments the series is known for.
The visuals might not wow on a technical level, but artistically they're very nice. Colorful and fluid, the anime look really is pulled off nicely, especially in HD. Animations look realistic and don't have hitches, and though its a bit cliché by now, the varied worlds with different weather stand out. The world map isn't great, but its serviceable, and perhaps more importantly, it loads fast after the slowwwwwww loading in Abyss. Enemies pop out on the map, with generic representations of what you'll get, but that's a staple of the series. There might not be anything to make you go “holy crap”, but instead you get a good looking game with a solid framerate and a very clean, polished appearance. The voice acting is solid, with good performances throughout. Since Rita is voiced by the same woman who did Yukari in Persona 3, that added some fanservice that only appealed to me, but yeah. They handle the progression of the story well, and for the first time in a US Tales release, the skits are voiced. Progress! The soundtrack is something of a disappointment; compared to Abyss and especially Symphonia it falls a bit short. Trying to even think of a memorable tune in the game is drawing blanks.
Closing Argument
Tales of Vesperia is a solid, fun, and lengthy RPG worth its price of admission, and is arguably the best JRPG on the Xbox 360, though with a lineup of completely average games thus far it's an easy claim. New Tales players will find a huge world and an addictive battle system, though veterans might be suffering from deja vu after a while, especially as the game winds down. The Tales Formula is strong in this one, and though there's enough to keep going in Vesperia, future games have to fix this or you'll be able to predict all the events of the game before even popping it in your consoles.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
awoolcott
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Location: Arizona
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2009 was a pretty good year for games, but next year, wow.
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