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Review | Tales of Vesperia

"Tales of "buy this game if you like epic jRPG's". Vesperia stands as one of the best Tales titles even after all those years. Do not ever let us wait so long for this kind of game."

by Foggy, 12-03-2019,

Tales of Vesperia. Tales of this, tales of that...There is so much Tales games, newcomers will be quite confused from where to even start. Fear not, every game in this saga is a title for itself. I remember year 2008 when Vesperia was first released, and made me happy as Xbox360 owner back in days. If you were lucky and lived in Japan or simply had knowledge of reading and understanding Japanese, you could buy game for PS3 in 2009th when they started to ship expanded version of the game. Until then it was Microsoft exclusive.

Roughly 10 years after, Namco Bandai Games finally came to their senses and made remaster of the game – today known as Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition, released for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Windows (PC). Yes, you assumed correctly, game is still awesome! They even recorded additional audio dubs for some scenes so mostly everything important has audio (English and Japanese, whatever suits you more – I liked English dub very much). Fun fact is that it's developed by same team that made Tales of Symphonia and Abyss titles, both great ones, where many claiming Symphonia is the best of all Tales games. Another fun fact is that Yuri's voice actor was replaced with another one for those additional dubs and I did not even notice until I found out about it.

Every game must have ruins. No problem, with nicely drawn graphics we can accept even more ruins.

I always liked Vesperia. Back in days it was rare that your lead character has dark secrets and simply solves situations different then in all other titles. Now there is Berseria which made it even darker, but at the same time it's different. 

Yuri is your main actor. Former Imperial soldier and long-haired dude. He will find his sweet spot in the princess and tag along her journey. There is a fun fact in the plot, which is Flynn and his perspective. He is a knight and Yuri's childhood friend, sparing partner and voice of reason. While Yuri abandoned Imperia, he is eager to climb the ranks to set the justice on the right path. He is deeply frustrated with injustice and he wants to make things right. On the other hand, Yuri will follow no laws, run away from it and make his own justice. He is that character which will pick up where the law has failed and taking matter into his own hands. You killed, you stole, no worries, Yuri will simply kill you. The system is flawed so Yuri bears the burden of making things right without procedures.

Prepare to be surprised by main protagonist of the game. Most certainly you will identify with him.

One of the strong points in Tales games are the characters and strong characterization of each and one of them. Story is always long and by the end you end up caring about most of them. Maybe not the irritating ones like Karol for example. You will experience all sides of story and this time, like in PS3 version of the game, Flynn and Patty will be available as permanent party members. That was not the case in first version of the game. 

 

Yuri is good with swords, Flynn is very similar, but he is also a magic user, more like a contradictive Yuri. Estelle, princess, is your typical healer, Patty can do that as well along with some other weird artes. We have spear lady Judith and Raven with bow, Rita the magic master, Rapede the thief dog and Karol the kid the axe wannabe. You can play by them all, you can dress them up, you can make strategies for each of them – we will cover all that.


Apparently they couldn’t hide his ears.

Still on the story topic – story is little bit above the average. The game is very long and in some moments, story seems like it is dragging you back and forth while it could have been carried out in maybe shorter, stronger way. World relies on energy source that is called „blastia“, devices created from using the crystallized remains of a powerful race known as the Entelexeia. Blastia are powered using a mystical substance known as "aer" and were used to provide resources and protection to major cities. You can imagine the rest and what the bad guys plan to do with it. But let me tell you, I think this among some rare parts is the only average stuff in the game.


Explore whole map to earn trophy. You will fly a lot for this one.

We are back in time when games had world maps we can travel on. Vesperia does it so good. Shortly after finishing some parts, you will be in the world map. It's a typical old school map where you first reach areas by foot, then by a boat and of course there will be some flying involved. Enemies appear randomly, their type is determined by location in the map, day/night or weather condition. Across your journey you will venture through all these. That makes it a bit dynamic and even introduce different types of enemies. Lastly, map is filled will locations. You will really spend a lot of time until you visit every single location and that is one part of beauty of this kick-ass jRPG.

Whole Vesperia world is planned and developed with high quality to provide unique and sentimental value.

What I really like here is that every location is linear in its own boundaries. That sounds like a bad thing but let me explain. Last few Tales titles like Zesteria, Xillia or Berseria had the same problem. They tried incorporating semi-open world loot approach when it comes to areas instead of having a world map. That resulted as poor empty lifeless big areas holding nothing more than few chests and pointless running around. This title is jRPG at its finest. There is so much to explore, so many locations. Every single one of them is linear, yeah, but detailed, planned properly, beautiful, unique, has its own story and much more. You will enjoy traveling and exploring them. The game also doesn’t recycle locations and brings you back to visited ones more than needed. I prefer this kind of my game, not wanting to go open world. No need, this is all we need. 

As all Tales games, paths in some areas will be blocked until certain point of the game where you will backtrack and finally open that last chest you were wondering how to reach. Again, backtracking is mostly optional, so you have all the freedom to avoid that and just enjoy.


Yes, there are Spirits here. Unfortunately, they cannot be summoned in battle.

Every town have its story and vibe. Many of them are stunning and your eyes will enjoy them. Even though some are small, they never hold back telling you their story and problems. Connect that with great soundtrack and there you go. Music score is something that always creates emotions and engrave it as a package. For me, when I hear some song from the game I can immediately connect that with location or situation. Vesperia does that as it should be done. Music is strong in all tales titles. I'm glad that is also the case here.

Be sure to talk with everyone everywhere, otherwise you will miss so much content.

Having this mentioned, let's go to town activities. As story goes on, you will have opportunities to initiate large number of side events. Be very careful, there is really a lot of things to miss. Some occasions and timelines will have tight timeframe where you can see some scenes that will later be other parts of same side quest. Miss one, you missed the complete quest and no reward later. Even some items and enemy entries are missable throughout the game. Some players will not like that, game will simply not show any hints or a list. You need to research like crazy and have a list to follow if you want to do everything in single play through. For me that is a plus, finally a game that will not take you by the hand and lead you all the time. You will have no issues following the main story and events, but for side content you will have to be very careful and thorough. Rewards are good if you are, so makes sense to do everything.


Halure. At night. Be sure to visit during the day, it’s much prettier.

Next big thing would be the wide pallet of inventory stuff. Vesperia for me personally have one of the best RPG elements of all Tales titles. I'm a big fan of visual weapon differences when you buy and equip new one. Meaning when you equip new weapon your character should change appearance of that weapon. That is here, and it looks very nice. Every character has so much weapons you will lose track of what ones you have. We will go there soon how all that fits into strategy and similar. Among weapons there are head and chest armors, special character specific equipment and accessories. So, basic stuff.

All of those can be purchased in towns and shops across the world. Money is earned by finishing battles. Another way to get weapons and equipment is synthesis which is also available in shops. As you progress through the game new recipes open to craft new variations of same or new equipment. It will not be so simple, you will need items which enemies are dropping, so fighting a lot and gathering materials helps. You can completely abandon this and just equip what you find in chests, but you will miss many skills tied up with weapons that you need to craft or buy. That will lead us to the next big treat of the game – battles, skills and artes.


Every game throws some plants at you. Well, what can we do…

Tales veterans know what battles are about. You control one main character and rest of them are set on auto-mode. After initiating a fight, you can move your character freely and attack with regular attacks, or with Artes. It's more like an action type approach. I always liked that. Defending is also an important point, dodge as well. Enemies are determined by their type and element, which means you must use specific Arte types to inflict more damage and open more possibilities for combos.

When I say Artes, I mean special attacks. They consume TP of your character so when you drain that you are back to regular attacks. Sure, you heal TP with every successful attack, but that goes quite slow. After battles TP is also healed a bit. Using artes opens new ones. Opening new ones and equipping certain weapon skills creates modified artes that can be learned. And so on. Artes are also magic, which you will spam like crazy as magic is most useful thing in battles. You can set shortcuts for artes for yourself or other members, which means you can cast some magic of other character with tilting your analog stick where you set that shortcut.

On top of that, every character in combination of right skill or weapon have Mystic Arte which is something like a special limit enveloped in short animation where you destroy poor enemies like crazy.

Battles are so much fun, but at the same time it will not be simple button mashing. Stronger enemies know how to turn the tables.

I did not quite explain weapon skills and they are very important aspect of the game. Every weapon you have comes with certain skills. Gathering enough points after battles makes you learn that skill and you have it permanently. There are around 100-150 skills for every character to learn. They can be something like basic combo extender, HP up, TP up, strength or defense up, they can be character specific based on their fighting styles etc. Each level you gain will add more points you can assign skills to. You can't just activate everything, you need to develop certain strategy how will you develop your character and his fighting style. I must say, this approach is one of the best in Tales games I experienced. It gives so much variety to battles.

Also, you can assign certain strategy on your characters on auto-mode, like healing if HP drops or attacking same enemy as you do, simple yet affective stuff. Most of the time in the game you will probably spend in battles. They never bored me, not even a single bit.


Some characters have dark past and weird secrets.

What I really liked about the game and I mentioned earlier – so much content. So much unique content to be exact. I spend 150h for my complete play through. I still miss some trophies but for that I need 2 more speed runs. It’s really fascinating how there is so much to discover and to do in this game and that it is not just re-using locations and enemies. The plot outside the main story is good, many cool events to discover and finish. That will come in handy if you want additional titles with characters that will alter their clothes. Many of those to collect. I liked Yuri in Hawaii dress or his Dark Enforcer outfit.


Yuri you devil you! What do you think happened next? Well, nothing.

For all those trophy hunters, this game will require a lot of time. The best in that area would be boss fights. Every boss fight has a secret mission to unlock for which you need to do certain requirement. For example, Zagi will drain all his power with special attack and after that you need to break his defense and tackle him on the ground. That will show short animation and you will earn a trophy after winning a fight. Really good thing.

Old game – many qualities. Can developers learn from this experience and try to match high standards this game introduced?

What would the game be if you can't cook meals? Vesperia will offer 40ish recipes, some found by finding the Chef hidden in towns or by cooking certain meal with certain character. It will take some time to master a recipe, but cooking is good because you can replenish HP and TP after battles.

Another fun side activity is beating Giganto monsters as part of Karol's side quests. They are big mini boss enemies that will give you some challenge if you are not strong enough. Another quest Karol has are the Warehouses – puzzle events where you arrange boxes to create a path toward treasures.


Be sure to fulfill requirement for boss secret missions. They will enhance your overall experience.

You can also unlock 2 bonus post game dungeons in the game. That is the only thing I can say I didn't like because that is real example of copy paste work. Both are a maze where you need to advance floors or areas beating everything in your way and beat tough bosses along the way. It's a post-game content and avoidable, but if you aim to collect everything and you want those trophies to pop, you will need to beat them 100%.

There is also an arena where you can really try some challenge whether with your team or with single character. And you can find secret town where you can repeat boss battles, play poker, do vending machines or watch skits if you unlock that option.


Guess who ended up in this hole.

Tales of Vesperia is a good game and shows that older game designs are still top notch, even better than newly developed in genre. If you put effort and make the whole experience unique and interesting there is no fear that people will not like it because of linearity. Include world map, good amount of side content that is more than typical fetching. On top of that sprinkle a bit of good music and final product is enjoyable experience that you will often think about even when you finish the game and play something else.  

"Only thing that holds back this game is its story and post game dungeons. I fail to find something else I didn't like. "
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