Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360)

Tales of Vesperia is the latest in Namco's Tales of series after Tales of the Abyss to be released on a home console. The story revolves around Yuri Lowell, a former knight who is trying to recover a stolen item from the lower class areas of a castle town. Then he runs into a princess (Estelle) and things go from there. The story is a typical jRPG convulted affair but there are far worse stories out there on the market. The characterisation on the ...
...the previous installments of the Tales Of games, in particular Tales of the Abyss. Real time battles, with the ability to move in and out of the plain with the left trigger. One button (the A button) uses standard attacks and combinations of the B button and a direction uses a skill. These can be combined together and to give some impressive combos. There are other skills, such as Fatal Strikes and Burst Artes, but these are additional rather than ... more

Tales of Vesperia is the latest in Namco's Tales of series after Tales of the Abyss to be released on a home console. The story revolves around Yuri Lowell, a former knight who is trying to recover a stolen item from the lower class areas of a castle town. Then he runs into a princess (Estelle) and things go from there. The story is a typical jRPG convulted affair but there are far worse stories out there on the market. The characterisation on the overhand is extremely good and in particular Yuri is given a good deal of time. Most of the cast is likeable and the enemies all come across as interesting.

The graphics are good, but nothing special. They serve the purpose of the game. The character designs are really good and fit the anime style graphics extremely well. The sound is really good, and for once the english voiceover is extremely good. In particular Yuri's voiceover is really good and fits the character really well.

The gameplay is similar to that of the previous installments of the Tales Of games, in particular Tales of the Abyss. Real time battles, with the ability to move in and out of the plain with the left trigger. One button (the A button) uses standard attacks and combinations of the B button and a direction uses a skill. These can be combined together and to give some impressive combos. There are other skills, such as Fatal Strikes and Burst Artes, but these are additional rather than vital to the battle system.

Multiplayer is local only and upto 4 players. Although I haven't played the game fully with 3 other players, it would make the game much much easier.

The only real gripe with the game is that some of the optional portions are just stupid. Some of the sidequests are extremely well hidden and can be a pain to start. This is further demonstrated with the secret missions that be completed during boss battles. These vary in difficulty with some that are easy and some that are stupidly hard. However both of these are optional as stated and are not vital to completing the game. The other thing is that there is an occasional difficulty spike, in particular towards the start of the game with a certain boss (Gattuso) who is far far harder than he should be.

In the end, Tales of Vesperia is similar to Tales of the Abyss, but when that game was so good why change things drastically? With a good playtime of around 50 hours for an initial gameplay, variable difficulty levels and a metric ton of optional sidequests, what more could you want? 

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