Tales of Vesperia

THE GOOD:
Excellent gameplay with an incredible amount of depth and well developed, likable, characters.

THE BAD:
The story is sometimes cliched and some elements don't mesh entirely well.

SUMMARY:
Game Play:
Ever since the franchise broke into 3D, the Tales series has always had one of the most interesting and enjoyable battle systems I've seen.

For those who are unfamiliar, battles take place in a circular arena between your 4 party members and enemies. The player controls the party member of their choice and battles enemies using B to attack, A and a direction to perform a special move (called Artes) or use the right stick which functions as artes shortcuts for any character. For example, if you need to command an AI player to heal you can use the right stick for this.

Movement is handled by left and right to move towards or away from your targeted enemy, up to jump, and left trigger + motion to free run.

In terms of battles themselves they are often varied. Sometimes you'll be put against a dozen enemies while others you'll be fighting one giant enemy.

The more you fight, the more you level, and the more Artes you unlock further allowing you to develop your fighting style. If you end up finding that the character you are using is no good the game has 6 other distinct characters to try.

Additionally, since the player can only control one character at a time, the game allows up to 3 more players to plug in and take control of the other party members. Though this co-op feature is great and entertaining it often leaves everyone but player 1 bored on the field.

What I really enjoyed was how well the combat was developed throughout the game. Initially you start with attacks and a single arte. As the game progresses you get more artes and access to Overlimits and Fatal Strikes. Overlimits are essentially a powered up mode in which your character has no attack limitations and can perform a special move. Meanwhile Fatal Strikes are essentially quick time one hit kills you can perform after weakening an enemy. As the game progresses you gain higher levels of Overlimits in addition to more powerful attacks to use with them which really increases the feeling of how much stronger your characters are getting.

Regrettably the field puzzles in the game are a bit lacking. Most of the time it's just pushing blocks and using the series trade-mark Sorcerer's Ring to fire projectiles which leads to fairly linear puzzles.

Everywhere else the game is very well rounded. The game offers Item Synthesis allowing players to create armor and upgrade weapons. There are also a good number of side-quests that are hidden in the game. However many of these are very well hidden and easy to miss.

Graphics:

The graphics in Tales of Vesperia are outstanding. At times it's hard to discern if things at a distance are being rendered or if they're a drawn background. The game really does look like an anime in 3D and is practically flawless in doing so. Rarely do you see an animation that doesn't look believable and the game shines for this.

A lot of effort clearly went into characters as well. Each character, including NPCs, have good design (many of them unique) and great animations. Playable characters come with alternate costumes and attachable items. There are also unique models for their weapons.

There are few frame rate issues involved and when the seldom few do occur they quickly stop.

In terms of variety, the design of areas is good and varied but it doesn't make the world seem vast. This is probably because it feels like all the designs came out of the same era so though you do see variation, it feels like it could do with more.

Music:

The music is for the most part top notch in the game. Battle themes are good and are changed at varying points in the game so the player does not get bored of them. When the mood needs to darken, the music works well to make it happen.

The biggest issue is that some of the compositions are week. The main song that comes to mind is the theme for Jokes/Shenanigans which is tired, boring, fairly repetitive, and rather annoying. To worsen it, this song is played a fair amount initially.

Plot:

I personally had mixed feelings about the plot. Namco Bandai promised to deliver a more mature plot for this game and in some senses they did. There are some dark themes and moments in this game and a lot of things I found completely unexpected.

However some of these issues are quickly put to bed without the characters really responding to them in anyway. Namco Bandai had said the plot would explore the theme "What is Justice?" and it barely does. That's not to say character development is bad. The characters are heavily developed and are also fairly likable however the issue I had was it felt like some events were obviously significant enough to change a character yet for the most part they remained the same.

The story itself is nothing special. As I said, a lot of interesting things happen and with 40 hours of story time it's long, unexpected, and had a lot of things going on. However it simply feels like a lot of these elements have been seen before in JRPGs and that hurts it.

Downloadable Content:

Tales of Vesperia offers a large amount of DLC, some of it free though most of it isn't needed. DLC is meant to be a helper to players who'd rather not grind or search for synthesis ingredients.

Overall:

Tales of Vesperia is a worthwhile and entertaining game. If you've played games like Symphonia or Abyss and enjoyed the gameplay then this would be a welcomed addition to your game collections.

The game runs well and beautifully and well keep your attention for all 40 hours of story. It also offers a robust New Game+ option in which you can spend Grade earned from fighting on perks for a new game (for example, EXPx10 or carrying artes over) which is great due to how easily missed some side-quests are.

Additionally, Tales of Vesperia is probably one of the best co-op entries on the Xbox and is definitely worthwhile if you can find 3 friends interested in committing the time to this game. Even without, battle is a blast and looks great.

The bottom line is the game is great, if you're still questioning whether you should buy it then I'd recommend checking out some game play videos to get a feel for it.