Review

Tales of Vesperia

Namco’s Tales series began in 1995 with Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicom (known in the US as the Super Nintendo), and continued on to release games for the Playstation, PS2, Gamecube, DS, and PSP. The series received positive reviews since its inception and continued to excel when Namco and Bandai merged in 2005. Now, the RPG giant has released the first next-gen entry in the series, which takes all of the strengths of the previous installments and adds to them.

The world of Terca Lumireis is overrun by monsters, making travel incredibly dangerous. To defend themselves, the people use blastia, technology from an ancient civilization, to project barriers that keep the monsters away from towns and cities. Along with creating barriers, blastia are used in construction, transportation of materials like food and water, and to enhance combat abilities. Because these blastia cannot be made, they are rare and thus very valuable.

When the blastia controlling the water supply of the lower quarter of the Imperial capital city is stolen, it’s up to troublemaking ex-knight Yuri Lowell and his faithful dog Repede to track down the thief. Along the way, they meet troubled nobles of the Empire, members of the powerful guilds that dominate the land, and a vast conspiracy that plans to use blastia to shake the very foundations of the world.

Tales of Vesperia continues the gameplay traditions set in place and expands on them. As with before, the game is divided into two parts: the main screen for travelling around the world map and through towns, and the battle screen for combat. Fights are done in real-time action style, with four party members attacking at once. Every character has a standard attack using whatever weapon they have equipped and a series of artes, which could be more powerful strikes, magical attacks, healing, or other effects to strengthen their allies and weaken their enemies. Each character has a specialty; Yuri is well-balanced, with a nice mix of speed, strength, and offensive artes; the sheltered noble girl Estelle is primarily a healer with techniques to boost the party; hotheaded Rita is the mage, with powerful elemental artes.

At the end of a fight, the system grades the battle according to a series of criteria. If a party member ends the battle with full HP, points are awarded. If a party member ends the battle with a status ailment such as poison, points are taken away. Grade carries over to the end of the game and allows the player to buy bonuses for the next playthrough, such as double XP or cheaper equipment.

Tales of Vesperia adds a few new components to the system. As damage is dealt or taken, a meter on the side of screen builds up. When it fills up, the player can activate an Over Limit. Rather than allowing the use of stronger artes or a chain of every party member’s artes, as with earlier Tales games, Over Limit allows the currently controlled character to ignore pauses between attacks and artes and so build up massive combos. Later in the game, the player can also unleash Burst Artes during Over Limit, which string together even more easily.

Equipment carries with it Skills, which characters can learn by earning Learning Points in combat. These Skills allow the characters to use new abilities, such as backstepping away from enemy attacks or breaking out of stuns, or to improve their stats, such as increasing maximum HP or adding to the amount of TP earned at the end of battle.

As with the previous games, the Wonder Chef hides in each town, and talking to him grants the ability to learn a new recipe for use in cooking outside of battle. Recipes use ingredients won in battle, and meals can restore the party’s HP or TP or boost their stats for the next few fights.

But while the Tales series has always had a strong combat engine, its character development is where it really shines, and Tales of Vesperia is no exception. Yuri is sarcastic and cynical, but he devotes himself entirely to ruthlessly defending his people from the oppressive upper class. Estelle is idealistic and loyal, yet highly knowledgeable due to her upbringing. Each character begins as a fully developed personality and becomes even more realized as the story progresses and relationships grow and change.

Tales of Vesperia is not entirely without flaws, however. The initial pacing is sluggish, and the overarching plot doesn’t fully develop until some time later. Due in part to the controller layout, the controls are somewhat awkward, and it’s common to repeatedly hit the wrong button by mistake. The difficulty curve is confusing as well; random battles are usually extremely easy, ending in under a minute, while boss battles are challenging enough that every party member will die at least once. Between all of the different customizable skills and tactics, the combat system’s depth can be daunting, and often frantic button mashing and a large supply of healing items can ensure victory.

But these flaws tend to diminish as play goes on. Once the story picks up and the initial confusion over the system wears off, Tales of Vesperia is another masterful entry into the Tales series. For longtime fans of the series, it’s everything the previous titles were and more. For newcomers, it’s a perfect example of what makes the series great. It won’t win over any RPG skeptics, but for anyone else, it’s a more than worthy addition to the 360’s RPG library.