Cel-shading has come a long way as a graphical concept. I can’t really remember the first game I played where the style was used. Maybe it was Robotech: Battlecry or Dragonball Z Boudakai 2, but I’ve always enjoyed the look of it. From its anime like qualities to the personality that it adds to the game it’s always nice. But they never were able to blur that line that separates anime from cel-shading, that and they only appealed to fans of the anime, but that changed when Okami made an appearance. Okami wowed gamers with its watercolor painting like appearance and turned the industry on its ear. Where the action adventure and fighting genres had numerous nice to excellent looking cel-shaded games the JRPG genre only had one (that I know of) with the Tales Franchise. And to break ground as pretty much an interactive anime Tales of Vesperia is here.
Story:
You play the role as former Imperial Knight Yuri Lowell as he goes on the hunt for a Blastia (think Materia from FFVII) thief by the name of Mordio. Yuri has a travelling companion, his trusty mutt Repede, who for some odd reason has an Opium pipe dangling from his mouth and fights with a dagger. As Yuri and Repede hunt for this person Yuri ends up pissing off some really incompetent guards with funny accents and gets thrown in the clink. He breaks out and wanders around the castle where he runs into Estellise (Estelle for short), a benevolent kind hearted woman that will do anything to help those in need or suffering. Like in usual anime fare you eventually find the person you are chasing only to find somebody completely different.
Eventually Estelle asks to go on a journey to find the noble knight known as Flynn. Eventually you meet Flynn and you find out that he’s too noble and has various ties to Yuri’s past. There is more to it, but it’s something that won’t be spoiled. The story isn’t necessarily ground breaking and a lot of the characters meet your standard anime cliché’s but they’re entertaining characters to watch on the screen.
A lot of the characters are motivated by completely different things and they all act differently from one another. Right now my favorite character happens to be Rita. Her temper burns hotter than her fire magic and her sarcasm, cynicism and arrogance is a blast to witness. She’s probably the most grown up and closed off in the game, but there are times that she’ll actually act like a human being. Another nice thing to witness are the interactions between the characters. These are called “skits” and pop up after cutscenes and at times randomly. These are when your characters will talk to each other about what has unfolded before them and sometimes they just try to get a better sense of one another.
Gameplay:
If you’re part of the growing trend of gamers that don’t like turn based JRPG’s you might want to give Tales of Vesperia a gander. This is because it’s a real time action RPG. You’re allowed to dodge attacks, roam freely around the field and coordinate your attacks with your allies. While at first I wasn’t too into it, but that changed once I had more than two characters on the field (with me being the only one attacking).
Once you get a full roster of characters the battles get quite chaotic with two to three attacking characters, with another character launching magic all over the place. Battling isn’t a chore like in some other games I’ve played, it’s actually a rather entertaining experience. It almost makes me wish that the battles were random. You can actually pick and choose your battles because the creatures always appear on screen. Tales of Vesperia also does something interesting with this by linking conflicts. Say for instant if you engage in a battle with a monster and there is another monster about two feet away from it; that one will join the fray as well. It makes for a rather entertaining, but chaotic battle. Another interesting concept is how ambush attacks are handled. Unlike most RPG’s every character is there with you and if you are ambushed you will have your default set of battle characters shuffled. This isn’t too much of an inconvenience because even if a character is not in your battle roster they will still level up and learn new abilities.
As you level up you and your other characters gain access to new abilities known as “Artes.” Depending on your character these Artes could be used for either combos or magic. You’re limited to about four Artes for your character Yuri so that means you have to switch them out as you get more powerful ones. These Artes are controlled by the “A” button and depending on what direction you push the left stick determines the Arte you use. Because you seem to get new attacks with each level up it gives you a definite incentive to take the time out to level up your characters.
There is also a rather nice synthesizing part of Tales of Vesperia. It actually functions a little bit like FFIX’s. All you have to do is go to your basic store and select the synthesizing option to create new weapons or items. You can find new recipes for this and you always find materials by killing stuff. The weapons you get from this always tend to be useful, but they’re not overpowered.
All of your characters are useful in their own way and are not hindrances. They offer different play styles, but finding a party that works for you is part of the fun. For all I know all of what was listed here existed in previous Tales of games, but it doesn’t make it any less fun. In fact Vesperia now has me interested in previous incarnations of the franchise because if they’re as fun as this one they can’t be bad.
Graphics:
Tales of Vesperia is definitely a sight to behold. In this generation where you see color palettes that don’t stray too far from black, gray and brown it’s nice to see a game that brings vivid colors. Since Folklore came out I haven’t seen a game this vivid or beautiful. What really helps the visual component is the anime like cel-shaded graphics. Here is a world where one of the main characters has pink hair and almost everybody’s wardrobe borders on absurd. I must admit if I didn’t have a rather robust anime collection I might be turned off by the visuals so if you require more of a realistic look to the art design than you might not want Tales of Vesperia, but it does offer a rather nice break from war torn hell holes.
Sound:
The soundtrack of Tales of Vesperia is a good mix of quirky and dramatic. It’s never one of these two things at an inappropriate time either. The battle music is kind of catchy, but it’s not too much of a distraction. That actually describes a lot of the music. Nothing dips into Nobuo Uematsu levels of epicness, but it still works. Voice over work is decent (no Japanese option). Everybody minus Karol is voiced pretty well and I love the voices for Yuri and Rita the most because their sarcastic personalities are almost captured perfectly.
Replay:
This all depends on how much you like RPG’s and achievements. If I like an RPG I’ll probably play it multiple times for many years. I like this one and I’ll probably play it again at a time when there are no good games coming out. In regards to achievements about 80% of them are secret and I have no clue how to get them without referencing a guide. It makes Tales of Vesperia rather interesting, but from that point infuriating as well. There is some form of multiplayer in the fact that your friends can control the other characters during battles, but being a purist I wouldn’t touch it.
Overall:
Tales of Vesperia is actually one of the best JRPG’s on the Xbox 360. Granted it sticks to the mechanics of the genre and doesn’t do much ground breaking, but fans of the genre and franchise will love it. I honestly wish the environments weren’t so linear, but it didn’t keep me from enjoying what I was playing. The story is interesting and the characters are engaging making for a rather entertaining experience.
"Tales of Vesperia (X360)" is on sale August 26, 2008 and is rated T. RPG.
