Tales of Vesperia is a great game that does so much right, but what it gets wrong weighs heavily against it.
Tales of Vesperia is the 10th game in the Tales series, the 7th to reach American shores, and the 1st of the HD Console Generation. The series has garnered a dedicated following in the U.S., and has captivated gamers with fun combat and anime-inspired graphics and characters. Tales of Vesperia is a great game, and it excels in so many ways. However, there are certain parts of the game that felt lacking in comparison. Throughout my experience with ToV, I felt like there were things missing. Let's dive in and pick the game apart, shall we?
Tales of Vesperia looks great. The cel-shaded graphics compliment the anime-style character art and fantasy setting, and everything works together beautifully. Luscious forests, forgotten ruins, and bustling towns all look great and have their own aesthetics and feel unique. The character design is wonderful as well! Their outfits and models look great, and there are loads of outfits to find throughout the game. Enemies range from cute to cool to scary, but many are reused throughout the game and just given a new skin. The animated cut-scenes in the game look amazing to boot, but I feel that if they were going to give the player these scenes, they should either give them more than a handful or make select, very important scenes into animated ones. Overall, my complaints are very minor here. The game looks amazing, and does a great job of immersing you in its fantasy world. [Graphics - 9/10]
Many JRPGs are known for their wonderful musical scores, others infamous for their lackluster voice acting. I am happy to say that Tales of Vesperia does a great job with most aspects of sound design. The wonderful music that accompanies the game's battles, travels, and "dramatic" moments really shines throughout the game. Every area has its own BGM, and most of the songs sound great. Voice acting was one of the best parts of the game, at least in my opinion. I am a fan of Japanese audio, but man did the "Tales of" team find some great voices for the main cast. Yuri Lowell is voiced by Troy Baker, who does a great job with every character he plays. At first, I felt that the voice was a little too "manly", but that was due to Yuri's long hair and feminine shirt coupled with Troy's manly voice. In my opinion, Karol's voice actress, Julie Ann Taylor, did an amazing job and really stole the show. Most young characters tend to sound annoying, nasally, whiny, and just plain dumb. Karol isn't an annoying dumb kid, and his voice acting is spot on and really endearing. I can without-a-doubt say that Julie Ann Taylor has made Karol the best voice-acted young character in a game (even better than Nanako-chan in Persona 4). Anyway, I digress. The voice-acting for the main characters is high-caliber, and the side characters tend to have decent voice acting as well. My biggest complaint about the voice acting is that a large number of important scenes were not voice-acted. Every skit is voiced, which is awesome to say the least, but a number of very important scenes were not voiced, which tended to break your immersion at these pivotal points. This isn't a big deal overall, since there are so many voiced scenes and skits. [Sound - 9/10]
The Tales series is known for having great real-time action combat systems. Vesperia is no different, and they deliver a combat system that is addictive and fun! In Vesperia, you are allowed to bind 8 artes to different button combinations. You can attack normally with the B button, creating a combo like B-B-B-Arte (these combos can become longer when you progress through the game). There are 7 playable characters, and they all have different play styles unique to them. As with most Tales games, you can also play with up to 3 other friends locally (4 players total). Vesperia gives players a large amount of skills and moves to learn, which can be acquired through using weapons/armor, side quests, and more. There are even altered artes, which are unlocked after equipping specific skills and using a specific move a number of times. Mystic Artes and Burst Artes are also a blast, which are only usable during overlimit. While Vesperia has an incredible battle system, there are some downsides. Mainly, the computer AI is pretty lackluster. In most battles, my party members would just throw away TP, using abilities on enemies who are knocked down or in the air. Enemy AI wasn't any better, with most normal enemies being slow and easy to avoid. However, bosses were fun and occasionally challenging. As an added bonus, there are "secret missions" during boss fights where if you do a very specific action, you will get a trophy. Vesperia gives you a huge variety in play styles and abilities, and is arguably one of the greatest games this generation in terms of player control and depth. Combat isn't the only thing that Vesperia has going for it, though. There are a large number of side quests to do, which is a must for most JRPGs. Doing side quests can unlock new gear, skits, items, and outfits. Dungeons also tend to have some puzzles, but they aren't too challenging. Without doing a large amount of side quests, the game lasted me about 60 hours. Keep in mind; I didn't fully complete all of the side quests, hidden dungeon(s), etc. Tales of Vesperia stands out in this generation for being a huge game, both in scope and in depth. [Gameplay – 8.5]
What makes a compelling story? What makes a good story? As an up-and-coming English teacher, these are questions that I have to think about frequently. Unfortunately, Tales of Vesperia does not have the answers to these questions, even if it is so close (if not on target in ONE aspect, at the very least). Vesperia's story is, for a lack of better words, boring and cliché. You start off as an ex-knight who tries to recover the barrier blastia that was protecting the part of town you live in. In VERY typical JRPG fashion, you don't stop there. I am a huge opponent of spoilers, so I won't be delving into the game's story and picking it apart too much. I say this, but I can assure you that many of you reading this can guess 50% of the plot right now with the small bit I have given you. One of the biggest reasons that I find Vesperia's story to be so bad is that it has no urgency. A generic, non-game related example:
Pete is alone in the woods and will die if Ken and pals do not rescue him right away. Ken and pals, after learning this, talk to each other about saving Pete. After that, go take a nap at the local inn. THEN they go and rescue Pete, who was thankful that Ken and pals rescued him from the monster that was docile up until Ken and pals arrived.
This is not an example from the game, but it does accurately portray how the story felt. The lack of urgency really takes away from the story, even more so than the cliché-ness of it. Even the ending of the game upset me. It left a large amount of questions unanswered, and there was no closure. What happened to ____? Dunno. How did ______ cope with ______? Dunno. Where did _____go after? Don't ask me, because I don't know. What I do know is that the credits are rolling and I'm upset. The ending only answers the most basic question, and leaves the rest to your imagination. What Vesperia lacks in good storytelling, it tries very, very hard to make up for with interesting characters, amazing character interaction, and a sense of reality from these characters. Vesperia's cast of loveable misfits is one of my favorite casts of characters in any video game. They seem cliché on the outside, but once you dive into the game you find out much more about them. The game does a wonderful job with fleshing out characters, and you end up understanding the characters much more than you would in most other JRPGs. You are able to understand how characters make certain choices, why they act the way they do towards other characters, and more. They did an amazing job with the characters of this game, and I can recommend the game solely on them. [Story – 5.5/10]
Tales of Vesperia is a large game, filled with beautiful cel-shaded graphics, wonderful music and voice acting, fun gameplay, and amazing characters. However, the lack of a good story really brings down what is still one of the greatest JRPGs this generation. I definitely recommend playing Tales of Vesperia, because it's a great deal of fun and you feel like you are close friends with it wonderful cast of characters.
[Enjoyment - 9/10]
Overall: 8.5/10 – Great!