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Tales of Vesperia
As the popular RPG franchise makes its debut on 360, can Tales of Vesperia better its predecessors to become the series' best?
Written by Chris Schilling, 29 June 2009
Real-time scrapping. Boy heroes who look like girls (and vice versa). A world which needs saving. The Tales games never fall too far from the JRPG tree, but that doesn't stop them from being entertaining adventures. Symphonia is perhaps the series highlight so far, but with Vesperia, Atari (or rather Namco-Bandai, who developed the game) just might have topped it.
The world-saver this time around is named Yuri, a knight who has to try and stop civilisation from falling under the spell of those who would misuse an ancient technology named 'blastia'. Thus begins a tale of monster-slaying and character-developing as our androgynous hero slices his cel-shaded way into the lives of an engaging cast of helpers, most of whom are surprisingly well-acted, with some nice scripted dialogue sprinkled lightly with modern-day vernacular that occasionally sounds somehow anachronistic, but usually tickles the funny bone, particularly in the static interludes where your party discusses recent events to add flavour (and if you find this sort of thing a little too fluffy, it can be skipped).
The core game is typical Tales - yomping around lush environments occasionally stopping to do battle with well-designed monsters. The series has certainly benefitted from an HD makeover, with large, well-animated characters doing all sorts of wonderful (and, at times, spectacular) things with swords and magic. As you progress, your attacks will upgrade into new ones, allowing you to string almighty combos together, slicing ever larger numbers off your opponents' health bars. It all looks great, and the real-time nature of the battling mean it moves at a fair old pace.
Like we say, there's nothing particularly surprising here (save for a couple of plot points which might raise a few eyebrows) but Namco-Bandai has crafted a polished, charming and thoroughly enjoyable action-RPG which deserves to find an audience outside the niche group for whom this was a day one purchase since the second it was announced.
