I’m somewhat behind in getting this review up. I purchased Tales of Vesperia back in the beginning of the year, and it took me about a month to finish it. I was meaning to review it, but got distracted by Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, and the like. Now I have some free time to discuss my thoughts on what I believe to be the greatest RPG for the 360 thus far and possibly the best entry in the series.

What I really loved about Vesperia was the main character, Yuri Lowell. Unlike previous protagonists that consisted of whiny or cocky teenagers, Yuri is older and somewhat more serious than the likes of Lloyd, Emil, or Luke. Though, like other games in the series, Vesperia has its share of annoying characters that will eventually grow on you as the story progresses.

The game starts out with the lower quarter of the imperial capital Zaphias, being flooded due to a malfunctioning Aqua blastia. Blastia is the prevalent technology in the world that powers machines, creates barriers for the cities to prevent monsters from entering, and is essential to everyday life. The game’s protagonist, Yuri, discovers that the blastia core is missing and sets out to recover it with his trusty canine companion, Repede. His lead on the case takes him to the residence of a traveling mage named Mordio, but ends up getting arrested by the imperial knights for trespassing. After escaping his imprisonment, Yuri comes across a young girl named Estellise who asks to come along with Yuri in search of a knight named Flynn (who is also a friend of Yuri’s). The two escape from the castle, leave Zaphias with Repede, and head out on their journey.



Throughout the course of this 50+ hour journey, players will travel across the vast world and visit several towns and like other Tales games, discover that there’s more to the story than what is initially proposed. In addition to the aforementioned characters, players will meet the young Karol, who desires to the guild master of his very own guild. Then there’s the prodigy mage Rita, who is very quick-tempered, but knows her stuff when it comes to blastia. The entry’s resident pervert player character is none other than the elderly Raven and resembles an old samurai, but fights with a bow and arrow. Finally, there’s the luscious, scantily clad Judith, who is a member of the ancient Kritiyan race of people that live in a floating city. Each character’s personality spices up the long story that eventually reveals its underlying theme of Global Warming in the latter half of the game.

Like other games in the series, it’s the addictive battle system that steals the show. Monsters appear on the field, so you usually have the option to pick and choose your encounters. Upon making contact with an enemy, the battle begins with up to four characters fighting at once. Players will control the first character on the roster (typically Yuri) while the game’s AI controls the other characters. Like the other games, you can set each character’s AI to attack specific targets with specific movement patterns and attacks. Additionally, if you know of any die hard Tales fans in the vicinity (0.001% success rate) they can grab a controller and play as one of the other characters in battle. Even if you don’t have any friends, the AI does a solid job of helping in battle.

Battle commands consist of mashing the B button for normal attacks while the A button is for executing special attacks called Artes. The button reversal caught me off guard when I started playing as I’m used to it being the opposite. The action stops whenever you open up the menu with Y, where you can select items, change your allies’ strategies, and other commands.



I personally find the appeal of the battles based off of the large number of combos you can pull off with well-synchronized attacks from you and your party members. Some combo chains will prompt an icon to appear over the enemy. When this icon appears, pressing the right trigger will cause you to deal massive damage to or possible finish off an enemy in what is called a Fatal Strike. There’s also a gauge on the side of the screen that fills up as you deal and take damage. When filled up, you can unleash your Overlimit, which essentially lets you attack and cast spells much faster than normal. The Overlimit is also required for pulling off Burst Artes that are based off of specific Artes and executed by holding down the B button after performing the Arte. Finally there are the uber powerful Mystic Artes that deal so much damage, a brief anime sidebar shot of the character is required for the attack. In short, the battles are why I keep coming back to the Tales series.

Like previous Tales games, the graphics retain their anime appearance in-game as with the numerous anime cutscenes that are scattered throughout the game. This is the first game in the series to be designed in high definition; causing the bright colors to pop out at me in the few instances I actually played the game on an HDTV. The game is still playable on a regular TV, with the only issue I noticed was trying to read the HP value of an enemy after using a Magic Lens on it to see its stats. Overall, I thought the graphics were really good.



On the audio side of things, the music is great. The first thing you hear when you start the game up is a bubblegum pop song playing with the opening cutscene. Going with the theme of other Tales games, the opening cutscenes are what I usually look forward to the most and obsessively re-watch them each time I power up the game. The opening theme “Ring-A-Bell” is pretty catchy, though if you hate that style of music you’ll by all means roll your eyes and skip ahead without hesitation. That same song makes multiple appearances throughout the game but arranged with different instruments and without the cheesy lyrics. The rest of the soundtrack is enjoyable with some questionable content like the random circus music that cues whenever a character gets into mischief.

The voices are what you expect for a JRPG. I don’t mind them that much as I’ve grown accustomed to unfavorable English dubs, but this group of actors is by no means terrible. The voices help drive the story and really shine in the frequent skits that appear throughout the game. Like previous games, you’ll really miss out on the charm and humor of the game if you skip out on these brief scenes. This game also features complete voiceovers for each scene, so no more awkward silence of reading words coming out of mute anime faces. The overall presentation is really good and is obviously the best the series has seen yet.



All in all, I highly recommend Tales of Vesperia. It’s quite possibly the best RPG on the 360 and one of the prime reasons I got a 360. If I was more timely in grabbing this game and reviewing it, this review may seem somewhat more relevant. I’ve just started playing through Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, and I’ve yet to check out The Last Remnant, Star Ocean, or Infinite Undiscovery, so I may have to withdraw my initial statement on Vesperia in the future.