Some time around the year 2000, I completed a game called Tales of Phantasia, translated by a now-defunct group called DeJap. It's now the year 2008, and I've played another four entries in the series, some completed and some otherwise. The latest of these is the just-released Tales of Vesperia, an Xbox 360 exclusive that promises to usher in a new era of Tales gameplay never before possible.

Somewhere, something went horrible wrong. Was it Tales of Symphonia, which introduced a badly copied version of Final Fantasy X's plot and supported itself purely on an enhanced system? Or Legendia, which did exactly the opposite and struggled to support a mediocre plot with equally mediocre gameplay. Tales of the Abyss decided to follow bigger brother Symphonia and once again go down the road of flat, cliche characters propped up by their gameplay roots. Vesperia, judging by the demo, is essentially Tales of Symphonia.

Now, I know from playing somewhat more "official" translations of Phantasia that even it is not the mature, witty and charming roleplaying adventure it is in my mind. But never before have I played a series that has been so increasingly stagnant as time goes on. When I play Vesperia, I don't feel like I'm playing Tales of Xbox 360 - I'm playing Tales of Symphonia version 1.2, with slightly tweaked characters and battle system and a whole new story ripped from some other popular franchise.



Arguably every big JRPG contender is releasing little more than clones of their first SNES titles. But at least these developers strive for originality, or storyline progression. As simple as the "real" story of Phantasia is, it's much better than the trash that has come out of the Tales studios since. And while publishers like Square Enix have managed to provide RPGs with plots that somehow escape a painfully derivative nature, Namco doesn't. And in the gameplay department Atlus' SMT series manages to retain core gameplay (and indeed enemies) yet still present an original spin on the concept. Note: renaming the skills in a Tales game does not constitute change.

What it really comes down to, I think, is a misnomer on the part of the Japan-based monolith. Don't give me Tales of Vesperia this year. Slap this year's hero on the cover, make some incremental changes and call the game Tales 2008. At least that way I won't have false expectations. I can only give this series so many chances to do something new, and I really think this might be the last one.

This has been a rant by thefil. If you'd like to leave a remark, please use the comments below. However, we'd ask that you refrain from "lol wut SE is better than Namco YARITE" or "Atlus FTW kthx quit the rest."