Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360)

Firstly, let me say, this game was amazing relative to any RPGs currently available on the market. The battle system is engaging (although somewhat a button masher) and the character development is believable. Even the interactions between characters seems realistic and you slowly begin to see character relations evolve as the story progresses (few very of the RPGs on the market have believable character progression from what I've seen so this is impressive).

Story:

The story begins with the main character Yuri Lowell who lives in the Lower Quarter who, by chance, is sent out on the world. I'm not going to spoil anything regarding the story but as the story progresses you slowly will see how Yuri's own problem slowly becomes less of an issue as he uncovers greater issues. There are hardly any moments in the story when you have no idea what's going on and each piece of the story leads you to the next seamlessly. However, the story often has moments where, even at the end of the game, you're confused just to what had occurred. There are a lot of times where loose ends are not tied up and it just is confusing as to the purpose of the story in regards to that because of it. Without spoiling anything, also, the story does get better as it goes on but the end was somewhat anti-climatic and I had not expected it to end as it did. Regardless, the story, even as it is, was engaging and fun to play through.

Battle System:

The battle system in the game is very similar to any other Tales game but this time in 3d space. Tales games generally have side scrolling battle arenas where you instantly are placed in once you encounter an enemy on the map. In these battle arenas you use your skills button or your attack buttons to fight the enemy while other characters in your party automatically use their own abilities. In Vesperia you have to pay attention to the whole arena because often your healer will be attacked while you're fighting up front so you have to force yourself to run over to the attacker to protect them. This adds a bit of difficulty to the old system.

Voice Acting:

Voice acting in Vesperia was well delivered and very few times do the lines sound out of place, with the wrong emotion, or not as part of the environment. Oddly enough there is a mix of some lines having voice acting while others not. For the most part key scenes do have voice acting, however.

Creation System:

In towns you can use items found through monster fighting and on the world map to create new items. An example of this would be to take your old weapon plus some other ingredients to make a weapon + with higher attributes and skills often more so than what you'd find in the store. Some items can only be found through the synthesis so it's imperative to play around with it. Luckily the game tutorial system does a pretty strong job of teaching the use of this system so you'll pick it up quickly.

Linear:

The game is, for the most part, fairly linear. In dungeons there is only one path to get to your destinations and even after you have a mode of transportation you find that it's unlikely you can really explore more. To give it credit though you are able to reach areas with higher level enemies quickly you just will find yourself spending a lot of time searching for these areas because you don't have many other choices. Towns are also fairly small and while the backgrounds often show big cities you are limited to the areas you can explore. Often there is just the item shop, the inn, and one or two places to enter although this isn't necessarily bad if you consider the other extreme where you search forever in a town you only spend 10 minutes in anyhow.

Exposition:

A lot of the story is done through exposition and while you often know your next step you may feel like you're being force fed a lot of the info. I liked the level of exposition because I often would leave my game for periods at a time so it got me caught up with the story but I can see it annoying people who would play the game non-stop through the story.

Getting Around (Confusing):

The only real annoyance I found was more toward the end of the game. While in the beginning the linear environment forced you to go a certain path at the end of the game (when you can fly) you're told to goto certain areas on certain continents as if you'd have any idea where these places are. Given I don't have a giant map of the game world this left me confused for awhile. It should be noted that there is a way when flying around to find the game map (I think it was the select key) so you can sort through each area to find the destination (or so) where you wanted to get to continent wise but it's not very intuitive. Given there are so many continents in the game and everything has a fairly unique name you may get confused as well.

In general, I thought this game was much better than the other Tales I've played and has a story that is both exciting and interesting with plenty of character interaction to keep you interested in continuing on. Toward the end of the story the game begins to get more confusing with aspects of the story not fully explained and a somewhat anti-climatic ending (although exciting none the less) but in general you'll be driven to play more. Definitely one of the few RPG games for the XBox 360 to add to your collection.

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Just wanted to say a few words about this game not gonna get into all the details but this is the best rpg I have ever played and I have been playing rpgs since the late 1980's and this by far is the best so if you have a chance to get this pick it up as it is gettting harder and harder to find now since they stopped making them.This game beats out all the final fantasy games in my opinion and the only game I think even comes close would be something like Secret Of Mana(SNES)or maybe Legend Of Dragoon (PS1)

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It was a fun game. For $30 bucks brand new much better deal than anywhere else even ebay. You can easily get 50+ hours on this game and it also gives you some incentive to replay the story again for a second time.

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