Tales Of Vesperia (360)

I love a good JRPG and have done ever since the SNES days. The various games championed by Super Play magazine in those days got me into the genre and also provided me with my first steps into the world of importing.

Since the during the PS1 days the genre has incorporated overly long self indulgent cutscenes. A fact that you could probably blame on Final Fantasy VII for making popular. Although FFVII thankfully didn't feature voice acting - my bugbear with modern JRPG's and the reason why i struggle to connect with any.

All of this rambling leads me nicely into Tales Of Vesperia. I've always enjoyed the Tales series to some extent, mainly the battle system. Tales Of Symphonia was the first one to tie it all together into a compelling title for me though. One think i liked about Symphonia was the fact that you could mute the characters, which was a godsend for me!

Vesperia differs from many RPG's these days in that it actually features decent voice acting, and a decent lead character who doesn't suffer from being TOO whiny or emo. That's not to say that the rest of the cast don't meet these stereotypes as most of them do.











The battle system is fantastic, this series has always been known for it's fast paced battle systems and this one is no different. To begin with i didn't enjoy the 3d battle area as opposed to the 2d plane found in Symphonia but i soon adjusted and grew to love it. Grinding is always enjoyable in this series and it's also possible to make your characters insanely leveled up and therefore make a mockery of some of the bosses (not necessarily a good thing)

Where Vesperia and the Tales series in whole lets itself down is with the plot. It manages to become a bit ludicrous and i found it a bit hard to connect with what was going on in the later stages. A plot doesn't need to be hugely over the top and convoluted to be gripping, a simple story done properly with proper character development would be much better.












I have to say that by the end of the game i had become a bit sick of the plot and the childish way which some of the characters both behave and are portrayed by their voice actors. This has recently really hit home as i have been playing Lost Odyssey - an rpg with a refreshing mature theme that manages to keep a more serious tone without feeling pompous and convoluted (plus it has a Japanese voice track)

Whilst i enjoyed Tales Of Vesperia and wouldn't at all say that it's a bad game in the slightest i just think the genre has so much more to offer than this.