PSVitaAddict

hello everyone! I’m back today with another review, today I’ll be reviewing Tales of Vesperia which was released back in 2008 on the xbox 360.

Before I start the review, I would like to recommend that anyone who hasn’t played Tales of Vesperia yet, should go and watch Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike, since it takes place before the events within Tales of Vesperia, so if you decide to watch it, you’ll have a better understanding of the overall events taking place within the game, but it’s not required and you can enjoy the game without ever watching it, I watched it when I was already 25 hours into the game, but I do wish I watched it before since it shows you how Yuri got his bodhi blastia and the overall anime movie just does a good overall job in introducing you to the characters that you will meet during your journey within the game.

In Tales of Vesperia you play as the main protagonist Yuri, which was a knight for a short while, but soon left for reasons that will be explained to you in the game. Soon after entering the world of Terca Lumireis, someone enters the area where Yuri lives and steals the water blastia, the blastia is responsible for controlling the flow of water within the lower quarter, he soon decides to give chase and try and catch the criminal who made off with the blastia. On his journey to catch the person responsible for causing chaos within the lower quarter, Yuri is accompanied by his trusty dog Repede and soon after starting his quest to recover the blastia he meets a young princess named Estelle, she insists on joining Yuri so she can escape from the castle and find her friend which also happens to be one of Yuri’s best friends, Flynn. Soon after meeting up with Estelle you will come across a few other party members like Karol and Rita, which is a mage that conducts research on blastia cores and everything that has anything to do with blastia technology.

I won’t go too in-depth on the actual story, but I will say that without a doubt that Tales of Vesperia has one of the best stories out of every single Tales game that I have had the pleasure of playing, and I’ve most of the more modern Tale games like Tales of Xillia 1 and 2, Tales of Graces F, Tales of Hearts R and Tales of Symphonia Chronicles. The story that’s being told within Tales of Vesperia is great, and I can honestly say that throughout my journey, I never once felt bored and I never felt like the game was just dragging on and on. The games’ story should take you around 45-50 hours to complete, that’s if you do some side quests and don’t rush through the games’ story. I also recommend that you play the game on at least normal difficulty because if you play it on the easiest setting, you will easily blow away every enemy you encounter, and you’ll end up finishing fast.

If you’re familiar with the Tales series, you will know that a good bulk of the story in the games are told via skits, the skits do a great job in keeping you entertained, and they’re an awesome way to get more information about the overall story, and to learn more about certain characters, it’s hands down my favorite part of the Tales games so far! I just love how overall entertaining they are, and trust me they will make you laugh! Overall the skits system really sets the Tales games apart from all the other competition out there in the RPG and JRPG world, lots of role playing games require that you pick up certain items within the world so you can learn more about it, but it’s usually done by reading a ton of text, and in my opinion that’s just plain boring, that’s why the skits system is so amazing, it keeps you engaged within the story that’s being told.

Now lets dive into the combat system within Tales of Vesperia. If you’ve played other games within the Tales series, you will immediately be familiar with the real time combat system that’s in Tales of Vesperia, and for the most part it works well, but I’m going to be honest, the combat within Tales of Vesperia didn’t keep me hooked like in other entries within the series. Early on the combat feels stale and boring, combat usually flowed like this for me, I hit the enemies three times with my normal physical attacks, then I add an arte to the mix, afterwards you are unable to attack for a few seconds that allows the enemy to attack you over and over again, and it gets annoying because sometimes more than one enemy will be targeting you, and when you attempt to attack, it won’t work, your attack will be interrupted, this does improve as you advanced further and further within the game, but it never feels up to snuff with games like Tales of Graces F which has one of the best combat engines within the entire Tales series. The combat can still be fun though, and when I got around 25 hours into the game, the combat really started improving and I started enjoying myself, but before that I would constantly avoid battles and every time I did get into a battle, I would sigh since it just flat out bored me.

Now lets get into the visuals of the game. When I first booted Tales of Vesperia up, I was blown away by the amazing opening, which in my opinion is the best opening to date within the Tales series, but what really struck me as amazing were the in game graphics, they are just amazing! The game has a stunning cell shaded look to it, and you really need to play the game to appreciate the beauty of it. The colors in the game really pop, and the environments are lush and full of detail, I honestly can’t say enough good things about the visuals in Tales of Vesperia and I could honestly go on and on about how beautiful everything looks, if you have a good quality TV I think you’ll be blown away by the graphics, and keep in mind that this game was released back in 2008, but it still holds up against more modern games being released on current gen systems.

To close out this review, I just want to say that if you own an xbox 360 and if you’re looking for a good RPG to sink hours and hours into, look no farther than Tales of Vesperia, it’s in my personal opinion the best RPG you can purchase on the xbox 360, and I would even recommend that if you don’t own an xbox 360, to go out and find a cheap used 360 just so you can enjoy Tales of Vesperia, trust me its worth it

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My final score for the game is a 8 out of 10.