February 1, 2023

Tales of Vesperia Review: When Whales Fly


 

The people of Terca Lumireis rely on an energy source called "blastia" for the operation of their day to day lives. Yuri Lowell, a former Imperial knight, goes on a mission to retrieve his neighborhood's blastia core from a thief. During this journey he encounters a noble woman, called Estelle, with the mysterious power to use magic without the aid of a blastia core. She is thus accused of upsetting the natural balance and poisoning the planet by an Entelexeia (spirit) called Phaeroh. Meanwhile, Imperial authorities are powerless to act against powerful figures involved in blastia abuse, forcing Yuri to take matters into his own hands.

Vesperia explores the concepts of "virtue and corruption" in its narrative, and the conflict between doing what is morally right versus doing what is lawful. These themes are personified best in the conflict between Yuri, the main protagonist, and his knight friend/enemy Flynn. Yuri, is easily one of the most complex and charismatic characters in the Tales franchise. Despite his reserved and malcontent attitude, you can tell that he genuinely cares about people, even going so far as to commit crimes in order to do what is, subjectively, morally justified. This constantly puts him at odds with Flynn who is obligated to enforce the law, even when it means doing things that will harm people. The guy ! Yuri has some bite to his character, but doesn't evolve much over the meandering story. Instead, he acts as a catalyst for the growth and development of the ensemble of characters that surrounds him. One thing I loved about Vesperia's wandering story arc was how everything was ushered along by the cast and their circumstances.

There is no in game mechanic to keep track of side quests and it isn't immediately obvious when one is available or how to trigger it. A lot are missable with strict deadlines. Some start in a town after you have no reason to go back into it. Others require you to leave an area and then immediately return. If you go even one dungeon further than you should, you'll be cut off from an entire quest-line for seemingly no discernible reason. I was not aware there were side quests during my first playthrough, but even with a guide the micro-management is too tedious for me to bother with.



 

Unlike most Tales games which lack interesting environments, Vesperia actually exercised some creativity in this area. They aren't breaking any new ground, but they are at least varied, colorful, and interesting - crystal caves, underwater palaces, windswept canyons, et cetera. Vesperia was also the last Tales game to feature an overworld map, and I actually liked it quite a bit. It offered a bit of freedom and down time in-between dungeons and towns. Getting an ship early on and then a means of air travel soon after also made exploration liberating.

The overworld is populated with wandering enemies that trigger a separate battle area when the player runs into them. Combat takes place in real-time with a party of up to four members. Everyone can move about freely within the enclosed area, defending and attacking with either a melee weapon or special skills called "Artes". Artes consume TP which is earned back through regular attacks, cooking, and automatically at the end of each battle. Stronger Artes can be unlocked from using weaker Artes a certain number of times and regular attacks can be chained together to create combo attacks. That is the basic rhythm of battle. Landing enough hits activates a "Fatal Strike", which kills normal enemies and heavily damages bosses. Additionally, an "Over Limit" meter gradually fills with each successful hit. Once the meter is full the player character can perform continual attacks and Artes in quick succession for the duration of the Over Limit. The combat mechanics are not that deep, and fatigue starts to set in when battling foes back to back. Luckily, the story moved everything along (minus some filler moments) enough to keep me interested.


I found it was more enjoyable to play as a physical attacker, such as Yuri, Repede, or Karol because it gave me the opportunity to participate in the action more and allowed me to better protect the casters. You can play as a castor, such as Estelle or Rita, but the pace is slower and the other party members seem prone to poor decision making thanks to the AI. In general, the AI is pretty good at keeping spellcasters on the backlines and casting spells intelligently.

 

 

In my opinion, Tales of Vesperia's story and world building is superior to most titles in the Tales franchise. Yuri was a refreshing change of protagonist for the franchise and his friendship/rivalry with Flynn presented an interesting conflict throughout the game. The cast of antagonists was surprisingly weak by comparison. I was hard-pressed to recall any of their names or motivations as the credits rolled. The visuals hold up amazingly well thanks to the cell-shaded art style, although, the animations were a bit janky in places, and some action scenes could be awkward/hilarious due to the limitations of the time. Aside from the restrictive side quests, I found the game to be a well rounded experience.

The remaster is based off of the Japanese exclusive PlayStation 3 version, which had additional content not found in the Xbox 360 release. This content includes: full voice acting (almost double the size of the original script), new party members (Flynn and Patty), equipment, costumes, quests, skits, Artes, mini-games, music tracks, bosses, towns and dungeons, Improved AI, a scene-skip feature and more. There are also two voice actors for the main character due to Troy Baker joining a voice actors union and Namco Bandai not wanting to ask him to reprise his role for all of the added dialogue. Having never played the original, I didn't notice the switch of voice actors too much.


First posted to videogamegeek.com


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