What I learned from Tales of Vesperia.
It's never too late to port a good game to the PC.
Now bring me the others.

Back in February of this year, I played through Tales of Berseria which was the first Tales of game that I played. Now we jump to the end of this year, where I decided to finally play Tales of Vesperia - a really good decision. It got to the point that I fell in love with this game in under two hours, something I never felt with anything else I played. I was wondering what else was in store and was looking forward to what was to be shown. As with all Tales of games' theming, this one is themed around enforcing one’s justice

Pros
• An amazing story with wonderful characters
  
• Fun combat when you get the hang of it
  
• An awesome soundtrack that is great to listen to
  
• A beautiful art style that makes the game look good

Cons
• This game has one of the hardest tutorials ever
  
• You can get beaten into a corner sometimes and can’t do much against it
  
• There are times where the hitboxes on the enemies are too big in narrow passages in certain areas
  
• There are times where you won’t have a clear idea of what to do or where to go next.

Yuri Lowell is living a peaceful life in his home area called the Lower Quarter. However, one day, the Aqua Blastia is stolen. This Blastia keeps the fountain water supply at bay and prevents it from flooding the area. Yuri decides to go and find the thief but is arrested by the Knights and thrown in jail. He manages to escape but a woman named Estellise Sidos Heurassin or, as she likes to be called, Estelle runs into him and asks for his help. She wants to send a message to Flynn Scifo as she has a warning to deliver to him. Yuri also has a dog named Repede who is always with him wherever he goes and so the trio sets out on their journey.

That’s about as much as I can say about the story of Tales of Vesperia. It’s very interesting to go through and can get really interesting in the later parts. The English voice acting is something else that I have to give some credit for. I really enjoyed the presentation that we were given, and I recommend trying it out, take it from someone who enjoys subs more than dubs.

The characters are what make Tales of Vesperia shine, as they are really amazing. They have their own fun personalities that make them special. Yuri has to be one of my favorite main characters in any video game that I have played. Instead of being that one hero who is always good, he takes it upon himself to do crimes for the greater good and will bear all the weight on his shoulders. This makes Yuri a very interesting character and honesty is one of my favorites.

However, my all-time favorite character award has to go to Raven. I love this guy’s personality, his humor, fighting style, and he is just an overall great character. Despite his appearance, he is a high-ranked member of Altosk, one of the five master guilds. He has a lot of mystery to him and it’s what makes him unique.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2674783454
I will also give a special shoutout to Rita Mordio, a researcher who studies blastia and is anti-social. She is capable of using various magic attacks, making her one of my favorite party members in combat. Then there is Patty Fleur, a pirate who can wield two flintlock pistols. She is also looking for lost treasures. Oh, and Redede is cool too, can’t leave out man’s best friend as well.

Also, Flynn Scifo’s design reminds me a lot of Ky Kiske from Guilty Gear, you can’t change my mind otherwise.

The Linear Motion Battle system makes a return in this game and since it’s one of the older titles, it may come off as a little rough for those that were used to playing Tales of Berseria. You see, how it works in this title is if you are locked onto an enemy - which you will be - that’s the line your character is moving in. There is no Free Run option in this game so you will have to adjust accordingly. Despite that, the gameplay is very fun, once you get the hang of things it’s actually rather smooth and such.

Though that’s not to say that the game is perfect on everything it does with the gameplay, as I have quite a few issues with it. First things first, a game should teach you how to use its core mechanics. Tales of Vesperia does, but it’s certainly not perfect. If you want an example of what I mean, picture this; you, the player, want to learn how to swim and Tales of Vesperia is like, here we throw you in the deep end and you learn that way. This mainly stems from the first battle, as the two enemies you fight have a large health pool and will spam attacks on you. With no way to heal yourself, you may easily die. I almost did but I got off lucky and won.

In other words, the enemies can overwhelm you if you are on your own. Though you can do this too with your party members when you attack enemies. This can also be done easier with your Over Limit and you can spam them till they die. Spellcasters suffer from this the most as they can’t do anything, so they are just screwed.

Travelling happens in secluded overworld areas where enemies you can run into roam around too. But here is the problem, because those enemies like to have too big hitboxes and to be generally too huge to be able to ignore. This is one of the bigger issues I had because there are times where I just wanted to not fight them, but I was forced to since I could not pass them, or the hitbox was too big. Like, take a look at this screenshot. I can’t move on because I am forced to fight this guy.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2675576092
Then there is the issue of the game’s progression. There were moments where I had no clue on what to do. Sometimes I had to talk to my party members that are scattered throughout the area, or I had to go to a certain place that I had never been to that is not marked on the map. This resulted in me looking up a guide on where I had to go or what I had to do.

Other than these issues, the game is honestly fun and I really enjoyed it, combat is very fluid and there are a lot of Artes that you can use in combat. All of these will require TP to use, so be careful, or you may end up wasting it all too quickly.

I love the soundtrack; it’s honesty really well done and fits the areas that are in the game. My personal favorite has to be A Vow of Unity, it’s located in this area called Dahngrest and when I first heard it, I knew it fit very well with the area.

Tales of Vesperia looks very well done in terms of its art style, it feels unique as it’s different from the other Tales of games. The game runs very well and I had no issues while I was playing it, with it also running at a solid 60 FPS. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM.

If you enjoyed playing through Tales of Berseria, then I highly recommend trying out Tales of Vesperia. It’s one of the older titles in the series and for what it’s showing, I think it’s worth it. The story is just one of the reasons to keep playing. I honestly enjoyed this title more than it seems in this review and it’s probably one of the best games I have played in my eyes. Is it better than Berseria? Well, that may require some thinking, as they are both good in their own ways.

Raven: My dream is to be stickin rich with behives of gorgeous women and to make good quality reviews at Life Needs a Little Sin

First time playing this game, I missed it on console and decided to go in bling for the first play through. I have to say I Loved it, so much to do that I got 300+ hrs in before I finished play through one and my New Game Plus play through tossed another 100 hrs on top of that. Great combat and the story and side quests are all awesome, I honestly wish there was more to do in the world even though at this point I'm closing in on 500 hrs just getting achievements and have seen and done just about everything. I went hard and I really wish more JRPG's where this in depth and enjoyable. Very much recommend even if it isn’t on sale, if you like JRPG’s this is a much imho because it’s done correctly. 10/10

Now give us Tales of the Abyss

55 hours and still didn't know how to do a mystic artes
10/10

The long awaited Complete Version of Tales of Vesperia!
It feel SO GOOD to finally have a lot of costumes to unlock, finally a lots of sidequest to find out when you replay, finally a lots of optional content and bosses. I feel like this game gave me everything I wanted "more of" tales of symphonia.

The characters are overall pretty good, Yuri put a great dynamic with the team and each character feel very distinct.

Battle Wise the game is more clunky in first few hours than most tales of, but open up much more in the end, which gives a fantastic sense of progression through the game and in the challenge keeps up, to max level in the endgame challenges. Add to that 9 playable characters and you have the most diverse cast and a lot to learn if you want to vary your play style.

Story wise it's pretty simple, it's mostly about people figure it out and an adventure in the classic sense, it wasn't as groundbreaking as other tales of, but servicable.

As most tales of you can still have fantastic couch multiplayer, expect great replayability from the NG+, unlocked difficulties, numerous Ex dungeons, and a lots of things to unlock.

If for some reason you don't like anime or JRPG in general, just pass on this game, for the other just buy it!

If you want:
JRPG Plot where the world doesn't revolve around the main character
Engaging, evolving battle system that grows as you progress
Multiple playable characters with varying fighting styles
The choice of easy, straightforward fighting or complicated takes-hours-to-master techniques
A cast of characters who while at times are a bit trite, are engaging and memorable
Multiplayer battles! I've beaten this game with many friends, multiple times, with us using different characters
A world well built with lore to discover that still doesn't hand you every answer and asks you to piece some together yourself

Tales of Vesperia originally was released for XBOX 360 and boy, has it aged well. While the newer Tales games demand that you either memorize dozens of attacks and strategies for every enemy (or worse, allow you to mash one button to win every fight) Tales of Vesperia allows you to build amazing combos and fight each enemy with a style you prefer (although you do need to keep an eye on elemental weaknesses).

The battle system is dynamic and engaging, fought in real-time with controls that aren't entirely unlike Smash Bros, where you have basic attacks and special attacks that you assign to whichever input feels best to you. While the battle system truly blossoms late game and doesn't allow you the breadth of creativity possible until - depending on the player and the character they use - mid-game to 2/3 through the plot, once you get a feels for it, nothing feels better than beating the absolute snot out of enemies. The game even allows battles to remain engaging after you've overpowered your party; even if you could finish an enemy off with a single blow, all characters unlock the potential to equip a weapon that does 1 damage. At first that seems like a negative aspect, but the game uses this to allow you to finish enemies off not based on the damage you deal but the combos and styles of attacks you use, culminating in a Fatal Strike that the player must trigger in tempo with their attacks. Not only does this allow back-tracking even late game to remain engaging but has added bonuses like increasing item drop rates, which keep item grinding from getting too dull.

The story shows the growth and development not of the main protagonist, but those around him. Yuri is a mature JRPG protagonist who, instead of needing to grow up himself, plays something of a mentor to some party members and generally is the catalyst for other characters' growth. That's not to say he stays static - through his journey, he'll have to confront his own hipocrisy. He's a sarcastic, good-natured protagonist who challenges indoctrinated ideas of right and wrong, and whether or not "wrong" is synonymous with "evil" without being some hackneyed edgelord who just says "eff the cops" without doing anything about it.

While the voice acting for the younger characters floats in decibels high enough only dogs can perceive it, in general the acting and animation have aged extremely well, with Vesperia having an aesthetic unlike most other JRPGs of its time. The character interactions are well written for the most part, and while a character has been added since the game's first release, they don't feel entirely hamfisted into the story. While at times I myself questioned why they were included and what they bring to the table, by the end of the game, I can't imagine the story without them.

This is not the right game for everyone (since no game is) but is arguably one of my favorites. A lengthy journey that points out the grey morality of authoritative institutions without simply labeling them as good or bad while also providing a nice (if almost overly blatent) parallel to our developing climate crisis that offers replayability (trust me, I've spent too much time playing this game). I cannot recommend this game enough.

My Playtime: 250.4h (100% achievement, finished the game twice)
My First Playthrough: 155.55h (most side content has been finished)
Grindy Achievement(s): Yes (~1 achievement).
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (~50 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is a JRPG with a lot of playable characters and flexible combat, allowing you to do combos from numerous skills. It also has a lot of side content that can take most of your playtime to finish.

Pros:
- 3+1 difficulty that can be changed anytime you want
- Flexible combat that caters to various playstyles
- Customizable AI partner
- A lot of optional content to finish

Cons:
- Combat starts slow
- Story can feel bland at times
- It might not be obvious where to go next
- End game contents are boring and dragging out

Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

Yes.
If you like JRPG and play games for the character interactions, buy this game. Those who enjoy a game from its combat can also have fun with it, although they need to wait until everything is available for them to use.

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Surprisingly, the visuals haven't aged after all these years. I liked how they used cell shading to make the characters anime-styled. The use of the blurry effect also makes the scene look shinier and gives depth to the surroundings. However, the movies tend to look low-budget in comparison. Characters look as if they're drawn in a different style from the other movies, and they just lack some impact in the important scenes. Well, the movies convey the situation better than the cutscenes that used 3D models, but I wished they gave them better quality.

I was interested in the story at first. I like how they make the story not straightforward; the gang keeps on finding new objectives to go based on the recent events, and I liked how the characters have their own agenda by joining the party. I particularly liked how it uses these events as a foreshadowing for future events, which will suddenly click once the revelation happens. However, the excitement was gone once you got to the third act - the story becomes bland and straightforward, with hardly anything to expect.

That being said, I have grown to the characters by that point. I was wondering why I was still invested in the game after the story dropped in quality, but then I realized that I still wanted to play with these characters. The main character is a cool, edgy guy who is different from the commonly-used protagonists, and the other characters who also have different, unique personalities go through character development from time to time. They change slowly, but at the end of the adventure, they have grown.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1624372463

Gameplay
The game tends to be vague when telling where to go next. Unless you really pay attention and understand what the dialogue says, you might have to guess your next destination. It might be easy if the next location was the only nearby location that you haven't visited yet, but you unlocked sea and air travel early in the game and it's not often that you need to go from one continent to another to advance the story. Moreover, the game usually didn't explicitly tell where you have to go next.

The next is the lack of auto-save. You can only save in the designated save point if you enter an area, and this can be a problem. First of all, the game crashed on me a few times, and I lost some progress because of it. Second, you can't just leave the game when you are in a dungeon. Some dungeons in Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, especially the end-game ones, can have a long time between its save points, and I was forced to leave the game AFK for a few hours because I had to go soon and I couldn't save.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2230316557

It's almost impossible to see everything that the game has to offer without using a guide. The game has a lot of missables, with some events that will only trigger once you see the previous event. Moreover, these additional scenes explain some additional lore or depth to a certain character that you won't find if you just play the main story.

Combat
I liked the skill system. You have a skill where you can increase your stat or get a new ability. In other games, you need to get it from level up, but this game gives it by using weapons. As you use the weapon, you'll get some EXP on that weapon's skill, which will allow you to use the skill without equipping the weapon once you cap the EXP. This encourages you to collect as much equipment as possible and switch them whenever you have finished learning a skill.

The second "skill" is called Arte, which basically means active skill. Some Artes can be learned on level up, some require you to use other Artes for a few times, while others can only be obtained if you do certain events. I like how varied the Artes are; each character was designed to be played differently, and by combining Arte with skills, you can make some characters do something that wasn't possible without it. The combos are just endless - you can combo an Arte to other Artes, or even use a skill that can make you hit harder. Finding different sets of Artes for your combo is one of the joys of the game, although you also can spam the same Arte several times like me.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1621893309

However, these features don't come until later. You start with one character who always stopped after using a melee combo and hardly got any TP to spam Arte. Moreover, the game wasn't designed to do 1 vs many at that point, especially since the camera makes it hard to move your character up or down. The default camera setting only allows you to go left and right, which makes you closer or farther to the enemy based on your position. You need to press an additional button to move up and down, which can take some time to get used to. That being said, it's also easy to get knocked down and stunned to death with 1 character.

The other thing that I want to note is the AI. I never played other games with customizable AI like this. You can basically ask them to do anything and they'll comply most of the time. However, some characters are not good when played by AI, and magic attackers sometimes won't attack properly when you ask them to attack with physical Artes.

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game in 155.55h with most optional contents finished. Steam tracks my playtime as 250.4h after I finished getting all achievements, although I admit that my internet disconnected from time to time and doesn't record the playtime - it might take a bit longer to 100% the game than my actual time.

The difficulty varies based on what you choose. You can choose between 3 difficulty options at first, with another one unlocked after you finish the game. The change can be done anytime you want, allowing you to lower the difficulty if you are having trouble with your current playthrough. I mostly played with the normal difficulty in my first playthrough, and although one boss in the beginning gave me trouble, it was still manageable for me. For those who want some challenge, you also can beat most of the bosses while doing some secret mission, which varies based on the boss you fought.

Despite the issues in the beginning, it's still worth it to check the game out. There are a lot of optional things to do and the character interactions are golden. Moreover, the combat was unique and the story wasn't that bad even if you include the boring last act. I can recommend it to anyone who is interested more in a game's story and/or like combat with different variations.

the dog has jotaro's outfit

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is a great introduction to the Tales series and also happens to be one of the best Tales games of all time.

Vesperia is a highly refined jRPG experience that draws you in for weeks thanks to key features like

• an enchanting story, which instantly becomes an emotional journey;
  
• lovable characters to whom you eventually become attached to;
  
• amazing soundtrack that leaves a lasting impression;
  
• intricate level and graphics designs with a strong art style, which prevents fatigue and sparks interest of your inner explorer;
  
• and satisfying, fluent combat that should be familiar to any Tales player.

Mechanics progression is at a sweet spot: you're given enough time to try out combat without being overwhelmed by new variables. Meaning that different kind of meters, submenus, counters and popups won't be causing you a headache. Later on tweaking character skills is fairly simple, meaning you're free to choose a playstyle that suits you best.

Art style occasionally makes you double check if you're looking at a pre-rendered background or not. Elaborately designed world full of fine attention to detail paired with locked camera angles, clever usage of depth of field and general matte, soft look of the textures looks gorgeous and holds up well even today. It's a high budget title in all departments and it shows.

Dungeon design shines with high attention to detail, accompanied by atmospheric music, making exploration an unforgettable experience. Each location has its own distinctive touch and as you progress there's no "more of the same" dungeons that would end up being exhausting or boring. There are still a couple of catacombs around that are repetitive, but those are designed to be that way intentionally.

Music accompanies you throughout the whole adventure, adding unique touch to the world, breathing life into variety of scenes, rising the heat during a battle, pulling heart strings during an emotional moment. Each dungeon has its own theme, it matches thematically and leaves a positive imprint on your memories. The general tone of the soundtrack gives away classic 90s "Tales of" vibe, combining epicness and occasional cheesiness. It's worth a mention that soundtrack changes when story is progressed, meaning that there's more than one earworm battle theme.

Well-paced story segments, character interaction, skits (including comical relief) prevent burnout and make you crave for more. The game pulls you in and does not let go until the staff credits roll. It might be a completionist heaven or hell, depending on how one looks at it: exploration is rewarded, there are hidden events that can be triggered by talking to a specific NPC or by sleeping at an inn during a particular story time frame (some events are permanently missable, others stay). Minigames allow one to take a break from the main events and earn a variety of rewards. Memory puzzles, skill-based, RNG-based, combat-based games are available as a convenient time waster.

Whether you're reloading a save, short on time or speedrunning this title has got you covered: all cutscenes, dialogues, movies and skits can be skipped if you wish to do so. It might be a small thing for some, but it really makes things much more enjoyable and shouldn't be overlooked.

There's no convenient way of quickly restarting a battle. That means if you want to reset a botched attempt of a boss battle then the quickest way would be letting the boss to wipe out the entire party, get the game over screen and load your last save, as escaping from a story boss battle is not an option. The only alternative is to close the game and boot it up again. Luckily, most save spots are placed right before important encounters so all the dungeon grinding progress doesn't get lost.

The more you play the more ridiculous the weapon enhancement ends up being: there's no wishlist system or even advanced sorting. You get many weapons with different upgrade variations, different skills and there's no quick way of sorting out gear that you're still missing. There's weapon type sorting, but in reality the only thing it does is decrease the amount of scrolling. One solution for this is to make all weapons and keep even the inferior versions as well: when the list is scrolled through you can clearly see which gear is already purchased or made.

There is a game mechanic which allows you to stun enemies before initiating a battle. For that you're required to hit them with a projectile, however, the projectile won't land if the enemy is above or below you. That's reasonable for flying-type enemies, but not for normal enemies on slopes: the projectile will simply clip through target's lower or upper body parts without stunning them. Occasionally you run into an enemy without touching them (their hitbox is too big) or when you try to zap them the projectile just doesn't land (hitbox for projectile is too small). The only solution for this is to pick your battles where the ground is flatter and don't even bother shooting projectiles on slopes.

In semi-manual battle mode when you do a short range attack the character automatically runs up to an enemy, so they're within the striking range. Changing targets strategically is important, there are instances when you're fighting close range enemies and need to switch to attack a casting mage. If there are multiple targets blocking your way then the character can get stuck and run into enemies until they move or attack. In other words, pathfinding occasionally fails to run around and instead tries to squeeze between enemies or allies where it's not possible. Solution to this would be using free run to reposition and then resume attacking.

With hundreds of scenes in the game the lipsync ends up being of variable quality: usually it's adequate, but there are instances where characters would flap their gums like a mechanotronic doll. Alternatively, it could've been just a pre-release bug.

Disclaimer: this was played in a pre-release state.

• A solid port with basic PC options, rebindable controls, high framerate (capped at 500FPS) and resolution support that goes at least up to 4K. It runs smoothly even on older hardware, doesn't require many resources to run and outputs high framerates even at maxed out settings.
  
• During world travel there's a frame pacing issue that makes the game stutter when it shouldn't. I would guess Kaldaien could look into this one.
  
• With over 100 hours of pure gameplay there was only one crash, which never happened again. I've also seen oddities like character animations spazzing out right after a camera change.
  
• With all of this in mind I believe that the PC version would still be the best looking and running version available, especially since some console versions have a 30fps cap in place. QA team has done a good job at ironing things out.

While I have not played the original release of Vesperia, I can still mention that DE is based on the enhanced Japanese-only version, which has extra locations, bosses, side quests, playable characters, soundtrack, etc. All of that content has been translated, voice actors recasted, making this the best and most complete way of playing Tales of Vesperia.

DE feels natural and I couldn't even tell that there was additional content as it was seamless and well implemented.

Looking for an introduction to jRPGs or the best "Tales of" game to start with? Look no further, it's right in front of you.
PS. The best character award goes to ossan.

Review copy provided by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment.