Tales of Vesperia: Dated and Detailed
April 16, 2008 - In the brief history of the Xbox brand, the Microsoft manufactured consoles have not exactly been the place for Japanese RPGs. That has begun to change, but the introduction of a long running and adored franchise to the audience is still not a thing to be done without care. This is a whole new audience, but Namco Bandai feels confident that this entrant into the Tales series offers something to make new players take a look and packs more content than ever before to entice the old fans into the ride.
Tales of Vesperia takes place in a world controlled by a single empire. This is usually not a good thing and such is the case here. The main character, Yuri, comes from a poor district and is fighting to make changes and protect his brethren. He first tried becoming an imperial knight to work from within the system but now believes that doing what is best matters most, even if it brings you outside of the law. His childhood friend, Flynn, has a different sense of justice and is continuing to work with the imperial knights. From there, the adventure begins.
The demo we played took place roughly three or four hours into the game and, like many brief sessions with RPGs, raised more questions than it answered and offered little context. For instance, what is the deal with the pipe-smoking dog? Don't worry, we asked and found out. He's Yuri's companion and pretty darn good in a fight. The pipe is a memento from his old master. Now that we've got that out of the way, we can continue.
The 10-15 minute session was fairly standard in design. It began with a brief story sequence before moving off into the woods for some exploration and combat. There isn't much room to maneuver down the thin forest trails, though there were several side paths to poke around in and chests to find. It culminated in a boss battle that beat us into submission. It may look like a friendly game for children, but don't let that lower your guard.
Tsutomu Gouda, producer for the Tales series, consoled us after our defeat. "Thinking about the user base for the 360…we're thinking that a little bit harder challenge would be best for this game; harder than anything in the past in the series." He went on to explain that the difficulty should be just right for people who are familiar with the Tales battle mechanics and strategy, but will offer a good challenge for those who are new to the series. The goal is to create a sense of danger around boss battles that will force players to plan ahead and think things through.
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Combat is all real-time in Tales of Vesperia and takes place in a battle arena separate from the overworld (the load time is near instantaneous between the two). You can pause the game to assign new Artes (special moves and spells) or use items, but the bulk of the action will go fast quite fast. When playing alone, the other members of your party act independently but can be assigned to ask permission before using items of worth. The game is more fun, though, when up to three others hop in at any time to take control of the other party members. The first player still controls the party outside of battle, but once the fight begins each team member calls their own shots. Due to this limited co-op structure, the team felt online co-op wouldn't be all that fun and decided to leave it out.
The Tales of Vesperia team is looking to make the visual style set itself apart from the majority of games that strive for a photorealistic look. "We think we've got really good in-game graphics that are nearly indistinguishable from the anime that Production I.G. is making for the game," said Gouda. And it does look quite good. Xbox 360 owners will notice that the art style is similar to Eternal Sonata, but purposefully leans towards a more hand-drawn look. The portions of the game that are anime shouldn't disappoint either. It's all being captured in HD for the best possible presentation.
All of the major story sections have voicework to go along with the text, but not every situation will have spoken word. It's also all in English for the US release with no option for Japanese dialogue. In terms of the soundtrack, Namco Bandai revealed that Bonnie Pink, a Japanese singer/songwriter, has composed and performed the theme song in both Japanese and English. The tune is called "Ring a Bell" and it was inspired by the characters and story from the game. The background music in the game is once again being done by Motoi Sakuraba, the composer for Symphonia and Abyss.
Namco Bandai plans to have Tales of Vesperia release as close to simultaneous as possible in Japan and the US in 2008. That's quite a big goal considering Tales of Vesperia is reportedly a bit longer than Tales of the Abyss, the previous biggest game in the series.
This is bittersweet. I'm happy that its coming to 360, but pi**ed that I know everyone is gonna ignore it. I desperately want this to do well, or Namco Bandai may stop sending Tales games to the US altogether... Its reportedly coming out in the US June 24.
via IGN
