Tales of Vesperia Review

Gameplay

In most ways, Tales of Vesperia plays pretty much exactly like Final Fantasy VII. Everything from the way the dialogue boxes appear, to the sound effects and navigation of the menu screens, to the way the world map looks and how you navigate it - if you played FFVII then you'll be right at home here. The resemblance is uncanny and frankly borders on emulation at times.

Running around and talking to the people of Vesperia is an important part of play for a couple of reasons. It provides not only clues about your current objective and status of the story, but also plenty of lore about the game world.

Something that has been done away with in the Vesperia though is the turn-based combat system. The game features real-time battles which are somewhere between a beat ‘em up and a hack’n’slash. When you get a one-on-one fight with a human boss-type character, it can feel very mano-a-mano, but when groups appear it’s a little more furious and ends up close to a Devil May Cry clone at times.

The battles take place in an arena which allows freedom of movement in 360 degrees. You take control of Yuri while other members of your party do their own thing. Kicking monster tush is about executing combos and you have either regular attacks or special attacks known as ‘Artes’ to choose from. You can use different Artes and combinations thereof depending what weapons you have equipped, with more powerful Artes becoming available as you progress. An 'Over Limit' (AKA limit break) feature adds another level of depth on top of that too.


Despite the real-time combat engine, the underlying mechanics are a lot more traditional and there's a lot of micro-management for you to get stuck into if you want. For example, you can select equipment which has different abilities and will effect your attributes in different ways. The stats consist of the usual health points, technique points, elemental resists and luck. Each party member can be equipped with four bits of armour plus an accessory, so success is largely based on experimenting to find combinations that work. You can also bring up the items and equip menu at any time during the fight, allowing you to use healing or other magical items, adding another level of tactics to the brawls.

Combat encounters occur in a similar way to the Final Fantasy games except that encounters are represented by enemy icons that wander around. If you get spotted by one then he’ll rush towards you initiating a fight. The random encounter system in the FF series was fine, but it was pain in the neck if you wanted to get somewhere quickly. The system used in Tales of Vesperia is greatly improved though and you can avoid encounters entirely when necessary - or take them all on when you want to level your characters.

Conclusion

Tales of Vesperia is very much about the story and it’s one that is told very well, though it's hard to go into details without dishing out spoilers. The political overtones with the class system and a government which monopolises power make it very believable, despite the fantastical setting. The characters are quite realistic too, with Estelle the super-naïve rich-kid and Yuri the calm but hard-ass-good-guy from the poor quarter making for an often humorous dynamic that's made all the more compelling thanks to the script. One potential pitfall though is that the design tends towards cute, so if you feel the cartoony graphics challenge your masculinity, you better look elsewhere for an RPG fix.

The real-time combat system keeps you close to the edge of your seat and will mean you need to employ some Jedi-like use of the controller in addition to tactical thinking. Add to this mix an incredibly attractive game world and some awesome audio and Tales of Vesperia is sure to suck up a lot of your free time. It may not be the most original JRPG to ever his the market, but it makes up for this with gorgeous presentation and a fantastic, sprawling story and an imaginative cast of characters. Consider this to be very much a recommended game if you're a fan of the genre and definitely worth a look even if you aren't.

Score Guide