Tales of Vesperia

Who didin't see that coming?

Tales of VS. for the PSP, 35 playable characters from 13 Tales series.

http://the-magicbox.com/0904/game090406a.shtml

This doesn't really belong here, but there's no TotW thread and Search won't bring up the Legendia thread.

This girl:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/as...50px-Tol01.jpg

Norma Beatty (greatest Tales, nay, JRPG, character that was), is in Tales of the World 3 for all two of you who care (maybe just me and Finch).

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/08/17...es-characters/

I've got Tales of Legendia, never even opened it. Worth playing for her? Does she show up quick so that, when I get bored, I don't feel like I wasted my time?

Most importantly, is she even half as great as Mint from Threads of Fate, who easily holds the crown for best character ever to come from Square?

James

Ha, I still gotta open my Threads of Fate. Been looking forward to Mint for going on a decade now. Hell I could play it tonight even. Why don't I? I don't know, but I won't.

Legendia is well worth it for Norma and then some, but she doesn't show up for at least half a dozen hours. Maybe more, it's been a while.

My advice on Threads of Fate- play Rue first. He doesn't have a bad story, as these things go, but that way when you get to the sheer damn awesome that is Mint it's all the better, plus you get the full ending. You know, when you finally crack the game open in a couple years.

Seriously though, Threads of Fate is my favorite Square game from the PSX era, and it's all because of Mint.

James

I started it! I couldn't find it at first which made me want to play it all the more. Checked ebay. Only one sealed copy sold recently, and it went for just $59.

So, yep, started with Rue like you suggested. Played through the first three areas. Met Mint a couple times. I can tell already she's a spicy lil' tomater.

Hit and collision detection are highly suspect, but then, Square's never been the master of action RPGs.

I like it. Nice music. Girl who keeps calling me Polly ('cause I rescued her when I was transformed into a Pollywog), is cute.

I finally started playing Tales of Vesperia recently, my first Tales game, and I'm enjoying it so far. My party has just reached Dahngrest.

The 2008 game looks great thanks to the sharp cel-shaded visuals that enliven the characters and vibrant colors so well, especially with the detailed, fixed-camera environments which harken back to the pre-rendered background of older JRPGs. It's a shame that so many JRPGs, particularly the Tales games themselves, that arrived in the years since haven't followed Vesperia's approach and in many cases look inferior to it.

The battle system is fun, the artes are neat, although I don't think I'll be pulling off fatal strikes with regularity any time soon. I'm digging the skits and the post-battle victory banter is so charming that, even though it's often repeated as well, it does a great job alleviating the monotony of enemy encounters along the way. The Estelle-directed high-five with Rita is never not great.

Funny thing, around 10 hours into the game I discovered that I misunderstood the skills menu/system and was deactivating skills I meant to activate. :lol: I was doing fine despite that, but thankfully caught on to my error as certain skills were becoming available to me at that point, and with more skills now, it's fun deciding between which to activate with the limited number of points to utilize. I'm also liking the crafting system so far.