Tales of Vesperia

[RedCoKid]

I'm still waiting. When I showed up at EB, they said they only had preorders for the regular version of the game. LE buyers have to wait another day? What is this mess?

Saddest lunch break ever.

I've read that allocation of LE was tight, and Amazon has been slow to ship out both the guide and game. Anyhow, I got mine yesterday. The case is nice, and thank god I don't have to look at the ugly regular box art every time I play this.

If this were a few years ago, I'd be blathering on & on about how awesome this game is and why you all should buy it. Now I feel old & tired, so I will just say that if anyone has ever wanted to experience the embodiment of interactive anime, this is it.

[Klonoa]

well, finally got mine at gamestop today (bestbuy still didn't get it in)

can't wait to play tonight.

[Seik]

Got this yesterday too. I'll tell you what, there's nothing worse than walking into Best Buy to buy some dorky anime RPG and having the hottest chick in the store ring you out. I was going to tell her the game wasn't for me, but she could tell by the excitement in my eyes that it was.

So anyway, I'm not a fan of the character designs, but I do LIKE the characters themselves. Voice acting is so-so.

I haven't played a Tales game since Destiny, so this is all pretty new to me, but I'm digging it so far. The battles are awesome. Normally I don't like real time battles like this, bc I think they're too chaotic (tri-ace RPGs come to mind). But in this game it works really well, probably because the actions are so precise and you can pause the battles.

Some reviews said the story takes a while to get going, but I dont see that. It's certainly no slower than other jRPGs.

The best thing I can say about this game is that it seems solid all around. And also, it gives me that feeling I used to get when I played RPGs as a kid. It's seems like just a charming adventure story with good characters and cool locales in a big world.

[Klonoa]

Got this yesterday too. I'll tell you what, there's nothing worse than walking into Best Buy to buy some dorky anime RPG and having the hottest chick in the store ring you out. I was going to tell her the game wasn't for me, but she could tell by the excitement in my eyes that it was.

best buy certainly does have some really cute women working there, and not just at the registers. sadly, the one in the game section aint easy on the eyes.

the anime intro is pretty kewl

[Rocca]

the anime intro is pretty kewl

It is pretty swank, actually.

I've read that allocation of LE was tight, and Amazon has been slow to ship out both the guide and game. Anyhow, I got mine yesterday. The case is nice, and thank god I don't have to look at the ugly regular box art every time I play this.

Hmm, apparently so. This is the third day now I proceed to the EBGames in the Eaton Centre mall and the third time I get nothing. So I went to another store and bought the regular version. The LE should be here by Friday, which I am still picking up since I payed for it, since I hear the case is very nice.

So far I'm really liking it. Seik said it very well that it essentially feels like the solid, enjoyable, happy-go-lucky experience you would have with a good RPG when you were younger.

I hear there are more serious overtones in the story than in past games, though I haven't really noticed that yet. More soon!

[Seik]

So I played it a few more hours last night and I thought I'd share a tip. Keep in mind, I haven't played a Tales game since Destiny (10 years ago! Holy Crap), so this might be old news to everyone. In fact it probably is, but the game never explained it to me.

Anyway, I was stuck for the longest time on the wolf boss (the one that was in the demo). And I COULD NOT beat him despite 5 or 6 tries. But then I discovered you can go into the artes menu and turn on and off the artes of your AI controlled teammates. So you can turn off all but the most powerful artes and that's all they'll be able to do. Then you can go into the strategy menu and come up with your own strategy (mine has estelle heal constantly, any mages cast their most powerful spell constantly, and any warriors spam their most powerful strike arte).

That made short work of the boss very easily. Anyway, just thought I'd share because the game never explains any of that. Yet they explain cooking and synthesizing, neither of which I have used yet.

Also, I think the characters in this game are very well done and they make up for the slightly slow moving story so far. All the characters have their own quirks and what they do and say makes sense given who they are. I genuinely enjoy their interactions, and I think the translation is overall pretty good. I just wish the character designs themselves were a little less generic looking (I know the artist has done his share of anime though). I just think it would have been nice if they picked an artist with a slightly more distinctive style.

[Frogacuda]

Yeah, Tales combat is more about strategy than button mashing, but a lot of people never realize that. That's why I give them props for making the boss in the demo so fucking hard.

[RedCoKid]

Unless it's different now, Rita's water spell hits the flowers and in turn stuns that boss and his minions. AI teammates should easily take care of the rest. Edit: This doesn't work because the spell in the demo isn't available as early in the real game. I used fireballs instead.

[Seik]

Yeah, Tales combat is more about strategy than button mashing, but a lot of people never realize that. That's why I give them props for making the boss in the demo so fucking hard.

Yeah it's taking me a little while to get into the groove of the combat, but I'm getting the hang of it slowly.

That's why I normally don't like real time combat like this because it all seems like a chaotic/button mashing/zero strategy involved mess. Vesperia appears like chaos on the surface, but is in fact anchored by normal RPG strategy. I like it a lot.

[Klonoa]

just came across the very first anime cutscene and i thought it was pretty well done. i hope there are several more littered throughout the game, and not as sparingly as tales of symphonia.

- the voice acting isn't too bad. ellise and yuri are pretty well done, as well as karol. the issue arises with the minor characters, some are just plain bad.

- the in-game presentation is great, big props there.