Japanese gamers love their RPGs, yet games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey did not catch on there, leaving many Xbox 360 consoles sitting on store shelves. Enter Namco Bandai's Tales Of Vesperia, the tenth in the vaunted Tales series, and stores in Japan suddenly cannot keep them in stock. When a game causes a sudden 360 sales spike in the land of Nintendo and Sony, it is worth your attention.
The story begins as Yuri, an ex-Imperial Knight, learns that a nearby 'aqua blastia', working as a dam, has been stolen, flooding his poor neighborhood. The early portion of the game deals with Yuri's quest to find the thief and return the blastia. Blastia is a magical gem the people of the world use to make their lives easier, like setting up powerful ones as barriers to protect the cities from monsters. It evolves well beyond the simple fetch quest it starts out as, as your ever-growing party is entangled in a plot much deeper than they expect. The basic plot, examining justice versus law in a world ripe with government corruption, is somewhat RPG cliché, but the fantastic presentation makes it work so much better than most.
The amazing voice work gives characters depth and personality in a genre that too often regurgitates the same archetypes with each new offering. There is a wealth of smart, witty dialogue here, which the genre typically lacks. The characters still feel based on the standard RPG stereotypes, but they were used as a starting point for each characters' back-story and blossom into vibrant, enjoyable characters from there. The game delivers the major plot points in interesting cut scenes and occasional anime clips, with some additional side tidbits to fill in the details in optional panel-based skits. Chances are, you will care enough about the story to give them a look when you see the on-screen cue, but those who just want to power through are free to skip them. Unfortunately, the same is not true of the cut scenes. While they are great, having to take on a boss multiple times can be even more annoying when you have to watch the same three-minute scene before each battle.
This is still a fantasy RPG, so there is your fair share of outright silliness. You will fight more than a few plants and your trusty dog has a pipe, but in all is a much more mature title than RPG fans are used to. It helps that the game does somewhat have a sense of humor about itself, even poking fun of the fact that your dog fights with weapons rather than claws and fangs. Vesperia is the first of the series to land on current-gen consoles, and it take full advantage of the technology. The game is incredibly beautiful, with an art style that makes it look as though you are playing an anime movie. Characters look familar, with the stock androgynous hero and fluffily-dressed royalty, but they are drawn and animated wonderfully. This is easily the best-looking RPG on 360 thus far. Thankfully, it does not play too shabby either.
Random battles seem to be outdated in recent RPGs, and Vesperia is not about to buck the trend. Battles come mostly in dungeons and when traveling through the world map to a new location. The monsters are easy to spot, though easier to avoid in the more open world map than in the tight quarters of a dungeon. If you start a fight with another monster nearby, you take on both monster parties at once for a larger battle. As you play through the game, you may find yourself purposely starting these larger battles to challenge yourself. The relative ease with which you can plow through regular enemies can be a serious problem, since they never seem to give you a good indication of whether or not you are leveled-up enough to take on the next boss. The bosses can be brutal, which leads you to either levelling through weak enemies for hours or turning the difficulty down a notch to get through. Neither option is very appealing.
Battles happen in quasi-real-time, with the game firing up a separate battlefield when you touch an enemy. The combat may feel like button mashing at first, but it quickly reveals itself to be much more involved. You will be glad the game takes its time introducing you to newly acquired abilities. You have one button for normal attacks and another for more powerful 'artes' skills. This may sound too simplistic, but the use of the analog sticks gives the combat system depth. Normal attacks use only the left stick to control the type of attack you use, making it easy to take on low-lying ground prey along with flying enemies.
