Tales Of Vesperia
Players: 1-4 (You read that right.)
Rated T for Teen : Alcohol Reference, Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes

Square-Enix who?

Tales of Vesperia is the latest of the "Tales Of" games by Namco-Bandai (I'll ALWAYS put Namco first, no matter what), and is exclusive to the XBOX 360. If you played Tales of Symphonia and thought it was great, then you'll have a joygasm with Vesperia. Tales of Vesperia is more similar to Tales of the Abyss for the Playstation 2 (this is a good thing, as it punched Symphonia in the eye). The battle system, the art style, and the awesome are all intact; however, they're enhanced.

This game might not look as good as Namco-Bandai's, "Eternal Sonata", but it definitely fits the Tales mold. It appears to be an upgraded version of Tales of the Abyss' graphic style. Everything is very bright and anime-y, but that's the way it's supposed to be. There are a few anime cutscenes which look wonderful, but they're few and far between. Character design is very nice as well, however there are a few clipping issues which are pretty hard to catch. Ultimately, it's a nice-looking game.

The sound in this game is superb. Sound effects are clear, and there's a lot of pretty subtle stuff too. The English voice-over cast did a good job with the dub as well. There's a few times where you'll just be thinking to yourself, "No. No good.", but these times aren't that often. The characters voices fit, and you'll find something to like in each of them. The Skits from past Tales games are back as well, but this time they're fully voiced. This means less reading, and more enjoying. You can skip them if you suck and fail, but hey, that's your choice.

The gameplay involves standard RPG fare. Y'know, runnin' around talkin' to people. Grinding for levels. Collecting items. Synthesis. Blah blah blah, right? But there's more than meets the eye. Vesperia uses an upgraded version of the Abyss battle system, featuring real-time, full 3D roaming battles. It's better than the Symphonia system for sure. If you played Abyss, you should be able to jump in without much problem. 4 of the up to 7 people in your party are able to battle at once, and each have different strengths and weaknesses. You earn the ability to change between these characters whenever you want later in the game, so if you get bored with one you can switch to the others. Skills are learned by using weapons. After a certain amount of battles with the weapon you'll learn the skill, and it can be assigned without the weapon being equipped. It makes more sense when you actually see it working. (Edit: You can play with up to 3 of your friends. Each controlling a character during battle. Otherwise it's just player 1 controlling the movement and actions outside of battle. It's like the other Tales games in that aspect.)

Ultimately, Tales of Vesperia offers the best RPG experience on the XBOX 360 (or any current-gen console for that matter). With it's lovable characters, great music, and fun story, you should be playing this for a long time.

I'm currently on my second playthrough and have a total of 75 hours spent with this game. There'll be many more playthroughs as well. This is the first RPG ever to have me wanting 100% completion.

Graphics : B -- Colorful, nice artstyle, but lacking in the detail department.
Sound : A -- Everything sounds wonderful. Great music. English dub is good. If you NEED Japanese dub, then fuck off. Import the game or something.
Gameplay : A- -- The best Tales game yet. That doesn't mean it can't get a bit repetitive (what RPG doesn't?).
Replayability : B -- There's an EX dungeon available in the New Game + after beating it the first time. With tons of titles and skits to unlock, you'll be playing this over and over if you want 100%.

Overall : A- -- Best RPG of this generation. Best in the Tales series.

Sounds awesome dude! I'm not a RPG player most of the time but this might be worth a rent :3

I got that far then stopped

Wouldn't expect a fanboy to read much further. Least you're open about fanboyism.

[quote="HGW XX/7Tales of Vesperia offers the best RPG experience on the XBOX 360 (or any current-gen console for that matter). [/quote]

Hmmmm...I don't doubt that it's a good game but you're talking better than Lost Odyssey? I'd truley have to play this to believe it. Which may be on the cards tbh.

Did you insinuate that the battles are not as much turn based but more like FFXIII and Infinate Undiscovery, where it's more open and no random battles?

Awsome review though, if indeed the game is all that good.

I admittedly haven't played much of Lost Odyssey. I'll play more of it later. From what I have played though, I prefer Vesperia hands down. Not turn based battles and no random encounters = Win.

Hmmm you see that's where we differ. I'm old school when it comes to RPG, and I prefer Random battles and turn-based. I mean I'll accept other stuff, as I really enjoyed the battle system on FFX-2, but Lost Odyssey does it really well, I really love the whole skills system.

I hope Mistwalker do another game with a similar engine.

Although I must say, the FFXII battle system was pure fucking win. When you're going through an area where you just KNOW you're going to use the same method of killing, the gambit system was a godsend and saved a LOT of pointless button pressing.

That being said, the Breath Of Fire series had it spot on too. You have a choice of manual or auto combat, but the auto is set to "All-out attack", "Attack/Defend", or "Some pansy kind of safety fighting shit where you buff yourself up before attacking".

I don't mind Turn-based at all. In fact sometimes I prefer it (Eternal Sonata = Best Battle System Ever due to Turn based AND Action RPG battle system), but random battles do nothing but piss me off.

Goddammit, I knew I left something off my Christmas list.