Anatomy of a S-Rank: Tales of Vesperia
By Mento 8 Comments
Just a quick blog this week. I have something planned for May that I may or may not (pun intended?!) have the courage to go through with, so there'll probably be more from me this week either way. Yay? Anyhoo, since I spent what can only be referred to as an unfortunate amount of time getting my Tales of Vesperia S-Rank, I thought I'd rant complain analyze what exactly is required for 1000 points in Namco Bandai's JRPG classic.
This won't be a frequent feature of mine, by the way, despite what the goofy banner might otherwise indicate. This is really more 's territory - I'm only passing through.
1. Eureka!
2. First Strike
3. Big Game Greenhorn
These three achievements are perfectly reasonable, since they're given for using the synthesis, Fatal Strike and "Giganto Monsters" (an optional series of superbosses) for the first time. I'd say the mark of any good achievement is one that rewards you for going out of your way to explore optional game content. Not that any of those are hard to miss: the first two especially are given to you in tutorials. What is odd, though, is how all three of those achievements are Secret. So if the intent was to get you to explore a feature, how would you know to do so? Unless all information about three very notable features of the game was meant to be concealed for some reason? What?
4. The Hit That Keeps On Hitting
This is for a 100-hit combo. I should probably point out now, sooner than later, that the locked description of almost every achievement (that isn't inexplicably marked as Secret) doesn't actually provide any in-depth data on what you should be doing. Clearly a combo unlocks this one, but there's nothing to indicate that it's 100 hits. Which, by the why, isn't exactly a walk in the park unless you're spamming the mage character's AoE spells. But whatever, this just requires a little effort and experimentation. It's not like high combos aren't a Tales' game's bread and butter.
5. Too Much Free Time
And boy do they mean it. 100 hours, though this is isn't explained anywhere, again. This is one you'll (un)fortunately pass while getting the rest.
6. To Points Unknown
Now this is where the achievements start getting stupid. To achieve what is clearly a distance-travelled goal given the vague description, you have to travel 100,000km. Which is ridiculous. A regularly-sized JRPG world, which Terca Lumireis is no exception, is about 100km across before you wrap around at the edge of the map. 100,000km is, in comparison, about 1/4 of the way to the moon in real life distances. In order to pass that distance, you would have to (and this isn't hypothetical, since I did it like the idiot I am) beat the game twice and then tape the "go forward" button down while riding your flying dragon boat for over 5 frickin' hours. I can only surmise that someone added an extra zero where they shouldn't. Hopefully that extra zero was deducted elsewhere, like on the offending designer's paycheck.
7. Grand Battles
Kill 1000 monsters. As much as that is, I don't believe this is avoidable, unless you're running past everything. Another reason why all these milestone achievements seem a bit off.
8. Jackpot
10,000 chips won in the poker mini-game. Surprisingly easy, since it lets you double down with a high/low game-within-a-game-within-a-game if you have a poker hand better than a pair. Since you can then continue to double down nine more times, you could potentially walk away with millions with a single hand. Kind of like that old wheat and chessboard problem. I actually love when these late-game gambling dens open up and can be easily exploited for cash and useful items, since it feels like the game is giving us a break for once.
9. Smarty-Pants
Winning the quiz at the same late-game location. Dunno if you knew this about Tales, but it is fanservice-crazy. What's perhaps slightly less palatable is that these questions are about immersion-breaking things like "when did Tales of Eternia come out in Europe?" So, yeah, less about paying attention to the game's history and characters and more about having the Giant Bomb wiki open somewhere nearby.
10. Piggybank
10 million Gald. Another milestone achievement that you won't be anywhere close to after beating the game once. This one's not too bad though, if you have items that boost money received from battle or exploit the above poker game. Just pointless busywork most sensible people wouldn't bother with. I envy their rationality.
11. They Call Me...
Acquire all Titles. For those unfamiliar, titles had been, up to and including this point, Tales' in-game version of achievements. You're given a title at various points of the story to indicate growth or a new trajectory for the character they're awarded to, but most of them come from pulling off something difficult such as beating a big arena fight or mastering the cooking mini-game. A lot are very missable. So what you're basically being asked to do, here, is complete an entirely different set of achievements that take approximately as much effort and time as the 50 achievements here. It won't come easily or quickly, let's just say.
12. Character Study
See all Skits. Skits are little goofy moments between the characters, presented as talking head icons instead of with the in-game models. They're another one of Tales' trademarks. Watching them all requires you know exactly when and where they'll pop up, which is crazy. Or you can simply unlock them all in a viewer for New Game +, which seems far less arbitrary but also considerably less meaningful.
13. No More Grinding
Hit level 200. This takes a colossal amount of time, even with the "experience x10" bonus you can purchase for New Game +. You can actually pretty much overpower anything in that game at level 100, making this achievement doubly fruitless. I've probably made my point and then some that the achievements in this game bring out the worst in JRPG completism, but I ain't done yet.
14. Back Up Plan
Activate every save point. Why do JRPGs still have save points? And why bring attention to that foible with this achievement? I mean, for fairness' sake, this game was made in 2008, but that's still a bit late to be having save points. Xenoblade's clearly spoiled me. Heck, so has every CRPG since the 90s.
15. Big Game Hunter
More optional bosses. You have to kill all eight of them. Not too difficult, and it's actually a fun challenge to track them down. Of course, the game doesn't tell you how many there are or where they can be found, but I am trying to stay positive here.
16. Map Nerd
17. Monster Nerd
18. Item Nerd
These are for 100% completing the Map, Monster Book and Collector Book respectively. Sounds annoying (and is) but at least they can all be done in one playthrough if you're liberal with the Magic Lens (the item that reveals monster data), synthesize everything (harvesting ahoy) and are meticulous enough to scour the entire world map for little grey "unexplored" spots.
19. Little Mad Scientist
It's a certain number of synthesis creations. Kind of pointless, since you'll be doing way more than this achievement demands for the "all items" one above. But then I guess if you're not some insane Vinny-esque completionist, this is a nice consolation prize.
20. Low Level Challenger
So here's a fun thing: You cannot get this achievement on your first run. If you avoid every fight besides the compulsory ones, you'll still pass the level requirement for the boss this pertains to, which is around the 1/3 mark in terms of game progress. If you're looking for the most achievements per runthrough, you'll want to activate the "experience x10" NG+ feature for the second run so you can hit level 200 faster, pass the difficult 200-man melee arena fights and beat the game as quickly as possible (see Speedster, below). This means that the low level challenge is ideally suited for a third playthrough with the "experience halved" addition. I still have no idea why I did this to myself.
21. Speedster
Having to beat a JRPG in under 15 hours is surely the best way to experience it. You get all the fun of skipping every bit of story and skipping almost all the encounters and are still stressing right up until the final moment that you won't make it in the time limit provided. An absolute blast.
22. Ahhh, Memories
This is the bonus dungeon. I made a comic about it. It's a boss rush with a confusing path that reuses locations from all over the game. It's a waste of time. It's also a compulsory waste of time if you want half the achievements, so get to boss rushin'.
23. Bunny Guild Member
This one's weird. There's a guy in one of the cities that awards how many titles you've acquired with "attachments": purely superficial items your characters can wear. If you acquire and wear the four pairs of bunny ears (sigh) he gives you, you'll unlock this achievement exactly five hours later. It's kind of inexplicable why this game would force you to promote Playboy for such a considerable length of time. I guess it's testing how much you're willing to debase yourself for an achievement, which is apparently quite a lot in my case.
24-26.
These three are just straight up story progress achievements, automatically given to you for reaching a certain point (they're also spoilerish, which is why I've not named them). What's more is that they're worth 100, 150 and 200 points respectively. If you refuse point blank to put up with any of Vesperia's achievement hoop-jumping nonsense, you'll at least walk away with a considerable amount of gamerscore just from playing the game.
27-49.
These are all "secret missions", awarded for achieving certain targets in every major boss fight of the game. Of course, you aren't told what these goals are. Most are utterly unguessable, requiring the use of a specific character's specific attack at a specific moment. These achievements are sponsored by Prima Strategy Guides Inc.: "If you're stuck and have a sawbuck, then you're in luck!".
50. Vesperia Master
This is a cute zero point achievement you can only earn once you have every other achievement. What's kind of interesting is that this game pre-dates the PS3, so this isn't just a dummy Platinum trophy they forgot to take out of the 360 version. It might actually have been the inspiration for Platinum trophies, given how popular this series is in Japan. So maybe that's the one silver lining in this miasma cloud of utter timewastery. Maybe.
I'm not doing a bonus comic. I'm too mad. Thanks for reading.
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