Mini Review: The game that has a lot of heart but no soul
Namco managed to create a Tales of game with a bunch of cookie cutter characters that I just couldn't care about. Half of the reason why I've enjoyed this series is that it was fun/interesting to see all the skits with the different characters between plot points. Along with the fact that the main story is once again about taking down a great evil left me with nothing to keep me going. They do sprinkle in a few good moments but the characters are always so obvious that it is possible to predict what they will do next.
The combat is still solid with the addition of the perfect counter mechanic that makes the player focus on the battle if they want to avoid damage. In some ways it's unfair to the CPU since if you are good enough it is possible do a infinite combo on any enemy or boss. In general most fights in this game seem rather easy compared to other Tales games on normal. Graphic wise everything looks okay for a vita game. Overall the fact that I couldn't get into the storyline or the characters made this game into boring slog that I quickly played through just to see the credits roll. Tales Of hearts R is a game that is worth skipping unless you really like this series of games.
