Tales of Vesperia

The original Tales of Vesperia released in 2008 on the Xbox 360 and a year later on the PS3 to wide-spread acclaim from series fans and Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) fans alike. Fast forward to 2019 and Namco-Bandai had released a definitive edition of the game on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PS4. For the purposes of this review, I will be focusing on the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

You play as Yuri Lowell, a former Imperial solider who sets out to find the nobleman who stole his neighbourhood’s blastia core. A blastia core is what provides resources and protection to cities, and is part of the unique mystical resources in this world. On his quest to find the nobleman who stole his neighbourhood’s blastia core, he mets another noble woman called Estelle. Together, they flee the capital on their journey to find this thief. Of course, along the way you will meet a wide variety of characters who end up joining your party, all of which have their own reasons for joining your journey.

The story and characters in Tales of Vesperia are both quite good, often balancing themes of morality and friendship in interesting ways that are not typical of the JRPG genre. Yuri Lowell ended up becoming one of my favourite characters in a video game, due to how his interactions change with each of the main characters in the game. Either as a voice of reason, being a bigger brother, or being the positivity that another character needs. He often weighs what is right versus what must be done for the greater good. Even the villains in the game have their own reasons for doing things and struggle with their own understanding of what is moral and just. The story is split into three distinct arcs with an overall theme towards the end, and each story arc has its own interesting plot twists.

Tales of Vesperia is an action RPG rather than a turn based RPG. Meaning, you are in full control of your character during the battle and can fight with a party of four, including yourself. Each of the members have varying styles of play, for example you might have members who are primarily magic based or others who battle with only a weapon. The combat is mapped to 1 primary attack button, which you can combo up to 3 times. At the end of this 3 hit combo, you can then perform an arte attack which will use up your magic meter. There is variation to these attacks depending on the direction you move the analog stick. The combat also opens up later with combos based on the artes or consecutive hits, leading to a Fatal Strike attack. There are also Mystic Arte attacks which can usually provide extensive damage and is a cinematic attack. The battle system also has a meter which can fill up, called Over Limit. Once you fill this meter fully, you can activate it to attack in quicker succession and cast your artes without the typical casting time. There is a lot going on in terms of combat, and it opens up fully about 20 hours in. Once you start to get the hang of combat however, it becomes really satisfying when you get a large combo and initiate a special like a Mystic Arte.

The definitive edition of the game includes updated visuals and performance, along with the DLC that was sold with the initial release. On the Nintendo Switch it runs at 720p in handheld mode and 1080p in TV mode, but with an odd caveat in terms of visual performance. The game runs at 60 frames per second in battles, but outside of battles the game is locked to 30 frames per second. The Switch version of the game also has a nasty habit of locking up when you jump in and out of the Switch’s sleep mode. In the 45 hours I spent with the game, I had been completely locked out of the game and was forced to hard reset my console 5 times. This meant re-doing what I was doing if I didn’t manage to find a save point.

This game is still 10 years old, which means a lot of old conventions still exist. The lack of an auto-save feature is incredible frustrating, especially given the lock up issue. Tales of Vesperia also has a bad habit of running you along for 45-60 minutes without a save point. If you end up dying, you have to start all over from the last save point. That means a lot of time wasted - equipping characters with items, fighting through tons of enemies or even potentially a boss - only to have you start all over again. Back tracking is also a pretty big thing in this game and you only get a form of fast travel about half way through. These are easily the worst parts of the game, thankfully they are relatively minor to the entire experience.

Although Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition still maintains some old JRPG conventions which end up hindering the overall experience, it is still a joy to watch the story unfold and to see the cast of heroes and villains battle their own definition of morality. What is acceptable course of action to save the world? Can you overlook committing terrible crimes if it means protecting the world from collapsing by the hands of a few dangerous individuals? These are the kinds of things that Tales of Vesperia tackles with its engrossing story and cast of characters. Add an interesting combat system on top of all of this and you have a wonderful JRPG that fans of the genre should definitely give a chance.