This is going to be a dishonest review.

The story is a snoozefest throughout 2/3 of the game and the finale and the final boss are severely forgettable, but Yuri carries. The combat system is a clunky and boring mess, but Yuri carries. Except a handful tracks, the soundtrack is extremely nondescript, but Yuri carries. The dungeons are streamlined corridors without any ambitious puzzles, but Yuri carries. Estelle is a stereotypically naive princess, but Yuri carries. This game bores me to death, but Yuri carries.

In the end, it was good enough to keep me going and to try other Tales games, so it was fairly and convincingly good. Yuri carries and he’s the reason all the other characters work so well in this story, due to his supportive nature. His vigilantism is the reason the dynamic between Yuri and Flynn is so strong. I mean it when I say that, because Yuri really does carry the entire game — in a good way.

The one thing I just love about Tales of Vesperia is its understated story.

There are no Demons, Devils, Angels and Gods, no gigantic monsters and you don't travel to alternate dimensions or through time.

There are only a few plot twists and the ones that exist are subdued and don't change anything fundamental about the course of the tale (get it?!?).

You still save the world in the end of course, but the path to that is actually pretty held-back.

I see how it may be weird for this to be a positive, but I found it really rather refreshing in the landscape of JRPGs and simply very charming and infatuating.

Um jogo que me deixou com um gosto meio amargo na boca, a história começa bem interessante, a parte política é bacana demais e segura bastante o enredo até mais ou menos a metade do jogo. O problema começa quando se revela o motivo principal de tudo, até entendo que é um jogo dos anos 2000 e etc, mas tem coisas que me incomodam demais, vilões que traem e depois de 10 minutos já viram seu melhor amigo(e isso rola umas 5 vezes na história), enrolação desnecessária, alguns deus ex machina e várias cenas que me fizeram questionar bastante o roteiro.

Os personagens variam, alguns são bons outros nem tanto, tem muitos que poderia ser infinitamente melhores se tivessem aproveitado, como Raven e principalmente Patty, ela seria a melhor personagem do jogo se a história dela não tivesse vindo tão tardia e mal contada.

Quanto a gameplay e gráficos bem polidos nessa versão, ficou praticamente impecável nessa parte, ambientação linda também.

Acho que no final o jogo me desagradou mais do que agradou, poderia dar um 5/10 mas vou dar aquela relevada pela época que foi lançado, mas até então é o título mais fraco que joguei da série.

The only JRPG i never dropped for months before picking it up again not to mention the only one I've considered playing a 2nd time.

Combat i personally find really fun and never got tired of it i love pulling off combos with different characters and trying out different playstyles.

The whole cast is amazing i loved every single character all of them had their charm and there was never a dull moment with them making for some of the funniest interactions and keeping you hooked on their progress through the game.

The story is good and a really fun adventure with an amazing cast of characters and it of course has its own share of annoying stuff (Gattsuo oh god) but everything else more than makes it up for me making it probably my favourite game of all time.

Man, I need to play more Tales games. Anyway, this game was a fun ride! I've been wanting to play it for a long time, but it was never on a system I actually owned. I'm glad the Switch keeps getting a million ports of old games.

Anyway, playable cast is great, with only one I don't particularly like, and the gameplay's really fun. It's kind of like playing Super Smash Bros. as a JRPG. Yuri is a pretty unique main character for a JRPG, and it's really fun to see him do his thing. Even the plucky kid Karol is a really great character with a great arc!

I can't really compare it to the original release since I didn't play it, but while I did like Patty, she did feel kind of shoehorned in... on the other hand, it's kind of baffling that Flynn wasn't originally playable. Also as much as I enjoyed the start of the story, it really goes off the rails in the third act. I will just say that you would actually die if you make a drinking game out of every time someone says "Blastia." This is a spoiler-free review so I won't go into it, but man! Also it feels like a lot of setting and character stuff is hidden away in really easy to miss sidequests, which I'm told is a pretty common thing in Tales games, but as someone who's been more interested in trying to complete games without guides these days it's a real bummer to miss so much.

With that said, it's a good enough experience that I would be open to doing a more detailed playthrough with a guide at some point... when I have time. Oh God, there are so many games. Holy crap.

judith has no god damn business having that much sauce in a game with some of the clunkiest air movement lmao. god I love this game's combat/combo system so much. some people act like it's so rigid without AC/CC because they think the basic "normal attack, base arte, arcane arte" structure is really all there is to it, but the real fun is exploring all the exceptions and how you can make those things outside the "rules" connect even without ever touching overlimit. man I love this game
https://youtu.be/EjdTbAWik2o

From the first line of the first verse of Vesperia's incredibly cheesy english-dubbed opening, I felt like I was revisiting a game from my childhood despite knowing for a fact that I wasn't. I think most Tales Of entries of its era share this anemoiac quality to some extent, but Vesperia hits different thanks to its sheer honesty and relative lack of ambition. Above all else, It's a character-driven game. Of course, there's a global conflict in there and a bizarrely sharp (or at least surprisingly so for the genre) bit of commentary including a cop's slow realization that they may, in fact, all be bastards, but playing the game for anything other than the cast is bound to get old fast.

To focus on them, Vesperia resorts to familiarity. Put simply, it's Final Fantasy IX, from its introduction to its structure and the inner workings of its equipment and skills. Squaresoft's is a far more ambitious game, constantly moving between setpieces and elegantly shuffling the party to maintain the tight pacing of a blockbuster, which can make its lower-budget sibling feel awkward in the way it incorporates truncated versions of its core elements, but the tradeoff is usually worth it. Vesperia doesn't need to explain anything to you, so it can focus on what it's good at.

While not pre-rendered, the game relies on fixed camera angles and paths to make the best of each tiny locale. A walk through a town is a nicely designed oner that suggests not just the space but its atmosphere and the characters' place within it. Behind the models, multiplanar matte paintings make for spectacular vistas and small navigational disappointments that are definitely better for the mood than later entries' obviously artificial open spaces. In an exercise in focus and restraint, every slice of Vesperia's world is a memorable little set for the party to exist in.

Also in line with the "less is more" approach, the characters' personalities can be summed up in a sentence each, which is bad news for people who make a hobby of equating "familiar" with "generic", but has the benefit of making them immediately iconic while leaving a lot of space for nuance. They join the party naturally and take little time to fit in. The skits (opt-in sequences that build up character dynamics and are just great fun overall) work their magic in the background and by the time everyone is officially together, you've seen them in enough situations to span a 48-episode SoL anime. It may not make for an instant epic--in fact, the story itself isn't all that important--but it can turn any minor situation involving them into effective drama. I just love the party, really. Watching them grow closer and find excuses to stay together even when they've achieved their individual goals and could legitimately just leave gives me so much joy.

The game's only real problems come from the times its design and structure betray the character focus. There's a lot of side content peppered throughout the world, but most of it is only accessible during the final act, when urgency is at its highest and you're used to not backtracking to find hilarious new dialogue in towns you've already seen. My advice is to periodically check them out if you want that extra bit of texture and character. For the ending, though, I don't have any advice. Once the final battle's over, the game is just kind of done. Most character arcs have gotten some closure by that point, but a lengthy epilogue was so obviously the right choice that I was baffled when the credits just started rolling.

"I enjoyed the characters so much that I wouldn't have minded another 20 hours of skits" is about the most positive complaint I could have, though, and the journey was lovely. Looking back at the game feels like remembering an old trip with friends, and that sort of nostalgic feeling is a reprise of the reason I picked it up in the first place.

Progressively falling in love with classic Tales, and this was no exception. Having a main protagonist already set in their ways with little room for growth is a risk, but Yuri is such an entertaining character that it more than made up for it. The party dynamic was really strong too; I really enjoyed the main cast as a whole. The story was a little weak, though.

I think this was the game where I really started to figure out how the combat system of these games work, and once I got things going I had a really good time with it. Overall a very solid game, and I would more than likely go back and do the extra stuff at some point.

This was my second Tales game (Tales of Berseria was my first) so it was kinda weird at first seeing how limited it was in terms of camera movement and the overworld but the charm of it eventually won me over. One of my biggest issues with ToB was how large a lot of it environments were which lead to the game feeling like it dragged on in areas, while with ToV the overworld in particular it was the perfect size to keep the pace going at a rate I enjoyed (though I did find myself getting lost more easily)

I've found with the Tales games that the gameplay isn't really that captivating, especially the real time battle system (it can be fun at first but for a JRPG the battles can start to drag after a while) but what really hooks you in with these games are the story and characters and my gosh did Vesperia hook me in

The story touched upon a lot of really interesting themes for me. Are the laws really punishing the worst people? Is it right to take the law into your hands? Are those at the top of class system only looking out for themselves? Could we give up a source of power that we've always relied on to save our world? So much of Vesperia's story was really interesting and I loved how they used the main party to explore some of the conflicts that can happen from these ideals. Yuri and Flynn, Judith and Rita in particular have really interesting clashes because of their ideals and it makes for a really good group dynamic.

Speaking of the characters my gosh they are so good. While I think Velvet from Berseria is the stronger protagonist, Yuri has a lot of really great moments that help his character shine. Judith came in and shook things up and I love the way she pushes Estelle to make up her mind on things. Rita was fantastic with her sarcastic attitude but also her dynamic with Estelle was so good. Ripede was a million times better than Bienfu. Karol was a really solid younger member of the group that really tied in the guilds well. Flynn was an excellent foil to Yuri. I can't really go into a lot of Raven's stuff without spoilers but I did enjoy the party calling him old man all the time and Patty.... well Patty had her moments but it was off putting having Yuri switch VA around her because Bandai Namco couldn't be bothered asking Troy Baker to come back to record new lines.
Finally there's Estelle who is easily my favourite character in the whole game. While she might be a princess, I found a lot her character to be really relatable. She has her wants and desires but tends to put herself behind others. The amount of times where it feels like she's just following the group decision because she feels like putting her opinion in can be a burden (I really love that Judith comes in and is immediately like "What do you want to do?" and Estelle is like.... i... i... dunno because she's so self conscious aaaaaaaaaaaaaa) I also love how when she's made her mind up on something it's near impossible to break her from it and her instinct to help others is so good. I love that the game tests her on that instinct with what I will call the "Estelle depression arc" that takes place in the game's second arc. Seriously, if you love Estelle as a character a lot of that second arc is gonna hit you hard, like I struggled through some of that my gosh.

I need to mention the ending. The majority of the game is so good and then the ending has to be one of the most anticlimactic and flat endings I've ever experienced. It doesn't ruin the game but it does leave with a big "is that it?" and that is the biggest mark against the game I have.

Overall, while I think Tales of Berseria has the higher highs with it's cast and story, I ended up enjoying Tales of Vesperia more due it's better pacing and that I ended up enjoying Estelle's character in particular a lot.
One last thing...... Ristelle is life

The game's story initially had some really interesting themes of political strife and vigilantism that end up getting thrown to the side for the jrpg classic ancient evil bullshit in the 3rd act. Combat system was also not very fun, despite how much hype i had heard about it beforehand. The characters are all unique and charming, but estellise can be annoying at times. Having a dog as a playable character in a jrpg is also always a plus. The sudden appearance of the "big bad" at the end was really lame aa he had absolutely no build up to his character whatsoever, causing the final battle to lack any weight at all.

I only played this game for a little over two hours. Naturally I won’t rate it but I think it’s enough to know if I would like this game or not and I will try to explain why I don’t think this game is for me and not to say that I think Vesperia is a bad game.


A slow, very slow start:

As I started the game, I was quite intrigued by the initial events. Something casual like a fountain breaking and the local hero running to the rescue is a very good way to start things, I think. Plus the game looks nice, the art style is really good looking and the town environment is much better than a lot of more modern and also flatter 3D JRPGs.

Then after about ten or maybe twenty minutes, I’m down to my first dungeon right after the tutorial. A dozen or so guards to fight with but basic attacks. After every combo I have a long recovery during which I can do nothing and I get ganked a lot. I know, the game will provide me better tools but why am I thrown at a dungeon so early with none of them? The combat at that point is really not very interesting and I think it expresses perfectly what I don’t like about this game’s pacing. Instead of putting things in your hands right away, it’ll instead slowly do so over the course of multiple hours while throwing bread crumbs at you.


Loading screen, battle, loading screen:

There are a lot of fights right from the very first dungeon and they have a very particular way of happening. When you encounter an enemy, you’ll have an animation of battle starting which is sort of like what Pokemon did, this already takes one good second. Then you have a loading screen, then another animation (thankfully you can disable this) with at least one second of nothing happening before you can move. Then after the fight you get at least one fade-in into a screen with your score, then maybe a level up screen, probably some party dialogue which is very repetitive especially when you fight every few steps, then another loading screen of 1-2 seconds to go back to the map. You’ll probably walk a few steps and do the same cycle again. This is very, very painful to me. I played other JRPGs, usually they try to lessen the time for these things. Final Fantasy for example (I only played the 2D ones) had pretty straight to the point fights, get an encounter, beat the enemy and move forward. Chrono Trigger doesn’t even have loading screens at all, not even when moving to new areas. I just can’t get used to this pacing.

A while later, you fight your first boss. You may have levelled up and unlocked a new move which doesn’t change the way you fight at all. Anyway, you get your second party member and from now on the game is mostly about you out-healing hits. It sort of plays like a mmo where you just attack and get attacked back. Sometimes you’re stuck in the middle of a group and get stunlocked too.


Too many skits, can’t jump lines:

When you get your first party member, the game also introduces skits, short conversations that show party interactions every once in a while. You get a prompt telling you about it and you can choose to watch them or not, granted the way it’s presented with such a big popup makes it seem like an essential part of enjoying the game (and so say the fans). Two new problems appear here:

First of all, you cannot skip dialogue lines. I can’t read it like I would read a visual novel and skip to the next line. Considering the length of these, I cannot believe there’s no feature to just move on to the next line. You just have to stop what you’re doing and sit there for a minute or two for the characters to finish their voice lines. I honestly find it very awful. Added on top of that, they happen every few steps you take. Seriously, every few steps I just felt bombarded by skits. Why is the game trying to make me stop so often to watch skits? Why can’t I do anything without constant interruptions? You enter a new area, skit. You fight some monsters, skit. You move midway, skits. You reach the next checkpoint, skits and probably a cutscene of the party resting. Even when you reach a new location, suddenly you can’t go out of town until you move the story forward because the game removes your party and won’t let you out another.


A combination of slowness building up into… slowness:

So yeah, I feel like everything is designed to break the pacing in this game. The way battles work, the skits, the long loadings even on a modern computer, the speed of menus and even the speed of things like a dialogue box transitioning into the other. I didn’t mention it but cutscenes are also very slow with a lot of moments where the camera just sits there before moving to the next shot and the overall pacing of the story is also oriented toward slowness so it just doesn’t help. Why is the game so slow?

Is it a problem for a game to be slow? No, I don’t think so. I’ve played Trails games and they are very slow, slice of life JRPGs. Why didn’t I dislike them? Because the slowness is only in the pacing of the story and adventure, not literally included in the game mechanics. On another hand I absolutely hate Animal Crossing for its tedious menus where I love most farming games with efficient menus. I don’t like games that force you into cosiness and taking your time, but I could spend hours in Monster Hunter doing nothing and chilling in the environment because I decided to do it myself in a game where I love the gameplay, menus and pacing. I dislike Red Dead Redemption 2 for its overly slow animations for everything and it seems natural that I would not enjoy Vesperia, I guess.

I just feel like it wastes my time for nothing. What do I get out of taking my time so much in the game? Do I need it for immersion, character development or something similar? I really don’t want to spend so much time when I feel like the game could have been twice as short just because it doesn’t have a button to let me move the dialogue forward or because of its movement speed or another feature like that.

This seems to be a fairly uncommon opinion so I thought I would share it. I tried looking up similar opinions on the internet and I only found a few people expressing these concerns. Somehow, the usual response was “have you ever played a JRPG” as if they’re all like that. The only other game I can think of which is this slow is perhaps Ni no Kuni, although 3D JRPGs seem to be generally slower than the older 2D ones from the little experience I have with them. Sure a lot of them would have fillers, random encounters and other ways to just lengthen the game but at least those made you play the game. You wouldn’t play a Final Fantasy if you dislike the battle system and a shitton of encounters is annoying in its own way, but it still makes you play the way the game is built ultimately. A filler arc is still a part of the game where it plays the same as usual. Vesperia on another hand won’t let me play and will constantly remove the game out of my hands.

Vesperia was my fave Tales game for almost a decade and was only overthrown due to Berseria being released, I played through this game many times back on 360 alone in the day.

When I came back to it on PS4 I realized it has a lot of flaws, like the story is pretty uninteresting for a good part of the game and some characters aren't as well developed as others, but I do still love the game a lot, Yuri is still among my fave protagonists and really carries the game, love his relationship with Flynn especially, Raven and Duke are also great too. The gameplay is pretty clunky, but still a lot of fun and almost has a fighting game feel to the way you input button commands and do combos.

Overall it's still a really great game and my 2nd fave in the series, but on an objective level not quite the masterpiece I used to think it was. I still have to give it a very high rating just because of nostalgia and sentimental value though.

I think this is more of a game you play for its characters then its story.

Which is honestly pretty bad after the second act .It just feels like there were multiple writers arguing about what to do with it.

The cast makes up for a lot of the story issues though. And the gameplay is fun as hell not huge on the added dungeons with the whole patty sub plot. They are just placed in awkwardly and mess with the flow.

I played this originally on the Xbox 360 and was my first major JRPG game which opened up a whole new world for me in the JRPG genre!

So Graphically the game is decent, it's your normal JRPG open world graphics but when you come into new towns the game looks nice but man those full anime cutscenes really make this game look outstanding and are used at the perfect moments for the story

The story is a great experience too, without spoilers it's definitely worth playing this for the story, the characters you mean along the way also make it quite fun although half the time the characters act like idiots in the sense of "this is a door, you can open them" which makes it quite funny at times

You can change characters titles, costumes if you have the DLC and also what armour, ect that they are all using, you can tell which character to prioritise with fighting or healing and when to go all in or heal and be safe
There is a cooking menu too for which you learn recipes along the way to create food to heal and give buffs.

This is also split screen co-op but without the splitscreen, the 2nd player can only join when there's a battle (that i'm aware of) so you can enjoy a story and both battle when it matters!
You can also choose when or if a AI can use a healing or other items to control your fights and inventory

The soundtrack to this game is also amazing, the intro is my favourite in the entire series but Berseria is close behind, as is zestiria... THEY ARE ALL SO GOOD!

Combat is pretty bad. Aesthetics are washed out generic anime with no unique personality.

I read that it gets good 30 hours in? That's not a selling point.

A star for pipe smoking samurai dog.

I think this game is great. The characters are great and the combat is fun and has a lot of depth. Everyone has an unique style of play. The story from what I heard was all over the place but I thought the way it progressed made sense and I enjoyed it. The scenes let you get to see the characters interact and very charming. Games looks great too.

The biggest flaw of this game is even though it is full of content. Majority of it can be missed which ranges from cosmetics to character development/backstories. For some of them there isn't even a hint of where they and most side content is only doable around that part of the game and you can't go back to do it.

Judith.