Continuing the One Hour Review series. Just a few more titles to go. Yesterday I tried an hour of Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition on the Switch. It was just the right length of time to meet the two main characters, get into plenty of trouble, fight a number of battles, escape the first city and make my way to Deidon Hold, the first real town area in the game.
It was a nice, round self-contained experience, but as I said in the title, an hour of Tales of Vesperia is enough. It’s enough for me to see what my boy Yuri Lowell is really like in his own game. He’s one of the first characters I got when I started Granblue Fantasy, and he was a staple of my Dark team for the longest time. I never read any of the collab stories so I had no idea of his personality. He’s more childish than I’d thought. His whole character screams “trying to be cool” with that faux-nonchalant attitude and drawling speech… but I don’t dislike him. The ditzy princess Estellise is right out, though. Never want to see her again. She’s a big reason why I want to quit while I’m ahead.
The even bigger reason is that I can already tell that the plot of Tales of Vesperia is going to be stupid, just like the rest of the Tales games. Tales fans are going to jump down my throat for saying that. Well “Aaaaah~” come on down! Y’all’s favorite series has dumb plots. I played Tales of the Tempest, bless my soul, and I almost finished Tales of Hearts. Thanks to those bitter experiences, I can see the signs in Vesperia right from the beginning:
- Blastia cores are so vital to the fountain’s operation. They are also prohibitively expensive. And yet they are easily removed and completely unsecured even in the commoner’s area. Riiiight.
- The comical levels of discrimination from nobles towards commoners, despite living a literal stone’s throw away. I can see this leading to many preaching sessions from Yuri and the princess. *screech* We are all equal~ We need to work together~*screech* Please. Spare me.
-
Commits crimes.
*gets arrested*
*shocked Pikachu face*The idiotic main character who assaults guards in broad daylight, sneaks into a mansion in broad daylight, walks out in broad daylight and then is somehow astonished when he’s stopped and arrested. And despite all that, he still tries to act cool. There’s more hope for a fool than for a man who is wise in his own eyes.
- The idiotic main character who really believes he can sneak out of a jail and be back the next morning without anyone noticing. Without even bothering to close the jail door or leave a decoy in his bed. And then he’s somehow surprised that a manhunt starts for him. What did he even need to break out so urgently for? If he really thought he was that indispensable to the commoners then maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have gotten himself arrested? TBH it’s already unbelieveable that he was sentenced to just 10 days in jail for breaking and entry and stealing a big bag of money with his accomplice.
- The idiotic naive princess (?) character, full of meaningless ideals, devoid of any common sense. At least she can heal in battle, that’s always a plus. Running around in a frilly dress. Then she decides to change into something easier to move in. And the resulting outfit is even more eye-catching. And all this takes place in the middle of a thrilling escape from the castle. Who knows how many more such nonsensical scenes are lined up in the future?
- The idiotic random enemy who bursts into Flynn’s room and attacks whoever is inside just because. Like, okay. Sure. And even though we clearly beat him, he still got away and will definitely return for even more idiotic hijinks down the road. Why do games still pull this crap?
I only played an hour and every 5 minutes I was going “This is dumb… This is dumb… This is really dumb…” And then you realize most Tales games are 30-40 hours long at a minimum. My patience isn’t gonna last that long. Thus it’s better to quit Tales of Vesperia while I still have a slightly positive view of it. At least the graphics were nice, the combat is snappy and not too hard, Repede is a cute dg and the colors are bright and happy. If the characters and plot were a little more promising I would keep it on my backlog. But as it is, I know myself and I know what I’ve been through with Tales games. An hour of Tales of Vesperia is enough.
I’m a Tales fan, yet I’ll be the first to admit that the series has dumb plots indeed. And that Tales games are too stupidly long as a rule and total fake longevity offenders — but that’s another matter. 😜
Waiting impatiently for the next one-hour review! I’m still a bit sad that The Lost Child won’t be part of those for the time being; hope you’ll find a way to play it someday. Maybe on the Switch, who knows?
I would love it if that were possible. When it comes to Switch dungeon crawlers, though, I’d like to play Yomi ga Saku Hana first. Really hope it gets an English release soon.
My next one-hour review… maybe in a day or two. I’m addicted to Octopath Traveler right now.
I really wish I had your penchant for sniffing out bad anime-tier JRPGs like Trails in the Sky or Tales of Vesperia. Unfortunately both of these games were recommended to me and I ended up playing both of them through because they were supposedly crown jewels of the genre.
Alas, I don’t have any such penchant. I had to learn from many bitter and painful experiences over the years. Right now I’m still not good at sniffing them out in advance, but I can tell within a few hours what I’m not going to like, and I’m more resolute about cutting them off early.
A lot of your predictions and spot on and I’m not gonna detract from your review, but I do wanna say that Tempest is definitely probably one of the worst Tales games and Hearts isn’t exactly up there in terms of best Tales games. Symphonia and Abyss have better plotlines IMO. Vesperia is usually touted as a good Tales game because of its combat and character interactions, though its story isn’t necessarily the most interesting of the games.
Unfortunately Symphonia and Abyss are old games that have some rust in their gameplay (ESPECIALLY Symphonia), and I kinda doubt you’d like the narrative enough to justify playing them. Just wanted to offer my two cents though!
Sure, thanks for the input! I actually played a tiny bit of Symphonia many years ago on the Gamecube and had a decent impression of it. But as you said it’s pretty old at this point, and even the “best” Tales games don’t exactly have wonderful stories. It’s enough for me to play just a little of them from now on.