BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Tales of Vesperia - Xbox 360

Great game! I re-bought this game for a third time after selling and re-buying while waiting for the PS3 release to get localized, but since I have given up on that dream I finally picked this up again. Great characters and a very fun game!

I picked this game up on release date at a GameStop (recently purchased for a friend), and it was their last copy. I was deciding between this and Mario Strikers: Charged, and I sure as hell don't regret my decision.The story follows Yuri Lowenthal, a former Imperial Knight, skilled swordsman (left-handed as well!), who sets out to help the lower quarters of the village in retrieving a stolen power source of their's, known as blastia. He soon runs into Estellise, or Estelle for short, a princess of the land, who is affiliated with a childhood friend of Yuri's, Flynn, who's a captain of the Imperial Knights. Yuri and Estelle, both with their own goals and motives, set out on their journey, uncovering an evil that plans on threatening the entire world. They meet various fun and ecstatic characters that join their party, others are NPC, as well as different enemies, monsters, etc..The gameplay is superb, with up to four players able to jump in and out whenever they please, picking their characters and using them in battle. There's no random enounters but rather, bumping into the monsters that show up on the map as you travel. Player 1 obviously controls most of the game, whilst the other players have full control during battle. You're free to move in a set area during battle, and as you gain experience and new weapons/items, or even with story progression, you can further your combos, artes (magic abilities), and burst limits. With all the different strategies and actions available to you, the gameplay always feels fun and refreshing.I haven't played an RPG in a few years before hitting this title, and it couldn't come at a better time, as I felt I appreciated the genre much more than before. Granted, RPG genre is one of my favorite genres, but the RPGs were growing stale for me at the time. The graphics welcome the anime style...speaking of which, Bamco (Bandai+Namco xD), really outdid themselves with this category. The 3D typical anime style, then there's the skits and such with character faces in 2D talking, and the third (yeah, three different art styles in this game, incredible), is an amazing CGI-anime style of cutscenes used...rarely shown but once you see it, you'll be amazed.Music is, well there. There's some moments that mess with you, such as battling against an ally, the music really hits home and is, in a sense, sorrowful. I especially took notice of the intro theme, Ring a Bell, wonderful song.I know I should give a few flaws for the game, as no game is perfect, but this is more my satisfaction with the game rather than a pros and cons list at the moment. If I had to throw in some flaws, it'd be that this version is inferior to the one on the Playstation 3, which I hope they'll bring over to the States. Flynn was one of my favorite characters, but we were only teased with him as far as playable characters go. I also found some backtracking to be a bit annoying, but there wasn't too much backtracking like in other games, and some character voices were meh, but even that has it's reasoning...they were all fitting to their character.I thoroughly enjoyed this game and would love to go back to it. I hope this helps convince you to check it out because it really is deserving of the Tales of series title. There's also a prequel film: ToV - First Strike I believe the name is I've yet to check it out myself, but I heard it was decent in it's own right. If you like RPG's, try this. You'll find something to like of it, something that'll keep you playing until the end, I found plenty myself.

Now i am a very big fan of the tales of series and i can tell you as an expert on tales of games that this is one of the best in the series. It has a very colourful world even by tales of games standards and has a great story line and all the characters blend together really well and the main character yuri is absolutely well done and the combat system is great this game is a lot of fun and i highly recommend it go get asap you won't regret it especially if you like action rpgs.

I am years behind on this review but I felt like I should write one, mainly because every other game review I seem to produce on Amazon is either bad or merely decent.A year or two ago I got my home theater set up and I was trying to decide on which RPG to get into for the 360 (I'm a pretty big RPG fan). Sadly, there isn't a large selection for the Xbox so it didn't take me long to find competition between a few titles. I won't list any other possible selections because I haven't played them, although it should be noted that there are some other RPGs and even JRPGs out there with good or very good reviews as well (as you can see Tales has very good reviews here).I am a traditional kind of RPG player (I enjoy games such as Final Fantasy 1,6,7, Xenogears, Lunar Silver Star Story Complete, Chrono Trigger) although I am open to anything with a good story, graphics and sound. One of the first things that really appealed to me about Tales is the beautifully crafted artwork. As others have mentioned, the game consists of cell shading, and while the graphics are relatively simple, they remain very vibrant and fun to view. I found the villages very comforting, and even the dungeon-type landscapes were still nice to look at. Also, I thought the camera angles were original and made the experience unique. For example, while running down a stairway, the camera will sometimes follow right behind you, so you really gain a depth of perception into the setting.The music was also enjoyable. It has been years now since I played it but I still find that I remember many of the tracks. It was also nice on my surround system because some of the background effects (such as running water or blowing wind) were truly surround. Audio is one of the biggest aspects for a game to me and Tales does well in this department, albeit they also play it relatively safe.Although there is a large open world with a traditional world map, I did find the game in general as relatively linear. Not in pacing or completing missions or the storyline, but in the layouts of platforms and dungeons and paths. What I mean is, everywhere you encounter enemies (other than the world map) is a bunch of small paths in which you take them left or right, up or down. This effect is more easily experienced than explained. However, due to the beauty of the landscapes, I was able to look past this flaw for the most part.While the villages and environments are beautifully stunning, I found that most of the large cities were not quite as explorable as I had wished. You may enter a few buildings and participate in a few side quests, but for the most part the huge metropolises are pretty much inaccessible for you. While some games I feel present TOO much to explore and other areas of the game suffer for this, I feel as though Tales of Vesperia was shortcoming in variety and being able to really become a part of the settings in which you explore. Sure, there are minute side quests and interactions with NPCs, but I feel that there could have been much more. For example, think of the Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy VII. Well, Tales offers an island in the game much like it, and really, it is more or less an equivalent to the Gold Saucer. Actually, the FF7 recreation area was probably MORE in depth, and it was released in 1997! Of course, Final Fantasy VII was a masterpiece and lives as one of the great JRPGs, but still, Tales of Vesperia released over ten years later. While the graphics may have improved, the overall immersion in the environments was little or not improved from a decade prior. I did, however, become addicted to playing the poker on the island, and it is also a great way to make money in the game.The fighting is somewhat dissimilar from traditional RPGs in that it is not turn based, and you have the ability to run around a three-dimensional sphere as a combat area. While it is relatively primitive, the battles are rather fun. I like the option of being able to put the other party members on auto, so your healers and magic casters will stand in the back of the battle (hopefully!) and cast as you choose to physically attack (which is what I most often did). There are "fatal strikes", which are basically death-blows and they are the most fun thing in the combat to me. And throughout the game, including boss battles, I felt as though the battles were hard enough to be competitive but not horribly unfair. I rather enjoyed fighting many of the big monster bosses, which often were completely optional for the player.I think the biggest drawback to Tales of Vesperia is the story. It is only good enough to keep you playing, and actually many of the other perks in the game (such as the fighting and artwork) probably kept me playing more so than the storyline. And this is an RPG we're talking about. While I rather enjoyed all of the characters (even Karol!) and all of their dialogues, I felt that the main story was weak and that the conclusion of the game was severely disappointing. All of the ideas that I had in my head about how the game would end came crashing to a halt when I finally completed the game. I think I was looking for more of a dialogue between my characters of which I'd come to love, and in that department Tales pretty much let me down.There are other aspects in the game (such as cooking, fighting in arenas or finding rare collectibles) that were enjoyable, but again they were pretty much tertiary and did not leave me with a feeling of accomplishment. Cooking for example could have developed into something really fun and novel, but in the end it was kind of a letdown.Overall, I still rate this game at over four stars. If you enjoy RPGs that are aesthetically pleasing and traditional, Tales of Vesperia is a great choice for you. I actually traded my game in and I wish that I had kept it now, if only to jump on every once in a while and listen to the soundtrack and fight some battles. Namco did a great job with this title and I would look forward to another in the future, as long as the storyline comes off as a little more compelling.

I am a huge fan of the Tales series, and this has to be one of the best ones I've played yet. Great characters, great setting, interesting side quests and hours upon hours of solid game play. I highly recommend this game to any and all RPG fans.