The New Classics #60: Tales of Vesperia – Definitive Edition

 

The Backstory: I have yet to find a Tales game I genuinely love; until then, I’ll give every reachable entry its fair chance. The Tales game I really, really wanted to play was Berseria; but as it’s not available on the Switch, I have to make do with Vesperia. The title is nearly the same, and it even has a pirate theme — the next best thing, indeed. 

 

 

The Game: It’s a Tales game, so obviously things were not going to go smoothly. First thing first, I don’t fancy the MC, who unpleasantly reminds me of Luke Fon Fabre in Tales of the Abyss; and I fancy even less his throwaway canine sidekick, which looks like a cheap version of Red XIII from FFVII. In fact, I have an issue with the game’s aesthetics as a whole. I don’t like the character models, which stand in a disturbing uncanny valley halfway between chibi and realistic; and the cell-shaded effect grates on my retinas. 

 

 

Cutscenes are nicely skippable, and I like that; what I like less is the fact that these skippable cutscenes fill you in with some necessary intel — like, where you have to go and what you have to do. I vainly searched for a mission briefing in the menu, before throwing in the towel and resorting to running around aimlessly. Talking about this: I absolutely hate when RPGs open in a town hub and have you run errands for an uncanny amount of time. Look, Bandai Namco: if I wanna stroll through busy streets to perform a mundane task, I’ll just go on with my daily life. Let me roam and fight, damnit! 

 

 

The Verdict: That’s a great many things I don’t like right of the bat, and it should surprise no one that I turned off my Switch before fighting a single battle. Now here’s my quandary: I have to decide if I want to sift through long cutscenes and potentially irritating character antics to get — maybe — to some good gameplay. As plenty of games I loved right from the first second are sitting proudly in my collection already, I’m afraid Vesperia is doomed!