Yesterday was a weird day that wound up resulting in my plans being changed and me having unexpected bonus gaming time. The only problem was that I didn't have any real goal for what I'd be playing. I thought about working through some bonus post-game Star Ocean: The Last Hope content, but didn't feel like it. I kind of lackadaisically did some fighting in Breath of Death VII, but just wasn't quite tough enough to beat the final boss (if it just hadn't used its most powerful attack at 200 percent power on the strong-but-slow guy who was my last man standing...) and didn't feel like grinding one more level to try again, even if that would only take a handful of minutes. Nope...I needed to try something new.
And that's where Tales of Vesperia came into play. I don't know if I really feel like delving into another massive RPG (and if I want to do things like master the Coliseum and kill all the optional bosses, it likely will take many, many, many hours) since that's about all I've been doing recently, but at least for a couple of hours of one night, there I was.
If there's one reason to look forward to playing a Tales title, it's the storytelling, as the writers seem better at creating entertaining characters who can actually banter without it all seeming lame and forced than the average J-RPG group. Protagonist Yuri seems to be an anti-authority (due to corruptness among the ruling forces) hero. While sarcastic and somewhat ill-mannered, he does feel compelled to help his comrades in the poor section of the imperial city when some magical device powering their water supply gets stolen. Of course, since he's anti-authority, this leads him into a tutorial brawl with a pair of inept guards, which leads to him eventually being overwhelmed and tossed into jail for 10 days — which seems to be a rather regular occurrence in his life.
Fortunately, those 10 days turn into a matter of hours (at most), as the mysterious prisoner in the cell next door sneaks him the key to his cell and tells him how to escape. Yuri beats down a few guards before meeting naive girl Estelle. She's basically as sheltered and naive about the outside world as Luc fon Fabre was in Tales of the Abyss with the main difference being that she's not a bratty jerk. She's looking to warn a knight, Flynn (who also happens to be Yuri's childhood pal), of impending danger. You encounter that danger when you find Flynn's room and get assaulted by a somewhat deranged assassin. The battle actually started out pretty tough, causing me to go through my healing items, but midway through it, Estelle enters the fray with her healing spell, making things much easier. That's kind of noteworthy, as the first thing that challenged me to any real degree in Abyss was the first encounter with the Sword Dancer optional boss, which was a few hours into the game.
After all that, you escape the castle with Estelle, pick up faithful hound Repede, leave the city and head out to find Flynn, who apparently had left on a pilgrimage. You make it to a fort a bit north of the city, but find it under siege from a big monster known as The Lord of the Plains. Since he apparently is too tough for your three-character party, you're advised of an optional route taking you through a forest. And that's where I stopped.
So far, the battle system seems to be pretty much like Abyss'. From the instruction book, there are differences, but I haven't gotten to the point where the game decides it's time to make them available. While I was only controlling Yuri, the game was kind of tough, as he could only rely on items to heal him. After every few regular soldier battles, I found myself using a gel and, like I said, the boss fight with the assassin was pretty tricky until Estelle entered the battle. After she became a true party member, I breezed through things. It's easy to keep your skill points high, as you replenish them by using regular melee attacks. Of course, I should add the disclaimer that all of this "easy" stuff involved battles with imperial guards (a group that inspires Yuri to regularly scoff at their incompetence) and such ferocious beasts as mice and hostile veggies. If this stuff was regularly giving me trouble, I'd be worried. Very worried.
The dialogue is witty. While you get those skits (conversations between characters to either flesh them out or re-explain plot details) as constantly as in Abyss, at least they're voice-acted this time. So far, a highlight has been the post-battle celebrations, as there's been some humorous interactions between the sarcastic, brash Yuri and the naive, heart-of-gold Estelle. To re-enact a couple of them:
YURI: Oh yeah! I beat you into next week!
ESTELLE: Next week? But can you really...
YURI: Never mind...
ESTELLE: We finished them off!
YURI: I finished them off.
ESTELLE: Huh?
So far, the only real annoyance I've noted is that this game seems to pretty much require a guide if you wish to accomplish most of the sidequests or optional things. If you didn't know you need to use the Magic Lens item on enemies to get them in a monster log you obtain a bit later in the game (might have been in the instruction book...I didn't read it THAT closely), by the time you've left the imperial city, you've already permanently missed out on four entries (the tutorial battle soldiers and two entries for the assassin, both before and after Estelle's involvement). There also seems to be a number of those multi-part quests where you have to find a certain NPC and talk to him or her in multiple locales. Things like this are very common in RPGs, but it still is annoying to know that to do everything I might want in a game, I'll likely have to keep a guide open on my computer so when I enter a new area, I can make sure I don't miss out on some limited-time conversation necessary to keep something optional progressing.
Still, it was a pretty fun couple of hours that resulted in me likely not even scratching the surface of the game. I really didn't plan to jump into another long RPG, but odds are that I'll be playing a lot of Tales of Vesperia in the near future.
IN SUMMARY: And my fifth Tales game gets off to a start with engaging characters, a surprisingly tough early-game battle and the potential for greatness. The characters are cel-shaded this time, which is a graphical improvement. If there also are improvements in the game's overall challenge, I'll be very happy.
