Well I managed to finish
Tales of Vesperia last night. The final time on my Switch says my total playtime was somewhere between 85-90 hours. The playtime is important since this game almost feels like 2 games to me. The first 40 hours I was really enjoying it and would say it was a legit great game during that time.
The combat took me a little while to get used to at the beginning since it was clunkier than all other action games I've played in recent years. Even though I knew there was no dodge button, I would still accidentally hit the ZL or ZR triggers sometime since most other action games I've played in recent years had something like that, and take damage. Still after a few hours I got used to it and when the game finally game me a full team of 4 characters, then it really took off since I had more options to help me with combat.
I was also really digging the story and setting early on as well. I liked that there were all these different factions within the Empire and all the different Guilds and how they interact as well. This made me really enjoy talking to all the different NPC and I liked how their dialogue was constantly changing thoughout the game. The interactions between party member and the various skits would also be pretty funny at times as well.
But then I reach the halfway point of the game and the games quality just drops off a cliff. The combat that was interesting in the beginning now just becomes a slog since it's the same thing over and over again. Despite the games monster log saying it has hundreds of enemies, most of them are just reskins of each other. A lot of the enemies are behaving the exact same as earlier version of said enemies, except they now take longer to kill. It also doesn't help that the game starts making the dungeons longer and longer as the game progresses, so you have to fight even more of the same enemies over and over again, making things more of a slog.
It also doesn't help that the combat also stops progressing so you're literally doing the same moves over and over again. Now if the game had a wide variety of characters that were fun to use that could have helped change things up, but it doesn't. Every other character just sucks compared to Yuri, so the game gives you no reason to ever change things up. He's the easiest to control and can do more damage faster than anyone else. And even with Yuri, despite the game giving me new special attacks, the best thing to do in 99% is the same combination of attacks that cause the most damage and are fastest to do and the game doesn't even try to give you enemies or bosses that force you to change things up.
Oh and the story just hits a total brick wall when the true villain shows up and reveals he was behind every thing that has happened in the story so far. All the interesting world builing and relationships goes out the window when now everyone in the world is united behind Yuri and his group. Plus the whole morality debate it was trying to have between Yuri and Flynn also is dropped when Flynn turns into a giant Yuri fanboy who doesn't even try to question was Yuri does anymore.
Seriously, the whole game feels like Namco gave the team enough time and money to make a 30-40 hour game but then demands it be turned into something that can be close to 100 hours. I finally understand how they were able to pump out so many of these Tales games every year despite the fact the games are suppose to be very long. The lack of time and budget just becomes so apparent in the second half when it's constantly reuses content, not introducing anything new, and the story and characters that actually started interesting, become incredibly boring and one dimensional versions of themselves.
The only part I still enjoyed from beginning to end were the boss fights that were where the combat really shined. Unlike the normal enemies that become very boring and predicable, the boss fights actually have some new gimmicks to them each time that require you to change strategies more often and sometimes even switch up my supporting team members for. Even when I turned down the difficulty to normal mode for regular enemy encounters, I would turn it back up to Hard mode for the boss fights. The final boss fight in particular was a great time, with the boss being level 65, while my team was around level 57, and I finally had an excuse to go all out with all the items I had in my inventory that I had been saving up.
Of course I would love to hear what the **** the developers were thinking with that Gattuso boss fight. I've constantly hear about that fight when people talk about game that have their hardest boss early on and yeah, now I understand what they talk about. It's literally the type of boss fight you deal with in the second half of the game, put in the early part where your team doesn't even have the abilities and techniques the deal with it. I eventually turned the difficulty down on that one, since that was literally impossible to do on a first time Hard mode run when your characters are under leveled like mine were. I actually came really close once, but all my characters ran out of magic and I had no items to refill their magic meters since the nearest town doesn't sell items to refill magic. Then after that fight is done, the town you visit after starts selling items that refill the magic meter. It's like really guys, that's a massive oversight to not do that before this boss.
Oh and I also finally understand when people say Sakuraba likes to phone in his soundtracks for the Tales games. The man has done amazing soundtracks in other games but in this one, his work is very forgettable. That's another thing that made the game drag in the end as well, when the soundtrack outside of a few tracks was pretty forgettable.
So yeah in the end, I really loved this game for the first 40 hours. The gameplay, story and characters were really clicking during this time but then they all start dragging out and getting more and more boring the longer the game goes. Outside of the great boss fights, the rest of the game just doesn't justify being longer then 50 hours when the story, characters and normal enemy encounters just keep getting more boring and repetitive the longer it goes.
If you play another Tales game, I highly recommend Symphonia (especially if your only other Tales game is Vesperia, which is similarly styled). But from what I've heard, don't play the game on Switch. Every other version of the remaster apparently runs fine, but Symphonia on Switch was apparently a REALLY bad port.
That said, I can tell you that Symphonia kinda set the bar of all Tales games being 100+ hours long. IIRC, Arise does buck that trend, though.
I don't mind the long time as long as the games do a better job of justifying their length then Vesperia did. Of course it's kind of funny the same week I beat Vesperia, we get the announcement that Graces F is getting remastered, and even more remasters will be on their way for the series upcoming 30th anniversary. So it looks like I'll be getting more choices soon.
I hope they remaster the older 2D games since I've read they're much shorter and don't have all the filler the later 3D games have. After Vesperia, I'd happily take games like it that are shorter and don't wear out their welcome.
Topic: BacklAugust 2024! (Forums Are Dead Edition) (Read 5478 times)
