2008-08-23 03:54:22 Tales of Vesperia Review Thread (US Version Not Region Free)

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/902/902269p1.html

First review from IGN 8.2

Can't believe they gave it a 7.5 for the graphics. They probably think it has too many colors or something :P

Nice score and pretty much around the average for other tales titles. Didn't read it yet trying to be careful of spoilers.

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-23 04:45:14

This game has pretty poor dialogue, and way, way too much of it.

2008-08-23 04:50:54

Not from what I heard :)

If anyone happens to find any others drop em here and I'll add em to first post.

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-23 15:18:44

I actually like Tales dubs, they are generically American cartoon sounding but it works.

Many people don't like Karol from the demo but I thought his voice acting fitted the character quite well.

None of the english voice work I have heard can be considered bad IMO, same goes for Eternal Sonata.

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Marumaro for the WIN !!

2008-08-23 16:41:23

Well, I dunno why but I too find it graphically underwhelming, and I can't quite put my finger on why. It's just... it's like.. it's somewhat featureless. Faces and stuff are really really simple to the point where it breaks the definition of "stylized" and just seem like they haven't really bothered. Everything is bathed in some kind of underwater vision effect, too.

I'd love to think it looks awesome but I really reckon Eternal Sonata (with its gigantic forearms and all round awkward looking proportions - again beyond the limits of tasteful stylization) looks a lot better.

Even then, it seems like a good score because I think RPGs are beginning to be marked down for the ever elusive reasoning of "not big enough next gen strides" like. With Wii sequel Knights of Ratatosk counting on players having experienced the first Symphonia, and with Symphonia costing both legs and a kidney right now I think I'll opt for this instead.

About dubs, I can stomach anything but awkward paced dialogue. As long as it's implemented well, preferably with proper lip sync, I'm mostly on board.

2008-08-23 17:52:27

That isn't why they are marked down Simon. They are marked down cause they aren't called Final Fantasy ;)

It's always been the case where non Final Fantasy jrpgs don't get their due in reviews even if quite a few ps2 jrpgs were better than Final Fantasy 12 was. I mentioned the graphics score of 7.5 because I think it deserves better than that, but it isn't really all that important. What's most important is the quality of game itself and I like what I'm looking at so that's all that matters :D

Final Fantasy XIII could be as backwards as any jrpg out there and not make any major strides in any area and still be praised as the second coming in reviews. It's just reality. Also as far as visual comparisons with ES goes, I say that's fine, but what's most important at the end of the day is which is the better game and I'm entirely sure that will be one comparison tov wins. I'd pass on better visuals for the better game 10 times out of 10. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me either way if reviewers weren't smart enough to make the right call :P

Technically IGN already failed :)

---
Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-23 18:12:16 In reply to Optimusv2 (2008-08-23 17:52:27)

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Marumaro for the WIN !!

2008-08-23 18:23:13

@ Optimus

I honestly don't think so, but I think FF plays a part. A LOT of reviewers thought the changes made to FF12 were brilliant, and to get a taste of something new after trodding through so many identkit RPGs in the past, post FF12 RPGs have been given a much harder time if they adhere to the traditional turn based setup.

And for good reason I can imagine! I mean we've played a fraction of the games these guys reviewing have, and even with my extremely limited time with RPGs it's evident just how utterly cookie cutter most of these games really are.

You're always quick to play the not-FF card, but truth is a load of games out there are better than - for instance - Lost Odyssey at what Lost Odyssey is doing, and the only reason you think LO is the dog's bollocks is because it's a big name production on a console with - at that point - few alternatives. So it's all backwards really. You're the one stuck looking at the title on the box and the names of the producers while Shadow Hearts Covenant - Nautilus pre-LO game - is besting it in a number of pretty significant ways with reviews reflecting just that and you... prolly not having played it.

The important thing is that a game you find fun finds its way into your gameplaying hands, and with a score like this which is likely to be totally fair (considering the word on the streets in regards to this game VS the rest in the series) it probably will.

2008-08-23 18:39:16

Hmmm, oddly that goes both ways.

I think LO struck a chord with the old school FF fans, I think after FF12 many people even those who enjoyed it wanted a true FF game, and LO was the closest new thing to it and still is :S

I think LO is very average to be honest, I'm not very good at reviewing stuff because when I get a new game I get all starry eyed and im like wow every 2 seconds, but when I reflect back on it several months later I realise just how differenly I feel about it.

Now I duno if its just me that feel this way or whether its a thing that effects all of us, but if it does then being a reviewer becomes an extremely difficult thing to do.

Another thing to mention is that these reviewers not only do they play a lot of games but they must play a lot of the previous games in that series, although Tales does change, it doesn't stray far from the path, so at some point it must feel like you have played this many times before even though you are playing a new game, which will pretty much effect the way you score something.

FF12 was different it felt new it didn't even feel like a FF game, so I can understand why reviewers may have been so quick to give it a high score, LO on the otherhand was old school, the concept has been done to death so there is less to be wowed over much like Tales, saying that a 8.2 is pretty respectable.

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Marumaro for the WIN !!

2008-08-23 20:13:00 In reply to SimonM7 (2008-08-23 18:23:13)

---
Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-24 02:30:21 In reply to Jollipop (2008-08-23 18:12:16)

2008-08-24 10:02:25

I know what they mean. ES didn't put a filter over anything. The way things were rendered just really stood out.

The colors and pretty much everything else jumped out at you more than they do in Vesperia, but even with that said I still prefer Vesperia's visual look. Some believe ES looks better, I think Vesperia looks better.

---
Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-24 12:32:25

I actually think its more to do with texture detail though, ES had such better textures, the character models had skin shaders, ToV does not. ES had better self Shadowing.

Yea maybe ToV has better draw distance (and to be honest I'm not sure it does) but what does that matter when the graphics look crap.

And yea ToV has that horrible filter which makes everything blend in, in ES everything stood out and looked crisp.

Vspectra don't get me wrong I didn't like ES very much at all, story and gameplay wise, but graphically I know for a fact it looked better than ToV.

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Marumaro for the WIN !!

2008-08-24 12:49:46

What has me baffled a small bit is how, when you compare the battle system of tov to ES, does IGN come away with ES as being the better of the 2 overall?

Gameplay is clearly a very important aspect of the 2 games and that's an area where TOV, quite frankly, trounces ES so badly that you would expect a better score. Not that it really matters, but you often notice such a lack of consistency from reviewers that it's hard to take them serious most of the time. This next statement is a total assumption on my part, but I'm also betting that tov will have the superior story and characters as well.

Then again, IGN was pretty taken in by the graphics so maybe that sorta balanced things out. Also you're right jolli they did have shaders, but I'm glad they toned it down to make sure tov was 60fps. It benefitted the battles surely.

---
Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-24 13:00:52 In reply to Optimusv2 (2008-08-24 12:49:46)

Yea ToV is deffinately the better game, and to be honest I don't notice the different 60 fps has on battle, maybe it looks a bit smoother but 60 fps doesn't really show in these types of games.

I believe I read 60 fps is in battle only also.

Plus several times I have seen some slow down in battle so maybe 60 fps wasn't such a great idea after all.

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Marumaro for the WIN !!

2008-08-24 13:46:27

2008-08-24 15:14:28

There would be an increased chance that I wouldn't get to it as soon without his name attached to it, but not a very good one. I'd just be slower on the uptake :)

Sakaguchi and Uematsu being involved with the project just make it an absolute must for me that I couldn't pass on and Takehiko Inoue character designs (who is a legend) and then there is shigematsu which, admittedly, I knew far less about than the other 3 I already mentioned, but from what I read his involvement was a very big deal and I thought his thousand years of dreams short stories were a fantastic addition to the game. I wished they would've taken more advantage of the tone that was being set with those novels than they did in the actual game, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I mentioned the Gamecube simply because it wasn't really seen as the best of places to look for jrpgs as a means to show that I would go out and get whatever console was necessary to play a new Sakaguchi title. As it stands now, there are probably only 3 jrpgs on the ps2 that I haven't played 2 that I absolutely must get around to (persona 3 and Grandia III) and one that honestly don't feel I'm missing much with (Rogue Galaxy) Not many jrpgs escape me :)

I feel BD and Lost Odyssey would've stood a better chance on the ps2 because it's clear that rpgs on the ps2 were far more warmly received than rpgs are being received on the 360. Not much time has passed since the kinds of rpgs we were getting on the ps2. I find it difficult to believe that all of a sudden rpgs like bd or lo are now way too archaic in today's day and age when, not too long ago, they were praised. I don't think that the amount of care that went into BD or LO, would've gone quite so unappreciated if they showed up on the PS2 instead. Part of the problem is due to the fact that the xbox is not particularly known for jrpgs, reviewers approach a lot of xbox jrpgs as if they are second rate experiences off the bat, and some are deserving of such a reaction, but I don't think something like BD was deserving of such.

If BD and LO were PS3 titles some reviewers would've crapped their pants with excitement and held them up as a testament to what Microsoft isn't doing right with the xbox platform. Just my opinion of that, but yea you're right back to Vesperia :D

Another thing to consider is that they probably don't have the kind of money to spend on making the visuals the best thing out there the likes of what Square Enix has. I get the feeling that a ton of money is going to be pumped into the next mainline tales title though releasing on the Wii. Particularly safe bet especially in japan and if it gets marketed well here, the sales will be sky high.

---
Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-24 15:30:57

LOL I'm sure there are more than 3, damn all I play is JRPGs and there are at least 20 I haven't played. (including low profile ones)

Sadly now I have no PS2 I'm not guna get to play them, but nevermind, the 360 and PS3 look like they have a decent line up of JRPGs in the next few years which will make up for it.

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Marumaro for the WIN !!

2008-08-25 00:57:54

On the ps2 all I really went after was Japanese titles because I honestly never thought the ps2's non Japanese lineup was worth it outside of God of War and the Grand Theft Auto games.

I'd be lying if I said I beat all the other japanese rpgs I've gotten for the ps2, but I've been known to buy them 4 or 5 at a time :)

It's tough to say which is my favorite of them all, but Digital Devil Saga 2 is most likely somewhere in my top 3. FFX was awesome. It's funny since 2005 I must've re-purchased like 4 ps2s. If one doesn't get broken when my nephews are over, there is the rare occasion that a family member comes over and thinks it's okay to just take up the ps2 and bring it to their house.

---
Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-25 01:51:05

Just checked out the IGN Video Review. He says the game is 60 hours long and it seems that doesn't take into consideration the side quests. Can't wait :)

---
Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-25 03:49:55 In reply to Jollipop (2008-08-24 12:32:25)

2008-08-26 00:24:10

ops will be happy... B+

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169579

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Mass Effect Ascension- July '08 - Continue the Fight!!!

Bitches!!

2008-08-26 00:29:10

Damn ... the US version BETTER BE region free :'(

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2008-08-26 00:35:51 In reply to dcdelgado (2008-08-26 00:24:10)

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

Seeing it in motion on your HDTV, will blow your mind!!

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic g

2008-08-26 01:04:39

Yea the guy that reviewed it is a huge tales fan, I remember seeing him talk about the demo on the 1 up show a while back.

The review is quite short but positive at the same time, no point getting into stuff like battle because its pretty much the same as tales before it, if it ain't broke don't fix it ;)

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Marumaro for the WIN !!