I have to admit that Tales of Vesperia was a new title for me and it really was not on my radar screen with some of the bigger titles over shadowing its release, but I am glad I picked this one up and gave it a go. Tales of Vesperia is a classic Japanese style Role Playing Game with stunning graphics and visuals and a very deep story. Many are hailing this as the first truly successful JRPG for the Xbox 360 and it has assisted in selling many consoles in the East.

Tales of Vesperia looks good from the start with its cel-shaded characters and switches from battles to anime cut scenes very well. The voice acting during the game’s cut scenes and even battle sequences is done very well and it is hard to tell that it was dubbed over. At times you feel like you are watching an anime movie because of the great quality in the voices and images.

Your main character, Yuri, starts his adventure in his hometown when something is stolen and his quest is to get it back. Things quickly take some sharp turns and will meet a ton of characters and will intertwine them into decisions that need to be made in order to shape the story. In essence, this is an action oriented RPG which allows you to set up certain combos while the computer controls the rest of your party. If you want to be lazy, you can resort to mindless button mashing but that will only take you so far. In later portions of the game it will be important to monitor your group’s health and set up certain combos in order to defeat larger mobs. The battles are conducted in set areas where you can freely move around and position your characters, which makes dodging enemy attacks something active you must pay attention to. There are standard attacks that can be performed and then there are also magic and strong attacks that can be performed as well.

All mobs in the universe are present on screen so there are no surprise pop up battles, which allows you to evade certain battles whenever possible. You will move around the world on foot from town to town solving and completing quests until you get an airship. The airship will really open up the world and allow you to take the game in different directions. There is also a strong cooking element that is present in the game where you can create different meals to increase your stats that I hear is homage to older titles.

Tales of Vesperia is a solid RPG with a lot of content to play. The game clocks in at easily 40 hours plus depending on how many side quests you decide to embark on and how much you like to fly around and cook.

Overall: 8.5 out of 10

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