Cruxis Mana's blog

Written on Jun 25, 09 7:22 pm | also in XBOX 360 | 5 comments | 0 | 0

Finally, after nearly a year of waiting patiently, Tales of Vesperia has finally been released in Europe... well it will be tomorrow anyways, but I got my copy a day early!

I'm gonna use the new Collections feature to blog my way through the game as well, so if you fancy reading about my crappy antics, check it out!
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[ToV] The First Impressions Of A European

Written on Jun 26, 09 9:04 pm | also in XBOX 360 | 1 comment | 0 | 0

~~...not that Namco cares about us, though.~~

First of all, I'll just say that the anime sequences are amazing and I'm just hoping that they stay fairly frequent!

Combat:
Combat seems much more extensive that previous Tales games (baring in mind that, being European, the last console Tales game I played was Tales of Symphonia) especially with weapon skills being added by which weapons can teach you certain skills/attributes that can be customised and combined to give you the edge in a battle.

Battles (with Yuri) also require a lot timing since Yuri's combo's act out in quick succession, but with a pause afterwards. I'm getting better at it, but I feel mastering my timing will take some time and skill.

So far, even some of the random battles have been keeping me on my toe's, but I've since turned the difficulty down after a baaaaaaaaad encounter with an Eggbear... =P

Story:
I'll spoiler tag this bit for those who haven't yet played the game;

Spoiler: Here

Highlight this box with your cursor to read the spoiler text.

The premise is fairly similar to Tales of Symphonia expect a little more prolonged. Yuri and Estellise (nicknamed Estelle by Yuri) are attempting to track down Flynn Scifo, the Imperial Knight, and Mordio, the Blastia Thief, much how Lloyd and Genis set off to find the Chosen's in Tales of Symphonia.

However Yuri and Estelle (and later, Karol) manage to get side tracked numerous times, firstly by the Lord of the Plains (whose name you'll be told NUMEROUS times. lol) and by the Barrier Blastia problems in Halure, the City of Blossom's.

I've since fixed the problems in Halure, with a beautiful anime cutscene to thank me, and now I'm off to Aspio, the City of Shade where both Flynn and Mordio have disappeared off too.

I'd say my only complaint with the game in general so far is that some of the text is totally illegible on an SD TV which can be a problem in the few scenes that aren't voiced or when exploring new cities/areas.

I'm looking forward to seeing where the game will take me next! And if anyone wants to know about an aspect of the game that I haven't covered, comment and I'll write a chunk on it too!
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