Impressions: Tales Of Vesperia Demo
My Xbox was in the shop for a while for necessary repairs, so not only was I going through regular gaming withdrawal, I was also unable to check out some of the recent demos that went up on the Marketplace. One that I was extremely eager to check out was the sampling of Namco Bandai's Tales Of Vesperia. Now, I've never played any of the other Tales games, so I was coming into this blind. That may be why I found myself slightly underwhelmed.
The cel-shaded graphics are pretty, but the whole thing just reminded me a little too much of Eternal Sonata. And a less pretty Eternal Sonata at that. My main problem with the demo was that it just throws you into the middle of a scene with no context, and expects you to go ahead and play. I've always preferred demos to basically be the beginning of the game, specifically the tutorial level. Especially when you're dealing with an RPG. The first time I entered combat (at least enemies are visible on the screen, even if they're not always avoidable), it took a couple moments before I realized it wasn't turn-based combat. Then it became a flurry of button-mashing as I tried to work out what button did what. After getting through the first fight, I tried to find help in the menu to explain the controls, but came up empty. I managed to work out that one button was an attack, another was a special attack that depleted your magic power, and another brought up the menu.
You have three teammates that do their own thing throughout the battle. In the menu, I found that you can control them using the directional pad, but the battles I fought in the demo were so chaotic, I barely had time to figure out what I was doing, let alone worry about giving orders to other people. They seemed to handle themselves pretty well on their own, though, all things considered. The level has you running away from some guards after a mildly comic encounter with them, and after battling your way through some woods, you encounter a massive boss. The boss kicked my ass pretty handily, though, because I still only barely knew what I was doing. And not really.
Unfortunately, I found the Tales Of Vesperia demo to be rather disappointing. I enjoy the cartoony character designs, and the voice acting was mostly excellent. The humor was also welcome. But the combat was too chaotic and without a tutorial, I was hopelessly lost. I'm sure I'm not alone in believing that demos should explain how to play the game while giving you a taste of it. This didn't, and suffered for it. Oh well, maybe I'll change my mind by the time the game is released...
Wootini
Posted to Video Games on 1 August 2008
· Comments (8)
Other stuff like this: demo, impressions, namco bandai, tales of vesperia
Name: Dave
I completely agree with your impressions. I would add that in addition to it being unintuitive and graphically underwhelming, I found it to be extremely boring. The voice acting was bad, too.
I've never cared much for the Tales series of games. It does look similar to Eternal Sonata based on the picture provided, though.
As someone who loves the Tales of series, the demo was just ok. I've always loved the Smash Bros style combat, but for this one I don't really agree with the button placement. Hopefully there will be a custom controls option in the retail game.
The biggest problem though, is that Tales of games have huge stories as a primary draw, and you just can't convey that in a demo. I was underwhelmed with the demo, but Tales of Vesperia is still one of the games I'm most looking forward to this year. If it's even half as good as past Tales games it will easily be the best RPG on the 360.
Did anyone else get their ass kicked by the boss? I managed to beat him on my second try, but I couldn't believe I got killed so quickly on my first play through the demo. I didn't even know all of the controls by the time I got to the boss! I played through Symphonia on the gamecube, so I'm sure I'll get this eventually. It just isn't a day one purchase anymore
There is a dog as a character? Awesome.
But I'm still more excited for Tales of Symphonia II on the Wii.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the dog smoking a pipe. At first I couldn't figure out what it was in his mouth, but it really looks like a pipe. So weird.
Having played several Tales series myself, I didn't feel at all overwhelmed by the combat. I think the demo was more geared towards people who are already fans of the game.
It was pretty clear the boss was purposely a little over leveled and I'm sure he won't be as hard in the final version. Not completely sure what the purpose of that was but maybe to give you a reason to use some of the many items they gave you.
I completely disagree about the best types of demos being the tutorial level, however, especially when it's a tutorial level that cannot be skipped which is usually the case in RPGs. It forces one to have to go through the learning process twice.
Rather, my favorite type of demo is what Square did with Xenogears. They dropped you in the middle of the story but gave you characters you would not have at that part of the game and with really high levels so that battles were a breeze but you still got a sense for the game. The dialogue was also comical and cavalier, having been specifically written for the demo, breaking the fourth wall and such.
I am pretty much of the same mind as BanditKir (especially in regards to the Xenogears demo, which I still have lying around here somewhere), in that I was familiar with the series and did not thus need much explanation for the combat. That being said, the demo was a little lackluster to even me. The biggest flaw in my mind, and strangely enough something that probably will not stop me from buying the game, is that none of the characters were very fun to play as during combat. With the mild exception of Tales of Legendia (whose combat system was a little different than the other recent Tales games), I've been able to find a character that is fun to control during combat. And even when no one is available to play that interests me, the main character usually handles well enough for me to get by. That being said, I just could not get comfortable playing as any of the characters presented in the demo. The one girl is clearly the mage of the group, which I never like, the other girl fights with sword and shield, but is fairly weak, and the dog, who I was so excited to play as, seemed to have some collision issues which made targetting slightly more complicated than it should be. The main character was adequate, but I hate the idea of having to play the whole game as that character and seeing the combat as a chore. So hopefully the full game will be more enjoyable.