Tales of Vesperia

Just started this! A few things and questions if anyone wants to help please

The opening scene had a few moments that were a bit too graphic for my liking. Especially when I'm trying to eat :/

Okay so is there anyway to change my on screen character like in the other Tales games I've played? I've figured out how to change my in battle character and I'm using Estellise right now but I still have Yuri on screen

Speaking of, I am loving Estellise right now :omgomg: Is there any way to change her hair back to the way it was at first with the little hair clip thing she had? It was adorable

I'm not super familiar with Xbox controls so its been a bit awkward, but I have it on easy mode which so far has been easy. This makes me happy. I hate when games have an easy and then it isn't even easy :nonono:

I do have a bad habbit of triggering scenes before I want to and missing stuff already. Unhappy with that

Any general tips or advice?

Thanky :jess:

If you want to change your party leader, you're going to have to synthesise an item (the "Special Flag") that will allow you to do it.

I believe the original design document called for a mechanic that was "pointlessly convoluted and dumb" which is why that is a thing. Go to a shop and select 'Synthesise' when that option is available. You can find the required ingredients there. You do get it as a drop later in the game but we're talking 20 hours in. If you want it earlier, you gotta synthesise it.

Re Estelle's hair: you can get various costumes with certain 'titles' throughout the game. As far as I know, none of them have her original hair style.

So I just got Rita and went to those ruins. She's my favourite character to use so far, but Estelle is still my favourite overall. I loved Halure, I thought it was really pretty.

I am liking how the characters interact with each other and they all seem to be well written, although I obviously like some moe than others. The ability system reminds me of FFIX.

The skit portraits mostly look kinda ugly to me though

Rita and Estelle totally make out later in the game.

It's hawt.

They got a lot of flack for the skits. I'm not entirely sure why they made such a drastic change from past games' skit styles. But at least they're voiced :3

I'm not entirely sure what was graphic about the opening. I'm.. actually having trouble remembering the opening. Might need to YouTube it

I had trouble getting into this game early on, because outside of Yuri, all the characters only had 2 hit combos. Maybe 3? I know Yuri had the most, everyone else felt like they were being held back. It made me sad because I too loved Rita, and it was hard to get a good combo going with her. I realize she's supposed to be a mage, but you get your points back faster if you do a combo now and then. Maybe I'm just picky, but Yuri was the only one I could get into in combat for the longest time, until one of the late game characters joins. Sorta stunted and restricted my interaction with most of the cast. Which was sad. I let my girlfriend have Yuri until her character showed up. So it was a chore for a long time

Other than that I really enjoyed the game. And then she lost interest because she'd beaten it before, and we moved on to Graces lol

Yuri is awesome. Rita is cool. Estelle's not bad. Everyone in this game kinda blows. But I really liked the story and gameplay.

I'm not getting as in to it as I'd hoped, honestly. I mean, I still enjoy it and I'll keep playing it, but the beginning bit had me like WOW and now its less exciting. Other than Estelle and Repede, I don't really care much for the other characters so far. I don't mind Yuri but

And I'm pretty sad that I don't really like Rita because I want to because I think her outfit is adorable and I like Black Mage type characters and I enjoy using her in battle, but I just don't like her that much. I don't hate her but I certainly don't like her. Ocassionally she'll say or do something to give me a glimmer of hope towards liking her and then it kinda gets shot down and I'm back to where I was. Karol is growing on me, though. At first he really rubbed me the wrong way but now he's okay

I did get my character leader flag thingy. As if they won't let you make Repede the lead character :stare:

So I just got to that port town and met up with Flynn. Flynn seems like a cool dude. I maintain that Yuri has a massive crush on him.

Why does no one mention the pipe smoking dog? The closest they've been was "Why does he use weapons?" BUT NOTHING ABOUT THE PIPE because that's normal

I know what the story is, just strikes me odd no one else is wondering

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Originally Posted by Pumpkin

Why does no one mention the pipe smoking dog? The closest they've been was "Why does he use weapons?" BUT NOTHING ABOUT THE PIPE because that's normal

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Um it's because he's sophisticated, k? That's all anyone needs to know. It would be incredibly rude to ask about it.

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I had trouble getting into this game early on, because outside of Yuri, all the characters only had 2 hit combos. Maybe 3? I know Yuri had the most, everyone else felt like they were being held back

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I have only ever played these games as protagonist. Maybe I'm missing out on some good stuff, but generally I feel like they're always just the best balanced for combat.

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Yuri is awesome. Rita is cool

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Given just how awesome Yuri is, to say that I prefer Rita is saying something. I mean Yuri is one of the best vidya game protagonists ever in terms of his personality. Yet I love Rita more. Pumpkin, I hope you come around to her. I'm not sure where you are in the game if you just haven't seen the best of her yet or if you're just not keen on her type. Hopefully it's the former because if you get into her she'll have you smiling every single skit.

I prefer mages and ranged characters, so Rita is my jam. She has such game breaking magic later on. She's also tsundere, so she warms up in late game.

Karol is still awful.

Karol has the coolest Mystic Arte in the game, so that balances him out some

All I hear when Flynn talks is Jude

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Originally Posted by Pumpkin

All I hear when Flynn talks is Jude

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I never realised they had the same VA! I'm going to think better of Jude when I get to Xillia again.

Yeah, that totally threw me off, because we went straight into Vesperia after beating Xillia. Also, I've played all these with my girlfriend and I always let her have dibs on characters, or just let her play the protagonist. She's more into the series as a whole as I am, so whenever we need to do a quest or something she has a better handle on where to go and what to do. Especially if I wasn't paying attention when the quest was given lol

It was also really weird because Troy Baker's portrayal as Yuri sounded almost exactly like Matt Mercer's portrayal as Alvin. So it was like having Jude and Alvin constantly arguing with each other throughout a new game. It was really jarring. But a pretty good game. Though the girlfriend opted to take a break when Xillia 2 came out and then wanted to move on to Graces since she'd already beaten Vesperia and Graces was still an unknown. But ended up losing interest in that eventually too. I was still willing to play either. Maybe I'm the better Tales fan xD

But nah, we all get burned out and/or lose interest in games for various reasons, and I'm guilty of doing that with way more games. So I don't hold a grudge or anything. And not going to finish them without her. So they'll just be on the back burner for a while

Yeah, that happens even with the best games sometimes. Doesn't mean it's a bad game, life just gets in the way!

Hell, I got burned out on Final Fantasy IX once. It was only like... the 6th time I'd played it as well so it wasn't even getting old or anything.

Just got to that Guild place I can't remember the name of. I'm just going to call it Guildzilla

Story is getting more interesting, but still hasn't grabbed me as much as some others in the series. Karol and Yuri are both growing on me. Rita still is not, although I did like some scenes between her and Estelle. I like Estelle a whole bunch and that hasn't changed. I like her more as time goes on, actually

It was funny to me when Rita was like "What does Estelle think of me?" Because she's not been shy. She's made it very clear how she feels about everyone. She's not the one who's shy about her true feelings *coughRitacough*

I'm terrible at battles. Good thing I have it on easy. But yeah they've just given me a few tutorials and it just goes over my head. Something about buttons, I dunno

So are the Balstia things alive? Rita talks like they are but no one else does and they haven't elaborated. Or maybe they did and I just didn't understand it

Have to do some money grinding now because I just spent like 15000 at the last shop and then 5 minutes later there's a new shop with new stuff and I spent all my money

Also, everyone is horrible at cooking :stare:

You're not alone with the battles. I'm competent at them, but I don't have the core mechanics mastered. Mystic artes, magic artes, blazing artes, skills, etc. I just hit whatever combination of buttons do the moves I want. Real fans of the series have the battle systems down to an artform and can chain different artes and do the super moves and stuff. It took me so long to do that stuff in Xillia, which is the most accessible game for that kinda stuff, and it still took me forever lol So no worries there. Just mash buttons and enjoy xD

The game takes an interestingly dark turn around the area where you are I believe, so maybe you'll feel more invested then. I sure did. Sadly we quit shortly after lol But I liked where the game was going. And where Yuri's character and personality were going

I finished my second playthrough of this the day before yesterday. Such good. Though I flipped the difficulty to easy as well 'cause I was kinda in a hurry.

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So are the Balstia things alive? Rita talks like they are but no one else does and they haven't elaborated. Or maybe they did and I just didn't understand it

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Nah, Rita's just a bit obsessed with them! ^_^ Blastia == machines that use magic, basically. That's all they are. When characters reference 'Bodhi Blastia,' those are just the ones they wear that allow them to use artes in battle.

Regarding battles, you basically have two kinds of arte when you're not in Over Limit: Base and Arcane. You can combo a Base arte into an Arcane arte (it's possible this requires a particular skill but I am not certain). I like to keep all my Base arte shortcuts on (left stick + A), and my Arcane arte shortcuts on right stick. That way it's easy just to press any direction + A, then right stick in any direction, and I get a Base -> Arcane combo.

If you're looking through your Artes and you find something called a Burst Arte, that is something you can only use in Over Limit. Just hold 'A' while you're doing an Arcane arte, and then that will combo into the Burst Arte. Mystic Artes​ (if you ever get them. They require the 'Special' skill and Level 3 Over Limit) work the same way but with 'B'.

That is super helpful. I don't know why they make it sound so convoluted and complicated in the game tutorials and even on GameFAQs I never really bothered to breakdown what they were saying to implement in-game because they, too, made it sound more complicated than it has to be

Yeah Vesperia's tutorials are pretty bad. They tell you a lot of stuff before you have the chance to practice it, which is just dumb.

You can also set other arts to the second analoge stick right? I allocated like 8 main spells to both control sticks. So many spells~

Yeah I have 8 spells allocated.

Anyways so now we just made Brave Vesperia. I do like how it ties in with the title because it makes the game feel like a story or something. I'm really not sure how some of the other Tales games got their names

The story is getting more interesting. I have Judith now and she's my new favourite to use. I think she's very quick and easy to use. Which is good because Rita is gone. I am so conflicted because there's an Archer character (:jess:) that I hate (:nonono:)

Also that weird gear dungeon was awful

Funny fact about my very first playthrough. I used Yuri, Rita, Estelle and Raven as my team. I used the second analogue stick to control the Rita, Estelle and Raven's Spells like Meteor, Holy Rain and Tempest at the start of the battle so they all cast simultaneously.

Doing this crashed and red ringed my 360. It was repaired and I still use it xD.

Judith is also my girlfriend's favorite. So once we got her, I started using Yuri, and the game got SO much more enjoyable. He seemed so much faster and more fluid and easier to manage than the others that I'd tried

Played some more. Things happened

Also, having a terrible time ranking this game because its pretty much tied with Tales of the Abyss and I can't decide which I like better. Going to keep playing and that might decide for me but right now it is a tie

Might please you to know after some more playing and consideration, Tales of Vesperia has been ranked :bigsmile:

I have a million and one games to play though and the Xbox 360 is here for only a short while longer, so I'll have to watch the ending bits on the youtubes. I imagine the gameplay stays relatively the same throughout

Every time I read the name Rita in this thread I picture this:

http://i.imgur.com/RB5Lo3G.jpg

And am sad when I know that's not who you're talking about.

Would shion recommend this for a Tales newbie?

I would say so.

I honestly don't like it as much as most other Tales games I've played, but its still a really good game and worth the time. Overall I've found the series to be very high quality so when I say I like one of them less than the other ones, I still think very highly of it anyways

From speaking to others about the series and also based off of my own opinion, though, I would say Xillia is the best starter game, but this one is still a very good game too

Throwing out my two cents on the question as well :)


Just take note of the conversation Fox and I just had about the battle system. Vesperia is pretty newbie friendly, but if you want to master the battle system, and the tutorials don't help, it may require some research. But I don't think any of the Tales games actually require you to be more competent than any other turn based JRPG, it's just that attacks, spells, and item usage happens in real time. It's just the special moves that require some extra attention. That's really the only thing a newb would have to be concerned about. And if all you have is a 360, it's a pretty stellar choice if you're itching for a JRPG