This Old Neon Forum

I picked up Tales of Vesparia. If I'm being brutally honest, I don't like it. I feel like the later Tales games have a much better combat system. Vesparia feels clunky and shallow to me. I've gotten into a few arguments online with Tales fans, and I never hear a good gameplay rationale for what makes this game so good. Most people seem to focus on the story and characters; I'll admit that I like the MC a lot, but a good story is never enough to hold my interest in a video game. I've also heard arguments that the map design and world are better than later Tales games. This argument makes sense, but to me it's such a trivial matter compared to the crux of these titles: the battle system.

As far as what I'm looking forward to in 2019, the list is pretty small. I want Fire Emblem and Rance. Nothing else really intrigues me. I have a lot of carpal tunnel problems and gaming is becoming more difficult, so I've developed something of a preference for turn-based RPGs. It's a weird position to find myself in; there was one phase in my life when I was adamantly opposed to this genre and my perception about its lack of innovation.

The only other thing I'm looking forward to is a tentative title: Nioh 2. It's tentative for me because I would have to wait for a hypothetical PC port. I feel that KOEI did an outstanding job porting the first Nioh game, but KOEI has an unpredictable track record on PC. They can do well with one game (e.g. NA SOI) and then fuck it all up later (recent NA games/ROTK XIII imo/etc.). Under the assumption that they port it to PC and do a good job though, I'll pick it up for sure.

That's interesting - the combat was the single highlight of Vesperia for me. It remains the only RPG I ever ran back-to-back playthroughs with, all because the combat was such a joy. I'd never argue for the merits of the story or anything, though the characters were endearing enough.

VictorViper wrote: ↑19 Jan 2019 17:32 That's interesting - the combat was the single highlight of Vesperia for me. It remains the only RPG I ever ran back-to-back playthroughs with, all because the combat was such a joy. I'd never argue for the merits of the story or anything, though the characters were endearing enough.

Did you ever play Symphonia, Vic? So far Vesperia’s battle system reminds me a lot of Symphonia...one of relatively few RPGs I did back to back playthroughs of. Anyway check it out if you ever feel up to a Tales game and haven’t played it.