Vesperia Notes

First and foremost: I like about half the cast. Discounting Repede, who doesn't really count because he's a dog and thus has not much character and I like him automatically because he's a dog. I like Yuri, Estelle, Rita, and Raven. I suppose you can count Flynn as well, though he's barely ever in the party and wasn't there at all in the 360 version. I don't like Karol, I don't like Judith, and I don't like Patty. Patty is an enourmous 5th wheel and it's obvious most of her dialogue was originally spoken by other characters. They really had to work to have her involved in the plot at all, and her personal story has zilch to do with the it. No wonder she wasn't originally there.

The story takes a long ass time to get going. Tales games always have slow starts, as overarching narratives they're all about slowly uncovering more and more about the world, central conflict, and of course the characters, until it all comes to a head in a big finale. Unfortunately, Vesperia is structered even more like a shounen jump anime than normal, starting off with a main goal that you'll find has very little to do with the overall plot. The Aque Blastia stolen in the game was one of many blastia stolen by a guy for another guy who worked for another guy who wasn't even really the big bad. I actually don't know how it factored into the big plan, but regardless said blastia is recovered about 1/3 of the way through the game.

Because of things like this, the plot is very meandering. Estelle comes on this journey because... Flynn went off on a big mission and she wants to uh... tell him something? But really it's so she can find her raison de'tre. Which is all well and good, it's a JRPG after all, but there's very little in the way of a main goal or direction in the plot. Directionless, a very good way to describe the story. Once you recover the thing Yuri has decided he wants to form a guild so he can do the stuff the corrupt knights don't do, which is then used as an excuse to go do more things because a big ass fucking plot convenience plops out of the sky and delivers an internet troll comment to Estelle("You are the insipid poison of this world") so instead of going home she says I GOTTA FIND OUT WHAT HE MEANS TAKE ME TO SEE HIM. So everyone goes to try and find the big monster man who said it.

But that takes a really long time with a lot of getting side tracked, because several villains keep ipeding progress by being two dimensional assholes who enjoy abusing poor people. Even when they get to the big desert they were going to, which takes a while to get to due to being caught up again, they STILL don't meet the big monster and have to do another subplot. Eventually they learn Estelle has a power that is poisonous to these monsters, ancient beings called Entelexeia, and also a danger to the planet itself. He wants to kill her to solve the heat death of the planet but they're all "no" and he's all "but the billions" and they make the generic jrpg "but I like this person sacrificing people is wrong" line. Unlike other Tales games it doesn't even justify it very well, it's just taken as a given.

Then you find out Commandant Alexei was the sorta kinda big bad the whole time except he wasn't really because he had next to no screen time and thus there really wasn't any hint toward it and he isn't a character at all. He's also not the big bad because about 5 hours after he's revealed to be bad he dies. You can't just do this I mean seriously. He's technically the big bad because all the bad shit was all conducted by him and all part of his plan... but his plan doesn't even just not make sense, you barely know what his plan is or what it involves. We learn he wants the power of Zaude, a giant blastia that sealed a way THE ADEPHAGOS(more on that in a bit), but it doesn't really make sense how any of the things he orchestrated help do that? Now, his false Dein Nomos sword, a special sword that is the key to Zaude, and his use of Estelle and the apotheia(crystalized entelexeia souls) to control the "aer"(magic shit) kinda makes sense even though it's very ill defined. He has to use her and her power over aer and yadda yadda to open up the gateway and get in there because that's how you do it if you don't have the real Dein Nomos. But all the other shit makes no sense? Why did he have a guy going around stealing blastia? Why did he need the help of Ragou, and Barbos of the Blood Alliance? Why did he make Ghastfarost? We never get to hear the details of this plan cuz he doesn't really tell us them and we never really ask. We're just instantly mad that he was behind it all, for some reason, and want Estelle back.

Then of course there's the fact the real big bad is "the adephagos" which I guess is kind of like Weapon from FF7 in that I THINK the planet created it to stop the aer from being all sucked up by blastia way in the past, to protect itself. But it isn't even hinted at until like more than halfway through and then just kinda shows up because for some reason Zaude breaks and the seal gets broken. We don't really learn anything about it from anyone else and completely can't learn anything about it, from it, cuz it's just a big space monster. That's super fucking lame.

We don't really learn anything about Duke either even though he's the last boss. How'd he get Dein Nomos, how'd he learn all this stuff, why did he decide to try and help fix the aer situation? Don't really know. We eventually learn a few things about his past, and it's suitably tragic to sorta-kinda explain his demeanor, but just not enough. Certainly not enough to justify him wiping out all of humanity to save the world from the Adephagos, which just kinda comes out of nowhere near the end. This plot is such a mess, it has two big bads and a third lavos-esque bad except he isn't nearly as interesting.

The plot not only takes forever to exist, but is so loose and messy that it can't even follow through with the Tales series basic theme and messaging. It has like 2 or 3 central themes, 1-2 of which are dropped for the last one, which can be summed up as "it's kinda like the eco-friendly stuff from FF7". A great cast of characters could have made up for a confused story, with plot threads and themes that are either dropped entirely or ended contrivedly in an anti-climax, but sadly it's the weakest cast of any Tales game.

Few of the protagonists have any direct relation to the main story, doubly so once said main story is dropped in favor of ill-defined mystical shit about gods and spirits, and the ones that do are as underdeveloped as the rest. The characters don't really change or grow, except for some very forced exceptions, and you don't learn much about them either. They stay pretty much the anime archetypes they start as, which wouldn't be bad if their characterization and chemistry was strong, and sadly it really isn't. For the most part it's decent, but our hero Yuri Lowell has almost zero chemistry with everyone else aside Flynn and kinda Estelle.

All tales games have flaws. Not a single one is perfect. This is why you can both find people who don't like any, and find someone who hates any given tales game. However, each game has stregnths that make up for it's weaknesses for me, which is why none of them aside Xilla 2 are games I don't like. I don't dislike this one either, but for me it's cons outweigh the pros. There's no sense of grand adventure in a big vibrant world, it's not fulfilling to complete this story and see it to it's end. The structure of the story is so broken that it doesn't feel complete. The characters don't make up for it, so I don't really know what there is to make it the solid fun and engaging experience the series gives me. There are parts I like, it hits a lot of familiar notes, but passes on so many of them, and can't remain a consistent story, so it just ends up disappointing. Ironically, it's the tales games that stray from the structure that end up doing that. Xillia 2 is very unique in a lot of ways and so is this, but this proves that when Namco Tales Studio sticks to what they know, they execute it fantastically... but sadly can't even handly breaking away a little.

It's almost baffling that this was made by the same people who created Tales of the Motherfucking Abyss, but if you know that the writers weren't the same then it can make sense. Also it seems like it was clear two things happened:

1. They were burned out after making such a great story like Abyss.
2. This game was obligatory, they had to make a Tales game for the 360 as part of the push to get it to sell in japan. Plus they release tales games once every 2 years at most.