Tales of Vesperia

So surprise, surprise. I fail at blogging. But never mind that.

Roughly a month ago, I received by copy of Tales of Vesperia, which is a part of the Tales of series by Namco (now Namco-Bandai), and possibly one of my favourite video games series, period. As per usual, the cast of characters are all very likable, while the story is fairly straightforward and linear (which I take as advantages), and the battle system fast-paced and satisfying. The visuals this time around are excellent, with Namco-Bandai toting possibly one of the prettiest, most-close-to-anime celshading techniques I've seen applied thus far with 3D modeling in general.

As of basically Saturday night, I finished the game, though I'll be making a few additional sweeps for extra and endgame content, along with enjoying the multiplayer with a friend. Overall, the story was enjoyable, though I felt at the end things may have been a bit too compressed, and I felt like there could've been more, but that may be my fault in how intensely I had been playing it (I racked up roughly 80 hours, and though it was over the span of perhaps a month, I had really only turned on the game at best, 6 to 7 times, if not less). I really flew through that game, and not in the sense that I was rushing either. As per usual, I went through things fairly thoroughly, in the fashion of combing through dungeons and making sure I got every possible treasure chest, etc.

Regardless, I recommend it to any fans of the series strongly, and I think anyone who generally enjoys JRPG's, particularly action ones, should get a lot of fun out of this, especially if they're anime-inclined.

Anyhow, I think over the next few days I'll put up a bunch of my impressions of this season's anime, with some handy-dandy screenshots. I think you can already tell that it'll all be about personal impressions, and me skimming over any sort of synopsis of story as best as I am capable of.