Tales of Vesperia confirmed for X360, North American release

[Cless]

It's in English!!!!

[Cless Aileron]

Wow!  It's in English, despite coming from the Japanese marketplace?  That's surprising!

So, the Japanese account actually works, despite the discussion earlier?  I would think it didn't!  Maybe I'll try it.  Otherwise, I just hope that, since it's in English, the demo comes out soon over here.

[Cless]

oh man battle is drop dead gorgeous

[Cless]

Haha... I was destroyed by the boss.

Apparently it ends after this fight, anyway. If that's the case, this demo is VERY short, no more than 15 minutes.

Anyway, I like it. Though something about it feels different and will take some time getting used to. I can't put a finger on it. It does seem to feel faster than Symphonia/Abyss...

[Cless Aileron]

That's cool to hear the impression is good.  I was actually trying to make a Japanese account but I forgot everything I knew about Japanese addresses to make it believable that I just quit trying.  Then again, I'm too chicken to lie on something like this *insert chicken noise taunt here*.  After hearing the length, I'd probably play the waiting game instead and see if it shows up.

Would have been nice to take a taste into it, especially since I've got regular access to an HDTV now.

[Cless]

I beat it properly now. It lets you finish exploring the area after you beat the boss (whom you REALLY need to exploit its weakness to pass). The gameplay continued to get better after getting more used to it. I still don't understand a lot of little things though...

his is probably the shortest demo I've ever seen for a Tales game though. :/ ToP PSX let you play the entire present, ToE gave you the start to the end of Mt. Minche, and I think ToD2's went through the Laguna Ruins.

Some people seem to be feeling that the visuals aren't much better than Eternal Sonata's, but I disagree. If this was anime and Fujishima did the character art, the character models are pretty much identical to how they'd probably appear in an anime series. I prefer the background art direction to ES' by far, and this game seems to even have a bit of the anti-aliasing that ES could have really benefitted from.

Musically... well... it's typical Tales Sakuraba/Tamura. Nothing particularly special but will probably have its moments somewhere in the full game.

[FSLink]

How's the English voice acting?

[Kevassa]

Umm Cless cant you make a sample of the voices or something? A video of it? (or someone else who go the demo too)

[FSLink]

Umm Cless cant you make a sample of the voices or something? A video of it? (or someone else who go the demo too)

I'd do it, but I don't have a 360. >_>; Probably going to a friend's later to try it out.

[Carnivol]

Wow!  It's in English, despite coming from the Japanese marketplace?

The Trusty Bell/Eternal Sonata demo would also switch to English if played on a non-Japanese system.

How's the English voice acting?

I was actually pleasantly surprised. I normally don't mind dubs in general, good or bad, but this one wasn't bad. It feels "natural" to put it one way.


Anyway,
I really like what I see in this demo, but the only thing that I don't like is the lack of camera control (Lost Odyssey has spoiled me there with the zoom and panning) + the fact that in this demo, I can only seem to get Stereo sound (which is kinda odd, as I was under the impression 5.1 surround is a bit of a requirement for approval of Xbox 360 titles).  However, this might be because the demo doesn't let you access the options menu... so it could be set to Stereo by default.

And I love the boss fight, it's the kind of stuff I want to see more of.

[Cless]

I like most of the VA. It's about as good as you can reasonably expect with something like this, if you don't have ridiculous or impossible expectations (as so many haters do when it comes to game dubs). I still stand behind having better initial impressions of it than even Abyss (which I thought sounded excellent in long run, but first impressions were like... "wha? Luke sounds incredibly flat...").

I do find it kind of hilarious how many people are judging the game negatively entirely on the demo though. The whole thing is fifteen minutes long and seems to take place in a filler section. I don't think there were any fifteen minute stretches in any Tales game period that were so full of win that they'd win over a crowd. So many complaining "this isn't as cool as Abyss!". I mean it's like,  "Well, what did you expect, buddy?". Abyss' first fifteen minutes were pretty awful. This demo is better than that by a wide margin, at least IMO.

[Cyllya]

Thats probably what going to happen. But to me she not the typical kinda girl that look like she need saving but if so then I call her Collet version 2.

You mean version 4?

lolz, Extreme Stars. Estelle has a few oddly-named moves.
Not sure but ビアズクラスター =  Biaz Cluster? Maybe I'm imagining ten-ten marks, can't really tell with the vid quality.
レイスティング = ?

Reminds me of Colette's katakana tech names that Namco USA just gave up on and made up new names for.
パラライルティータ, レイシレーゼ, リミュエレイヤー, ルーンスティア, スティアフェンネル, ブランディス, レンジウィングル, ソルフェージュ...
Hopefully Estelle won't be as bad.

レイスティング = Ray Sting? The other one might be Pierce Cluster?

(On Collete, I eventually figured out some were obscure musical terms or foreign language words. パラライルティータ = Paraly Partita, ソルフェージュ = Solfege, etc. Grand Chariot was actually supposed to be French, and I'm thinking ブランディス and maybe リミュエレイヤー are conjugated French verbs.)

[Kajitani-Eizan]

abyss's first THIRTY minutes were pretty awful, iirc. considering that it involved wandering around the manor and completing a battle tutorial.

[FSLink]

I like most of the VA. It's about as good as you can reasonably expect with something like this, if you don't have ridiculous or impossible expectations (as so many haters do when it comes to game dubs). I still stand behind having better initial impressions of it than even Abyss (which I thought sounded excellent in long run, but first impressions were like... "wha? Luke sounds incredibly flat...").

I do find it kind of hilarious how many people are judging the game negatively entirely on the demo though. The whole thing is fifteen minutes long and seems to take place in a filler section. I don't think there were any fifteen minute stretches in any Tales game period that were so full of win that they'd win over a crowd. So many complaining "this isn't as cool as Abyss!". I mean it's like,  "Well, what did you expect, buddy?". Abyss' first fifteen minutes were pretty awful. This demo is better than that by a wide margin, at least IMO.

Though maybe they should have picked a better place for a demo. Throw them at a cliffhanger plot wise so it'll get people really excited.
I heard some people complaining about no battle tutorial either...(kind of weird for a demo), but it's not something I particularly care too much about...
I listened to the VA too on some videos, and I like the voices, Rita and Karol especially. Yuri and Estelle started off really horribly, but that cliff scene was much better.

abyss's first THIRTY minutes were pretty awful, iirc. considering that it involved wandering around the manor and completing a battle tutorial.

The beginning of Abyss was pretty awful...I actually didn't really enjoy the game until Luke got his haircut. >_> The parts before it were pretty bland....excluding the Divine General fights.

[Cless]

Hmm... I just realized that this demo is actually very crappy compared to previous Tales demos (in terms of included content, not game quality!). Aside from Save/Load being locked, in general, Tales demos are fully featured, and at least 60 minutes long.

Tales of Phantasia PSX -> The entire present time period. That's over 2 hours, I believe. Though the TGS '98 demo was clearly based on a WIP, as it has numerous differences and tons of bugs compared to the final game.

Tales of Eternia's took you through the start of the game up to the end of Mt. Mintche (although the boss was different from the final game). That was around 60 to 90 minutes?

The video I saw for Tales of Destiny 2's seemed to go from new game to the end of the Laguna Ruins. I think that's around 45-60 minutes.

Vesperia's takes place in a random filler section with no town or world map access. You're locked out of some menus and it seems like Karol should be playable at this point, but you can't add him to the fighting party.

[gyozilla]

I'm still not digging the name Karol.

Voices all sound excellent to me, except Yuri's surprisingly. For some reason I'm not picturing that face with that voice. He sounds slightly too old to be 21 for my tastes, and I'm not using high pitched seiyuu as basis either, but it's fine.

Symphonia team sure loves using full-armored knights though. And I'm actually REALLY liking the fact that Yuri's left-handed. I'm just liking Yuri in general. Yes, love all his sword tossing acrobatics, Bamco!