Tales of Vesperia confirmed for X360, North American release

[Cless]

First US reviews are in.

Hardcore Gamer - 4/5, second opinion 4/5
Official Xbox Magazine - 85/100

Good to see it get a great score in a mainstream mag (OXM). Let's see how it fares in the likes of Game Informer and EGM...

[spaceworlder]

Most reviews will probably fall in the 80% range, which would be good considering that JRPGs aren't quite the critical darling they used to be.

On a different note, the Vesperia Premium Edition seems to be doing pretty well on Amazon's rankings. It's often in the Top 10 best-selling 360 products, and it's been ranking ahead of the Fable 2 LE. I have a hunch this game could do as well as Symphonia, maybe better.

[spaceworlder]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/902/902269p1.html

IGN score: 8.2

[Craymel]

Damn. No japanese audio track... I hate being a minority in this department of video games and anime. They never fail to dash my hopes and say "live with it".

[Datschge]

IGN score: 8.2

Sound: 9.0
The songs and sound effects are excellent and the voice acting is usually great too. I still can’t get Bonnie Pink’s opening theme out of my head.

Odd to see the sound dept rated as strongest part of a Tales Studio game.

[Rhapsody]

I'll admit here that Namco has never convinced me to buy an officially translated Tales game. Partly because of the patchy quality (re: Tales of Phantasia GBA), mostly because I live in Europe and they really can't be bothered to export them that far (plus Sony's not going to let me play US games without a fight). But after looking over some reviews, Tales of Vesperia just might be the one that breaks that trend.

I really am going to have buy an Xbox 360. Never thought I'd see the day...

[Kurosuzaku]

Could this be the official cover?

Looks like they used in-game pictures...

[spaceworlder]

That mock-up's already been posted. The official cover's on the Amazon listing.

[Dimentionalist]

1up review.

[me_001]

Some segments are very well written and acted, though, which just makes the weaker moments stand out all the more.

This is why I'll never read 1up reviews without disagreeing with them...

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Vesperia feels like what Tales of the Abyss, the previous franchise entry on PS2, was always meant to be.

perfect. if that's really true, ToV should be great.

That's what makes the recent news that Namco Bandai plans on offering downloadable level upgrades in Japan so absurd -- this is about as enjoyable and painless as RPG "grinding" gets.

again, if it's true, my fears are quelled, and the DLC is just intended as an add-on for very busy (or very young?) people who really want to blaze through the game and annihilate the opposition.

Vesperia debuted here less than a month after the Japanese release, though...and it shows. The English script feels somewhat rushed, and it's clear that some lines of text were translated without any context at all, leading to quite a few awkward, stilted exchanges.

uhoh. i hope he's exaggerating, and it's at least as good as abyss (which had a fairly low number of flubs, iirc).

[spaceworlder]

Another review update:

Game Spot gave it an 8.5 and proclaimed it's "easily the best game in the series."

[Kevassa]

Another review update:

Game Spot gave it an 8.5 and proclaimed it's "easily the best game in the series."

"Easily the best"?
Sure they love to exagerate, Tales of Destiny Remake can be on the "easily the best game in the series" too, as well as Tales of Rebirth.

[Craymel]

That's assuming they have played/reviewed those two games that were never released outside of Japan.

[Cless Aileron]

I was expecting them to be harder on it.  Also, I was expecting a lower score, which would then be accompanied by many "Gamespot is teh bias" comments and maybe that Kane & Lynch fiasco being brought up, all because they think they're kissing Square Enix's butt.

But that wasn't the case and reading the review, it was nicely written.  So, it's good and I don't really have much to gripe about on it.

[spaceworlder]

GameSpy gave it a 4 out of 5, but what's really notable is that they listed great dialogue as one of the plusses. Maybe the 1UP review was being really picky on the localization?