61 Frames Per Second : tales of vesperia

Whatcha Playing: Tales of Phantasia (PSX)

Bob Mackey — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

I've just sent my unfinished copy of Tales of Vesperia back to that big GameFly distribution center in the sky (or possibly Pittsburgh), which makes it the fourth Tales of title since Symphonia that I've been completely bored with--the others (in chronological order) were Legendia, The Abyss, and Dawn of the New World. As much as I wanted Vesperia to grab me, it was loaded down with the same problems that make me feel like a jackass for still showing interest in the JRPG genre; hell, even I can't tell you what keeps me coming back.

Around the same time I started playing through Vesperia, I picked up my first laptop, which unexpectedly became a portable Playstation--through completely legal means, I assure you. And since I'd been holding onto the new-ish translation of the PSX Tales of Phantasia remake (unreleased here), I figured I'd give it a spin to see if my interest in the franchise was always so ill-fated. Would you be surprised if I told you I ended up sinking more time into Phantasia than its much younger sibling?

No, I guess you wouldn't.

I think my love of the early Tales games (Phantasia, Destiny, and Eternia--released here as Destiny 2) stem from the fact that they feel like such labors of love. Arguably, Wolfteam was on firm ground from Destiny onwards, but the first three games of the franchise feel like they were handled with much more care than the factory-processed Tales games Namco now poops out twice yearly.The entirely-2D nature of the older titles may have a lot to do with it; the Tales series always had a reputation for really crisp, detailed sprites, but in the move to 3D, things got much more spartan and boring. Phantasia also has a refreshingly simple battle system in comparison to the cluttered controls of Vesperia, which asks you to push up and a button at the same time for a simple action like jumping. I dunno; it seems that the older I get, the more I start to realize that the limited framework of the traditional JRPG can only be stretched too far before it breaks.

For a more in-depth discussion on the JRPG, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for this Friday's 61FPS Roundtable Discussion on the topic. But please weigh in with your thoughts on the Tales series; I'm interested in knowing if it's lost anyone besides me.

Related Links:

Bad Games With Good Music: Tales of Legendia
Pay-Per-Grind: Tales of Vesperia Lets You Level With Cash
Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum

Games I Probably Should Have Played in 2008

Bob Mackey — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Since we've reached the point in January where last-year retrospectives have become completely lazy and tiresome, I figured I'd squeeze at least one more out because, hey, I've still got some 2008 baggage left. It was a super-busy year for me, full of new assignments, responsibilities, and that maelstrom of neverending crap known to most of you as "fall." Since my free time was so limited, I had to make some serious decisions about what to play; and some choices, like spending over 60 hours on Grand Theft Auto IV, were clearly wrong. This poor planning left many games I wanted to play untouched and unloved in a GameFly distribution center as they sat in their paper sleeves and desperately waited for me to add them to my queue. Why must inanimate objects make me feel so guilty?

Maybe you can tell me if I made the right decisions by looking at--and judging me by--the games I had no time to play. It's the only way I'll learn.

Tales of Vesperia - Ever since I spent over 100 hours with Tales of Symphonia back on the GameCube, I've been waiting for the series to wow me again. Legendia was a cheap cash-in, and I wasn't even able to judge Tales of the Abyss because its god-awful loading times made me shelve the game forever after just a few hours. I've heard that Vesperia is a real return to form for the Tales series, but my healthy skepticism might have prevented me from becoming too interested.

Tomb Raider: Underworld - To be honest, I've never really sat down with a Tomb Raider game since the second one. But after watching a friend play through a little of Legend back in 2006, my opinion on the series did a complete backflip. Even so, the stigma that haunted Tomb Raider from the late 90s to the early 00s seems to be one that's hard to shake--which could explain why I was never motivated enough to play more than the demo.

Mirror's Edge - I feel the greatest amount of shame for not playing Mirror's Edge over the holidays. As a semi-real games journalist, I feel somewhat responsible for playing and supporting refreshingly new gameplay concepts, even if they happen to come out of a mega massive studio like Electronic Arts. Rest assured that I will play Mirror's Edge at some point; it is my duty to you, the reader. (Unless someone can convince me otherwise.)

Fallout 3 - Even though I'm mighty tired (some would say plum tired) of medieval trappings in role-playing games, Fable 2 won out over Fallout 3 for me this fall due to the chip I have on my shoulder for developer Bethesda. It's not that they've spited me personally, or anything; I've just been misfortunate enough to discover how much the design philosophy of games like Morrowind and Oblivion clash with my sense of fun. It seems to be a common theme with the games I missed in 2008, but once again an established bias kept me from playing what might be a fantastic game.

Persona 4 - I had a little addiction to Persona 3. It kinda got out of hand. So, intent on not wasting my entire holiday break on a single game, I refused to touch Persona 4 and... didn't really end up spending my time productively, anyway. The Persona 4 cravings have started, but I think I'm going to save the game for the summer, when I'll be finished with graduate school and have two fancy book learnin' degrees to my name. I'm sure the hundreds of hours of P4 will give me something to do, because I don't foresee steady employment in my near future. And when I'm done with the game, I assume I can cook and eat it? Wish me luck.

Related Links:

Whatcha Not Playing: Persona 4
Facepalm: Crispy Gamer
Mirror’s Edge: Everything You’ve Heard Is True

Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum

John Constantine — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

After literal years of anticipation on the part of geeks across the world, Square-Enix will finally release Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope for the Xbox 360 on February 24th, 2009. It’s a momentous occasion for the genre. Star Ocean is the first A-list JRPG franchise to make the leap to HD consoles. You can argue that Tales of Vesperia earned the honor first, but Namco’s Tales franchise is more a brand/masthead than a bonafide franchise, one even more diluted than the Final Fantasy heading. I’ve never cared for the Star Ocean series’ battle system – Penny Arcade said it best when they described Star Ocean’s battles as “deciding which character gets molested by lizard men” – and its science-fiction narrative has always been more interesting in concept than in execution. I want to be excited about Star Ocean 4, but not because I feel like I’m missing out on a series that so many other gamers seem to love. I just want to be excited about an HD-JRPG.

JRPGs have been enjoying a renaissance on the DS, not unlike the one they had on the PS1 some twelve years back, but the genre has been woefully underserved on the 360 and PS3. Half-baked efforts like Enchanted Arms and Eternal Sonata, janky action-based experiments like Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant, lumbering traditionalist games like the aforementioned Vesperia, and the twin disappointments from Hironobu Sakaguchi, Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, are all we lovers of leveling and melodrama have had to sink our teeth into since the 360 launched in 2005. Why? Why is it that the best JRPGs to come out in 2008 were either re-releases or games made on decade-old hardware?

The most obvious answer is Japan. Not a little has been written about the decline and stagnation of the Japanese games industry, so it’s no wonder that their number-one genre has suffered alongside the console market in the transition to HD. The answer is slightly more complicated though. The disintegration of traditional genres has defined console gaming over the past few years. Look at Call of Duty 4, a game that transcends the traditional first-person shooter mold by making RPG-style character growth an essential component of its multi-player modes. Or take Little Big Planet, a game which is a platformer at its core, but whose real appeal is in molding the game into whatever you want it to be. Shooters are no longer just shooters, platformers aren’t just platformers. JRPGs have yet to successfully transcend the boundaries of design tradition, and attempts to grow the genre, like The Last Remnant, have been underfunded.

I hope that the 360 and PS3 get a JRPG as exciting and adventurous as Persona 3 and 4, and I hope that game gets made soon. But I’m starting to wonder if videogames finally have their genre equivalent of jazz: an art form that’s also an evolutionary dead end.

Related links:

Why, God, Why: More SaGa Games on the Way
Your JRPG Narrative is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
Fun Fact: Dylan Cuthbert - The Genre Masher
Pay-Per-Grind: Tales of Vesperia Let’s You Level With Cash
Whatcha Playing: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Low-Rent RPGs: A Good Idea

Pay-Per-Grind: Tales of Vesperia Let’s You Level With Cash

John Constantine — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:00:00 GMT

We’ve been talking a whole hell of a lot about role-playing games around these parts lately. Of course, we’ve also been musing on the amount of time you need to spend playing certain games, RPGs in particular. Cutting the grind out of RPGs is an entire industry when it comes to MMOs. Don’t have two-hundred thirty-nine hours to pour into World of Warcraft? Well, there are a number of fine, trustworthy organizations based out of China and elsewhere that will get you your level-65 character for a few measly sawbucks. When it comes to the single-player, console RPG, though, you have one of two choices for beefing up your characters: you either cheat (in-game exploit or using a Gameshark-style device) or you put in the many, many hours necessary to max out your party. But, like so much in the age of downloadable content, the times are a changin’. Namco’s Tales of Vesperia got its first downloadable content this week and, for just a few hundred Microsoft Points, you can buy your characters ten levels of experience.

Call me crazy, but doesn’t this defeat the point of the console RPG? At the end of the day this games only give two types of satisfaction to the player, completing a narrative and watching numbers go up. Most RPGs are not difficult but the reason to play them is engaging in a basic routine of rock, paper, scissor, and feeling an admittedly shallow sense of accomplishment as statistics associated with your characters rise. Paying money for increased stats might shorten the game, giving more access to the narrative, but why play an RPG for just that? It’s like you’re getting ripped off by yourself and Namco simultaneously.

(Link: Kotaku)

Related links:

Time Investment
Gaming on a Train: Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy IV DS: Love, Hope and Betrayal For the Busy Commuter
Know Your Final Fantasy IV Trivia. It Could Save Your Life.

Turning Japanese: Microsoft’s Latest Ditch Effort to Win the East

John Constantine — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Microsoft held a press conference yesterday in Tokyo to show off their upcoming slate of six Xbox 360 role-playing games. Aside from the Japanese edition of 2007’s Mass Effect and a look at Peter Molyneux’s Fable 2, Microsoft showed off four Japanese developed RPGs. Two of which are the latest in entries in Namco and Square-Enix’s long-running Tales and Star Ocean franchises. Microsoft’s also pulled a slight coup with the announcement that Square-Enix’s new IP Last Remnant, developed to appeal to both eastern and western audiences, will now release on Xbox 360 before Playstation 3.

Since the Xbox 360’s release in 2005, Microsoft has been trying to woo Japanese audiences with high-profile role-playing games. Namco’s Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream and From Software’s Enchant Arms were the first J-RPGS to see release this console cycle. Microsoft also secured the exclusive rights to Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy-creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s first post-Square-Enix work. But in the past thirty months, both Trusty Bell and Enchant Arms failed to find a significant audience in Japan and have since been ported to the Playstation 3. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, despite being heavily promoted under Sakaguchi’s name, have also done poorly despite strong debuts. Microsoft’s RPG Premiere Event shows a commitment to a failed tactic. Having the support of both Namco and Square-Enix might have been a winning strategy ten years ago but the fact of the matter is that Japanese gamers have never, and most likely will never, be interested in purchasing an American made game system. While western fashion, film, and food brands have significant cultural currency in Japan, the culture’s taste for consumer products has always been exclusive. Japanese gamers want Japanese systems and Japanese games. Additionally, the pool of Japanese gamers who play home consoles has been on the decline for half a decade as tastes have shifted to quicker, portable experiences.

All of these new RPGs look fantastic. But they won’t make a lick of difference for Microsoft.