Give JRPGs a chance

Cutscenes are the life blood of JRPGs. They are your reward for battling through dungeons, solving puzzles and bringing down bosses with ridiculous HP gauges. They are the vehicle for the story (and without story, JRPGs might as well be a sadistic form of torture), and in Tales of Vesperia, they look effin’ amazing.

The cutscenes look so smooth, you could lick the screen (don’t actually do that - it’s gross). We thought we’d be sad when in-game graphics finally surpassed elaborate anime opening sequences, but the visuals in Vesperia are a complete delight. The vast majority of JRPG fans and even the non-believers are going to love what they’re looking at, even if the chatter gets a little tedious.

To be fair to Paul, there’s a fine line between exposition and boring. Exposition cutscenes are only boring when they’re pointless and filler cutscenes (like the one below) are only boring if they detract from the action, the story or the ass-kicking.

Above: Namco Bandai hasn't come out and said that the relationship system from Symphonia will be in Vesperia, but we did see an “Attachment” field in the character menus that implies characters can form bonds between each other - and this cutscene only fuels our assumptions

Tales of Vesperia comes out in August 2008 and we can expect to see a North American demo sometime this July (there’s already one out in Japan, if you feel like making a Japanese Xbox Live account). If you don’t own a 360 and are in need of a Tales fix, try outRadiant Mythologyon the PSP or sit tight until September-ish whenTales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New Worldcomes to the Wii.

Jun 25, 2008