Yeah, seriously. Those dudes that wandering up and down the internet saying Tales of Vesperia is inspired by Final Fantasy VII are idiots. It's clearly inspired by Final Fantasy VI. So there!
Anyway, I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. The Vesperia campaign is still going along pretty well, helped by the fact that I'm not a angry little ball of angst this go-around. Sometimes even escapism doesn't help you escape things. I'm noticing a few more little details and nuances, and with the help of a decent FAQ or two I've figured out some the sidequests and extra events without having to save scum and tear my hair out. Tales-style sidequesting can be mean.
I've finally have some semblance of aptitude for the combat system, thought I doubt I'll have anything like actual mastery. Watching my main character zip around and unleash the turbo ginsu upon freakish hordes is pretty rewarding, and not whiffing every other attack makes things even sweeter. Throwing in the mage-support that every good RPG should do and things start turning into a symphony of flashy doom. The wonders of Tales-style New Game plus allowing for characters to retain the high-end skills and spells just amplifies things.
Repede the Ninja Dog of awesomeness is still very much a favorite for me, helping fetch all sorts of shinies--especially the much-needing crafting materials--with grace, aplomb, and without my supervision. Vesperia has far and away the best stealing system in the series that I've encountered, with just about everything having something for Repede to grab, reasonable chances for the grab to work, and little worry about not grabbing that super-unique item or it's lost forever bullshit (I'm looking at you Tales of the Abyss); plus it's automated, so I don't have to sit there and manually spam a command instead of unleashing the Harvest properly.
About the closest thing to a major gripe I have so far...well it's an odd thing to say, but there's not the sense of otherworldly grandeur that I got from Legendia. The graphics and sounds and overall tone is very, very good and a vast improvement over the dust-bowl depression of Abyss (especially in the graphics department) and there's some the same sense of discovery, mystery and plain fun going on. I think that Legendia is really in a class of it's own there. At least the monsters are fun too look at and more fun to fight. We've got stuff like giant wasp-things with gun-stingers, 'mermen' that are really weresharks that beat you with boat anchors, and some other fun stuff.
Unfortunately, it's time to wander off, but The Harvest Never Rests!
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