Tales of Vesperia
 

Announced at Jump Festa, details are extremely scarce, not even a platform is known. Kyosuke Fujishima is doing character art - he did Phantasia, Symphonia, and Abyss, so Team Symphonia is probably working on this game.

Speculation?


http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/__i...n/SO1_7451.jpg
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/__i...n/SO1_7388.jpg
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/__i...n/SO1_7395.jpg
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/__i...n/SO1_7424.jpg

PS3 is my guess. You really can't say anything from the photos, but I have a feeling it's going to be PS3.

PS2 isn't dead, but by the time they finish the game... I just don't the PS2 would be a viable investment right now, but I could be wrong.

I love his character designs, even if they are very similar at points.

Well the last screenshot indicates its at least in 3D and possibly an updated version of the combat system from Symphonia. Anime cutscenes also seem likely from the second screenshot.

Well, "Tales of..." Games have usually been pretty good, so this is something I'll keep an eye out for. As far as platform goes, any of the systems are possible:

Wii - Symphonia on the Gamecube did well, so a Wii version should be equally profitable, and the battle system could be influences by the motion controls (For example, motioning to swing the sword or block?). The more general audience of the Wii also is probably one reason for the Anime cutscenes (If the Wii was decided from the beginning to be the platform). I see this as most likely.

DS - Again, the screenshots were small so its hard to determine exactly what kind of graphical detail we're dealing with. Given that Square-enix and Nintendo have proven the DS is a highly profitable seller (Dragon Quest IX for example, DS Sales PERIOD) and that RPGs DO well on the platform (Quality of said RPGs is left to the consumer to decide), this is definite possible destination for the latest Tales Game. I see this as the second most likely platform.

PS2 - As Symphonia was re-released on the PS2, the console could see a version of this new game released, as it is a proven position of dominance in terms of how many people play the PS2, even with new consoles now on the market. Plus the system is well-known to coders now, and we know how far it can go graphically, so this is my number three choice on platform.

Xbox 360 - More and more Japanese developers are trying out RPGs on the 360, so they could release it on here for a more graphically powerful design (Although the screenshot is small, Anime cutscenes usually are put in to save budget, so this is second in possability). The low userbase in Japan however, is the real deal-breaker for if its released on here for not.

PS3 - Again, graphical powerhouse and the Sixaxis controls might be an in-between for some motion control. The low rate of buyers across the world is the biggest problem for it being released on this platform.

I just noticed, there's so much to speculate from just 3 screenshots.

I dont think it will be the ds.. even from the tiny screenshots, i dont think the DS can do those kind of graphics.

Dammit, I made a point to say that its hard to tell from the small screenshots.

Well whatever. The DS has more potential then you might realize. Archaic Sealed Heat has pretty in-battle graphics from what I hear.

rpgcrazied, at least come up with your own opening post instead of just copying some dude from the official Tales forums.

Anyway, Namco has already said the DS is the platform of choice for all "main" games in the series, but we'll see. The Wii already has Symphonia: The Knight of Ratatosk in the works, the DS just saw the release of Innocence, the PS2 is seeing Destiny: Director's Cut next month. Anyone's guess at this point.

im just informing users here, that dont go to those tales forums.. if you dont like it, to bad

So because some people haven't seen it, it's okay. I'd love to see an author try this argument if they got caught plagiarizing another novel.

Just take the 30 seconds to write up your own opening post.

uh, but thats just it.. its not copyright material.. i was just passing the info around.. so i didnt want to type all that out, and found it easier to copy an paste. give me a freaking break

You're thinking of copyright infringement. Plagiarism is any kind of work taken from someone else and passed off as your own.

I'm not going to get into a fight over this. I was just asking you to at least use your own words in the future.

If copyright violation is your only incentive to not rip people off, you have fucked up priorities.

ANYWAY. What the fuck is 'Vesperia'. Hoping this is a Wii title.

I guess if it has anything to do with the word (vesper), the game will have something to do with nighttime?

What is this, the 40th Tales of game announced this year? I think Namco should just start naming them after what month they're due out in. :erm: "Namco announces Tales of January 2008, February 2008 and March 2008! Stay tuned for more secret Namco RPGs whatever could they be?!"

"Vesperia, a world covered by Eternal Twilight. Our heroes venture forth to cross the schism to the parallel world of Morn-Ryse, a world covered by Eternal Dawn, to seek the source of questions which have plagued both worlds for centuries. Only a vague proverb provides a clue to undoing this motionless future: 'The Untempered World will Spin once more, should the Dawn and the Twilight find each other'."

Okay so I just pulled that out of my ass, but hey, the third screenshot WAS in the evening :p

That sounds generic enough to be plausible.

You may have yourself an alternate career, Mr. Tag Line Writer.

It looks like it's in widescreen actually, so I really doubt it's a PS2 or DS game.

Most (all?) new big-budget PS2 games have 16:9 support.

I've never seen a Tales game with it, and 85% of my PS2 collection lacks widescreen options of any kind. It's a rarity in RPGs, outside of Square/Tri-Ace ones at least.

This has pretty much been confirmed as being a PS3 and or Xbox 360 game as the reports from people who where there say it's graphically impossible to be on any other system. Namco did just release a statement that they feel the PS3 has finally reached a respectable userbase for it to be profitable for developers.

Of course there could be a Wii version in the works too but didn't show that version off for various obvious reasons.

FYI that 3rd shot isn't an anime cutscene, it's a cel shaded, real-time shot using a similar shading style that Abyss used.

Could you post that statement and reports on the graphics?

How can you tell for sure? Or, how do you know that is absolutely true? Looked like Anime to me.

Not that I'm saying you're wrong or right, its just that I need proof or verification before anything can be taken as truth.

We haven't confirmed anything.

However from watching it and doing various comparisons between the systems and discussions with the Japanese that were there it seems the most likely that it will be on PS3 or Xbox360 based solely on the graphical quality. (Of course the person who made this statement also said in the beginning it looked like something only the Wii was capable of)

The namco channel website mentioned a PS3 RPG would be coming sometime in the future. Maybe this is it?

In any case, most of us are just laughing at the whole thing since before this, Namco kept insisting that the DS was going to be the main home for all future Tales games, especially those in the main series that weren't spin-offs.

Although the original poster could have at least tried to be a bit more original with this topic instead of just copy/pasting a post from someone on our forums. It doesn't really matter though, just a minor annoyance.

Official trailer has been released:

Offical ToV Trailer


Also Higuchi has been named director pretty much putting this under the umbrella of the main team who were responsible for Abyss and Symphonia.

I read this on Gamersyde:

Hum seems they failed to mention the site also had "Tales of Innocences" in the keywords before it was finished. Likely cause is the webmaster being lazy and just used a past template as both ToI and Ace Combat 6 used the EXACT same looking webpage when they released the first trailers for those games.

The only way I see this game coming to the Xbox 360 is if Microsoft has their hands in it and are promising some type of baseline compensation because we all know this has a next to zero chance of selling on the 360.

Whatever happend to the Tales series staying on the DS? I was looking at getting a 360 anyway, but still.

Companies that don't jump on opportunity because it contradicts something they said in the past are doomed to failure. I would assume the development team decided they had some bigger ideas that required a platform more suitable than the DS.

Oooh, nice trailer. I'm going to have to pick this up. Definitly looks like it could be a Wii or 360 Game now. Any ideas about it being DS have been well, thrown out the window (Unless somehow the DS can manage those kind of graphics, not bloody likely).Trailer was voiced in Japanese, with some intermediate English and Japanese lettering throughout (So if there are any translators about, now would be the time to investigate).

Anyway, here's some screenshots (56k Warning, all screenshots were taken from the larger sized trailer):



Hope these screenshots proved useful :)

Yeah, useful for crashing my browser!

Interesting turn of events with the potential console(s). Kind of looks like a bland Eternal Sonata though, so my interest in the game itself has waned a bit.

Well it said somewhere on Gametrailers that this is for the 360 but for all I know that could be just speculation. Anyway, this game looks fantastic! I'm totally looking forward to it!

That's why I included both the [spoiler] and [popup] tags.

If your browser somehow is unable to deal with both of these vb code functions (As the [popup] tag allows the image to load only if you click on the popup icon, thus saving on bandwidth) then I suggest either getting a new browser, or not view the images.

If you still have trouble, I suppose I can reupload these with Thumbnails >=|

I wasn't being very serious, just surprised at how badly it slowed down my computer, and making a joke about it. The screens are appreciated.

Okay. Well I was specifically trying to avoid overloading people's systems because while the screenshots are pretty, they are also large and that's taxing on some computers.

The upside is that, depending on your monitor, some of the screenshots could make for a wallpaper (Although I admit, the images were compressed a bit for the upload.)
So, If anyone want a wallpaper of something from the trailer, feel free to PM me about it, I'll grab a screenshot and hand you a nice .png file :)

Namco isn't really pleased with the PS3 at the moment (despite mentioning it is actually worthy of putting games on now), so it'll probably have a timed release on 360 and then come out for PS3 later.

Kind of like Eternal Sonata!

I saw this trailer a few days ago but saw the this thread was locked for some reason. My initial thoughts are:

Why the 360?
and
Why does it have Wii graphics and is on the 360 and not the Wii?

Pretty much those. Those graphics could be done on the Wii, so I don't know what they're doing. I guess it's okay considering I have a 360 and all, but I don't really understand why Namco Bandai have moved to it from the PS2.

Actually as I said earlier, they just stated otherwise just a few weeks ago and I seriously doubt this will end up as a timed exclusive. They are aware of the performance of the Xbox 360 in Japan and they are well aware that the Tales series has primarily a Japanese draw. I'm not sure why anyone would think this is going to be an Xbox 360 exclusive after how terrible Eternal Sonata turned out. With a lot of high profile RPGs being released in 2008 for the PS3 I'd consider the other opposite possibility of this becoming a PS3 timed or full exclusive before the Xbox 360 gets any special treatment out of this game. But more than likely it's going to be a simultaneous release.

But of course if it does end up happening, Tales of Vesperia Directors Cut might not but such a bad thing.

No way. The cel shading is a huge step up to what it was on the PS2 and the textures are far too sharp, the shadows far too complex and the animation far too smooth to be done on the Wii. Just compare this to Tales of the Abyss and you can see this is very much the next generation quality game from the Tales team.

Releasing it on 360 would give them more reason to plug their evil idolm@ster game. They could even give imas costumes for the females.

Then release it later on PS3 as a Director's Cut with all that and even more.

Not that this actually proves anything, but on the Game Videos (part of the 1up Network, so it's not just some no name site) page for the trailer, it has it listed as PS3. It seems weird that they would know even though it's not officially announced, but maybe they know something we don't. Or maybe they just flipped a coin.

Saw this mentioned on NeoGAF: Motoi Sakuraba ~ Official English Website

Tales of Vesperia is listed on Motoi Sakuraba's page as a 360 game. Looks like Microsoft is shelling out bucks for some JRPG development, or something. You have to give them credit for standing their ground... the Dreamcast and Sega Saturn both were infinitely more successful in the Japanese market, haha. I doubt the system will be able to make a turnaround, but regardless of why 360, the game is coming and I will buy it.

You say that as though the 360 does not already have a couple of JRPGs. I'm just saying, it's not like this is the first. It may prove to be the best, though. Neither of the two major consoles (yeah, I went there...) have a significant number of JRPGs yet, so it's not like there's an obvious platform for JRPG developers. I am by no means a fanboy for either system, but I chose to put my money on PS3 because Nippon Ichi put theirs on it. I'm hoping other developers will follow, but if they don't... I'll just have to save my pennies for a 360 as well.

My avatar is from Jet Set Radio Future, a niche Japanese game on a platform where barely any Japanese games existed, so it's not like I'm some kind of uninformed gamer. Would it make you feel better if I added "more" in that sentence? The intended point was that Microsoft wasn't giving up on breaking the Xbox stereotype and giving their all on getting more Japanese development on the 360.

That credit is for "Animation Movie" by Production I.G -- i.e. the same studio that animated the recent Tales of Symphonia OVA. High quality stuff.

Fair enough. I wasn't really my intention to suggest you were uninformed either. the main point of my post is that neither system is a JRPG haven yet, and I'm betting neither really will be either. I'd like to see the PS3 be the JRPG console this generation just because I have one, but I fully expect the 360 to get a share.

I kind of agree with Elixir that the screens DN posted look a lot like something you'd see on the Wii. (those who think otherwise should check out UR MR GAY (Super Mario Galaxy)) I mean I'm only suspicious because the Wii has been selling like hotcakes and developers are interested in making money, so it makes sense to release a game on a system that people own. Right? Right? So, I looked at the game list Sakuraba had posted for his CV and saw that there is a game for Wii called Tales of Symphonia II that is slated for release in 2008. I also found a video at Gametrailers for said game.

Using my 'massive powers of deductive reasoning', I'd hazard a guess that Tales of Vesperia is going to be for PS3 or Xbox 360, as people have been guessing. Since the Wii has a tales game coming out for it already, it stands to reason that the developers will want to express art through the greater potential of high powered consoles.

[edit] Scratch that, I just watched the Vesperia trailer on gametrailers. Totally looks like 360 or PS3. Looks like an awesome game.

I'm kind of hoping it comes to the PS3 so I can get another reason for buying one later on. I can't really imagine this game for the Wii, but I can't say I'm knowledgeable enough to judge what it's really capable of. But thinking of how SMG looks it doesn't seem to be impossible though.

The public perception of the Wii's graphics being subpar is only half right. The system can make some beautiful graphics, but its up to the developers to muscle out that capability. Yes the RAW Graphical power is not going to match the 360 or PS3, but that should NOT be an excuse for developers to not make something worth looking at (i.e., be lazy). Mario Galaxy was a fantastic game with lush detail and bright detailed environments. Compounding on that is the fact that Nintendo has said (At least NOA) they will be helping developers achieve the same level of quality that Nintendo is well-known for. Of course quality is a subjective terms as Reggie points out, but given that Ubisoft also announced their initiative to achieve higher standards of quality in their 2008 Titles.

These two points indicate towards Nintendo courting Japanese developers towards making high standard games. An act which, while also probably done on the Gamecube to a degree, will probably be more vigilant and aggressive.

The point of all that rambling? Tales of Games can be very possible on the Wii. Of course I won't be sad at all if it comes to the 360 instead.

Sorry but what has been shown is 100% impossible on the Wii. First the obvious one should be the 720p video, a resolution beyond the Wii. Second while the game might not be up to full next-gen standards there are obvious signs this is for the Xbox 360/PS3 based on the graphics.

First the models are made up of far more polygons than what is being shown for Tales of Symphonia 2. Second there is a self shadow system in place and an overall high quality shadow system. Third, the textures are extremely high resolution and probably well beyond what is possible with the limited memory in the Wii. And the fourth is in the trailer where it mentions HD animation from Production I.G specifically.

As I said before that doesn't mean there isn't a Wii version sitting behind somewhere not being show, but the trailer clearly displays a PS3 / Xbox 360 game. And from the various information leaking out it looks like it is going to be an Xbox 360 timed exclusive which depresses me only because I fear DVD-9 use for this game. It's probably going to limit the amount of animation we are going to get from Production I.G as well as screw us over for any hope of a dual audio release. Worse yet there is a change we'll get screwed out of skit voice localization once again since their excuse in the past has been lack of disc space due to the fact that the English language is naturally longer spoken, thus the file sizes for each voice clip is larger.

You're all wrong, it's for the Game Boy. Can't you goons tell by the crisp dot matrix green and black graphics and the pumping digital stereo sound? I wonder what the screen border will be like when played on the Super Game Boy. Can't wait, bring it on Titus!

The Game Boy only has digital mono output and analog stereo sound, smartass. Can't say it's for the Game Boy either.

It was pretty obvious that he was being sarcastic.

GASP-O

Next thing you'll be telling me it's not by Titus either!

and I think it was pretty obvious that he was sarcastic too >.>

as for the game it really goes look good graphically, it's remind me a lot Eternal Sonata. I pretty sure that it will not be on the wii, as for if it's on ps3 or 360, I think it could be multiplatform but I don't know. I surely hope it will come to ps3.

Wrong, find me a source that says it's not on GameBoy or leave for ever.

Sarcasm really is lost on the internet isn't it. :(

LOL, I realised this when I saw the video, it was the grainy screen shots that threw me off. The Hi Res is a dead give away for either PS3 or XBox 360.

I will agree, a lot of the graphics I've seen on Wii games aren't even up to the level of the Gamecube, which is pretty sad for a system that is at least somewhat of a significant jump above the previous generation. Playing Tales of Symphonia on GC, it was obvious that the graphics did not compare at all with games like Metroid Prime or Zelda Twilight Princess, titles that pushed the GC hardware to the limits of its capabilities. After seeing the graphical achievements of both Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime Corruption, I think lazy developers have given the system an unduly bad reputation with all the shovelware they're turning out for the system. (Come on, Far Cry looked like a bad N64 game, there is no excuse for this kind of crap)


:dovel:

:dover:

:dovel:

Well, I guess I'll have to eat my own words.

I was looking around the Wikipedia entry, and it said that since the game's trailer was running at 720p, that the Wii has been counted out of being a possible platform.
However, it coming to the Xbox 360 is now a strong possibility, as THIS little gem was noted on a Tales of Forum.

Besides, the Wii already has Tales of Symphonia: Knights of Ratatosk. So it definitely won't be a possibility. Which's set to release later this year.

Don't you mean to agree to disagree? Because from your standpoint, you seem to flatout hate the Wii for all what it's worth. Though, I'd have to agree with you ^^;. Because Nintendo will never have games like FFXIII, Versus XIII, The Last Remnant and those other upcoming HD games that're on the PS3 or 360. For sacrificing these HD graphics. They [Nintendo] just want "flowery"-esque gameplay on the Wii.

Games that no hardcore gamer would even bother playing.

Commenting about the Wii's garbage bin juice soaked shithouse graphics isn't hating on the system, it's the truth. I mean just look at Konami's latest Wii game announced today (true story!)

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/media/15048/1/3.jpg

Hey, you aren't allowed to hate on Wii graphics because of innovation, and fun and other shit like that.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic.

If not: Bollocks. There's a certain level of MINIMUM quality that needs to be achieved by Third Party developers and what Infernal just posted is... :gonk:

I obviously suck at sarcasm in this thread. I guess I should have put in some smilies or something.

But all of this platform secrecy and ambiguity of this generation is already starting to piss me off. Just tell me what the damn game is going to be for so I know what I need to buy.

Early post of the year candidate. I must quote and save it, or something. This is quite possibly the most hilarious bullshit I've read this month.

Bravo sir, your stunning idiocy knows no bounds. It seriously leaves me in awe. Witnessing it actually destroys people's bodies and souls. Ever see Raiders of the Lost Ark?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/toht.jpg

Exactly.

Can we go back to discussing how gay waggle is or something? We haven't had a discussion of that break out in a completely unrelated thread for quite some time now. It'll be fun! For old time's sake, come on.

Sorry, but REAL hardcore gamers play hacked rom 'redesigns' on ZSNES because everyone knows real gaming only happened in the 8 and 16 bit era, and everything has been downhill since then. "Sacrificing gameplay for graphics, etc etc."

Seriously, Square's glory days are gone. Back during the end of the SNES life cycle, and during the early to mid PS days, they did their best work, and since then I have become more and more disinterested in their creative output. They seem more concerned with milking their reputation than actually making good games. Sorry, but FF X-2 (PS2) and FF Crystal Chronicles (GC) really turned me off.

its really confirmed now for 360, from PLAY magazine


GameFAQs - 403 Error: Not Authorized

That's a dead link... Could you please fix it?

That link was fine for me. Maybe try again?

Anyway, sucks that this game will be on 360. That's the one system I just absolutely refuse to get. Ah well, at least I have ToS 2 to look forward to.

Is it only for the 360 or has it just been confirmed for that system? Link's broken for me too, by the way.

Maybe it was because I don't have an Gamefaqs account. oh well.

I'm glad it's for the 360, especially since I just bought one.

For those who can't see the link, here's the article:

I can only hope it gets ported to other consoles.

In the interview, they said that they started to think for a next-gen tales of games just after finishing Tales of the Abyss. At that time, the 360 had the more complete development environment, so they decided to go with it.

They still don't deny the possibility for a ps3 port.

I think multi-platform would be the best choice for them since the 360 is not so great in japan and they would probably sell more copy, so make more money which seem to be why they seem to hesitate to port the tales of games here.

360? Awesome. I wonder how the achievements will work in the game... probably like Blue Dragon or something. While the Wii would have been nice, Its nice to (abiet slowly) see JRPG developers starting to embrace the 360.

I think the fact that it's actually coming to America is bigger news than what system it's on.

Now, they need to get working on Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut, Tales of Destiny 2 PSP and Tales of Rebirth PSP!

Yup, it certainly does SUCK that it's coming to the 360. No talk of exclusivity at all (highly, HIGHLY unlikely after all. I mean, jeez, just look at EVERY FUCKING NAMCO GAME ON THE PLATFORM). But yeah, sure does suck those mad balls that those 360 players are getting the game.

Give me a fucking break. Use some common sense. Ridge Racer, Eternal Sonata, countless others. Fuck, you'll end up getting additional costumes or something out of it if you wait for it on your preferred platform anyway. Hell, you'll even get to find out if it sucks.

I love this shit. Happens for every damn Namco game. "OH GOD ACE COMBAT", etc. Have we learned NOTHING? Just y'know, curious and all.

I honestly won't believe it until it comes straight from Namco. Their market analysts aren't this far detached unless Microsoft is directly handing them money.

I don't think we've heard anything more from Namco about this for almost three months because the higher ups are re-evaluating this project.

A PS3 version is still a given at this point, but the question will be how will it play out. Simultaneous PS3/Xbox 360 release? Exclusive switch to PS3? Xbox 360 version first with a PS3 version later with the possibility of added content?

Since it's pretty much confirmed that it's going to be on 360. I guess the real question is how will Japan respond, considering the 360 is pretty much one big flop in Japan.

Blue Dragon had Toriyama, Lost Odyssey had Innoue. Can Namco win over Japan with Vesperia?

We already know it's going to head to USA, and certain Namco employees have admitted they are working on it (although not too satisfied with it being on 360, since to them the PS3 has more of a safety net due to it being better in Japan).

The interview strongly hints towards a PS3 release as well, just seems 360 will have it for a while first.

Oh. My. Lord. Didn't we grow out of Area 51 style gameplay around the time Area 51 2 came out?

If that game premieres for anything more than $30 I will be severely disappointed.

Regarding Vesperia, that's great news that it's coming to the 360. Between Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and this (assuming they don't botch what has been a consistently well-made series recently), the 360 appears to have finally grabbed some JRPG market support, which is only a good thing.

Additional Spam:
Exclusives are a horrible idea in this game market. This is extremely unlikely.

There was Eternal Sonata and still Infinite Undiscovery still as well. The 360 is getting pretty decent support, all we can hope is the sales justify continued support of the genre, because otherwise they'll probably migrate to the PS3 at some point exclusively. :(

Well, the Tales name in itself really helps the game out. If I remember correctly, Tales games are really popular in Japan... so perhaps this will help out the 360 over there...?

Of course, the best choice would be the 360 and PS3 ports. I honestly think that's what they would do, anyway.

With the basic promise of a PS3 port of this game it's not going to do very well on the 360 in Japan, If it were exclusive it might changes things. Hard to say what kind of impact the game will have in the US. Lost Odyssey did surprisingly well its first week, but the Tales games are a niche within a niche.

Personally I own both consoles so I just want the best game. Unfortunately I'm fearful the appearance on the Xbox 360 is going to hold back what could be done with the game on the PS3. You have Eternal Sonata sitting at max capacity for a Xbox 360 DVD-9 and after playing the game I can't help but get the impression a whole lot of this game was put on the cutting board to get it onto a single disc. We're getting some decent extras for the PS3 version thanks to the extra development time and increased disc capacity, but it makes me wonder how much of the original game was shaped due to the constraints.

Either way I just home Hometek does a better job with this than Abyss. Cutting out skit voices for the sake of keeping the game under a single DVD layer was lame and I have a sinking feeling we are going to be screwed out of a dual audio release due to the DVD-9 issue with the Xbox 360.

It was better off that way than them cutting out the skits entirely like they had been doing pre-symphonia/abyss. And I don't think they've ever bothered with a duel audio release before for a Tales game so that shouldn't come across as a massively shocking revelation if it turns out that way yet again, you know?

So to add to the weirdness. Famitsu reported that the director confirmed it is being developed for the Xbox 360, but only for release outside of Japan. The take on this is that either it simply hasn't been announced yet or Japan will not see a ToV release on the Xbox 360 but on another platform.

What? I don't even care anymore. This is stupid. I'm starting to understand why Bandai had to some along a bail them out.

So, the Japs will get the PS3 version, while everyone else will get the 360 Version?

Odd if true. I still want to play the game though.

Woah, weird news there. Then again, it makes sense, due to the 360 still not doing well in Japan.

But, then again, why wouldn't they release the other version outside of Japan? And even though the 360 isn't so hot, why wouldn't it be released in Japan? Wouldn't that make more sense...

I just guess the most important question is.... WHY DOES IT NEED TO ALL BE A SECRET? Geez.

Well I'm pretty confident they are just going to pull another Eternal Sonata on us with this one. The Xbox 360 is going to see a release then they are going to add some more costumes/dungeons/attacks/characters for the later PS3 version.

I'm just going to wait and see Eternal Sonata turns out on the PS3. It could end up being a poor ass quality port and I'll want nothing to do with ToV on the PS3 since its the same engine.

Edit: Officially announced for the 360 today by Namco. The world facepalms.

More fantastic news about this game that I have to vent on.

The game will have DLC allowing you to buy items with real money. They say none of these items will be exclusive to DLC but its just an avenue for people who don't want to look for the items in the game.

Give me a fucking break. We don't need this shit in any form in offline RPGs, but I'm pretty sure I know why this game is showing up on the Xbox 360 now. What a completely lousy business model. I hate Namco.

I'd expect this from EA (paying to unlock cars in whatever rehash racing game there was a shitstorm over), but Namco? Didn't see that coming. That's no DLC. That's paying to cheat. :/

I guess the plethora of overpriced Ace Combat content must be selling better than I thought. I've bought maybe 6 of the 35 or something DLC items for it, so I'm no better, but damn. What a joke.

If this continues, Namco will be worse than EA for marketplace price fixing in no time flat.

As for it being the sole reason for the 360 platform choice? That'd have to be a LOT of increased revenue.

Well DLC itself isn't so bad, and at least with AC6 you are getting some actual new content. This is just paying to get content already in the game easier. It reminds me of the MMO cash-shops -something I absolutely despise. But at least that can be ignored by simply avoiding the games. But to try and push that model onto an offline RPG just sucks.

Oh and the best part is they announced that the game will not have online co-op...you know the one actual worthwhile thing an online connection could add to a game like ToV.

Well, wether or not new content is actually inserted or not was not my point. The price to value ratio for these things is incredibly low, regardless. It seems to me like this is just an extension of the same business model. Whatever trivialities you're getting in return for your couple of bucks is overpriced, regardless. It's the high prices for this content that's annoying me more.

Let's face it, people will buy it regardless if it's new content or on the disc, so I care much more about actually having realistic prices for the value you get back from these purchases. In AC, the skins should be waaaaaay cheaper, and the missions should not be 15 bucks for the whole lot. It's this price fixing which leads to worse and worse content pricing on the marketplace, which worries me. In the future, just how much is Namco and other companies gonna start charging for content with some actual meat to it?

On a side note, one of the recently released missions for AC6 is roughly an MB in size. Considering the others are 5 to 15, this might imply that it too is a simple unlock of included disc content, although I can't be certain. It could just recycle a lot of in game assets. It is suspicious, at least.

IGN: Xbox 360 RPG Press Conference Live Blog

8/7/08 for Japan. "Sometime in August" for North America.








2009 for Europe. Of course. :cmb:

Also a demo this month on the Japanese marketplace. I wonder if it'll be like Eternal Sonata and be the English demo if you download it on a NA 360?

Either way I'll be grabbing it.

Demo's up on JP marketplace. Just downloaded and trying now. I like the main menu music so far. I'll edit in thoughts later.

EDIT #1: Oh shit the demo is in english??!? wtf.

Sounds exactly like Eternal Sonata and, quite honestly, looks a little too much like it, too.

The battle system is standard Tales fare. Maybe you can move around freely (ala Tales of the Abyss and presumably Symphonia 2) later on, but for now the battle system is almost exactly like Tales of Symphonia-- everyone fights on a linear plane that can change depending on what enemy is being targeted.

EDIT: Found free run. Much better, but still the same system I worked the shit out of in Tales of the Abyss.

Most uninteresting entry in the series since Tales of Legendia. I'll hope for the best though, since it's still being made by Tales Studio proper.

Often, the same demo code goes up on both marketplaces, and has the assets for both regions. It just detects your region from your console and displays accordingly. This happens a lot, actually.

Which always makes me wonder why dual langauge demos almost never go up on both marketplaces simultaneously, but 'eh.

Game's pretty fun so far. Like GB said, similar to Abyss, but looks like we trade the aggrivating Luke for another annoying character. Oh well, wouldn't be a Tales game without one.

I thought the demo was okay. It did feel a lot like a sequel to Eternal Sonata (a game that I disliked). Abyss is my favorite Tales game so far (with the best story and character development) and from what I've seen here, this looks like a step back to your usual cookie-cutter JRPG cliches.

The controls were really frustrating. They swapped the special attack/attack buttons and for some reason, the regular attack button is "cancel" in the menu. I can't tell you how many times I ended up closing the menu.

And I really wish Sakuraba would slow down. It seems like every JRPG I play has his boring, drawn-out chord progressions in it.

Hmm, I'm kind of iffed by how it's being released. If anything, I was trying to predict where the Tales series would end up (seeing as I love the series to the fanboy extent), but the 360 was the last place I'd see it be at.

Sounds like they used the Japanese config for combat but the American config for menus. And it looks like I now need a 360.

I didn't like the music very much in the demo. Especially the battle and boss battle music. But other than that, the game seems fine to me.

I've never fully completed or gotten into a Tales of game and I doubt this will be the one to ignite the spark (mainly due to 360-ness, a console that I don't have). But I've been keeping track of this Vesperia one and the screenshots have looked absolutely phenomenal. Music sounds ok, too (but I didn't care for the boss battle theme much) and the gameplay looks solid.

I've been meaning to buy Tales of the Abyss, 'cause that's apparently awesome. If I end up liking that, then I may have to look into this. ^^

My friend brought his 360 over and I told him about it, so he made me setup an account and grab the game.

Music is kind of bland, but the boss battle is a step above the default one in Symphonia. Although it seems like Sakuraba is obviously running out of juice.

Controls are lame, I don't mind the Japanese config, but as least keep it consistent with the menu config. After the second time though I got the hang of it. I managed to do a near infinite chain using Rita and her Burst Arte and linking it into a Fatal Strike after running out of OL. That mini-boss can suck it. Three game overs before I managed to kill him.

Overall it's a nice change. A lot of people seem to be raving on about how it's "Not as cool as Abyss" or "Abyss in HD" though.

This might be the game that finally pushes me to break down and buy a 360, and then start buying other stuff as well.

Yeah, the default configuration is really hurting. A needs to be standard attack, B needs to be block, and X needs to be special attack... basically the configuration style I'm used to from Symphonia. It'd undoubtedly make me suck less at this game.

The boss managed to beat me down my first time through, but I really enjoyed the demo. Music's not bad and I don't see the big deal about the controls either. It took maybe one battle to get the hang of attack and Artes being switched, but it didn't bother me really. There should be an option to change the config in the full version anyway.

I'm just pleased to get another Tales game similar to Abyss' systems and with likable characters. Playing Legendia after Abyss had kinda sapped the excitement over the upcoming Tales games for me until now.

I've always loved the Tales series, since playing Phantasia on the SNES [via emulator, sadly], I think. Actually, that's a lie. I think I played Destiny on PSX first. Either way, I grew to love the Tales series.

With a slight disdain for Legendia. It just didn't grab me like the others did.

Anyway, Vesperia looks fantastic. Not having a 360 kind of sucks in that regard, as it's supposed to be released in August. Maybe somebody will buy me on for my birthday [which is the week before] and I'll get lucky. Heh.

So, not having a 360, I'd still like to preview the music that everyone's been bashing. Is it really that bad? Personally, I think Sakuraba's [sp?] Tales music sounds very similar from game to game... Is it any different this time around?

The music isn't bad at all; just standard RPG fare. It sounds the same as other Tales games to me, but then I don't generally pay much attention to who the composer is unless I happen to know the name already.

I disagree that Tales music sounds the same between games, that may be the effect of its usual unobtrusive genericness as well as the cue/style borrowing Sakuraba does from his other games around the same time.

There are plenty movies of the demo at nicovideo (needs registration, full demo playthrough, battle themes without sfx), I counted 6 pieces:

Title Screen (full): usual supershort orchestra theme, sounds sufficiently nice for what little there is
Field: takes strong cues from Trusty Bell, quality and development are very nice imo
Danger: sounds very annoyingly out of place, bet it's Tamura with his troubles with instrumentation he showcases in Tales since forever (more easily to catch since the move to streamed music in TotA)
Battle: rock theme, nicely mixed similarly to Sakuraba's Kirby remix in SSBB
Boss: only surprise in the demo, Golden Sum cues in a techno electronica style before only used on the Valkyrie Profile Voice Mix album as well as in the ToE arranged track Mid Boss 2 from the Peach Gumi preorder DVD
Cliff: nice use of string ensemble, something Sakuraba usually likes to hide with a louder brass ensemble

So overall considering the circumstances (only 6 tracks while soundtrack is to have 110 plus whatever ToS-R gets, music required to have usual Tales blandness, being rushed unpromoted throwaway work compared to IU and SO4) I like what I heard.

They have a d/l for it on X-Box Live? *Makes note to look for it later. Just got Live about a month ago and I keep forgetting to d/l previews even though my brother does it all the time*

But I imagine it'll be hard to really tell about the story and characters just off a demo. I find it funny the complaints about "not as cool as the Abyss crew" considering when Tales of the Abyss first came out, I heard everyone bitching about how they weren't as cool as the Sypmphonia crew and the same complaints when Symphonia came out about previous Tales games. The only complaints that seem to have stuck are the ones from Tales of Legendia.

And Tales has always had bland music that's neither good nor bad. Just forgettable. I hope that we'll be allowed to set the controls how we want them in the final product. Seems like something that should be included as standard in games like this.

It's not on the US marketplace yet, but you can grab it from the Japanese marketplace using a free Silver account. I have one for grabbing some early demos and other free things from there on the occasion.

Symphonia (the original), Abyss and now Vesperia are all made by the same team, the Namco Tales Studio. It's only Legendia that was made by a totally different team and they are also now developing the Symphonia 2 title for the Wii.

Played the demo, dug it for the most part but something seems off about the battle animations. I can't really place it but it seems to me like the weapons are out of proportion or something and its just throwing the animations off where everything isn't flowing as well as they did in Abyss. Minor complaint mostly over something I'll probably get used to.

I'm just really hoping for a good cast and a massive amounts of side content that made Abyss so awesome.

Hearing that Tales of Symphonia 2 is going to be done by the team that made Legendia worries me. Seeing how I like the original Symphonia as well as Abyss, this gives me high hopes for Vesperia.

Ratatosk is made by an entirely new team, different from Tales Studio and Team Melfes (Legendia).

Well, it's a mix of Namco Tales Studio and a completely new team. They don't have an official name yet.

No Tales Studio members worked on Symphonia 2 as obviously they are working of Vesperia. It was most of Team Melfes and the Soul Caliber Legends team to fill in some gaps. I'm expecting very little from it as they removed the world map which is effectively like removing the linear battle system from a Tales game as far as I'm concerned. It also recently got a 31/40 review making it the lowest rated console Tales game ever and even a point lower than Legendia got.

It's a good thing Vesperia is going to be released soon after Symphona 2 is.

Symphonia 2 was composed mainly by Tales Studio. The people who filled in the gaps were NBGI staff and Mineloader, the developer that also worked on Abyss and Phantasia PSP.

The roles of Character Design, Character Design Support, General Producer ,Producer, Director, Scenario Production Manager, and Scenario Editor were not held by Tales Studio staff, all the other staff roles are.

I'm curious where you are getting this information. You just mentioned the game was mostly composed by Tales Studio but just listed every main role in video game development as being held by someone outside of the Tales Studio staff. Those roles are also all held by the same people who took that roll in Legendia. The only major role I know of that was actually filled by a Tales Studio member is the battle planner so I take my previous comment back that there are no Tales Team members.

Programming was mostly handled by the Soul Caliber Legends team as they had former experience with the platform. If you have information contrary to this I'd love to see it but I think you are confusing the development team with production team. Many Tales Studio members are part of Symphonia 2 production, but production does not deal with design and engineering of video games and the production team was brought on late during Symphonia 2s development in order to wrap up the logistics of getting the game complete and shipped.

Unfortunately, my only source on this information is from the guy who manages and operates a section of his website detailing projects Sakuraba works on (he also transcribes staff lists for almost every tales game, star ocean game, pretty much anything that Sakuraba has ever touched or one of his colleagues has touched, and at times staff lists from series he himself is just interested in transcribing). He is still in the process of transcribing the staff list from ToS-R.

It is possible that I misinterpreted what he was saying though. In which case I will feel stupid and apologize ahead of time!

Getting back on topic. If anyone hasn't noticed Vesperia demo was put up on the US Marketplace yesterday (for those who are too lazy or cannot be bothered to make a JP account). is no longer on the US Marketplace :eye:

Out of all the information I've seen so far, the only thing I do not like is Estelle's hi-ougi confirmed to be the same as Philia's -- Sacred Blame. Or Namco could have put that screen there to screw with me.

Don't know why ToS-R was discussed here instead getting an own thread, but whatever... I've put up the Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk staff list, feel free to decide yourself whether Tales Studio is involved or not.

...I really question Famitsu sometimes.

Regardless, I'm still looking forward to DotNW more than I have any other game before. Symphonia's one of my favorite games. Namco wants to give me a sequel with TotA's graphics and combat system, plus motion-capture cutscenes? Hey, no complaints here. I'll be buying it the day it comes out stateside.

As for Vesperia, I'll get it as soon as I get a 360, which is... Someday. The graphics are gorgeous, the battle system improvements seem like a lot of fun.

You don't need to respond to Cetra's comments, they follow a certain pattern anyway.

That Famitsu review also had very little in the way of complaints with Knight of Ratatosk, which has confused more than a few people who follow Famitsu reviews-- there's no strong indication as to why the score was so "low."

But why are we talking about Symphonia 2 in here? I'm almost positive that a thread was already made for it.

There are no threads for Symphonia 2 or I would happily bitch about it there.

According to Tales of Vesperia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, it's Xbox 360.
sigh... I can't play it... :(

Uh, yeah. That's the console we've been playing the demo on, and such.

For me, this' perfect timing. As I just got a 360 just a week after my birthday.

It looks like they were waiting until E3 to put up the Vesperia demo on the US marketplace. Anyone who hasn't already gotten it by now could get it now, I guess.

There's also a newer trailer up on the Japanese marketplace showing some animated cutscenes, some more ingame scenes, and character Hi-Ougis.

Thanks but no thanks. Why do that when Vesperia is close to being released in North America?

So, if anyone else is having trouble ordering the LE from their local gamestop or EB, it's been found out why.

Most Tales of games would show up as, well, "Tales of XYZ" on the EB database when the employee is doing a search. The regular version of Vesperia shows up like this.

However, the LE is retarded and appears in the system as "Vesperia CE", so your employee is going to have to search for just "Vesperia", not "Tales of". If you went in there asking and the employee couldn't find shit before, this is why.

Do you know how much the Limited Edition is compared with the regular version? or what sort of stuff is included in the LE?

10 extra funbux, and you get a CD and a metal case. The CD is a Tales compilation music CD, with 14 songs from Tales of Vesperia, two from Tales of Phantasia, two from Tales of Destiny, four from Tales of Symphonia and three from Tales of the Abyss.

Not a whole lot, but the case is far nicer looking than the ugly shit that is the regular edition.

http://www.talesbrigade.com/dropbox/Images/ToVSE.jpg

Eh, a CD that I can find uploaded here the day of, a tin that'll take up extra room on the shelf, and a few art pages inserted into the manual. Not worth an extra $10 from me.

Or...not so easy, maybe.

Looks like the SKU has been pulled from GS stores (at least in the States, more on that in a second), and that it's gone to online only, period. People with preorders have reported being called and told their order has been cancelled, and that an interenal GS memo has circulated talking about it.

Rumoured to also be limited to an extreme degree. How extreme, I'm not certain, but I was told the scale might be "hundreds". Not certain if I buy that or not. Seems very un-Namco like. I AM SKEPTICAL.

That said, Canadian EBs STILL HAVE IT in their system. I phoned all of 4 minutes ago and confirmed that it's still in the system under "Vesperia CE", the item number and SKU are still in the system, and that Canadian EBs have recieved no such internal memo. As far as I can tell, we're still getting it in store.

As strange as that all sounds, it's not unprecedented. A similar event happened with the North American release of Electroplankton on the DS. It was online only in the US, but came into stores directly up here. I'm hoping for a repeat scenario here.

I'm also hoping that it doesn't get cancelled at the last fucking second and I'm left looking on eBay for something that might be instantly hard to find. It's a crapshoot though at the moment, NB's doing a horrible job of being forthcoming with info here. The fact that they didn't announce this thing until there was less than a month left until the game's release only goes to illustrate my point. Let alone this other bullshit of who can sell it and how.

I have no idea what you're talking about. As soon as I saw your post about the search, I tried it and nothing existed. Ever. I'm not really sure US GameStop stores have ever had it as an in-store thing. At the very least, no "internal memo" has circulated to stores.

Actually, I checked a couple of days ago and it was listed on the Gamestop website and it never said anything about it being online only.

I notice now that it's missing that little "Available for In-Store Pickup" that it had prior.

Everything I'm operating on is second hand information (as far as the US preorders go), but Daravon's not usually incorrect. He relayed this bit about an internal memo/email/whatever you want to call it to me via email, apparently after asking someone at his local place, who told him about it. I DO know people HAD put down preorders for the thing, and it was under "Vesperia CE".

Here's my receipt.

http://colonelskills.belkanairforce....riareceipt.jpg

Apparently, this was the same item under the same title in the US. But now it's totally been pulled from the system.

There's other GS employees on other forums (I assume Daravon's talking about GAF in this case), that have said the same thing as what I've relayed in the above post.

His quote follows.

I'm not certain if there was an email or not. Perhaps not sent out to every store? Perhaps only to ones with preorders of the thing in the system? I don't fucking know, I'm just guessing now. Perhaps you're both right, fuck if I know.

There is overwhelming evidence that people did have in store preorders at some point, so I'm not sure what's going on. All I know is Canada DOES have it in the system still, and it's looking online only for the US at this moment.

Information is so hazy, it's getting ridiculous. Everyone's saying something different.

So, with that being said, the only thing I can think of is that the "Vesperia CE" SKU was added and then removed the very next day before opening (which would mean it happened during the night's polling process), and no memo was sent out and someone's just out there assuming a memo went out.

Looking over your receipt, there are key differences between yours in O CANADA (lols) and ours in the States. First off, the 7-digit SKU. Anything in a US GameStop store would start with 20 for a new XB360 game, not 614. That was an old EB thing (started at a pre-merger EB store, I did) with 7 digits. And even the "Vesperia CE" was EB -- back then we used as many shortcuts or abbreviations as we could; "FF" instead of "Final Fantasy", etc. GameStop writes out everything, so I'd be pretty confident over something so minor as LAWL IT WOULD BE "TALES OF VESPERIA COLL. ED." U NOOBZ.

So, here's my question -- why haven't the EB stores been brought up to date with GameStop's SKU numbers? Odd. The merger did happen after all.

Yes, I know what position you hold. You talk about it a lot.

GS has never been up here, so it's probably been kept this way for name recognition. The system was probably not revamped, since why bother if you're not really changing the name or merging with the American system? EB Canada is a somewhat seperate corporate entity.

The small time frame is apparently quite possible. This could be the Subsistence LE all over again with multiple fuck ups.

I'm just echoing what I've heard, as it's not just you who's a GS employee and reporting back on this. I've been reading other reports on other forums (CAG/GAF/etc) and it seems like it at least.

NeoGAF - View Single Post - The Official Tales of Vesperia Thread

As just one example. (God, I hate using NeoGAF as a source but 'eh.)

I can't find receipt images for anything but Canadian preorders, but there are plenty of posts of people saying "I managed to preorder it" on various forums like the TalesBrigade. Following guy's location is listed in the US, so.

I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, but what I've posted is what's been reported as well. It very well could have existed in the system for only a few hours. The amount of "It's not in my local place's system" posts outnumber these other ones by about a bajillion to one.

Regardless, the point is that the ball has been dropped pretty hard, and confusion on the issue is pretty much rampant. I don't see why you're harping on the "nuh-uh, no memo 'cause I didn't get one" thing.

I hope Europe are going to get the fancy tin box edition. I do like a bit of unusual packaging so that special games stand out a bit more. I don't like it when the package is just excessively large so that it won't fit on my shelf, but that looks about right... and the first "Tales of..." game on a current generation console is about as special as it gets.

Yeah I don't mean to harp on it so much, it just baffles me quite a bit. Also, I'd like to get the LE of Vesperia myself.

Here it is if anyone wants to preorder it -- http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/Prod...oduct_id=72387

As discussed a few pages ago, Vesperia DLC has now been dropped in Jappo land that allows you to BUY LEVEL UPS. Also in game money. Of course it will come here too, so.

Here's what you can buy!

Sauce

Quite frankly, this is god damn disgusting. Worse than the AC6 shit where you're paying 5 bucks PER MISSION for a difficulty increase, or dropping 10 for a pink airplane with a loli on it. That shit is just useless and overpriced extra shit...this is letting you bypass the point of the game for extra scratch.

Namco is really fucking pushing it here, my GOD.

But look! You get twice as many extra levels for only 100 points more if you just buy the 300 MS Points package. What a bargain!

The people who would buy any of that are pathetic, but compared to a lot of things Namco-Bandai have done in recent years this isn't too bad. At least the game works and it didn't take them twice as long to translate it than it did to make it.

So have they done away with the points you earned in battles to buy this sort of thing at the beginning of New Game+ in other Tales games, or is this just for the cheaters?

No, grade still exists. I imagine it's used for much the same purposes as it has been in the past.

I'm not certain what it's NOT worse than. unlocking content already on the disc and putting up horribly useless content for stupid-high prices is one thing, but actively charging for save file manipulation here is another. What do you think they have done that's worse?

I mean, shit. EA charged for cheats too, but it wasn't like "GIVE GOLFER BETTER STATS". Egad.

I don't really see it as a huge deal. I mean yeah, it's sort of gay to charge for what's essentially save hacking, but at least it's nothing something fun and cool you're missing out on if you don't want to pony up. It's just a couple extra levels, or recipes, or whatever, and that's not hard to do yourself at all.

My complaint is more about the precedent set and price points, and what it means for future content.

The price here is ridiculous, considering what you're getting. The value for your buck is insane, and this is the same problem I've had with Ace Combat. It's McDonalds charging you 80 bucks for an order of a small fries.

While I can't stop idiots from buying things, it makes me wonder just how much they're gonna charge for real, actual content, provided they ever bother to release any. Probably not. Why put effort into it when your bullshit scheme works so well?

It's just an ugly precedent and a horrible business model, and it's insulting to own games made by these folks when this sort of shit goes down. Normally I'm not so easy to hate on this sort of thing, but it's just insulting to even see it offered, let alone at that price point.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I just have a way bigger problem with paying to unlock content already on the disc, for example, 'cause I feel I should have that kind of thing included when I buy the game. I guess it just doesn't bother me because it's something I would never ever even consider paying for, and I think "well, at least it's not actual content they're charging me for."

Though I agree, it is a bit insulting to have someone go "hey man, I'll sell you this cheat code for five bucks." I miss the days of just turning cheats on with button combinations entered at the title screen.

What's "real, actual content"? Another bonus dungeon? Yawn.

Sure. I'd be more willing to pay for that, yeah. Additional quest lines and/or whatever have been offered for relatively decent price points for a number of RPGs now, like LO and BD. Optional content not already on the disc, that only adds to the final experience if you like the game. Something a bit more tangible than a cheat or a mode that's essentially just a damage multiplier.

I guess my issue here is more with the idiots who buy these cheats rather than Namco-Bandai. Sure, they're terrible things to offer at any price point, let alone the crazy ones they set, but I can also just ignore their existance and not miss out on anything. Like Diss said, it's not like we're missing out on any content that should've been put in the game already.

Guh. Buying levels and Gald? No thanks.

It would be amusing to see something like... If someone DOES buy [for example] a bunch of levels, that it displays publicly on their profile or something. A big, glaring 'I CHEATED BUY PAYING MONEY ON THIS GAME' stuck somewhere for everyone to see. :tpg:

Loooool, is this World of Warcraft? I wouldn't mind paying for the additional dungeons for 1,600 MS points, Fucking better rather than this BS.

What now? For $20 I'd expect a hell of a lot more than an extra dungeon or two.

That's exactly my point, though. If it's 4 bucks for cheats, 20 bucks for a dungeon seems like a price you'd expect by comparison.

Really just for the cheaters / extremely lazy people.

There are 18 DLC for this game so far. Four of them are free, two of which are like little starter kits in terms of Gummi and Crafting, the other two are partial skill unlocks for the two main characters.

80MSP - Sample skill unlocks for characters
100MSP - Various little starter kits that give you more than enough of whatever each one offers (unless you suck and go through stuff like a madman)
200MSP - Lv UP +5 (1) and Lv UP +5 (2), only allowed to buy once.
300MSP - 300,000Gald and Lv UP +10, same rules

No word on if all of these specific items will come over as US DLC since Namco is trying to see if anyone in Japan would be willing to buy this as no other company has done this particular type of DLC before on Live (of course I'm not sure how Japan being willing to buy this would mean America is willing to buy as well). Then again I don't go browsing the DLC for every game so I do not know if no one else truly has never put up similar DLC

They will probably release end-game stuff later on (equipment and such) and costumes (titles), since that was also part of their planned DLC releases.

Considering the game, and the fact that you know people out there are going to buy this, you have to wonder when they'll just stop with the Lv UP +x (x) and release a "Beat the Game" DLC for 1000MSP.

The only real reason I'd see for the Lv UPs is for those who are too lazy to grind and want the achievement for hitting the max level. Considering the Tales series though that is something that is really best left for a second playthrough or later and by then the EXP should be adequate enough that you don't even need them.

It really makes you wonder what they would charge for any "actual" content (despite their current stance being they will not release such DLC for Vesperia) should they decide they want to.

What a terrible business model. I'm sick of the nickel and dime BS from Namco to the point that I'm probably just going to stop buying their games. And yes I do realize my actions are insignificant and nobody cares, but fuck it I don't want to the the genre turned into this.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:
http://g.photos.cx/Achievement1-33.png

Good, let it publically show in the profiles if the person is a cheater or not, it will just make it easier to sort out the people that CAN earn everything on their own, and the people that can't. Personally, I can't stand cheats, but to each his/her own I guess.

I don't see why anyone cares if someone goes and pays money to unlock something you can get via playing through the game. Are they spending your money? Stealing your game? Trying to rape your dog or something? Is it a worse game because someone went and bought something you can get on your own anyways?

It seems silly not to buy the game just because someone can unlock something earlier by blowing extra cash on it.

I don't think anyone was talking about not buying the game. I think we're all just various forms of insulted by even having the option, or worried about the precedent, or one of a number of other concerns.

The DLC says nothing really about the actual game's quality, only the state of market. That's what we're all annoyed at more than anything.

Well, Cetra overreacted and said he'd stop buying games from Namco-Bandai altogether, but it's practically an unwritten rule that someone has to toss out the idea of a boycot whenever there's bad news about a game/movie/TV program. It just wouldn't be the internet without alleged boycots and useless petitions.

I enjoyed Symphonia and Abyss, didn't like Legendia all that much. So here's hoping it takes inspiration from the proper source.

As for the market, I'm apathetic. I mean look at what people pay for virtual gear in just about every MMORPG so why should we be shocked that they might do the same for a console RPG? It doesn't detract from my fun so if they want to waste their money I figure let them. The money I don't waste on that can go to other videogames or more likely books.

So, what is the difference between paying cash for extra levels, and paying cash for a walkthrough guidebook?

(And don't tell me it's "effort")

Your parents are less likely to pony up the cash for the former.

All I want to know is how much this is going to make Namco-Bandai compared to the money making machine that was the Idolm@ster DLC.

I don't think anything can make enough money compared to Idolm@ster's monthly 7000MSP (roughly, sometimes less sometimes more) of DLC updates that will never cease until Japan grows tired of lolis.

Can't see how you can say DLC doesn't effect a game. First they are locking content on the disks but I guess nobody here feels that they aren't paying enough for games already.

Then you have this situation. The first week the biggest complaint about the game coming out of Japan is the amount of level grinding people had to do in order to defeat the area bosses. Then a week later you get an announcement like this. Oh but I won't make any accusations because Namcos always followed upstanding business practices.

This isn't some knee-jerk reaction to just this latest move. Namco has been a piece of shit company this entire generation so far and this is just the latest. But whatever. If you want to bend over and give them their money then go ahead. But don't accuse me of being the idiot here.

Seriously? That's fucking stupid. Fuck Namco, I'll just go back to World of Warcraft

:eye:

If I was that offended by stupid DLC I would have started boycotting Namco at Beautiful Katamari. I can't wait to pick this game up tomorrow.

That would involve mentally grouping Cetra as "people" and not "retarded troll", so.

So has anyone's Premium Edition shipped yet? I ordered mine a week and a half ago and it's still listed as Backordered on the order page. Getting kinda worried here that I may not have ordered it soon enough.

It was still in the Canadian system as of yesterday afternoon, so I'm assuming we're getting it in store still.

The online thing on EB has said backordered for a while, but don't they hand out stuff like that first come first served? I'm assuming if you paid for it, they had enough stock to cover that, eh?

Planning to pick this up as well, but didn't see any copies available. So shipping today, I suppose?

Not sure if I wanna get the Premium Edition though.

Well yes, I would assume that. But you did say that it was shipping in extremely limited quantities, and it says Backordered on my invoice/order page in My Account. It's the only reason I'm getting a little on edge about it.

That was my reaction. Cetra must be new to RPGs.

Yeah, the limited quantities thing was something I didn't quite buy when I heard it at first, but if it's sold out already on EB then it might actually be limited. I guess we'll find out soon enough. Still Pre-orderable on Amazon, if that means anything.

Since the GS website rapes on shipping to Canada, I've never had to deal with them having a backordered status on an order page of mine. I really hope you don't get fucked over.

My premium addition is stuck in "verifying" mode.

My order still reads Backordered, and there's a pending charge on my debit card.

Now either this means that they shipped it and failed to update the status, or I'm double fucked. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Indeed. Only regular editions got here today, not the CEs. While this has happened before in more than a few cases (Ace Combat, another Namco game, has had both joystick versions for 5 and 6 delayed for a day to a week up here after the regular edition came out), I'm still somewhat concerned. I hope it just wasn't updated in the system that we aren't getting it, as I was so sure we would be. CONFUSION MAXIMUM.

TALES OF VESPERIA PREMIUM EDIT - Xbox 360 1 1 $69.99 Shipped

About damn time. Hope everyone else's orders ends up getting filled too because word across the net is that the shit is actually becoming very rare to find. Now comes the waiting game.

Hopefully you're right, Skills, cause I can't actually make it out to an EB until Friday. I mean, if they ship the CEs a bit later, hopefully they'll be in by then, and hopefully they haven't sold out by the time I get there.

In any case, if they don't have it, I'll probably shop around a bit to see if other stores do. If not, I'll probably just settle for the regular edition.

Haven't heard anything about Vesperia in any of the Gamestop/EBGames in my area. Checked their website, says that there's nothing within a 100 mile radius of my area, so we're probably getting it late like Persona 3. :mad:

That's weird, all my local EBs and Best Buys don't have it yet either according to their websites. I'm still not sure when I'll buy this anyway since Infinite Undiscovery comes first for me, but this is a pretty confusing release.

I just picked it up today. Though I heard from everywhere that the game pretty much sold out (aside from the preorders). Thank goodness I decided to do so.

Picked mine up today, played through about 5 hours of it just left Halure: No spoilers aside from what's in the manual.

Like:
- Battle system is great. I'm new to the Tales series and if this is anything like what previous ones are, I'll probably be replaying them.
- Cell shading is ballin'. When the hand drawn cutscenes kick in it is not much of a context switch.
- English voice acting is pretty good, actually. Yuri and Estelle are not horrible. I absolutely detest Karol.
- Local multiplayer is a LOT of fun. Seriously, if you have a friend handy try it out.
- Good tutorial system without any of the characters actually saying shit like "You can find out more about your gear by choosing Equipment from the Main Menu!"
- Repede is fucking awesome even though he does not smoke.
- So far, Yuri does not seem to be either Tidus, Cloud or Squall.
- The Skit system is pretty cool too. Unsure if this is something that's in other Tales games.

Dislikes:
- The first boss was tough to beat. I think on my second play through I won't have much trouble, but at that point I was still pretty new to how the battle system worked and he had a LOT of HP. Grinding on the guards for about half an hour and leveling up helped. Were I play testing I'd suggest triggering the cinematic event in that fight earlier, or giving players a mini-boss to fight to get their sea legs a bit, or just bringing Estelle in to the fight from the beginning and ramping up the difficulty even more.
- The manual is full of engrish and is fucking useless. Often leaves you scratching your head and only more confused when trying to figure out a particular screen or battle command. For example, still have not figured out how to target healing spells to other player characters. Setting Estelle on auto fixes this, but it's still annoying.
- A couple instances of some pretty bad engrish in the Strategy system.
- Repede is a horrible translation of the name "Rapido" (hez fast geddit)
- Karol is fucking annoying and I want him to die almost as much as I wanted Junior in Xenosaga to die.



So far, a 4.75 PREPARE TO DIE EGGBEARS out of 5. Perhaps the TL errors and Karol will be removed in a future patch. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes anime, RPG fan or not.

BUT IT WAS LIKE POW! AND THEN LIKE BANG! AND THEN LIKE WHOOSH!

No but really, I kicked Karol out of my party the instant I got Rita.

While the regular version of the game is currently out (and out of stock) in my area, the collector's edition will come tomorrow (which is the one I preordered) so nothing for me at the moment.

I should replay the demo again though. Demo boss kicked my ass; time to figure out a strategy of some sort so I can net him in one go.

Picked up the game earlier today. So far so good. Can't comment on the story so far as I'm barely a couple of hours in but I'm enjoying the game so far.

Well, I broke down and bought Vesperia today. I made the fatal mistake of listening to some Tales of the Abyss music and remembering just how much I loved that game. Apparently my Best Buy didn't get their shipment in until 3:45 today, but luckily I wasn't able to get there until 4pm anyway.

I've been hooked on it all night, and so far my only complaint is how the combat feels a bit awkward. Then I remembered that Abyss did too until you learned some skills, and I like Vesperia's weapon artes system to learn those skills from equipment. I was very happy to see Backstep as my first one, since I used to use that constantly.

I got my premium edition today. Still at work so I haven't played the game yet. But I can tell you what is different in the US premium edition copy:

*No French text on the back of the game or inside the manual. I like because bilingual manuals are suck
*Cover art is much much better. The original cover art can be seen inside the tin case under the manual
*Manual has nice artwork after the credits that go on for 14 pages
*Back of manual has track listings that are inaccurate. An additional sheet of paper with corrections is inserted
*Soundtrack cd of course. 3 tracks were removed which the correction sheet explains why

Worth the extra 10 bucks? For me, yes. I hate crappy covers and bilingual cases\manuals and the packaging is 10 times better. Soundtrack includes remastered and extended versions of the listed songs for a higher quality music.

Just picked mine up today as well. If I'm bored enough, would I pick up the Premium Edition? Sure, but I'll settle for the Standard version for now. Haven't popped it in yet, but looking forward to playing it.

Premium Edition GET!

I think I got the last copy in the city. I checked ALL OVER and finally made it to EB, and saw two left in the case. There was a long line-up, and there was one guy 4 or 5 ahead of me that bought one. I was lucky enough to get the last one, though. They had a bunch of the Standard Edition, but I wanted the Special one. I probably won't get to play until tomorrow, though. My brother is hogging the TV. D:

I'm loving this game. I haven't been able to play much the first couple days, but got around to playing 4-5 hours today. So far this is the best jRPG on the 360 so far IMO. But I love Tales games anyway, so no surprise here.

Man, if the terrible Gamestop droolmop had told me there was a premium edition for only $10 more, I definitely would have gotten it.

Fuckers.

It was online only in the states, ramoth. You'd have had to get it from their website.

Glad to see that the XBL content doesn't involve level-buying. Not yet, anyway. I grabbed the free packs for the starter items and skills, though. Not sure if I'm going to use them, but I downloaded them just in case.

What exactly do those "trial skill" packs do? It seems silly to download them if they're only temporary. I downloaded the gel pack for kicks since extra gels are no big deal, but it doesn't seem like they're in my inventory now.

I'm trying to figure this out as well.

Uh, they aren't? You use them, they add a handful of skills to your characters you'd otherwise have to learn the hard way. Poor wording on Namco's part, though.

Anyway, go to your items and scroll all the way to the right. There's an Xbox Live section there. The downloadable stuff appears as items you have to use there to get the benefits.

It's a free version of the more expensive cheats on the japanese marketplace, which work the same way. I hope no one uses these just 'cause they're free.

That's really strange wording then. I don't mind getting the gels since, well, they're just gels. Downloading the skills is a bit cheap though, so I won't be doing that. A lot of them seem to be stuff you learn early on anyway. Why would anyone need to download Backstep?

Yuri gets a decent skill [hp+200] in his skill package, but other than that they seem pretty trivial.

I don't see why people have issues with DLC where you upgrade levels. It isn't like they are forcing you to buy it. Maybe some people have to work a lot and go to school and don't have a lot of time to grind levels. I personally have no problem with it.

They are gonna use em though, y'know why? Cause they're a buncha whiners. Buncha BARF BABIES.

Oh for pete's sake, they're free, and they add basic stuff from the beginning of the game. I thought your whole beef with the DLC was the Namco was profiting off of people's laziness. If Namco wants to give us some content for free, what's the harm?

Just beat that wolf-type monster in Ehmead Hill. Dunno about you guys but for me, that was a fairly difficult battle, even hitting Over Limit as often as I could. I had done only minimal level grinding (was at 16 before hand) and totally got my ass handed to me. Even when I rose to level 18 before the fight it was still crazy hard.

I made the mistake of letting my brother rent Devil May Cry 4 yesterday... I probably won't be able to touch Vesperia for a week. :gonk: ...Well, it IS my console, so I'll just kick him off after a while. :3:

Anyway, I just got Rita, and I'm on my way to the ruins. I actually explored a little before going to Aspio, so I've been to the ruins already, but there wasn't really anything there. I guess I need Rita to do whatever it is I need to do there. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game so far, though.

http://oic.houyokusen.com/vesperiaget.jpg

Last copy.

I had to stalk some guy who had three in his arms because I couldn't see any copies of Vesperia anywhere, and plus I wondered what game someone would want three of.

Apparently Fry's Electronics has them, but the one here only had four and did not put them out until someone asked if they had any.

I don't have the time to get into this game right now though, so it'll have to wait for the next weekend or somewhere along there. Nevermind, getting annoyed by Castle Crashers and I need a break from it.

Yeah, that wolf boss was tough. I was only at 15-16 when I fought him and I probably would've lost if I hadn't already fought him twice in the demo (died the first time, but refused to lose to a demo boss). I just made it to Capua Torim and I think so far Zagi is still the hardest, though.

One of the reasons why that boss was fairly difficult was because of the situation of having a high attack rating along with being able to string multiple moves in a short amount of time. I've had a situation where it just took down 2 of my characters in one go, because it did a bite attack, and then immediately after it decided to do a swing around, and then charge while they were stunned.

Though employing the use of the flowers around in the field makes a complete difference. Sure the possibility of having yourself stunned along with the boss, but during that time, the rest of your group can hammer on damage without worry.

Keep in mind there's a title (and therefore, achievement and completionism thing) for doing all the secret missions in ONE PLAYTHROUGH, so getting all of them over the course of two ain't gonna cut it.

I just left Ehmead Hill, and yeah. That wolf boss beat me down the first time. I tried again right away though, and managed to take him down. Only level 14-15 too, I think. A few close calls, but I got it.

Also, I assume the Secret Mission Achievements are listed in order? If so, I've got all three so far.

Achievements numbered 27 through 49 inclusive are all secret mission achievements, so there's 23 of 'em. 50 is the 0 point VESPERIA MASTER achievement.

I mean, do the secret missions appear in order by number in the game? I won't run into say, secret mission 7 before secret mission 6?

Well, no. That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense now, would it, especially in a really linear game such as this? They are numbered chronologically as you encounter them. You miss one, you've missed it, period.

I didn't really expect to get too many achievements out of Vesperia anyway, considering there are always a few really easy to miss titles/skits/items. The secret missions are nifty, though I wish the game told you about them at the first boss rather than waiting until you've gotten one. I only discovered them because I saw Skills had 5 achievement points, but I was farther along than him.

It's something you have to plan for. It will take at least 2 or 3 runs to 1000 it. Maybe more depending on how you handle specific achievements.

Some of the tricky achievements and titles have little tricks to them though which make them not as painful.

A lot of events in the game have a tiny time-frame and are easily missed by not sleeping at every Inn twice or using particular party setups in certain places.

Does anyone know what items like Glasses and Sunglasses do? They're listed as key items, but marked for certain people and they don't seem to be equippable or change appearance in battle.

Menu -> Status -> Attachment

?

Ah, that works. I completely forgot about the attachment slot under character details.

Any word on an OST being ripped or released? Did it come with the LE?

LE's bonuses are shit.

Kinda. Although it doesn't have what you're looking for.

Anyway, the soundtrack has been out since August 20th. I believe it has already been recently released by #gamemp3s

It (the torrent) also has the recent Tales of Series Battle Arrange Tracks, which contains some neat remixes of you know, battle tracks.

The Tales Series Battle Arrange Tracks is a totally different CD from what you get in the LE. You get the 'Tales 10th Anniversary Soundtrack Vol. 1', which is mostly music from Vesperia, but has tracks from Phantasia, Destiny, Symphonia, and Abyss as well.

I can make a rip of it in the morning when I'm not so tired, and I know what I'm actually doing. I'll let you know when it's done.

Well as you can see, it contains 22 tracks total: 12 from Vesperia, 2 from Phantasia, 2 from Destiny, 4 from Symphonia, and 2 from Abyss.

They attached this on a piece of paper track list with a reason for removing three tracks from the original cd (2 vesperia and 1 abyss ).

It also goes to a website for SOMETHING SPECIAL



The previous tales series tracks are as is from their respective versions, while the Vesperia tracks are "extended and remastered"

Yep. I've just ripped it, and I was lucky enough that it was pre-tagged. The only thing missing was the album art, so I grabbed your CD scan from VGMdb, Lace. Saves me from scanning it myself. Hope you don't mind. :3:

Anyway, for those who didn't get the LE and want the extra soundtrack, check out my journal. I don't want to derail the thread with it.

> link

Sorry you're not allowed to use my scan :mad:

I kid.

Anyway, anyone who is trying to follow the guide (or anything about buying it) should be wary that it is missing quite a bit of information, and lacking in quite a few areas. They also have incorrect information regarding how to complete some secret missions and stuff.

The bad print edition might also still be floating around too. It skips 30~40 pages due to a screw up and instead repeats the past 30-40 pages again.

Cooking is somewhat different this time around, since while you get some recipes from the amazing Wonder Chef, a good chunk of them come from your party members becoming quite proficient in a certain recipe themselves.

Also used the free packages I had from the Japanese DLC, and while some of the skill trials are useful, they are mostly worthless in Hard Mode.

Is it just me or is Type C font the only good font?

I checked out the other two fonts, and... Well, I didn't like the B-font at all, and found the C-font to be too big for my liking. I just stuck with the default one.

As for cooking--I know you can get new recipes by being proficient and such, but does it have to be a specific character, or can you use any of them?

Well, the titles for cooking masters luckily this time around are given in a set, so you can have just one person master all the recipes.

Earning them however, is based on a specific character mastering a specific recipe.

Like Estelle becoming so good at Sandwiches you get Rice Balls. Yuri + Rice Balls = Beef Bowl. Karol + Beef Bowl = Omelette Rice

As an aside, some Artes have hidden properties to them that become stronger the more uses that Arte has (some skills require 999 uses). This isn't documented in the guide though.

Ouch. I knew about the cooking titles, so I've been only cooking with Yuri. I had a feeling I should've mixed it up a little. Damn.

The good thing I guess is not all recipes have to actually be Master! mastered, but at least near mastery.

There is also some guy hacking Vesperia. Don't know how, don't know if Namco intends to fix or ban him (all of Japan has been reporting him like what).

He basically got all the hard / endgame achievements without even being a few hours into the game (this includes somehow setting a record for beating the game at 0.00 but not having an achievement for beating the game).



All DLC can be used once per play-through. Obviously some stuff has no point after the first use, but some stuff does.

If there wasn't an option to carry over your entire inventory (except valuables) to the next game then the Gald might have some value there.

So I was thinking about getting this but I'm not really sure about a couple of things, for starters, can anyone tell me how this stacks up against the previous Tales games like Symphonia or Abyss? Also, are there any new features besides the unlockable content you can get online?

It's basically Abyss enhanced. The biggest improvement I've noticed (aside from the world map not being a glitchy mess) is that you learn battle skills from your weapons and sub equipment rather than seemingly at random. Also, you can synthesize equipment in shops now, and some of it is solely for appearance changing stuff like hats and glasses.

Plot-wise the game starts out a lot better than Abyss. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but the first 10 hours or so of Abyss weren't that great. Vesperia starts off good and hasn't slowed down yet where I'm at (roughly 25% complete).

I know I should have asked this with the previous questions too, but, how is the music on this game so far? Does it resemble any of the other Tales games or does it have it's own style so far?

Are you asking if a Sakuraba composed soundtrack sounds different from other Sakuraba composed soundtracks?

Really now?

Sure, it's easy to tell when you're listening to Sakuraba, but he does have many different styles. For example; Tales of Symphonia sounds completely different then Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean sounds different then Baten Kaitos, there are HUGE differences in the soundtracks. I just wanted to know what style he was going with on this game. I guess someone that doesn't listen to Sakuraba or any other VGM wouldn't be able to notice the difference.

Just because he uses different instruments doesn't mean the songs themselves are any different. The man has all the compositional variety of a fucking dildo.

I disagree, I've played a few games that he's done compositions for and they all have their own style in my opinion as well. True that you can tell when he's the one doing the composing, but he has plenty of variety when it comes down to his music.

This just in, I don't listen to VGM. At all. No sir. Nope. Not me. None at all.

Tales of Sakuraba style.

http://i37.tinypic.com/28rfs7l.png

From the studio that brought you "I've heard this depressing song somewhere before" and "this piece reminds me of when I stubbed my toe on the wall"

It sounds pretty much like your typical Tales game, Sakuraba on auto-pilot. Abyss was a relative step up but aside from one or two town themes, Vesperia is back to being musical wallpaper.

I like Vesperia a fair amount... but halfway through (27 hours) and the story hasn't grabbed me nearly as much as Abyss' did. The characters are a pretty good bunch (and the voiced skits help a LOT) but the motivation is lacking and the villains are straight from the JRPG trash-bin.

Ah well. Could be worse. Could be Gongora.

I'm 20 hours in and Vesperia's music sounds exactly like Eternal Sonata's.

I like the story, characters and dialogue so far. It's a great change from the banal stupidity that was Lost Odyssey.

A bit of a bump to this thread, but it seems the game is finally going to be seeing a release in Europe this year... in June. -_-

[ source ]

Well... I'm doing the happy dance!

The delay will give them time to localize the plot.

Officially time to change this from 360 to Multi. It's been rumored since last year, but it's official now.

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/3381/fnwlu0.jpg

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/1038/tovps3.jpg

(Bottom portions of both images)

IGN
Kombo
PS3Fanboy

So far, the only thing that appears to be new is the inclusion of the blond-haired pirate girl as a playable character. Apparently she has knives and guns, and she talks like an "old person" in the Japanese release of the game. I take it that means she talks in a mature tone rather than being voiced by an old lady.

No US or EU release info yet.

While I'm glad that PS3 owners will be able to have another JRPG title to mess around with, I'm also quite bothered by the fact that 360 owners who bought and supported the title from day one are getting shafted by a PS3 re-release. To me this is really a dangerous precedent, one that has me on the ropes about ever buying a JRPG release on the 360 again due to a superior version popping up on the PS3 so quickly. If they plan to release multi-platform, then finish the game so both systems can equally get what the disc can't hold via 360 release + free DLC and the PS3 release.

Should I ever buy a PS3 now, and I end up buying the PS3 release of Vesperia, I'll have forked over an additional $69 (because you know there's gonna be another special edition) in order to play the game the way it was meant to be played originally.

Again, I'm not saying PS3 owners shouldn't get the game, but it sucks that 360 owners will miss out on extra content because we beta tested their game.

Haven't read much on it, but maybe they will release it as DLC on 360 for a................price

Provided it releases as an expansion pack of sorts, 800 points really isn't too much of an issue should it come to that. Better than buying the entire game again, that's for sure. A lot of us with Elites still have 80GB+ available on our HDs, more than enough to carry that kind of content.

I'm sure they'd rather just have us buy the game again though, which is fucking sad.

As a tales of fan and a ps3 owner I'm really excited about a ps3 release and even more that it's an upgrade version. I can easily understand the anger of the 360 version owner, especialy since one of the major change is that the whole game will be fully voiced and that they are changing or adding story content that ties with the upcoming Anime.

Apparantly the additional voice script is as long as the original version, and for that I doubt they could add them in DLC on 360, but the new character, subplots and outfits probably.

Now I'm looking at the movie as a 90 minute ad for the PS3 game. :eye:

Oh well, I'll watch the movie and nab the PS3 version if it ever lands in the bargain bin.

Not to say that I'm not excited by the PS3 rerelease, but let it be known that I do have the 360 version as well. Same thing for Eternal Sonata.

Ultimately this is just another way for developers to make their money. I don't see this as really being any different from the content Fallout 3 got only on the 360/PC version or GTA: Lost and Damned. Exclusive content on one console (especially DLC news released after the game's release) is a shitty, but albeit successful, way of getting more cash monies.

Fully voiced scenes are not that enticing to most players, honestly. You have some hardcore shut-ins who crave voice to accompany each word of text, but the vaaast majority are content with voices during important story sequences. If anyone is miffed (and that's the most severe degree of anger anyone should be feeling for this slightly-enhanced version), it's from the new character and possibly new outfits if they turn out decent. I want a theoretical Yuri Brigade outfit, and not that crappy True Knight one.

I'm pleased PS3 owners will get a chance to play this though, as it's easily the best entry in the Tales series. Maaaybe Tales of Rebirth is better, but it's a close call and a moot point for North American players.

Yeesh, for me the less voice acting there is the better. Obviously no company is ever going to bother re-dubbing a game from the US version for the European game and the vast majority of Japanese games use either American voices or American actors doing shoddy English accents which just doesn't sit right for me, given that my internal voice when reading all the ready bits is doing so with an English accent. Also, the slight differences between American and English pronounciation of certain words can be really grating. I actually wish more games had the option to turn off voice acting in the same way they have the option to turn on subtitles.

Tales 10th Anniversary

The 360 special edition bonus that goes with the promotional code in the manual has been revealed as a "limited run" Volume 2 version of the Tales 10th Anniversary soundtrack CD. If you bought a special edition, head on over there and sign up with your code to get your soundtrack.

I'm disappointed as hell to be honest, I'd rather have gotten DLC that either unlocked Patty Fleur (she's on the disc) or DLC that unlocked the Japanese audio track (it's also on the disc lol), but instead we're given something that'll gather dust on the shelf. Well whatever. Free is free.

Have they proven actual character/battle data for Patty is in the game? Last I saw, they had only proven her name was in it.

I'm not sure whether or not her character or battle data is on the disc. It's pretty safe to assume that if they can leave an entire audio track on the disc and not say anything, that her data has to be in there somewhere.

I am a little bitter, would have been nice to save the money I spent for the PS3 release down the line when I eventually pick one up rather than have to buy it twice if I want to enjoy the extras.

At first glance I didn't think the changes were all that big, at least not enough to justify all the bitching that has been going down by Xbox Owners. However I can relate, and understand how they feel since the game has a ton of extra features.

2 playable characters not in the first make of the game? New cutscenes and skits to accomdate those characters? New sidequests? New dungeon and areas? Tales of the Abyss style costumes?

I still don't think people should be complaining so much, if it was announced at the time of release that a PS3 port would happen with extra stuff...people would still of bought the X360 version just because of how long the wait was. The only thing they have room to complain about is that the content wont be available to them. Kinda sucks but oh well.

Kind of expected it considering it is Namco and looking back at Symphonia.

Anyway, there is another trailer up new hi-ougis and whatnot.

YouTube Video

edit: and just as I was about to ask if anyone got their promotional cd from the LE, I check my mail and get a giant envelope.

http://oic.houyokusen.com/P7060164.jpg

Pity they can't at least make it downloadable content. Say $10 to get everything. Costs 360 owners a bit more but at least they can get everything without having to pay another $60 for the game.

I think the DLC would really be hard to code in. I think alot of the main story has changed, to accommadate an addition two more party members. I could be wrong, but it seems that its not as simple as just adding costumes or a few spells.

Then are you stuck with "Well why not just release that version on the 360 too"?. You could, but chances are it will have a 59.99 price tag on the ps3, how butthurt would X360 only owners be about that? Then make it 29.99 on x360? Then PS3 owners are butthurt over paying twice the amount. You can't please everyone.

Edit:
The JAP boxart on the ps3 version is terrible, I mean if it got localized I would be too happy to care...but looking at it right now is like /cringe.

Who is this second party member? Maybe I've missed it, but all the stuff I've seen has only shown that pirate girl.

If I wasn't already on a third (well, 3.5) playthrough to finish up getting everything, I would probably buy those Abyss outfits as DLC. I don't really care about any of the other stuff shown since I rarely use Mystic or Burst artes anyway, but I do love a good costume. Maybe if they released them very soon, but that's not going to happen.

Flynn Scifo is the second playable character added for the port. Sort of disappointing, in a small way.

I mean, yeah, it's nice that the second character's not a child-pirate or something similarly retarded, but I like Flynn more as the "ally working behind the scenes" type role they put him in. It was nice to have a story where a character was helping the party significantly without having to be up front fighting the bad guys with them.

On the other hand, Dual Hi-ougi with Yuri. Balances out.

Yeah, that's kinda weird that they've made Flynn playable. I mean, I kept expecting him to join me for awhile my first time through the game, but I liked how he had his own party going around the world fixing things. If he's with you, then where does that leave Sodia and Witcher?

I think it depends on when he joins you. Joining you at Dahngrest which was shown in the preview makes sense, he could come along to stop whatshisface. Maybe have him join temporarily in other spots in the game before finally joining up permanantly after Aurion is built. It wouldnt be contradicting since Witcher and Sodia aren't really doing anything by the point anyway.

This probably doesn't really have a good place in this thread but as I look at that trailer above I can't help but wonder why Eternal Sonata's rather jerky/robotic facial and body animations still exist. These games that Namco puts out are gorgeous to look at but the characters just don't move with the same quality as everything else in the game. I just wish they'd put more effort into that. I know it can be done and that they have the talent.

I still haven't received mine... I'm hoping it didn't get lost in the mail or something. Our apartment is weird like that; we often get mail for several people who lived here years ago... Even some with (apparently) no last names.

Also, it would nice to get the new stuff as DLC, but as stated above, it probably wouldn't be that easy, especially if it plays with the actual story. I think.

If it's not an unlock code, it won't be DLC. That's just how Namco-Bandai rolls.

There were some people who got it in May, and some who still haven't gotten it. All you can do is pray?

I don't have a PS3, but if I did, I might buy it to compare to the 360 version.

However, from what I saw from the preview, I think I would have been disappointed.

One of the main storylines of the 360 is Yuri trying to be better than Flynn. He keeps calling Flynn "The Great Flynn." Throughout the game, Flynn is one step ahead of Yuri. Until Flynn needs Yuri's help. And THAT's the only time they work together. To me, that makes more sense than what the PS3 version looks like.

Yeah, there are very few places in the game where Flynn could join the party and it not lessen the impact of that portion of the story. Hell, without serious retooling it wouldn't even make sense for him to be with you most of the game due to his knightly duties.

LOL. True. That would definitely change things around a bit. But, what if that were done somewhere in the middle of the game?

I officially hate PS3 owners now.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...0x_sgtfrog.jpg

I have high doubts that will make it to the US version with all the licensing crap. Funimation could be hardly bothered for a cameo appearance when they're having a hard enough time getting the show off the ground. But stranger things have happened. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is supposedly coming over here after all.

Oh man, first the Tales of the Abyss costumes and now this. I would replay Vesperia for a fourth time just to play as Sgt. Frog. It's not even a huge stretch since Karol already gets that frog costume title from the play. You'd think with all the utterly useless DLC Namco-Bandai shoved onto the 360 marketplace we would've gotten at least one cool thing like this.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom has its own bad news with the loss of Phoenix Wright, though. He actually would've been enough of a reason for me to buy the game, and I'm not a big fan of 2D fighters.

Given that the PS3 is region-free, and I've already played the game (so I don't really need it in English), it wouldn't be a gigantic stretch just to import it (if I had a PS3). Besides, I've only heard Keroro Gunso in Japanese anyway, so hearing him in English wouldn't be as special.

Tales of Vesperia PS3 adds funny hats, masks, catgirl outfits

http://www.rpgland.com/content/media...vesperia09.jpg
http://www.rpgland.com/content/media...vesperia06.jpg
http://www.rpgland.com/content/media...vesperia03.jpg

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz KARORU~~~~~~~

YouTube Video

Also, bounce, moe twinkle, finger point, and other stuff.

Too bad Namco is all "lol fuck america ^^" about the thing.

edit: http://i26.tinypic.com/2wd8x9d.gif

It's getting slightly ridiculous :tpg:
Reindeer costumes and the ability to run around as the wolf, really?
Furry demographic = satisfied, I guess.