Acid Rounds: Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360)

Acid rounds is a semi regular, irregular spot on TGAM for games we have beasted from start to finish.

Cunzy1 1: Oh no,never heard of this, is this one of your little girl games again? How old are the protagonists?
Richie: Whit I talked about this 10 years ago, do you ever pay attention to me?!!? 

http://www.thatguys.co.uk/2009/08/namco-bandi-might-be-new-capcom.html

Also No! What! Um, no the characters and ages are:

 Yuri Lowell - 21

Estellise Sidos Heurassein (Estelle) - 18

Flynn Scifo - 21

Repede - 4

Karol Capel - 12

Rita Mordio - 15

Raven - 35

Judith - 19

This puts everyone's average age (including the dog) at a legal over 18, That being said my favourite character is Rita *Distant sirens*. Rita is the mage of the group excelling in battle by keeping to the back, throwing damage dealing fireballs and AoE spells the other characters tend to get a bit more in your face and melee-ish I found the game more fun to leave the AI to do that and I can fuck-shit-up from the back. My other "main" in this game was Estelle, the pink haired princess, a weird mix of Melee and healing!

Cunzy1 1: Confession time! I've never really been into little girl games, so I've been assuming that all the Tales Of... games are part of a massive franchise I've never interacted with. Is this part of a franchise and it it in anyway related to Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Rays etc. or is it just generic titling?
Richie: Yes and no, there is an aesthetic that runs through these, "Tales of" games. Characters are generally unmistakable as "Tales of" but there has only been a few true sequels in the series. To be honest there are occasional callbacks, like in Verperia there was an Arena which brought a couple of old chars into the fray for a battle, which was more of a nod than anything.They tend to be their own entities.

Cunzy1 1: When did it come out, what's the genre, platform you played it on and basic premise?
Richie: 
Boom - 10 years ago, 
Boom - JRPG, (with no turnbased fighting!) 
Boom - Xbox 360
Boom - Bunch of misfits with talents try to save the world.

Cunzy1 1: You beasted this bad boy! How long did it take and would you ever replay it?
Richie: Like 100 hours for all the side quests and stuff, NOT including the New Game + stuff. I would love to replay it, fresh eyes and new perspective, but the sad truth is I have other Tales of games to play... Fuck you Steam library...

Cunzy1 1: Sell this game to me. Why'd you like it? How did it sell?
Richie: Right, imagine an Anime series, that has a 40 hour episide, that you can dip in and out of and expand on the character and flavours increasing the length of that episode. 

Like Bandersnatch but with more bouncy anime boobs.

Cunzy1 1: If you had to break it down what would you say, Tales of Vesperia: Come for the XXXX stay for the XXXX?
Richie: Oooft... Come for the epic JRPG journey, stay for the characters and their plight and the bonds you have made with them, stay extra long and delve into the battle mechanics.

Cunzy1 1: The 360 was ageeees ago. Surely this has been sequelised, remastered and released on mobile right? Does it hold up today?
Richie:Yeah I mean it like JUST came out again for pretty much all platforms, this time as an extended edition with loads of other stuff in it (see linky above from 2009) including (you will be happy to hear) a 14 year old girl Patty Fleur. 
That being said Yuri, Estelle and Flynn have all appeared in the best games on the 3DS Project X Zone and Project X Zone 2. And I think there was some awful super monitization mobile titles: Tales of Microtransactions or something that featured some of the Versperians.

Love and Judith #bestwaifu,

Richie X