Game Review | Tales Of Hearts R
I’ve been playing Tales of Hearts R for quite sometime, and so I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally completed it, Once. R is a PS Vita exclusive RPG that is a remaster of the original Tales of hearts that was released exclusively in japan for the Nintendo DS. The remaster is exactly that, a remaster. it’s primarily the same story, but everything else has been rebuilt. That includes the character models, towns, some additional bosses, new skits and most of all an over world. The original did not include an over world. It may not seem like a big deal, but having an over world in a tales game is a huge plus. It adds that feeling of adventure to the mix and allows for the player to become even more immersed in the game.
OK so I won’t try the break the mold by writing my own version of what the story is about, no that just seems redundant and so i’ll just copy and past a bit from Wikipedia for those of you that wish to know what it’s supposed to be about and that way I can focus on sharing with you my actual thoughts on the game.
Kor Meteor, a young man living on a remote island with his grandfather Sydan and being trained as a Somatic, encounters Kohaku and Hisui Hearts outside his village: they are fleeing from the female mechanoid Incarose and are seeking a Soma.
When I first got TOH on my Vita I was overjoyed. I’m a huge tales fan and I try to play as much of these games as I possibly can. I even ranked it 7th on my top 10 most accessible RPG list, and in that article I mentioned that I consider the Tales series to be among my top two RPG series. A statement that I stand by even more so now that I have completed Hearts R.
The story in the game was pretty much what I expected. Its a soft mushy story about love, loss and all sorts of anime styled cliches. It’s not deep or confusing as most games in the JRPG genre are, and thats a good thing. It meant that I could put down the game for a few weeks and pick it back up again and continue enjoying the adventure as if I hadn’t left, and that made it a refreshing experience for me. I’m so accustomed to leaving games and coming back sometime after only to realize that I can’t remember what the story is about or who that bloke is asking me to go to “town B”, and then being drawn into battle where I die because I don’t know what the frak kind of controls i’m supposed to use or how to make use of the customization I made to my character. That never happened with R, and that is why it was so refreshing.
By the time the credits rolled my character was level 100 and I had pretty much maxed out level 17 in my soma (a skill tree system). I had more money than I knew what to do with (as i usually do in RPGs), and most of my main 4 characters had pretty high bonds with each other. All in all I did pretty well if I do say so myself.
The game’s great real time battle system made grinding not much of a chore and if it ever became too much there’s even an option to have the characters fight on auto. Developer Namco Bandai have thought of not just how to make battles accessible, but also everything else as well in the game. Almost everything can be customized, from what your companions do in battle to the way in which you consume story content. It’s all pretty much up to you how you want to play. That freedom is one of those many reasons that tales games are so fun.
The music was also spot on, managing to get a reaction out of me in the saddest moments and then making me smile whenever Beryl had one of her crazy moments.It has some nice music for the over world/battles, which was good enough for me to keep listening to it for most of my 80+ hrs of playtime. If it were terrible or annoying in any way I would have either switched it off or not complete the game all together. I have quite some games because they didn’t have a good music in the past.
With all the great things I can say about the great music, I can safely say that Heats R is not gonna win any awards for graphics, but it doesn’t have to. Its a game that seeks to replicate the look of an anime. To get look like an anime artists don’t have to add much graphical effects, and *NB Have been making these games for so long that it’s almost nostalgic the way they all look so visually similar, unlike other big name JRPG series like Final Fantasy where each game looks graphically different. They have managed to give the Tales of games a very identifiable look, and this game is no different. It looks like what you’d expect a tales of game to look like. The game uses both in engine rendered cut-scenes, still anime styled images with txt and pop up heads to tell the story. This mixture of three different styles manages to keep the story interesting and refreshing throughout the many hrs you would have to play to complete it.
*Namco Baindai
Tales of Hearts R is all in all a pretty good JRPG that I would recommend to anyone that is a fan of this genre or maybe interested in getting involved in these types of games. It’s not as convoluted as other JRPGs, while managing to still have the soul and feel that only these kinds of games can offer.
However with all my praise you may assume that this game has not flaws and that would be an incorrect assumption. Developer, Namco Bandai did not up date all the anime cut-scenes to fill the entire vita screen and they have been getting more and more ridiculous with their DLC content with each new game they publish. Borderline on the same territory as EA, a publisher that is not regraded highly in the video game industry.
In past Tales of games it was possible collecting titles by playing the game to get all the costumes, which helped the player work towards something and in so doing get the most out of the games. Titles are still a feature in the newer games, but they have only about 3-4 costumes per character and then the rest is DLC, and as you’d expect in this kind of situation, most of the more interesting ones are locked behind the paywall. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d not mind DLC if it added to the fundamental functions of the game, but this is just visual eye candy. There is also the price to think about. When you put DLC at $2.45 USD per costume, and $15 per bundle you risk alienating some of us fans. It makes us loose trust in the developer and slowly we may end up pulling away.
As a fan I will continue to support the tales of series as long as possible as it’s one of my favorite RPG series, but I will not be buying any DLC for any of them unless Namco Bandai make them more practical or cost effective.
if you’d like to hear more of my thoughts on this topic, then I suggest you listen to the Buttonsmashers podcast.
