#wow suu talks about a 10+ yr old game

[maid-of-the-golden-deer]

A  rundown on my thoughts on Vesperia (I’m at the beginning of the second part, am a chunk of the ways into the Nordopolica Coliseum stuff). Under the cut, broken into “what I liked”, “what I didn’t”, and “what I feel nuetrally on”.

Postives:

The characters are so lovely, I am so attached to all of them, especially Yuri, Flynn, and Estelle. I love the sliding scale of idealism to cynicism they have going (though none of them are 100% either), it’s so fascinating and endearing

Yuri. I’ve been told that he’s almost far and away one of the most popular characters in the whole series and man, I completely get it. The fact that he turns to morally grey actions because he cares so much about the well being of others, even people he knows he’ll never see again, is just so unique for a protagonist that it makes him so hard not to love. You can tell that he wants to be able to be cold, to be unfeeling, but he just can’t, he loves and feels and desires to help others so strongly that he can almost never say no to anything that’s asked of him, even if he’ll offer token complaint along the way. He’s just. A treasure. And he’s a goddamn adult for once, like young protags are fine but seeing a character who has a bit more life experience under their belt is so refreshing

Found family bitches!!! I legitimately teared up when Yuri pat Karol’s head to comfort him. He’s such a big brother to Estelle and Karol it’s so precious!!!! You can really feel that Yuri enjoys having people who rely on him, and whom he can rely on in return. He’s always so supportive!!

Estelle is an angel descended upon this world, I love how shes in many ways sort of a more typical protag than Yuri but instead the game examines the pros and cons of being Like That. That to have that inherent goodness and selflessness is a great thing, but it can also be very selfish. And watching her discover what she really wants in life is a fascinating journey I can’t wait to finish with her

Karol isn’t my favorite child in media but like I want to give the poor boy a hug, like everyone chatises (outside of Brave Vesperia) him for being a coward but like he’s only 12 years old????? I find it perfectly reasonable for him to run??????? He’s a fucking 7th grader. And his reaction to finally getting the acceptance he’s always craved? Mwah

Where I’m at in the story Flynn’s only been in and out and only playable once so I don’t know him as well but he’s an archetype I love so I have immediate bias for him lmao. I do like how they continually go out of their way to show you that him and Yuri have the same same goal, the same morals, the same hopes, but they simply cannot reconcile each other’s methods no matter what. That is exactly how you make amazing rival characters. Even when they opposed each other you could always feel the overwhelming care they have for each other, it’s so good....

Judith is a Queen, I don’t know much about her yet since she’s a relatively recent addition to my party but I love that like the designated fanservice girl has like an actual Reason to be so and like, isn’t just titties out for no reason and actively enjoys it. Her slightly moral ambiguity is also really well done, like you can super tell that she’s a good person but she’s done some shit that was at least callous to the consequences of her good deeds. Also, flirty friendships are my jam Yuri/Judith BrOTP 4 lyfe

Rita is a baby gay and I wish her the best of luck on her journey to come to terms with her lesbianhood. For the most part imo she’s a fairly standard tsundere but like, sometimes having an Archetype...but Gay(tm) is all you need to be a good character

I have no strong feelings on Raven since he’s also been in and out and I don’t really like how he’s voice acted. He’s like, chill, he’s the funky uncle

I tend not to retain much about the story of an RPG the first time I play it since theres so much dialogue and flavor text to plow through but I do kind of like the loose structure of it, it feels very natural, like I’m just along for a random ass adventure these people are having. It’s really linear but it never feels like it’s on rails or anything

Negatives:

I’m not super into the gameplay, I can’t tell if its not good, I’m just bad at it, or a mix of both

Okay the fact that you can’t see enemy health bars in combat unless you hold down a button which also pauses the action is Bad imo, it makes every fight feel way longer bc I’m getting no immediate feedback on my progess

It’s. So. Fucking. Obtuse on what it wants you to do sometimes!!! Like a lot of the time its obvious but then sometimes the only reason I didn’t need a guide is I was blindly spamming A or Y (for shit with the Sorcerer’s Ring) and running into the walls praying something was interactable. I know people complain about games these days holding your hand too much or something but geeze.

Related to the above, minimaps for the dungeons and towns please, like its nice to have on the overworld but honestly I get more turned around and lost in indoor locations, since a lot of the backgrounds aren’t super unique looking. It could be progessively filled out as you go like the overworld map. Please.

I LOVE the story and characters and as I said above but like. The cutscenes break up the action every fucking five seconds, these people can walk and talk!!!! Like not to somehow bring a Bioware comparison into this but like, some of the skits could be had while you’re traversingt he world map instead of stopping you dead. It makes the pacing very “stop and start” and jarring

The puzzles. Wait, that’s not accurate, the long ass sections where you just spam the Y button to hit shit with your socerer’s ring an back track. They suck. The game’s already plenty long, didn’t need padding

No strong opinions on:

The aesthetic. Standard fantasy setting, some of the monster designs are cute and fun, some feel lazy, I likely won’t remember any of them in the long run. 

Same for the music. The Dahngrest theme is the only one that ever stood out to me as “oh, I like this”.

Worldbuilding too. The names are a bit Much so I can barely recall a lot of them, and the ones I do I def can’t spell lmao. And I find it hard to retain a lot of the background stuff that you find out when it’s mostly infodumped at you by Estelle like she’s Ye Olde Google

All in all I’m enjoying my time with it, though honestly more for the interactive experience elements than as a game.

#dont worry im not particularly scathing on the shit i dont like #like u might disagree but i promise there wont be a reason to hate him #wow suu talks about a 10+ yr old game #tbf its the fancy new version with all the shit and more #tales of vesperia #yuri lowell #since a good chunk of the pros section is me gushing about him lmao