Parents' Guide to Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition

This remaster of an adventure classic enhances the gameplay with lots of extra content that will keep players exploring for hours. Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition has been enhanced with many visual updates and with new abilities called Mystic Artes, which are different for each character, and for the first time, it's a portable game thanks to the Nintendo Switch version. The first thing longtime fans of the game will recognize is the new additions to the party. Along with the usual cast, there's now Patty Fleur, a young pirate girl in search of treasure and adventure, and Flynn Scifo, Yuri's best friend and an imperial knight. As in the original game, not everyone gets along, which is interesting, but it all works. That said, the story's still one of the weaker links of this overall great experience. There's a lot of repetition, confusing discussions (maybe due to the English translation), and voice actors that change for the same character, presumably because the original actors weren't available or willing to re-read parts from 10 years ago. It does break the immersion a bit.

But it's the engaging gameplay that will keep you glued to the screen. During combat, you can control only one character at a time, but you can tweak the AI of allies so that you're best matched up against your foe. To be clear, you can play all characters in your party, switching them out at will. The game also supports co-op (cooperative) play for up to four players, making it even more enjoyable. Despite the aforementioned shortcomings, and a couple other minor ones like sometimes bland fighting environments (that simply look like a large brown tarp), Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition has a ton going for it. Fans of real-time JRPGs should seriously consider this revamped game.