Lotheneil vs. The Backlog Hydra, Ep. #28
This week… something a bit different. I’ve managed to spend like 5 hours the whole week beating my PC backlog… All the rest of my time was stolen by my new toy - namely PS Vita and the title that came with it :) To be exact:
Tales of Hearts R
Yep, Tales mania at its finest. It’s the third instance of the series I’ve played (after Symphonia and Berseria), though the first on platform other than PC. Comparing to aforementioned titles it offers more standard plot of “party against the big bad entity trying to destroy the world” - which by no means make it uninteresting, quite the contrary, it’s on par with most respected titles of the genre - it’s just I was kind of spoiled by Symphonia’s and Berseria’s dark themes and ambiguity I’ll be looking for in all other (j) RPG games (in most cases, in vain) from now on.
Tales of Hearts R offers typical for the series, dynamic real-time, skill and combo based combat (with freedom of movement) and fairly complex and novel character development system. After each gained level characters receive points that can be spent on one of five character traits. After specific level of each of those traits are reached, new weapon forms, abilities, spells and passive bonuses are unlocked. Moreover, fighting together lets characters develop bonds, that allow them to learn some of those bonuses from each other.
Other than that, the title offers typical for the series and genre mixture of following story, exploring, questing and conversations (including large number of discussions between party members and short scenes a.k.a. skits). The title looks really good (at least on the 5” Vita screen), too - well, apart from some cutscenes, that are taken directly from NDS version and offer visibly lower quality and 5:4 aspect ratio. Still - definitely worth playing.
skill and combo based combat
skill
I’ll hold you to that (I’ve played Symphonia and Abyss, and they’re not skill-based; you can basically just tap A to win everything).
Well, Hearts’ battle system is quite similar to Symphonia (never played Abyss, so I can’t compare) - and at easy difficulty you can mash your way out of most battles as well. You can also use proper combinations of skills and reflex to rack up high combos not to let enemies retaliate. What is different between the two is that Hearts offers freedom of movement (something Symphonia lacked), and that a large number of combos are performed in the air (to “juggle” enemies). The general principle of battle system is quite similar between each Tales instance, so if you did not like it, you may wish to check some gameplays first before committing.
It’s good to hear a PS Vita game review. I own one, but I mostly use it to play PS Classic games, and screenshare my PS4 from my bed. I’ll be sure to look out for this one (particularly if it is on sale). Would there be any other Vita games to recommend?
Well, that’s my first Vita game ever, so I can’t really answer this question - when it comes to RPGs, those games were recommended to me: Persona 4, Souls Sacrifice, Dragons Crown, Grand Kingdom, Ys series, Exist Archive, Atelier series, Neptunia series, Demon Gaze (playing at the moment, a decent dungeon crawler with visual novel-style conversations), Tokyo Xanadu, The Legend of Heroes series (from PSP) - and like a ton of other games from PSP (and PSX) I did not even try to delve into yet. Non-RPGs: Tearaway, Uncharted, Wipeout, Gravity Rush. I know nothing about any of them yet (apart from what you can read online), but you may wish to check them out.
I appreciate the suggestions nonetheless! I will be on the lookout for them as well. My friend and I played Gravity Rush on PS4, so I can at least reccomend that back at yeah, it’s pretty fun and enjoyable. Thank you for the information!
I posted about Tearaway a while back: https://www.backlog-assassins.net/posts/wbrrx5b
Basically, it’s not bad, but game-play is pretty simplistic and repetitive; you’d really be getting it more for the aesthetic and papercraft models than anything else.
I shall look into it more, perhaps if I can get it for very cheap if it is as you say. Thanks! ^_^