Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is the first Tales game I own but the fourth one I get to experience. (Watched LP for Symphonia and Xillia before.) It's also the game I most wanted to play of the series just because of how often I hear it praised by the series fans.
I already knew Yuri Lowell (the main protagonist of Vesperia) even before I played this game because he's put in many lists as the best character in the series! Naturally, I felt I had to play his game at some point and when I found the Definitive Edition on a %75 sale I decided it's finally the time. (Took me a while to actually start playing it though.) I'm currently playing the Nintendo Switch version!
The characters are colorful and interesting. Yuri is a snarky guy who had an eventful past, especially with his friend Flynn. Estellise seems to be the kind princess that excels in magic, her interactions with Yuri are hilarious!
As for the plot, I'm still in the beginning and not sure where the story is going. Yuri's quest is to find a thief while clearing his name. Estellise's goal is to find Flynn, (the only knight she trusts,) to tell him something important. Both of them need to go to the same destination at first but after a while, Yuri seems to start caring more about helping Estelle than actually finding "Mordio."
The concept of Blastia seems interesting. (Even if cliche.) I'm sure Blastia are connected to the mysteries (and direction) of the story. (I believe other tales games touch on the energy source of their worlds like this.) I also loved the other characters I've met.
I played the game for a few hours and I still haven't met Flynn yet. I love him already! Just from how everyone described him and how he's always a step ahead of the party. I don't know if he'll be an ally or an enemy (or switch between) in the game. (Seems friendly enough but he cares about Duty in contrast to Yuri's do-what-I-want approach. Flynn is with the "Knights" so I can say for certain he's not an antagonist.)
"You're kidding, right?" "Yes, I am."
The first thing I noticed about the gameplay. I was surprised that the camera in Tales of Vesperia isn't controllable but I found it kind of refreshing somehow. Other than that, world exploration was exactly as I expected from this PS3-era JRPG.
The battle system was familiar yet "new." It's been a while since I played Zestiria on PC but I don't remember having difficulties with the controls. Vesperia on Nintendo Switch was intuitive enough to learn but it took time for me to get used to. For example, you can't attack while you're in the "move freely" mode.
"Prepare to die Flynn!" "I'm not Flynn!"
In my 5 hours of #FirstImpression, I noticed two difficulty spike. The first boss which was too strong for Yuri alone, and I had to survive long enough for Estellise to intervene. The second one is a random boss at Ehmead Hill, which felt almost impossible. (It wouldn't have been so hard if I had enough healing items but I didn't know I could leave the area to buy new ones at the time.)
In both cases, I had to learn a new strategy to be able to progress. At the first boss, I had to learn avoiding attacks instead of simply blocking them and since I needed to hold ZR to move but let it go when attacking. At the later boss, I had to switch my party strategy to "Defend" because otherwise, they will instantly get themselves killed. I still had to grind some levels even with this strategy though.
Just who is "her?"
I find it interesting that each of the first five party members, (yup, I'm counting the Dog,) have their own goals that require them to be at different locations, but they still decide to help each other in their quest. (Yuri and Estellise help Karol instead of going to find Flynn, and Karol decide to stick with them after that even though he's supposed to go the opposite way.)
For now, I plan to continue playing and hopefully write more about this game as I go. Luckily I managed to avoid spoilers of this game story for years so I still get to see surprises at every corner.