Tales of Hearts R

Tales of Hearts R is a remake of a Japanese game from the previous generation's handheld console, and for Western players it marked the very first chance to play this entry in the Tales series. It tells the story of a young man named Kor Meteor, who tries to save a girl named Kohaku from an attack and accidentally shatters her soul into a multitude of fragments in the process. The rest of the adventure is about searching for these shards, and with them the emotions the girl lost. The game's world rests on the idea that the human soul is a tangible substance that can be wounded, healed, and even wielded as a weapon, and the script uses this metaphor to tell a story about how easily people shut themselves off from their own feelings.

Battles take place in real time on a two-dimensional plane, across which characters move freely, chaining basic strikes with special techniques and being able to launch enemies into the air to continue combos mid-jump. It's precisely these aerial fights that give the entry its own identity, since a correctly timed transition from ground to air unlocks longer attack strings and flashier finishers. Each character has their own skill tree and an extensive weapon upgrade system, so the party can be customized fairly freely. The remake replaced the original two-dimensional graphics with three-dimensional models, added new characters, and expanded the script with segments missing from the original release.

On the Vita the game runs smoothly and the colorful, cartoonish art style shines on the screen, even though it's clearly a remake of an older title. The Western release shipped with Japanese voice acting only and without some of the extras, which disappointed part of the audience at the time, but otherwise reviews praised the brisk action and the likable cast of characters, while criticism was aimed more at the conventional story structure and repetitive environments. Today, Tales of Hearts R is interesting mainly as evidence of how the Tales series gradually refined its action combat system, and as one of the few entries in the brand that made it to the Vita in a Western release at all.