Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition brings to Switch an entry long considered by Tales series fans to be one of the best, mainly thanks to its protagonist. Yuri Lowell isn't a typical virtuous young man but a former knight who has given up on organized justice and has no problem handling things his own way, including decisions other games wouldn't forgive their hero for. The world of Terca Lumireis rests on a technology called blastia, which protects cities from monsters but also creates a gulf between the wealthy center and the poor lower quarter — and it's exactly this inequality the game draws its main tension from.

Combat takes place in real time in what's called a linear motion battle system: the character moves along an axis toward and away from the enemy, chains basic attacks into skills, and the player controls one character while the rest of the party follows preset strategies. The key is a system of equipment-bound skills gradually learned permanently, and so-called Overlimit modes, in which attacks can be chained without interruption. Definitive Edition adds two playable characters originally available only in the Japanese version, additional missions, costumes and fuller voice acting.

Technically it's an older game from the Xbox 360 era, which shows in the character models, though its anime-style cel-shading ages slowly, and on Switch the game runs smoothly and in nicely sharp image. The music is melodic and at times almost cinematically pathos-laden, with a striking opening theme. Reception of the Definitive Edition was good, mainly because Western players finally got access to the full content. Today it's roughly a fifty-hour adventure of classic cut, one that stands out mainly for its cast of characters — their short side conversations rank among the most entertaining things the Tales series has to offer. For someone just entering the series, it's, along with its clear combat system, the best possible starting point.