REVIEW

Tales of Zestiria Review

by Sam Foxall, October 16th, 2015

The 20^th anniversary of the Tales series is here in the form of Tales of Zestiria, a simultaneous greatest hits collection of all the successful Tales tropes while also being the series’ first leap into the current generation and on PC. With enough throwbacks and gameplay revisions to keep the hardcore happy, I don’t think Tales of Zestiria has done enough as a title to bring a whole new fan of fans to the next chapter in this legendary series of tales.

With Zestiria, Bandai Namco has definitely gone back to basics when it comes to story. No owing the mafia money, no entering into the souls of others to restore emotions, this is a simple tale of a chosen one, travelling the earth to collect the 4 elemental macguffins and then going to slap the big baddy in the face. There is something refreshing to the simplicity of Zestiria’s story, of it really going back to what the series cut its teeth on and just refining that simple but effective hero’s journey narrative. Of course, it isn’t just Final Fantasy I redone with fancy graphics, but the overarching plot of Zestiria is not going to make your head spin. You play Sorey, a happy go lucky young man who has the power to talk to seraphim, who are the cross between angels and your standard supernatural spirit. Other humans without a special power called resonance cannot see seraphim and those who have a particularly strong resonance are marks of Shepherds. Shepherds are Zestiria’s equivalent of a Warrior of Light or an Avatar, a person who can restore balance to the world by harnessing the power of certain seraphim to defeat a chap called the Lord of Calamity who appears at regular intervals to ruin the world.

After a small sequence of events where Sorey and Mikleo, Sorey’s seraphim brother for all intents and purposes, are dragged out from their little idyll above the clouds and are brought down to the human world to restore the land to balance. Like most of these tales, this will involve gathering a band of lovable misfits with unique powers to, yadda yadda yadda, you’ve heard this tale before. While the main plot is so familiar, what saves Zestiria from being a complete re-tread of previous Tales stories, is the character interactions between Sorey’s party. The group that you travel with has some of the best chemistry of any Tales party, with the skits being well delivered and many cutscenes having stand out bits of comedy in between serious story points. The party is made up entirely of anime/Tales archetypes though. Sorey is your lovable but naïve protagonist that has a heart of gold but a lot to learn. Mikleo is the cool brother who has a playful rivalry with Sorey, Laliah is your ditzy big sister character while Dezel is your obvious super edgy but reluctantly heroic outsider who will no doubt become the best of mates by the end of the journey. It is the stellar vocal performances which save the day, with the dub of Zestiria being way superior to the subtitle Japanese voicetrack. You also have the nice surprise of certain voice actors who started on Youtube or Newgrounds being among the Zestiria voicecast, with Martin ‘LittleKuriboh’ Billany and Chris ‘Kirbopher’ Niosi popping up throughout the tale.

Even the character designs are call backs to previous Tales games, with Rose’s standard costume looking almost identical to Rita’s from Vesperia while Mikleo looks a hell of a lot like Hubert from Tales of Graces f. The character and world designs evoke that almost timeless JRPG feel, which you may see as comforting or drab, depending on how much of a pre-existing JRPG fan you are. I will say though, not only does Laliah look as creepy as one of those people who have had cosmetic surgery to look like a real life Barbie doll, Bandai Namco have still not fixed how all their characters look like puppets when acting in an in-engine cutscene.

You’ll be hunting beefy versions of normal monsters in certain monsters. Beware, they’ll be much stronger than other enemies in the area.

Again, this isn’t terrible as if you are coming to Tales as a long standing fan, you expect that familiar anime story but I imagine someone who is brand new to the Tales series would not get on with the story as well. Despite of this, Zestiria’s cast do seem to make this very familiar journey seem new, even though the script is absolutely shocking at times and will make you cringe. There are some surprises along the way though, with questions being raised on how far a chosen hero can interfere with greater geo-political struggles and whether the seraphim who have previously travelled with a Shepherd can actually tell the current one about the future of their quest but there are no single moments which will blow your mind. It’s mostly just like tweaks to a well-established formula.

Right, enough about story, let’s get onto the combat. The main change that Tales of Zestiria has implemented is that battle areas are generated from the landscape around you. So, if you encounter an enemy within a corridor, your battle area will be in that corridor, rather than a randomly generated open area with the same background as the overworld. While this does feel like a logical progression towards you just transitioning cleanly into and out of battle, it comes with some hideous camera problems. Taking the corridor example, the battle camera will easily get caught on the wall, pushing the camera down to face the floor and making it almost impossible to see or attack your enemy. When most of your battling is going to be in dungeons with enclosed spaces, the camera problems do become a major annoyance.

As for the actual battle mechanics, Bandai Namco seems to make the majority of the new combat mechanics great but then change one core thing which is bound to irritate me. The big change to the usual Tales system, besides the more natural battle transitions, is the new Armatization ability. In battle, there are two human characters and two seraphs who can either fight as a 4, or combine together via Armatization to have up to 2 super powered characters on the battlefield. In your Armatized form, party members get much stronger elemental attacks, have access to excessively powerful Mystic Artes and special spells which can only be used in this form. There is a great layer of depth to the Armatization system, as your 4 elemental seraphs can be swapped in and out with the press of the D pad, allowing weakened ones to heal off screen while you fight with a fully powered one. You also have the bonus of Armatization being able to heal downed human characters, meaning that effective use of this fusion system can bring you back from the brink of a failed battle.

The main irritating change is Bandai Namco’s lack of conviction in picking a MP system. They keep flicking back and forth between a traditional TP gauge for Artes or the Combo Chain system that was introduced in Tales of Graces, where your combo is limited by your Combo Chain gauge. With Zestiria, they’ve settled for a system which is half way between, with the new SC gauge refilling quickly but draining every time you use an attack, seeing as there are no longer just standard attacks and Artes. Seeing as every move you use is an arte now, you cannot just fall back on normal sword slashes to keep the damage going. You have to now disengage and stay in a guard until your SC gauge refills and you can continue fighting. For me, it can make the combat feel stilted and artificially lengthened, as your long combo is cut short because you ran out of SC without even realising.

You’ll pack a massive punch when you are Armatized. Armatized Mystic Artes will deal serious damage.

The other alterations that have been made to Tales of Zestiria are general tweaks and balances to streamline previous systems or reworks of mechanics that may not have worked as well in previous titles. The traditional overworld has disappeared, with every area being linked together as a series of instanced zones, rather than having separate spaces for overworld, town and dungeon. There is now the welcome addition of warping between save points on the map, which saves so much time when zones can be seriously large. A discovery point system has been added, very similar to the Discoveries in Skies of Arcadia where little landmarks and monoliths can be found around the world, giving you little descriptions and a single AP point, to go into your Battle Actions. Battle Actions are what were traditionally skills in something like Tales of Vesperia, while skills are separately passive buffs which apply to weapons and armour. Skills are placed with a separate skill sheet, where matching a line of 5 skills in one direction or stacking multiple versions of the same buff will net you increased skills or brand new ones.

The whole crafting system in Tales of Zestiria is more like an MMO, with shops constantly changing their stocks and having different versions of weapons depending on where you shop. You also can fuse weapons or armour of the same name together, passing on certain skills onto your next upgrade or certain new stackable skills based on fusions. If you are a big minmaxer, you’ll spend hours creating the perfect weapon fusions but if you aren’t that bothered, most of the Skills system will sail over your head. The unfortunate thing about this system is that you cannot guaranteed that shops will sell the exact same weapon the next time you visit if you were a bit short on Gald the first time. You also cannot buy multiple versions of the same armour or weapon, so you cannot mass fuse weapons together to create some ultimate sword at level 1.

Difficulty wise, Tales of Zestiria starts painfully easy, before having insane difficulty spikes in the first half before levelling out for the final stint of the adventure. By the time you have finally got your goal to search for the 4 magical McGuffin shrines, Zestiria both opens up and becomes limited in what you can actually do. You’ll stumble back to old areas in order to purify them from the Lord of Calamity’s evil malevolence, just to find you are highly under levelled and you shouldn’t be in the area yet. Some of the middle dungeons are awfully designed, with the Tales team clearly displaying that they still have not cracked how to design a good puzzle. A certain water shrine will have you cursing up and down its halls. The tale does very much sag in the middle, thanks to poor conveyance of where you have to go in order to progress the story. Once you realise you can actually talk to your accompanying party member for a prompt on where to go next, you’ll soon be back to the main quest. While the initial journey may be short for a Tales games, coming in at about 35 hours, there is secondary content out the wazoo for all your completionist needs. Cameo battles, secret bosses and sidequests are all here for you to complete should you wish to.

Bandai Namco have still not cracked how to make their dungeons and landscapes visually engaging, besides tossing some random pointy architecture and glowing glyphs around to make something look ancient. There will be references to Arthurian and Norse mythology because of course there will, this is a medieval Tales game. You’ll travel through the same castle towns, village hamlets and meadows you’ve seen over and over, don’t expect there to be anything really out of the ordinary from Tales’ usual depiction of pseudo-medieval fantasy. The OST for Zestiria is pretty solid, with Motoi Sakuraba and Go Shiina putting in work for creating one of the more memorable soundtracks of recent Tales games. The theme for the elemental shrines and the opening title music are bangers.

Tales of Zestiria really is a greatest hits game, taking the fan favourite elements of the Tales franchise and rolling it into one familiar package. If you are a dyed in the wool Tales nut, you’ll love it and if you are a JRPG fan who has never touched the Tales series, this seems the most logical place to jump on the wagon. It does have its problems of an ultimately uninspired story, a very safe world and a battle camera that can be the most deadly enemy at times, but there is enough here to satisfy any hardcore RPG fan. It still doesn’t beat the majesty of Vesperia though. Please release the PS3 version Namco, I beg of you.