For reasons that have a lot to do with my obsessive need to complete entire series of games, I have played through the majority of the
Tales series. I finished
Tales of Xillia 2 earlier this year and played a whole pile of games in the series last year, and my opinion of them as a whole is decidedly mixed. One thing that is a constant for the series is the fun inherent to the battle system--and it's always a little different each time. Some
Tales battle systems are better than others, but I'm generally a fan no matter what. It is because of the gameplay that I can so frequently resign myself to slogging through volumes upon volumes of uninteresting and uninspired dialogue delivered by unenthusiastic voice actors.
Tales of Xillia 2 was particularly bad about this and it didn't help matters much that the whole game thrived on reusing content from
Tales of Xillia.
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| In combat |
Before embarking on
Tales of Hearts R, I'd heard that it wasn't considered one of the strongest
Tales titles. Since I personally believe the series is inconsistent at best, I was a tad hesitant to jump right into it. As such, it took me several months after purchasing it (I purchased it at the same time I purchased my Vita) before I decided to finally play it. And you know what? It's not bad--not half as bad as I was led to believe.
Tales of Hearts R is an enhanced remake of the original
Tales of Hearts for Nintendo DS. It was originally one of two Nintendo DS
Tales titles, the other being
Tales of Innocence, which never received an American release. Both titles received enhanced remakes for Vita, but only
Tales of Hearts R made it here--and even then, no English voice acting was ever recorded. It's a little jarring to hear all of the game's dialogue in Japanese, but I honestly don't mind it at all since from what I can tell the voice acting is well done. Obviously I can't discern any nuance in voice acting delivered in a foreign language, but the voices seem to fit the characters pretty well and I can easily associate the voices with each character. I can't honestly say this is a downside to the game at all since
Tales frequently has mediocre voice acting anyway.
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| Personally, I'm craving sriracha mayo |
Games in this series frequenty have ridiculously convoluted and nigh-nonsensical plots, and
Tales of Hearts R is no exception. You see, characters in the the
Tales of Hearts universe possess what are called Spiria, which essentially govern emotions, skills, thoughts, and whatever else the game's plot demands. Kor and his ragtag group of companions are what are called Somatics, due to the mythical Soma weapons they wield. Somatics are capable of entering an individual's Spiria Nexus to weed out creatures called Xeroms that are possessing these individuals. A strange illness called Despir has swept across the land, leaving people listless and unable to participate in daly life. It's likely that Xeroms are responsible, but before the group can do anything about that, Kor somehow manages to shatter Kohaku's Spiria Core (don't ask me) and sends shards that represent her emotions flying in all directions. So, for the first half of the game, Kor and his companions must travel with a soulless, emotionless Kohaku while they track down her emotions.
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| It wouldn't be a JRPG without a bath scene, right? |
I feel it's no real spoiler to reveal that
Tales of Hearts R eventually comes to be less about saving a girl and more about saving the world. It is inevitable, not only for the
Tales series, but also for just about every JRPG in existence, that the world must come under threat and it's up to a group of spunky teenagers to save it. Of course, in
Tales of Hearts, the cast is at least slightly more diverse. Gall is probably in his 40s and Ines maybe her 30s, but the rest are firmly in the teenager camp. Interestingly, Gall and Ines are probably the best of the cast, gameplay-wise, and the characters themselves are not terrible.
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| Tales of Hearts R features a lot of these cut-ins |
Kor Meteor is the protagonist of the game and as such is the most bland and boring character of them all. He has a can-do attitude and his slogan is "Kor Meteor doesn't try, he does!" which is pretty optimistic but also painfully short-sighted. Kohaku has no personality for a good chunk of the game thanks to Kor's idiocy but later becomes a sometimes soft-spoken, sometimes upbeat teenage girl with an unhealthy preoccupation with miso. Despite the game's title bearing her name (Hearts), her personality never really crystallizes in a satisfying way. She's important to the plot but only really exists as a damsel in distress and a vessel for moving the game forward. She's useful in combat but doesn't otherwise carry her weight as a character. Hisui is Kohaku's brother and seems to exist mostly to be overprotective of Kohaku and to yell at Kor a lot.
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| It's always something with you, Hisui |
The other characters all have their own motivations and backstories that make them interesting in some way. Gall, a character that didn't exist in the original version of the game, joins the party with little in the way of preamble. He's the oldest of the cast (although probably not beyond his 40s) and is made to never forget it. He's dedicated his life to ridding the land of Despir because of someone close to him. Ines is a successful merchant that has Kor and his compatriots on the hook for quite a lot of money and thus decides to travel with them. Beryl is a young painter (and magician) who struggles with self-esteem issues. Chalcedony is a Crystal Knight with an admittedly pretty cool Soma weapon that gifts him with angelic wings. He is introduced as a combative, egotistical jerk, but gradually softens his personality over the course of the game. Kunzite is a robot.
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| Beep boop |
What struck me most about
Tales of Hearts R is the variety in the combat system. Each of the game's eight characters features a unique play style, most of which are pretty fun. Kohaku has fire-infused aerial martial arts combos and lots of fierce kicks. Ines has a mix of hard-hitting attacks with her improbably huge blade weapon as well as a slew of icy projectiles and strikes. Gall wields a machete and axe in combat in pretty inventive ways from mid- and close-range. Kor's combat style is about as vanilla as he is as a character but it's still fun in its own way since he epitomizes the style of most standard
Tales protagonists.
Tales of Hearts R also places fewer restrictions on combat than some other games in the series with the ability to freely combo between standard attacks and artes in any order you wish. The strategy involved in putting together effective combos from the massive pool of moves available is probably the most satisfying thing about the game and the primary reason I'd recommend it. The chase link mechanic adds a lot of meat to the gameplay in that it allows you to greatly extend and lengthen your combos by knocking opponents into the air and quickly teleporting after them. The gauge that typically governs the number of attacks you can perform in a row refills upon a successul chase link, which means that you can keep a combo going for as long as you can maintain the chase link--which of course is extended by landing continous attacks and performing combination moves. If not or the addictive combat sytem, I doubt I would have felt justified in soldiering on through a plot that is admittedly pretty asinine.
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| I mostly played Kohaku, Ines, and Gall |
Tales of Hearts R is a game I can hesistantly recommend beacuse the characters aren't
that bad and occasionally you'll run across some clever lines or memorable moments. Still, though, the game's primary redeeming factor is the combat system, which takes some time to really take off. It's worth it for a
Tales fan, which begrudgingly, I realize, is what I am.
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| Okay, that's pretty good |
