Tales of Vesperia Stray Thoughts

Okay, guys, so...you know how, in my last few Annual Summary rants, I’ve had a little section for notable (by my estimation, anyway) little thoughts and reactions I’ve had while playing RPGs that year?  I just realized that I have like over half a dozen of those things all specifically for weird and/or dumb moments in Tales of Vesperia.  And that’s simply way too much stuff for that part of the already gigantic Annual Summary rant...but it IS probably enough that I could cobble together a little mishmash rant out of these pieces and leavings.  Think of it like a rant meatloaf: a bit of the stuff you actually want to eat, mashed together with some tasteless filler sentences, to the point that it’s close enough to the real thing that you may not notice until your next meal just how lesser the meatloaf really was.

I’m sure it helps that even my regular rants probably wouldn’t manage to get USDA approved anyway.

So, without further ado, some of my stray thoughts about Tales of Vesperia!



- I’m not saying that the rest of Tales of Vesperia prior to this point has been lacking in moments that are slightly nonsensical or outright dumb, but I nonetheless have to scratch my head at the fact that, when the Imperial fleet is sailing to attack the giant battle fortress Heracles, all the knights aboard the ship are in full plate armor.  Like...you guys know that ship-to-ship naval engagements don’t involve much face-to-face combat, right?  There ain’t much reason to be in full combat regalia unless you manage to board your foe.  And if your ship gets sunk before that happens (which is implied to have happened to quite a few of the Empire’s vessels in this encounter), well...you’re not PCs; you can’t magically swim in armor that weighs 100 pounds.


- Since we’re on the subject of the Heracles...I’m sorry, Tales of Vesperia, did you just say that this giant, mobile battle fortress was built in secrecy by “a handful” of skilled engineers?  A handful?  Really?  A 6- to 10-story moving armed metal battle fortress the size of a few city blocks...constructed from scratch by a handful of skilled engineers.  In a world without substantially established industrial manufacturing or power tools.

Really.


- The Heracles incident seems to be 1 of the least rational parts of this game.  So lemme get this straight, Alexei.  Your plan is to use your giant, canon-studded mobile superweapon as a decoy--great use of your resources by the way, but hey, I guess it must not have been too much trouble to cobble together if it took no more than a handful of engineers--as you make it attack the city of Zapphias.  Meanwhile, as this attack is occurring, you pursue your true goal, a matter which requires you to be...in the city of Zapphias.  The one that you’ve sent your titanic battle fortress, which possesses a canon that can annihilate with a single shot a significant portion of the city, to attack.  The city that YOU are currently IN is the one that you are, at this moment, directing your fantasy world weapon of mass destruction to do everything in its power to eradicate with heavy artillery.  Truly a spectacular display of strategy and cunning, Commander Fuckwit.


- Look, I know that donating to a good cause isn’t about what you yourself are getting out of it.  Absolutely do not want to give even the slightest impression that I believe otherwise.  Charity is about helping another, not satisfying yourself or gaining anything material back from the giving.  100%, no arguments, end of the debate.

But even still, if I’m gonna hand over 500 grand to an orphanage, I feel like I ought at least to have the right to actually go inside the damn building.


- Why is it that when Yuri visits his room partway through the story, a kid he knows, Ted, comes in and talks about Yuri and Flynn’s long history and relationship as though the kid has seen it in its entirety?  This kid’s talking about how when Yuri and Flynn were younger they had to share everything because they were poor, including their practice sword, and so on and so forth, and it’s like...Yuri and Flynn start this game at the age of 21 years old each.  Ted looks to be, like, 9.  What, was he just very perceptive from inside the womb?


- Even good ol’ Since We’re Not Related It’ll Be Okay Syndrome is stretched near its limit when minor sidequest NPC Karen outright calls the man she aims to marry “Big Brother.”  To his face.  Come on, RPGs.


- I can’t believe I’m actually implying that Tales of Symphonia did something competently, but...why is it that back in that game, we had an entire small plot arc to explain to us why Presea, who was trapped in the body of a preteen, had enough super strength to swing around a giant ax roughly equivalent to her entire body mass, and yet 5 years of narrative evolution later, Tales of Vesperia feels not even the slightest urge to rationalize why Karol can do the exact same thing?  He’s no less in the Disney Channel’s focus age demographic than Presea appeared to be.


- What benefit was there in making Estelle a princess?  No, really, tell me.  Her position never causes any bad guy to hesitate at all when she orders people to stop their various villainies.  Flynn and other military officials already have reason to follow Yuri’s group around since he’s a wanted criminal.  The other heir to the Empire is the one who winds up taking charge of the nation and fulfilling the friend-in-high-places role whenever the plot actually needs that.  It’s not even a slight hiccup in how Estelle’s friends see her when they find out.

Just about the only things that come of her being royalty are A, a lore connection with the founders of the Empire being the same magical plot people that she winds up being, and B, her character arc of having to decide for herself what she wants to be in life.  But Point A is so easily altered it barely counts; she could just as easily be a descendent of a long-lost illegitimate child of some royal or something (which could have opened up decent avenues of character development for her to boot), or even just not have it definitively explained to start with.  No one cares about hereditary Magical Plot Importance the way writers think they do.  And as for Point B, it actually hurt my sensibilities to refer to Estelle’s brief flirtation with the question of career autonomy as a “character arc” because it’s so half-heartedly touched upon that it may as well not even be there.  Hell, ToV would’ve gotten more mileage out of a scenario where Estelle HADN’T been anyone socially important, and has to grapple with the prospect of what she wants to do with her life going forward now that she’s discovered that she was the living plot mcguffin around which the world would revolve for a moment.

But nah, much easier to just tick off the “Have a princess” box on your RPG trope list and never think about it again.


- What was even the point of Zagi?  It’s like if you mixed the contentious, obsessive antagonism of Pokemon Generation 2’s Rival with Final Fantasy 9’s Black Waltz 3’s schtick of only existing for the purpose of killing, and added Fire Emblem 16’s Death Knight’s inability to EVER SHUT THE FUCK UP about that fact.  Only, you then forgot that all 3 of those characters actually served some kind, ANY kind, of narrative purpose.  You could write him out of Tales of Vesperia entirely and change not a single solitary thing.  The only difference would be that there’d be 4 or 5 moments in the game that the player would find a little less tedious.


- You know, I appreciate the fact that there’s a conversation skit in Tales of Vesperia in which the party questions how it can be that there are still rank-and-file soldiers who have sided with Alexei and continue to aid him even though he’s shown his true colors as a tyrant and traitor.  The fact that major villains in RPGs always seem to have legions of disposable minions, ones who are self-aware and intelligent beings who have to have made a conscious choice to ally themselves with a douchebag, is not questioned nearly often enough.

Unfortunately, Namco-Bandai chose THIS moment to raise that inquiry, with 1 of their villains for whom this blind minion obedience is the least explicable.  The party comes to a conclusion of it being something of a result of Alexei’s cult of personality and a belief within the rank-and-file troops that he’s best qualified for leadership, but the game has shown us essentially nothing to explain why any of his subordinates, direct or distant, would feel that way about Alexei.  There have been no scenes prior to this of Alexei’s having taken any interest in or done anything especially respectful/considerate towards his lower underlings, there’s been no situation shown in which he displayed any leadership skills above what you could expect from an assistant manager at a Denny’s, he’s not in possession of any memorable personality, and the game sure as hell hasn’t felt any obligation to have Alexei prove the validity of, or even adequately explain, his attempt to control the world.  As with numerous other factors and nuances of characterization and motivation, Tales of Vesperia’s just telling us to take this explanation on faith, rather than go by the actual, observable evidence in the game, which would imply that the contrary should be true.


- Why do RPG bishounen always have such a hard time adequately living up to the extremely simple, straightforward wishes/spirit of their dead friends/family members?  Duke wants to fulfill the wish and will of his departed friend Elucifer.*  Elucifer's dying wish?  To protect the world and for there to be peace for all living things.  Duke's solution?  Suck the life out of every human being on the planet.  I know RPG villains are absolutely terrible at even the most fundamental levels of basic logical reasoning, but Jesus Christ, dude, come on.

















* Whose idea on the Namco-Bandai staff was it to give this guy this name?