Tales of Vesperia Preview for 360 from 1UP.com

PREVIEW

(XBOX 360)

In-depth talk about the upcoming 360 Tales RPG.

Recently in Japan, we spoke with members of the Tales team about not only Tales of Symphonia 's Wii sequel, Dawn of the New World (you can read about that here), but also the upcoming Xbox 360 game, Tales of Vesperia. After a lengthy talk about Vesperia, producer Tsutomu Gouda and R&D; producer Yoshito Higuchi go on to answer a few general Tales-related questions as well.

1UP: This is the first Tales series game on next-gen hardware. What kind of things did you set out to do with this game that you couldn't have done on previous platforms?

Yoshito Higuchi: The first thing that comes to mind is definitely the graphics side of things, especially the texture resolution and the feeling of depth to the backgrounds -- how far you can see into the distance. We can seamlessly connect areas without loading that would have required loading time in the past. Beyond that, the battles -- despite battle mode being completely separate from movement mode in Tales, previously we've been limited to four or five enemies on screen at once. This time we were able to display close to ten, as well as use flashier effects. I'd say those are some of the more notable graphical advances. Being on the 360 platform, we've made use of Xbox Live, implementing features like achievements and online rankings to good effect.

Tsutomu Gouda: For Abyss, we had linked cell phone content, but this time we'll be able keep everything together on the console.

1UP: What kind of ranking is it?

YH: Hit count, completion time, mini-game score rankings. It's a world-wide ranking.

1UP: Any plans for downloadable content?

YH: Taking into account the nature of the game, instead of providing additional maps or costumes or things like that, we're thinking more in terms of items that will make completing the game more convenient for those that have found themselves stuck but don't have time for level-raising or money-earning. That's the first type. Also, this time around the game has a large variety of accessory parts, and some of them are difficult to obtain. For those who don't have the time to acquire them, we plan to sell items and accessories separately. They'll be on the game disc to begin with, and players can obtain them on their own, but this system is for those who find it annoying or too time-consuming but still want to see them.

TG: We're not going to have anything where the only way to get it is to buy it. Players can earn it in-game, but also have this option. It's somewhat similar to game modification tools. The fact that demand for such things exists means that some people want to use money to accomplish game goals. That's who this is for.

YH: We don't see this being done much around the world currently. It's partly for fun, partly experimental. We're curious how much demand there is for this sort of thing.

1UP: So technically, you can start the game at max level?

YH: We considered that at first and started to put it in, but wound up removing it. The player only needs enough to beat the game. Reaching max level is something for the people that want to invest work and time into the game, so the purchasable boosts will just provide enough to complete the game.

TG: In other words, we may sell just the right amount of experience points.

1UP: If you buy this stuff, will your stats count on the world ranking?

YH: It will be exactly the same, regardless of whether you buy them or not. But having high level characters will not necessarily be an advantage [for all of them]. Skill will be required. So we're not making a distinction there [between those who buy and those who earn it]. The purchasable content is just to aid people in completing the game.

1UP: Is there any chance of being able to play multiplayer online?

YH: We passed on that this time. We weren't confident we could provide a satisfactory experience. We did investigate the possibility, but passed in the end. For three or four years now, people have been telling me that we'll need to do that eventually. If we were putting out a lot of titles on the same platform, we probably would, but I seem to find myself switching platforms frequently. So it's a bit difficult.

TG: He's just making excuses. [Laughs]

1UP: What made you decide to go with the Xbox 360? Are you concerned at all about the fact that the 360 isn't a very popular system in Japan?

YH: Well, it was a matter of, what else would we do it on instead? To explain how things developed, back when this project started, it was 2005 and we weren't finished with Abyss yet. With Abyss, we were feeling the limits of what we could do, and it became fairly firm that our next title would be on new hardware and in high definition. So when it came to choose a platform, the 360 was all there was. As we proceeded with development for the 360, if another platform came out, which now would be the PS3 -- it wasn't very finalized at the time, but it might have been an option -- if the PS3 had exploded into a much larger market than the 360, I can't say what we might have done, but at a certain stage we decided we should go ahead and do this first on the 360. So the time period in which development starts is very significant.

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