Introduction Tales of Vesperia has finally broken the 360's Japanese RPG curse as the first proper sequel to a popular JRPG series exclusive to the series. You couldn't ask for a better game to do the honors, with the series reputation for rich puzzles, deep combat, and memorable characters. Vesperia is one of the series' finest, with a sprawling adventure that packs a 50 hour quest with enough bonus material to keep players busy for long after. Saving Tierca Lumereis is a long and troubled road, and IGN is on time with a detailed guide full of more than 500 images to take you through the entire journey. In this Tales of Vesperia strategy guide, you'll find: COMBAT BASICS // Tips for excelling on the battlefield, from combos to battle tactics. WALKTHROUGH // We take you all the way through the game without ruining the story along the way. SIDE QUESTS // Fun adventures to keep you occupied along the way. GIGANTO MONSTERS // Locations of all the most fearsome monsters in Tierca Lumereis. Guide by: Travis Fahs © 2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. May not be sold, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, in whole or part, without IGN’s express permission. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. All rights reserved. © 2008 IGN Entertainment, Inc. Page 1 Tales of Vesperia Combat Basics The combat system in Tales of Versperia is one of the deepest in the genre, despite outward appearances that it might be a button masher. While there are some exploits and cheap tricks, there are layers of both strategy and technique that take time to master. Melee Your party leader is going to be your main damage dealer, Combos and mastering this realtime action-based component is going to be the first part of making yourself effective. Yuri The combo system is pretty straight forward. Every is the obvious choice for this role, but Karol and Judith can time you connect a hit and the enemy doesn't block, be effective melee strikers in different ways. he will be stunned for a moment. If you connect another hit within this time, it's a combo, and if you continue this, your opponent won't have an Controls are strictly 2D, a throwback to earlier games in opportunity to defend. the series. You will form a plane with the enemy you are targeting and it will control much like a fighting game. It's A basic Yuri combo string consists of three normal important to consider the way these planes of movement strikes (of any type) and an arte at the end. After this, can intersect though. The nature of the controls makes it Yuri will have a recovery time, which will allow the very easy for enemies to converge on you and attack from enemy to recover. Different skills allow you to string two angles, while you can only attack from one. Similarly, more hits together in different ways. Solo combo skills two of your melee attackers can converge on one enemy are valuable. Yuri and Judith are both capable of for a major advantage. Be conscious of this advantage complex combo strings that require timing and finesse. and stay on the right side of it by using the free run mode You won't be able to do much at first, but as you get and picking your targets wisely. new artes, try to find ways to juggle your enemies to offset your recovery time and keep the combo going. As we mentioned earlier, there are different characters with different play styles. While Yuri is a well -rounded The easiest way to combo, however, is teamwork. If striker with power and speed, Judith is an extremely you can time attacks between multiple characters well, effective fighter for players skilled with combos, and in you can keep a combo going indefinitely. This is pretty particular she's able to air juggle and double-jump (with simple if you have a second player working with a the right skills). Karol, on the other hand, is much more strong melee character, but if you're going solo, the stick and move. He's slow and he can't combo well, but best way to do it is working with timing spells with Rita he's good for players that like to balance offense and or Estelle. Casting time takes a while so it's tough to defense. learn to do this continuously, but it is possible. It should be obvious, but anything beyond basic Tactics combo skills really require being proficient with the "manual" control mode instead of "semi-auto," so the sooner you get comfortable with that the better. You want to think carefully about how you select your formation and your party's AI. In addition to the basic action component, Tales of Vesperia's battle system has a strategic component that is easily the match of most JRPGs. You can freeze the action and pull up the battle menu at any point by pressing the Y-Button. From here, you can command your team to perform a specific arte, configure shortcuts for different artes, use items, and you can hold LB and use the d-pad to change tactics. Tactics are fully customizable on a per-character basis along several criteria, including item usage, role in combat, and use of artes. You can designate a character as a support character, have it play aggressively or defensively, and determine whether it will use ranged or close-combat tactics. This is very useful, and your formation should consider these behaviors. Take the time to customize these strategies, as the defaults don't have much balance. You can also go into the artes menu and disable certain artes. This feature is not discussed in the game's tutorials, but it can be important, especially in boss fights. If you notice your character using spells that are ineffective in that battle, or wasteful, or if you simply want to emphasize other spells that are more effective, you can edit which spells will be in active rotation and which won't. If you disable a spell, you can still order it to be used manually, but the AI will not do so on its own. © 2008 IGN Entertainment, Inc. Page 2 Skills, Equipment, and Items It's not enough just to be able to string a combo. Consumable items are indispensable for every major battle. The flow of battle is crucial in Tales. If you can keep your party strong, your enemy will fall quickly, but if you lose your momentum, it can be very hard to recover. It's important to keep your party in top form before the start struggling rather than trying to pull back later. There's a time delay after using an item before another can be used. There are skills that change this time, as well as a skill that allows you to use items on other characters. After you choose to use the item in the menu, the character will not actually use it until he stops moving, so using items while in a vulnerable position is a problem. Tales of Vesperia Walkthrough Index 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 >> 01 Zaphias 02 Zaphias (cont.) 03 Zaphias (cont.) 04 Zaphias (cont.) 05 Deidon Hold 06 Quoi Woods 07 Halure 08 Halure (cont.) 09 Aspio 10 Shaikos Ruins 11 Shaikos Ruins (cont.) 12 Shaikos Ruins (cont.) 13 Ehmead Hill 14 Capua Nor 15 Capua Nor (cont.) 16 Capua Nor (cont.) 17 Capua Torim + Caer Bocram 18 Caer Bocram (cont.) 19 Heliord 20 Dahngrest 21 Keiv Moc 22 Keiv Moc (cont.) 23 Ghasfarost 24 Ghasfarost (cont.) 25 Ghasfarost (cont.) 26 Ghasfarost (cont.) 27 Ghasfarost (cont.) 28 Atherum © 2008 IGN Entertainment, Inc. Page 3 29 Atherum (cont.) 30 Nordopolica 31 Nordopolica (cont.) 32 Weasand of Cados 33 Weasand of Cados (cont.) 34 Mantaic + Sands of Kogorh 35 Yormgen 36 Yormgen (cont.) 37 Yormgen (cont.) 38 The Manor of the Wicked 39 Mt. Temza 40 Mt. Temza (cont.) 41 Phaeroh's Lair 42 Egothor Forest 43 Myorzo + Baction 44 Baction (cont.) 45 Hearacles 46 Hearacles (cont.) 47 Hearacles (cont.) 48 The Blade Drifts of Zoephir 49 The Blade Drifts of Zoephir (cont.) 50 Zaphias Castle 51 Zaphias Castle (cont.) 52 Zaude 53 Zaude (cont.) 54 After Zaude 55 After Zaude (cont.) 56 Erealumen Crystallands 57 Relewiese Hollow 58 Relewiese Hollow (cont.) 59 Northeast Hypionia 60 Northeast Hypionia (cont.) 61 The Ancient Tower, Tarquaron 62 The Ancient Tower, Tarquaron (cont.) © 2008 IGN Entertainment, Inc. Page 4 Index 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 >> Zaphias Once you get control of Yuri, head up to check out the commotion at the fountain. Head up again, up the big stairs into the Citizen's Quarter. Hang a left across the bridge from here. Past the guards there will be a fork to the left. This is the mansion you want to reach. You can't get in the front door so go around the left side and enter through the window. Go upstairs and then check the door on the left. You'll see a scene. Now head downstairs and out the door (but check the tables on the bottom floor before you do. They have goodies). © 2008 IGN Entertainment, Inc. Page 5 You'll have to fight some guards, but you don't have to win this fight, so don't waste too much effort or use up your healing items. It's not that difficult a fight, but the reward for beating it slim.