Many Tales fans sent their glances to the East when the PlayStation Vita title Tales of Innocence R launched with the handheld, not knowing and ultimately realizing that this palpable title wouldn’t make it to English shores. However, the announcement of Tales of Hearts R sparked hope once again in the fading handheld. Bandai Namco and Hideo Baba have continued the recent localization legacy with Hearts R coming to the West, and they’ve given PlayStation Universe an opportunity to take in the early moments of the PlayStation Vita-exclusive Tales of Hearts R, set to release this November.
The game begins with a boy and a girl fleeing for their lives from a witch, which results in them vaulting off a cliff into the ocean. From there, the narrative cuts to the main protagonist, Kor, who with the help of his grandfather Sydan comes of age. In doing so, he receives an apparatus called a Soma, which channels the Somatic’s (someone capable of wielding a Soma) main emotions. The Soma then takes the shape of a weapon that best reflects on the Somatic’s relative emotion in both the weapon’s appearance and application.
Upon returning to his little village, Kor stumbles across the girl from the opening cinematic washed up on shore, named Ishibana, with a personal mission of her own: seek out Syban, Kor’s grandfather. Without going too far into it, Kor soon realizes that his family history has had more influence than he had understood as the witch soon arrives with the same interest in Syban; and the plot of the game moves on from there.
Overall, the one aspect to this Tales series, after playing a great deal of them, is that emotion really took a forefront very quickly. Indeed, other titles in the series grant their own levels of feelings and concepts, but they don’t quite come off so drastically, so quickly, and so effectively. Now, I’ve never played a completeTales game with Japanese subtitles, which is how the preview was presented, but if the preview is any indication of what’s to come, the PlayStation Vita and its owners will be in for a treat.
Visually, Tales of Hearts R isn’t doing anything drastic, but none of the franchise titles really set the bar for graphical prowess either. On the other hand, players who have dove into the Playstation 3 games of late will soon feel a substantial backstep: characters are generally very stiff and ridged rather than animated. This is surely due to the fact that this title is on a handheld as well as being almost a year old already. Equally so, it may take a bit to get used to watching characters standing around with only significant animations taking place. To help counteract this, Hearts R includes a great deal more cut scenes in a vivid anime style, and though they’re generally much shorter than previous titles, they yield a dynamic that’s hard to ignore.
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The depth of the combat wasn’t fully realized in the 40-minute preview, and as is customary with the franchise, battles feel rather basic early on to help cater to the learning process. I’ve refused myself from watching videos of Japanese gameplay on YouTube, so I can keep the game feeling fresh when it launches later this year, but if the Soma Link is any indication, characters will have some sort of added benefits pertaining to who’s in the active party. The Soma Link allows Somatics the ability to access each other’s Soul Crystals, connecting them emotionally, which may grant extra incentives in combat. Again, I have kept myself away from any Japanese user content on the web, so I may be wrong, but I really hope I’m not: the emotional sides of the characters shown in the preview really took the stage in a big way, and having an equal representation of that in combat would accentuate an already impressive package.
To create a context for my next point, I must say that I have a tendency to be very judgmental of games when I first start playing them, essentially asking myself, "Why should I care about this game?" This goes doubly for RPGs, because they’re designed for the long haul. What really stood out with Tales of Hearts R for me was that there was no "why should I care" moment. The story was delivered in such a way that its beginnings genuinely took me in even more so than the other great games that Bandai Namco and Hideo Baba have created. The balance between characterization and plot development as well as the more progressive delivery of subtext made the entire package feel very complete.
It’s going to be hard to wait until November for Tales of Hearts R, but other early impressions indicate that it’ll be more than worth the time waited. With a dwindling of new and significant titles landing on the PS Vita, Tales of Hearts R holds the cards for an impressive revitalization of Sony’s handheld.