This is the second Haterade review in two days. I'm not expecting to put up a review a day, but this was written back in August, and as you can see, the styles definitely changed. I'm looking for some feedback as to which one worked better. Which one, you feel, conveyed the better sense (one is a game I'd want people to avoid, others is a game I'd want people to play) would be extremely helpful in figuring out which one I'm going to pursue, or which aspect I should try and port to the other style of Haterade.

 

It's not gonna come as a surprise to most of you, but I hate a lot of games. I would dare say I abhor approximately 75% of games currently published for the three major consoles, and 90% of games on PC. Most of the games I have on handhelds? Remakes, the lot of them. In short, the number of games I can honestly say I love is astronomically low when compared with the number of games available. However, how much do I really hate the games due to misinformation, due to the genre, the story, the gameplay, even the music? I don't know. I was on a sort of hiatus from Bitmob when it hit me like a slippery fish : Do a bunch of reviews of games you'd normally dismiss because you think they suck before you even play them. If nothing else, it will be hilarious watching yourself struggle with playing a game you do not want to play. I'm also a masochist and refer to myself in the second person.

 

So, Haterade. What is it and why is it?

 

The first question is simple : A review feature updated occasionally where someone reviews a game he is extremely biased against. The final verdict, in keeping with the whole "hate" motif, will use the two commonly used phrases : "Stop hatin'" and "Haters gonna hate." The first being a favorable review that ends up broadening my horizons, where the second is an unfavorable review which will probably cause a lot of cursing. It's not an attempt at professional reviewing. It's more of a... gaming journal centered on a particular aspect of deciding which game to play.

 

As to why? Well, why not? It gets me more involved with Bitmob which is good for me, and you get the satisfaction of reading about a hater try to mend their ways. Keeping that in mind, this will be very personal. Expect personal history with the game and genre in question, references, attempts at irreverent and irrelevant humor (what can I say, my style is impetuous) and possibly a life lesson to conclude.

 

Now, Tales of Vesperia.

 

NamcoBandai has been on my list of hated publishers, especially their USA branch, since the middle-end of the PS2 days. If I recall correctly, their publishing duties, in the US were limited to Tekken, arcade collections, some anime-based games and the few Tales series they deemed worth a try in the North American region. At that time, my ex-girlfriend was heavy into the series, to the point where I had purchased Tales of Legendia as a birthday gift (or Valentine's... I honestly don't remember and I doubt she does) as it had just come out. As the first Tales handled by the Project Soul developers... well, the characters were interesting, but beyond that, it was panned heavily with good reason. It was also their last, making this decision probably the best one NamcoBandai had in years.

 

At that time, I was also finishing up Tales of Symphonia, falling out of love with the game (and the series as I had also finished Tales of Destiny 2 or rather, Tales of Eternia with regret at losing a lot of time that could have been used to play better games - two stinkers in a row and I'm gone) due to the story, the characters, and goddamn Motoi Sakuraba, probably my most hated composer out of all video game composers (to his credit, I find he's been getting better at not composing the same songs over and over). Later on, I got my updates of the Tales series through my ex, and I must admit the following, the more I heard, the more this hate soon switched to the publisher's US branch itself. After all, withholding their more interesting titles while localizing the worse ones, half-assing the localization by introducing game-breaking bugs (Tales of the Abyss had bugs in the Japanese release, some were fixed, but Mystic Arts had a chance to freeze your game in the NA version, which was not in the Japanese release. Oops.) and withholding voice-acting for less important parts of the game when the voice-acting was in the Japanese release.

 

Ultimately, I swore off the series, and it was only after seeing there was a demo of Tales of Vesperia (abbreviated to ToV later on) on Xbox Live that I decided to pick it up. As I tried it, I felt a sense of... fun. The soundtrack was different, yet reminescent of their better games, the gameplay had carefully evolved into something interesting, yet easy to take a hold of, and the characters didn't annoy me too much this time around. I snapped it up, in distinct hopes that it would be much better than I dreaded.

 

Verdict : Stop hatin'

 

Simply put, I had fun with the game. Sure, the story takes a turn for the awful once you hit the third part of the game (like a lot of the Tales games I've played). Sure, some of the characters are extremely annoying (I'm looking at you, Rita and Estelle and your simili-lesbian overtones) or rehashes of other characters in the series (Flynn) but for the most part, I liked the cast and story. The first and second part establish Yuri Lowell, the protagonist, as something different. The soundtrack, while forgettable, rarely made me want to chuck my controller through the TV. Not game of that year by any stretch of the imagination, but something fun, which was more than I expected. I bought this on a whim, and did not regret my purchase. That's about as much as I can say. They could have done a lot more with the vigilante justice vs. proper order aspect of the story, which is what got me hooked to the game in the first place, they could have done more with the Rita/Estelle "friendship" which was not subtle but not touched upon very much (but then again, one step at a time - just having a protagonist that wasn't a stereotypical hero swordsman is enough of a change for them. It took all their creativity just to do that).

 

I think what I liked the most about this game is that it's a breath of fresh air in the series. It feels like they're ready for change, that it's not the same game with a few different twists and more letters in their battle system acronym. It feels new, and, in my opinion, is a good launching board for future titles. Of course, it remains a Tales game, so lots of things are the same - They just rebuilt them so that they felt newer. I had so much fun with the game I wanted to do a new game plus for it. If I had to say it in one word, I'd say edible. It's not bad nor good for you, and it tastes good, but it's forgettable.

 

It remains a JRPG, so avoid it if you really hate the entire genre, but for those who didn't like the later offerings in the Tales series, you should give it a spin. Plus, with the XBox version (the incomplete one if you're in Japan, if not, well, the only version), you don't get the loli pirate and if I can be entirely honest, that makes it the better version. The bells and whistles of the PS3 version may make it a much better game, alongside some bug fixes, but I find the loli pirate to be an aberration of character design, so your mileage may vary.

 

I haven't played Tales of Vesperia in at least a year and a half, so this was mostly done with fuzzy memory and a beer in order to give an example and possibly. Still, that I remember it fondly yet still loathe the publisher shows the strength of that "Stop hatin'" rating. I'm taking suggestions as to what to try, but keep in mind my limited budget (IE : Renting instead of buying will be the solution most of the time). I've all three major consoles, a DS and a decent enough gaming PC. Also, suggestions about this self-proclaimed "feature" are, naturally, welcomed.Haterade : Introduction and Tales of Vesperia

 

It's not gonna come as a surprise to most of you, but I hate a lot of games. I would dare say I abhor approximately 75% of games currently published for the three major consoles, and 90% of games on PC. Most of the games I have on handhelds? Remakes, the lot of them. In short, the number of games I can honestly say I love is astronomically low when compared with the number of games available.

 

However, how much do I really hate the games due to misinformation, due to the genre, the story, the gameplay, even the music? I don't know. I was on a sort of hiatus from Bitmob when it hit me like a slippery fish : Do a bunch of reviews of games you'd normally dismiss because you think they suck before you even play them. If nothing else, it will be hilarious watching yourself struggle with playing a game you do not want to play. I'm also a masochist and refer to myself in the second person.

 

So, Haterade. What is it and why is it?

 

The first question is simple : A review feature updated occasionally where someone reviews a game he is extremely biased against. The final verdict, in keeping with the whole "hate" motif, will use the two commonly used phrases : "Stop hatin'" and "Haters gonna hate." The first being a favorable review that ends up broadening my horizons, where the second is an unfavorable review which will probably cause a lot of cursing. It's not an attempt at professional reviewing. It's more of a... gaming journal centered on a particular aspect of deciding which game to play.

 

As to why? Well, why not? It gets me more involved with Bitmob which is good for me, and you get the satisfaction of reading about a hater try to mend their ways. Keeping that in mind, this will be very personal. Expect personal history with the game and genre in question, references, attempts at irreverent and irrelevant humor (what can I say, my style is impetuous) and possibly a life lesson to conclude.

 

Now, Tales of Vesperia.

 

NamcoBandai has been on my list of hated publishers, especially their USA branch, since the middle-end of the PS2 days. If I recall correctly, their publishing duties, in the US were limited to Tekken, arcade collections, some anime-based games and the few Tales series they deemed worth a try in the North American region. At that time, my ex-girlfriend was heavy into the series, to the point where I had purchased Tales of Legendia as a birthday gift (or Valentine's... I honestly don't remember and I doubt she does) as it had just come out. As the first Tales handled by the Project Soul developers... well, the characters were interesting, but beyond that, it was panned heavily with good reason. It was also their last, making this decision probably the best one NamcoBandai had in years.

 

At that time, I was also finishing up Tales of Symphonia, falling out of love with the game (and the series as I had also finished Tales of Destiny 2 or rather, Tales of Eternia with regret at losing a lot of time that could have been used to play better games - two stinkers in a row and I'm gone) due to the story, the characters, and goddamn Motoi Sakuraba, probably my most hated composer out of all video game composers (to his credit, I find he's been getting better at not composing the same songs over and over). Later on, I got my updates of the Tales series through my ex, and I must admit the following, the more I heard, the more this hate soon switched to the publisher's US branch itself. After all, withholding their more interesting titles while localizing the worse ones, half-assing the localization by introducing game-breaking bugs (Tales of the Abyss had bugs in the Japanese release, some were fixed, but Mystic Arts had a chance to freeze your game in the NA version, which was not in the Japanese release. Oops.) and withholding voice-acting for less important parts of the game when the voice-acting was in the Japanese release.

 

Ultimately, I swore off the series, and it was only after seeing there was a demo of Tales of Vesperia (abbreviated to ToV later on) on Xbox Live that I decided to pick it up. As I tried it, I felt a sense of... fun. The soundtrack was different, yet reminescent of their better games, the gameplay had carefully evolved into something interesting, yet easy to take a hold of, and the characters didn't annoy me too much this time around.

 

Verdict : Stop hatin'

 

Simply put, I had fun with the game. Sure, the story takes a turn for the awful once you hit the third part of the game. Sure, some of the characters are extremely annoying (I'm looking at you, Rita and Estelle and your simili-lesbian overtones) or rehashes of other characters in the series (Flynn) but for the most part, I liked the cast and story. The first and second part establish Yuri Lowell, the protagonist, as something different. The soundtrack, while forgettable, rarely made me want to chuck my controller through the TV. Not game of that year by any stretch of the imagination, but something fun, which was more than I expected. I bought this on a whim, and did not regret my purchase. That's about as much as I can say. They could have done a lot more with the vigilante justice vs. proper order aspect of the story, which is what got me hooked to the game in the first place, they could have done more with the Rita/Estelle "friendship" which was not subtle but not touched upon very much (but then again, one step at a time - just having a protagonist that wasn't a stereotypical hero swordsman is enough of a change for them. It took all their creativity just to do that).

 

I think what I liked the most about this game is that it's a breath of fresh air in the series. It feels like they're ready for change, that it's not the same game with a few different twists and more letters in their battle system acronym. It feels new, and, in my opinion, is a good launching board for future titles. Of course, it remains a Tales game, so lots of things are the same - They just rebuilt them so that they felt newer. I had so much fun with the game I wanted to do a new game plus for it. If I had to say it in one word, I'd say edible. It's not bad nor good for you, and it tastes good, but it's forgettable.

 

It remains a JRPG, so avoid it if you really hate the entire genre, but for those who didn't like the later offerings in the Tales series, you should give it a spin. Plus, with the XBox version (the incomplete one if you're in Japan, if not, well, the only version), you don't get the loli pirate and if I can be entirely honest, that makes it the better version.

 

I haven't played Tales of Vesperia in at least a year and a half, so this was mostly done with fuzzy memory and a beer in order to give an example and possibly. Still, that I remember it fondly yet still loathe the publisher shows the strength of that "Stop hatin'" rating. I'm taking suggestions as to what to try, but keep in mind my limited budget (IE : Renting instead of buying will be the solution most of the time). I've all three major consoles, a DS and a decent enough gaming PC. Also, suggestions about this self-proclaimed "feature" are, naturally, welcomed.