Okay, fuck it, I figured most people who aren't already playing the game or randomly checking the official thread won't even see it. So here it is in a NEW thread! :lol
I beat it earliertoday yesterday, I gave myself some time to collect my thoughts. So here're my final impressions. Warning: It is largely unedited because I'm really fucking tired now. It's really long, so I hope someone takes the time to read it all before replying and asking a dumb question that's already answered (sorry but that's really annoying -_-), and I hope there aren't any terrible mistakes in here. Enjoy!
End-game Status
The clear time on my save is 51:30, which is really lengthy for a portable non-strategy RPG. I did a ton of sidequests and optional events though, but not all... yet. I reckon most players will take at least 40-45 hours to complete the game, which is a great length. There's still a good amount optional content in the game post-completion though, so I might play on for quite a bit just to get the rest.
Story
I really liked the story, and it's helped by the fact that the cast was really likeable. Not just the playable characters, but the rivals, villains and supporting cast were all pretty solid characters. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking or new about the cast, but it's a tried and true formula that is so well executed that it connects really well with the player.
The story format is very similar to anime series like Eureka Seven and Gurren Lagann, which is something I haven't really seen done in a Tales game before. Usually in a Tales game, the issue of romance is something that is used as a background event, and the story is doesn't really give much room for fleshing out of the romantic elements. Here, the story focuses very much on the classical boy meets girl love story, that forms the axis that the entire scenario revolves around.
The attraction between Shing and Kohak is what drives the entire story, and what motivates Shing to do what he does. In turn, it motivates people drawn to Shing and Kohak to help them in their quest. That doesn't mean the game is a sappy romance story though, it's through and through a shounen adventure and Shing is a really good shounen lead.
For fans of the genre, it's always rewarding to watch a boy grow and develop to be stronger and more driven because of his love, and to watch how the girl draws closer to him as he protects her or as she sees the risks he takes to help her on her mission. The scenario makes the characters convincing, and once the connection works, the player becomes involved with the quest on a more personal level, which makes progression all the more rewarding.
As the story develops further, the player is introduced to the worldview - the politics, the history of the world, and most importantly the technology and its source. Tales games have always had a taste for ancient civilizations and the origin of technology in the current world. Tales of Hearts is no different, and the tale is rather interesting and refreshing.
Throughout the game, there are many cutscenes and all the important ones are voiced. There a ton of voice for a DS game, and it really helps deliver the additional emotion and dramatic elements that the scenario demands. The decision to use a 2Gbit rom really paid off here, and it's the single biggest leap the game has over most DS RPGs.
There are also about 187 skits throughout the game, with 76 of them being fully voiced skits. For the unvoiced skits, there's usually a good effort put in to keep them interesting even though they're unvoiced. There's usually a dialogue option for one of the characters in the skit when it's unvoiced and the choice leads to different results - some are really funny. The skits that deal with the next destination are also unvoiced, which is a good call, since they're usually a waste of time anyway.
Like the main story, the skits are rather well written, and usually have a strong touch of humor in them. The skits usually play with Shing's innocence a lot, with older characters trying hard not to have to explain certain things that are crude and/or of sexual nature to him. There's a good dose of actual character development between the characters in the skits as well, and you really start to feel that the party is bonding more and more towards the latter half of the game. This is especially important because the bond between the characters is a major plot point throughout the game.
Battle and Gameplay Systems
The gameplay in Tales of Hearts is pretty much what can be expected of a modern 2D Tales game. The battle system borrows heavily from the Tales of Destiny remake on the PS2, and uses a power bar instead of TP. This essentially means that all skills have unlimited usage in battles, and your ability to spam attacks are limited only by draining the bar and having to wait for it to refill. There are various ways to build the bar up before starting a combo string though - guarding, using a normal attack and stopping, etc. You can also play completely offensively, and if you can kill enemies while in a combo, the bar will regenerate enough for you to continue the rampage.
This does not in any way mean the game is a cakewalk. The game is well balanced against complete spamming (unless you powerlevel and get really strong, then it doesn't really matter either way). Enemies have pretty strong AI, and they know how to team up against you. There are also invincibility frames which allow enemies to break out of combos even if you somehow manage to trap them. I never found these tactics frustrating though, because the game gives the player a great amount of freedom in power, so you can always work out something during a fight even if it goes badly.
Another topic worthy of noting is that Shing is an extremely good aerial character. He has an excellent mix of skills, that only get better and better as the game progresses. Instead of being limited to the general wave attacks or sword combos, he has a good range of both close melee, range, and dashing/thrusting attacks. Overall, his move set makes him very manuverable and it keeps the battle engine fast and furious. He has moves that are great for holding enemies in a spot so other party members can hit them with their attacks, and many of his regular melee and dashing moves also work while in the air. There's a lot of experimentation possible with Shing, and it makes him a really great lead character to play.
One change from a regular Tales game is that there are only 3 party members in battle instead of 4. This actually means that mage characters are at a bigger disadvantage than before, since there's one less character to block off/distract enemies from zooming through the battle line and attacking the casters while they're charging.
To make up for this disadvantage, there's a Connect Panel on the touch screen. This replicates the usual shortcuts for Tales games, and you can equip character attacks or item uses on the panel to tap during a battle for an instant effect. The game starts with 2 panels being available, but as you use it more, 4 panel and 6 panel versions become available.
The Connect Panel has one huge difference from previous Tales shortcuts though, and that is that you can equip non-battle characters onto the panel as well. This means you can essentially summon a character not in your battle party to do a single move in battle. The game also features special optional items in sidequests that allow you to equip cameo attacks onto the Connect Panel. There are cameos from many characters all throughout the previous Tales games, as well as a few famous Namco characters from non-Tales games.
Outside of battles, the game also has several unique gameplay systems, relatively new to the Tales series. There's a Healing Stone you get, which starts with a capacity of 100 healing points. At healing stores, you can purchase an assortment of conditions for the stone (examples: In Battle - Character's HP falls below 50%, End of Battle - Total Party HP is below 60%, etc) as well as more condition slots, and various effects and additional effects to apply to each condition (Revive 20% of HP, Raise ATK by 10%, etc).
Once customized, the stone will restore the HP of characters based on the conditions either during a battle or at the end of a battle. More uses can be purchased so the stone's effects can occur more than once in a single battle. Aside from the auto customization functions, the stone can also be used manually out of battles at any time to restore pre-set % denominations of HP for the entire party. Whenever the stone is used, healing points are drained. Healing points can be restored either by finding crystal spots in dungeons, or paying to refill them in stores.
It's a good and effective system, because the lack of TP in the game means healing spells cannot be used outside of battles, and since healing items that you can carry are limited, you generally want to save them for boss fights.
In terms of equipment, Tales of Hearts only has 2 accessory slots for each character. There are no weapons, shields or armor to equip. It might disappoint some gamers at first, but it keeps the game focused. It doesn't mean there's a lack of micromanagement for players, because weapons are instead upgraded. At the beginning, each character has a preset weapon and a bunch of different types of abilities and skills that can be learned from the weapon.
The abilities range from stat upgrades, to non-attack moves (backstep, dash, double jump, etc), to support skills that raise resistance or give passive benefits in battle, to actual attack skills. When enough abilites/skills have been learned from a weapon, there will be an option to upgrade it. Each level of a weapon has 3 upgrade options. One will give more parameter abilities and support skills, one will be give parameter abilities and battle skills, and finally one will give more support and battle skills. You do not lose the option to learn any unlearned abilities or skills after the upgrade, it simply adds more options to the skill list depending on the upgrade path you picked. Each upgrade also has its own stat boosts that vary, and sometimes certain paths have additional benefits that are listed.
Abilities and skills are learned by using the required materials to learn them. Materials are either found in the field and dungeons, or dropped by enemies. General and common materials are also sold in material shops in each town. Aside from learning skills, materials can also be used to build accessories that might not be available for sale in stores. Existing accessories can all also be broken down to raw materials, just in case you need some material and you're not using those accessories you have in your inventory.
The game has an excellent beastiary and item collection database, so if you ever find the need to check which enemy drops a certain material, it's easy. The world map in the menu also has quick access to the shop lists in each town and what they sell, so if you want to find a place to buy common materials you ran out of it's a snap too.
The World
A rather large departure in from all previous Tales game is that Tales of Hearts does not have a traditional world map. The idea of running on an unproportional world map from one town to another while getting into enemy encounters is simply not in the game. Instead, the game connects every town, dungeon and location via field dungeons. Like in Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII, the world is actually connected by roads and passages and you have to move through them to get from one place to another. It might seem like filler, but it does give the world a bigger feel, and it isn't much of a bother.
The traditional world map does make an appearance later on though, but without any encounters on it. At key points throughout the adventure, entire field dungeons become "conquered", after which when leaving a town or dungeon connected to these field dungeons, there's an option to go on the world map instead which allows for much faster travel without any encounters. It feels pretty rewarding the first time it happens, because you feel like you earned the world map by completing the trek across the entire section of the world.
Aside from the field dungeons, another "new" sort of dungeon in the game are the SpirMazes. SpirMazes are dungeons that represent the soul of a person. This generally means they're extremely repetitive and somewhat boring. They're floor based dungeons that thankfully never last very long, and the layout seems rather randomly generation.
Each floor has an exit point that you can sort of see on the minimap below the screen, but because of the maze like branching of paths, you don't exactly know which path will definitely lead to that distination. To add to the tension, you begin each maze with 100 link points, which reduces with each step you take. You can find items in green chests, and link recovery in red chests. But red chests could sometimes also make your link points drop faster (I usually just stand still until it wears off), or drop slower.
There isn't really much depth to the SpirMazes, but they don't all look the same (there are several templates, depending generally on what that character's soul would more likely be thinking of). It's still rather gimmicky, and doesn't really add much to the game except more filler. The quests that are often connected to SpirMazes can be quite good though, and there's quite a bit of development for background characters that don't have a big role in the story in these quests. There can be good rewards too, so I guess there's a hook to actually do them. Otherwise it's the weakest part of the game.
Now, the real dungeons in the game are a totally different affair. They are traditional, top grade Tales dungeons. The design is generally pretty solid, with a good variety of puzzles and sorceror's ring usage - some are pretty innovative. With 3 different types of sorceror's ring effects that you gain over the course of the game, it makes for some pretty interesting puzzles throughout the game. The dungeons range from mid-sized ones to really big dungeons. The design of the dungeons are generally great, and you never really feel like you're just going around in rooms or doing the same thing over and over.
There's a good element of exploration in most of the dungeons, and even though there is asset reuse in some dungeons, they're almost always interesting and there are several key dungeons are are really well designed. The dungeon design is one of the elements in the game that really allows the art direction in the game to complement the gameplay design in great ways.
Graphics and Sound
The graphics in Tales of Hearts is outstanding for a DS title, and even rivals most PS1 RPGs. The style of the presentation in the game is very similar to earlier Tales games such as Tales of Destiny and Tales of Eternia. There's something nostalgic about the way it's presented, but yet it sets itself apart from those games by having completely realtime 3D backgrounds.
The backgrounds look really good and the game remains smooth even with a high level of detail (for the DS anyway). The textures are pretty detailed, and there's lots of animation and details in each town and dungeon. Everything basically feels alive and vibrate, no doubt aided by the great art direction. If you took backgrounds from Tales of Destiny on the PS2 and scaled them down to a DS resolution, they'll probably look exactly like what Tales of Hearts looks like.
The field sprites are less impressive, and it might have been a mistake to go with super deformed sprites on the field. They lack details and while there are some pretty nice custom animations for certain cutscenes, on a whole it's rather lacking. Shing's walking/running animation in particular is pretty abyssmal, with him paddling like a penguin because of the stumpy legs. Thankfully you can change the character represented on the field without any special item this time, and most of the other characters have a better walking animation than Shing.
The battle sprites are great though. There's not a ton of animation frames, so it's not exactly as smooth as the PS2 console cousins, but there are still a ton of moves and they all animate well. There's a large variety of enemy types too, and many of the bosses look extremely cool. The non-deformed and proper proportioned characters in battle are a dozen times more impressive than the field sprites, and it's especially surprising to witness the huge jump in detail and design when you fight several major bosses after seeing their lackluster field sprites in cutscenes for most of the game. The battles remain really smooth even with tons of effects and combos going on, and while there's very slight slowdown in certain battles, it never gets in the way of the action.
It's pretty impressive that even the battle backgrounds are full 3D, but detailed enough to pass for 2D art. Being 3D they scale and zoom really well, which wouldn't be the case for a 2D background, and it also helps with the perspective while the camera pans as you move in battles. It retains the great feel of modern 2D Tales console titles on the DS screen. While a feat.
It's also impressive how many unique locations the game really has. It's a huge game, with a really sizeable world, and there many, many towns and dungeons, many of which are pretty memorable and have a distinct flavor to them. Each dungeon and field has a variety of battle backgrounds as well, aside from the great variety of enemies. It keeps the game really interesting and really motivates you to keep playing to see more of the world.
Sound-wise, the game really delivers on the voice acting. There's a huge amount of voice for a DS game, and it's really surprising how much of the game is actually voiced. It's pretty impressive playing a DS RPG where all the major cutscenes are voiced, the battles are all voiced with a decent variety of victory quotes, and over a third of the skits are voiced. The constant pace of voice in the game really makes it feel much more lively and fits the Tales mood perfectly.
The sound effects are average, but they do the job. And the soundtrack, while not of the greatest quality, does have its moments. Sound quality is something the DS has never been known for, so it's hard to really have high expectations of the sound output to begin with. The quality here is within expectations and I really don't think I expected anything more than what was delivered. I was surprised to actually enjoy quite a number of tracks throughout the game, and several of the battles themes were pretty solid. Sakuraba seems to have done a better job with composing on a weaker hardware, than he did on Vesperia which was for a much more advanced console. I really wasn't feeling the battle themes in Vesperia at all, so I was surprised to actually enjoy the ones in Hearts.
The generic field theme did get rather repetitive towards the end though, and I found myself zoning out on it quite often. It's not really a great track, and hearing it whenever you move through a field dungeon or even on the world map was just a little too much for the average track that kept looping and looping. Several of the towns have pretty good themes, while the dungeon themes were less memorable. One track I really felt was wasted would be the theme for the Holy Knights. There's an attempt to simulate an orchestral choir effect, and it totally falls flat on the DS. The samples are just too low quality to create the majestic effect it was supposed to make and instead everytime it played I was just annoyed by the unbalanced noise the track was generating.
Post-Game and Replay Value
Like the previous Tales games, the game definitely has replay value. There are various side events in the game that can be missed if you progress too far in the story, although they're not too important. Stuff like that would be things players could look out for in replays. The Grade Shop has a bunch of options to buy after beating the game, which would make a New Game+ experience more fun with more options right off the bat.
Aside from replay value though, the game also has a pretty decent post-game setup. After loading the clear save, the game puts you back in the final save point, but with a new NPC next to it. The NPC gives a hint on how to begin the quest that involves the new bonus dungeon that's available now, after which he offers to warp you out of the final dungeon. This is an awesome option that all RPGs should adopt, because no one likes having to run all the way out of the final dungeon just to continue doing sidequests.
By loading the clear save, the bonus dungeon isn't the only thing that becomes available. To make the post-game stuff even more interesting, the final weapon forms become available for upgrade. The icing on top of the cake is that aside from learning more skills from the final form(s), it appears at least for some characters, the final weapon form is represented in actual battles. I experimented with Shing, and he had two final forms for his weapon. Each looked distinct from the other, and after reloading to choose each one, they're both represented in battle in their unique forms. It's pretty cool that they put the extra effort for players that plan to continue playing the game after the ending, because stuff like that makes battles even more refreshing in post-game.
The game is loaded with side quests, SpirMazes, and various secrets. It's pretty much impossible to get everything before beating the game, since some are tied to the bonus dungeon. So it's great that for players that want to do everything, the final part of the game after the ending still has unique stuff to surprise players visually.
Beating the game also unlocks the Museum option in the title screen. In the museum menu, players are free to listen to any track on the soundtrack neatly arranged by type (event, dungeon, town, battle, etc), check out all the voice samples in the game (battle samples arranged by character, event voices arranged by chapter and scene), replay any skit (voiced skited are arranged first, followed by unvoiced ones), or watch any of the FMVs again. It's a great feature, and also one that all JRPGs should have. It's a great reward for players that put all their time into a game, and it's great to be able to review various aspects of the media in the game over again at anytime.
Summary
I really, really enjoyed the game. I feel that it is probably the best DS RPG that I've played, and definitely the most enjoyable. Before this, the benchmark for traditional style JRPGs on the DS for me was FFIV, but this totally blows it out of the water. There are definitely many other DS RPGs I enjoyed, but I've noticed that most of them are various subgenres, that are usually strong in a specific gameplay element, but not really traditional RPGs in the overall sense (EO, Soma Bringer, etc).
Tales of Hearts on the other hand, is a RPG that covers all the bases that gamers expect from a JRPG - story, characters, a full world, many towns and dungeons, a sizable cast, many events, nice FMVs, lots of battles and bosses, tons of optional content, various interesting gameplay systems, etc. It's not really missing anything that you would expect from a JRPG, and it does really well in pretty much all the fields. I found the cast likeable, the story was entertaining, the battles are fun and balanced, the dugeons are well designed, the graphics and art direction is great, even the music works well, and the entire game feels so polished and put together with a lot of care.
I beat it earlier
End-game Status
The clear time on my save is 51:30, which is really lengthy for a portable non-strategy RPG. I did a ton of sidequests and optional events though, but not all... yet. I reckon most players will take at least 40-45 hours to complete the game, which is a great length. There's still a good amount optional content in the game post-completion though, so I might play on for quite a bit just to get the rest.
Story
I really liked the story, and it's helped by the fact that the cast was really likeable. Not just the playable characters, but the rivals, villains and supporting cast were all pretty solid characters. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking or new about the cast, but it's a tried and true formula that is so well executed that it connects really well with the player.
The story format is very similar to anime series like Eureka Seven and Gurren Lagann, which is something I haven't really seen done in a Tales game before. Usually in a Tales game, the issue of romance is something that is used as a background event, and the story is doesn't really give much room for fleshing out of the romantic elements. Here, the story focuses very much on the classical boy meets girl love story, that forms the axis that the entire scenario revolves around.
The attraction between Shing and Kohak is what drives the entire story, and what motivates Shing to do what he does. In turn, it motivates people drawn to Shing and Kohak to help them in their quest. That doesn't mean the game is a sappy romance story though, it's through and through a shounen adventure and Shing is a really good shounen lead.
For fans of the genre, it's always rewarding to watch a boy grow and develop to be stronger and more driven because of his love, and to watch how the girl draws closer to him as he protects her or as she sees the risks he takes to help her on her mission. The scenario makes the characters convincing, and once the connection works, the player becomes involved with the quest on a more personal level, which makes progression all the more rewarding.
As the story develops further, the player is introduced to the worldview - the politics, the history of the world, and most importantly the technology and its source. Tales games have always had a taste for ancient civilizations and the origin of technology in the current world. Tales of Hearts is no different, and the tale is rather interesting and refreshing.
Throughout the game, there are many cutscenes and all the important ones are voiced. There a ton of voice for a DS game, and it really helps deliver the additional emotion and dramatic elements that the scenario demands. The decision to use a 2Gbit rom really paid off here, and it's the single biggest leap the game has over most DS RPGs.
There are also about 187 skits throughout the game, with 76 of them being fully voiced skits. For the unvoiced skits, there's usually a good effort put in to keep them interesting even though they're unvoiced. There's usually a dialogue option for one of the characters in the skit when it's unvoiced and the choice leads to different results - some are really funny. The skits that deal with the next destination are also unvoiced, which is a good call, since they're usually a waste of time anyway.
Like the main story, the skits are rather well written, and usually have a strong touch of humor in them. The skits usually play with Shing's innocence a lot, with older characters trying hard not to have to explain certain things that are crude and/or of sexual nature to him. There's a good dose of actual character development between the characters in the skits as well, and you really start to feel that the party is bonding more and more towards the latter half of the game. This is especially important because the bond between the characters is a major plot point throughout the game.
Battle and Gameplay Systems
The gameplay in Tales of Hearts is pretty much what can be expected of a modern 2D Tales game. The battle system borrows heavily from the Tales of Destiny remake on the PS2, and uses a power bar instead of TP. This essentially means that all skills have unlimited usage in battles, and your ability to spam attacks are limited only by draining the bar and having to wait for it to refill. There are various ways to build the bar up before starting a combo string though - guarding, using a normal attack and stopping, etc. You can also play completely offensively, and if you can kill enemies while in a combo, the bar will regenerate enough for you to continue the rampage.
This does not in any way mean the game is a cakewalk. The game is well balanced against complete spamming (unless you powerlevel and get really strong, then it doesn't really matter either way). Enemies have pretty strong AI, and they know how to team up against you. There are also invincibility frames which allow enemies to break out of combos even if you somehow manage to trap them. I never found these tactics frustrating though, because the game gives the player a great amount of freedom in power, so you can always work out something during a fight even if it goes badly.
Another topic worthy of noting is that Shing is an extremely good aerial character. He has an excellent mix of skills, that only get better and better as the game progresses. Instead of being limited to the general wave attacks or sword combos, he has a good range of both close melee, range, and dashing/thrusting attacks. Overall, his move set makes him very manuverable and it keeps the battle engine fast and furious. He has moves that are great for holding enemies in a spot so other party members can hit them with their attacks, and many of his regular melee and dashing moves also work while in the air. There's a lot of experimentation possible with Shing, and it makes him a really great lead character to play.
One change from a regular Tales game is that there are only 3 party members in battle instead of 4. This actually means that mage characters are at a bigger disadvantage than before, since there's one less character to block off/distract enemies from zooming through the battle line and attacking the casters while they're charging.
To make up for this disadvantage, there's a Connect Panel on the touch screen. This replicates the usual shortcuts for Tales games, and you can equip character attacks or item uses on the panel to tap during a battle for an instant effect. The game starts with 2 panels being available, but as you use it more, 4 panel and 6 panel versions become available.
The Connect Panel has one huge difference from previous Tales shortcuts though, and that is that you can equip non-battle characters onto the panel as well. This means you can essentially summon a character not in your battle party to do a single move in battle. The game also features special optional items in sidequests that allow you to equip cameo attacks onto the Connect Panel. There are cameos from many characters all throughout the previous Tales games, as well as a few famous Namco characters from non-Tales games.
Outside of battles, the game also has several unique gameplay systems, relatively new to the Tales series. There's a Healing Stone you get, which starts with a capacity of 100 healing points. At healing stores, you can purchase an assortment of conditions for the stone (examples: In Battle - Character's HP falls below 50%, End of Battle - Total Party HP is below 60%, etc) as well as more condition slots, and various effects and additional effects to apply to each condition (Revive 20% of HP, Raise ATK by 10%, etc).
Once customized, the stone will restore the HP of characters based on the conditions either during a battle or at the end of a battle. More uses can be purchased so the stone's effects can occur more than once in a single battle. Aside from the auto customization functions, the stone can also be used manually out of battles at any time to restore pre-set % denominations of HP for the entire party. Whenever the stone is used, healing points are drained. Healing points can be restored either by finding crystal spots in dungeons, or paying to refill them in stores.
It's a good and effective system, because the lack of TP in the game means healing spells cannot be used outside of battles, and since healing items that you can carry are limited, you generally want to save them for boss fights.
In terms of equipment, Tales of Hearts only has 2 accessory slots for each character. There are no weapons, shields or armor to equip. It might disappoint some gamers at first, but it keeps the game focused. It doesn't mean there's a lack of micromanagement for players, because weapons are instead upgraded. At the beginning, each character has a preset weapon and a bunch of different types of abilities and skills that can be learned from the weapon.
The abilities range from stat upgrades, to non-attack moves (backstep, dash, double jump, etc), to support skills that raise resistance or give passive benefits in battle, to actual attack skills. When enough abilites/skills have been learned from a weapon, there will be an option to upgrade it. Each level of a weapon has 3 upgrade options. One will give more parameter abilities and support skills, one will be give parameter abilities and battle skills, and finally one will give more support and battle skills. You do not lose the option to learn any unlearned abilities or skills after the upgrade, it simply adds more options to the skill list depending on the upgrade path you picked. Each upgrade also has its own stat boosts that vary, and sometimes certain paths have additional benefits that are listed.
Abilities and skills are learned by using the required materials to learn them. Materials are either found in the field and dungeons, or dropped by enemies. General and common materials are also sold in material shops in each town. Aside from learning skills, materials can also be used to build accessories that might not be available for sale in stores. Existing accessories can all also be broken down to raw materials, just in case you need some material and you're not using those accessories you have in your inventory.
The game has an excellent beastiary and item collection database, so if you ever find the need to check which enemy drops a certain material, it's easy. The world map in the menu also has quick access to the shop lists in each town and what they sell, so if you want to find a place to buy common materials you ran out of it's a snap too.
The World
A rather large departure in from all previous Tales game is that Tales of Hearts does not have a traditional world map. The idea of running on an unproportional world map from one town to another while getting into enemy encounters is simply not in the game. Instead, the game connects every town, dungeon and location via field dungeons. Like in Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII, the world is actually connected by roads and passages and you have to move through them to get from one place to another. It might seem like filler, but it does give the world a bigger feel, and it isn't much of a bother.
The traditional world map does make an appearance later on though, but without any encounters on it. At key points throughout the adventure, entire field dungeons become "conquered", after which when leaving a town or dungeon connected to these field dungeons, there's an option to go on the world map instead which allows for much faster travel without any encounters. It feels pretty rewarding the first time it happens, because you feel like you earned the world map by completing the trek across the entire section of the world.
Aside from the field dungeons, another "new" sort of dungeon in the game are the SpirMazes. SpirMazes are dungeons that represent the soul of a person. This generally means they're extremely repetitive and somewhat boring. They're floor based dungeons that thankfully never last very long, and the layout seems rather randomly generation.
Each floor has an exit point that you can sort of see on the minimap below the screen, but because of the maze like branching of paths, you don't exactly know which path will definitely lead to that distination. To add to the tension, you begin each maze with 100 link points, which reduces with each step you take. You can find items in green chests, and link recovery in red chests. But red chests could sometimes also make your link points drop faster (I usually just stand still until it wears off), or drop slower.
There isn't really much depth to the SpirMazes, but they don't all look the same (there are several templates, depending generally on what that character's soul would more likely be thinking of). It's still rather gimmicky, and doesn't really add much to the game except more filler. The quests that are often connected to SpirMazes can be quite good though, and there's quite a bit of development for background characters that don't have a big role in the story in these quests. There can be good rewards too, so I guess there's a hook to actually do them. Otherwise it's the weakest part of the game.
Now, the real dungeons in the game are a totally different affair. They are traditional, top grade Tales dungeons. The design is generally pretty solid, with a good variety of puzzles and sorceror's ring usage - some are pretty innovative. With 3 different types of sorceror's ring effects that you gain over the course of the game, it makes for some pretty interesting puzzles throughout the game. The dungeons range from mid-sized ones to really big dungeons. The design of the dungeons are generally great, and you never really feel like you're just going around in rooms or doing the same thing over and over.
There's a good element of exploration in most of the dungeons, and even though there is asset reuse in some dungeons, they're almost always interesting and there are several key dungeons are are really well designed. The dungeon design is one of the elements in the game that really allows the art direction in the game to complement the gameplay design in great ways.
Graphics and Sound
The graphics in Tales of Hearts is outstanding for a DS title, and even rivals most PS1 RPGs. The style of the presentation in the game is very similar to earlier Tales games such as Tales of Destiny and Tales of Eternia. There's something nostalgic about the way it's presented, but yet it sets itself apart from those games by having completely realtime 3D backgrounds.
The backgrounds look really good and the game remains smooth even with a high level of detail (for the DS anyway). The textures are pretty detailed, and there's lots of animation and details in each town and dungeon. Everything basically feels alive and vibrate, no doubt aided by the great art direction. If you took backgrounds from Tales of Destiny on the PS2 and scaled them down to a DS resolution, they'll probably look exactly like what Tales of Hearts looks like.
The field sprites are less impressive, and it might have been a mistake to go with super deformed sprites on the field. They lack details and while there are some pretty nice custom animations for certain cutscenes, on a whole it's rather lacking. Shing's walking/running animation in particular is pretty abyssmal, with him paddling like a penguin because of the stumpy legs. Thankfully you can change the character represented on the field without any special item this time, and most of the other characters have a better walking animation than Shing.
The battle sprites are great though. There's not a ton of animation frames, so it's not exactly as smooth as the PS2 console cousins, but there are still a ton of moves and they all animate well. There's a large variety of enemy types too, and many of the bosses look extremely cool. The non-deformed and proper proportioned characters in battle are a dozen times more impressive than the field sprites, and it's especially surprising to witness the huge jump in detail and design when you fight several major bosses after seeing their lackluster field sprites in cutscenes for most of the game. The battles remain really smooth even with tons of effects and combos going on, and while there's very slight slowdown in certain battles, it never gets in the way of the action.
It's pretty impressive that even the battle backgrounds are full 3D, but detailed enough to pass for 2D art. Being 3D they scale and zoom really well, which wouldn't be the case for a 2D background, and it also helps with the perspective while the camera pans as you move in battles. It retains the great feel of modern 2D Tales console titles on the DS screen. While a feat.
It's also impressive how many unique locations the game really has. It's a huge game, with a really sizeable world, and there many, many towns and dungeons, many of which are pretty memorable and have a distinct flavor to them. Each dungeon and field has a variety of battle backgrounds as well, aside from the great variety of enemies. It keeps the game really interesting and really motivates you to keep playing to see more of the world.
Sound-wise, the game really delivers on the voice acting. There's a huge amount of voice for a DS game, and it's really surprising how much of the game is actually voiced. It's pretty impressive playing a DS RPG where all the major cutscenes are voiced, the battles are all voiced with a decent variety of victory quotes, and over a third of the skits are voiced. The constant pace of voice in the game really makes it feel much more lively and fits the Tales mood perfectly.
The sound effects are average, but they do the job. And the soundtrack, while not of the greatest quality, does have its moments. Sound quality is something the DS has never been known for, so it's hard to really have high expectations of the sound output to begin with. The quality here is within expectations and I really don't think I expected anything more than what was delivered. I was surprised to actually enjoy quite a number of tracks throughout the game, and several of the battles themes were pretty solid. Sakuraba seems to have done a better job with composing on a weaker hardware, than he did on Vesperia which was for a much more advanced console. I really wasn't feeling the battle themes in Vesperia at all, so I was surprised to actually enjoy the ones in Hearts.
The generic field theme did get rather repetitive towards the end though, and I found myself zoning out on it quite often. It's not really a great track, and hearing it whenever you move through a field dungeon or even on the world map was just a little too much for the average track that kept looping and looping. Several of the towns have pretty good themes, while the dungeon themes were less memorable. One track I really felt was wasted would be the theme for the Holy Knights. There's an attempt to simulate an orchestral choir effect, and it totally falls flat on the DS. The samples are just too low quality to create the majestic effect it was supposed to make and instead everytime it played I was just annoyed by the unbalanced noise the track was generating.
Post-Game and Replay Value
Like the previous Tales games, the game definitely has replay value. There are various side events in the game that can be missed if you progress too far in the story, although they're not too important. Stuff like that would be things players could look out for in replays. The Grade Shop has a bunch of options to buy after beating the game, which would make a New Game+ experience more fun with more options right off the bat.
Aside from replay value though, the game also has a pretty decent post-game setup. After loading the clear save, the game puts you back in the final save point, but with a new NPC next to it. The NPC gives a hint on how to begin the quest that involves the new bonus dungeon that's available now, after which he offers to warp you out of the final dungeon. This is an awesome option that all RPGs should adopt, because no one likes having to run all the way out of the final dungeon just to continue doing sidequests.
By loading the clear save, the bonus dungeon isn't the only thing that becomes available. To make the post-game stuff even more interesting, the final weapon forms become available for upgrade. The icing on top of the cake is that aside from learning more skills from the final form(s), it appears at least for some characters, the final weapon form is represented in actual battles. I experimented with Shing, and he had two final forms for his weapon. Each looked distinct from the other, and after reloading to choose each one, they're both represented in battle in their unique forms. It's pretty cool that they put the extra effort for players that plan to continue playing the game after the ending, because stuff like that makes battles even more refreshing in post-game.
The game is loaded with side quests, SpirMazes, and various secrets. It's pretty much impossible to get everything before beating the game, since some are tied to the bonus dungeon. So it's great that for players that want to do everything, the final part of the game after the ending still has unique stuff to surprise players visually.
Beating the game also unlocks the Museum option in the title screen. In the museum menu, players are free to listen to any track on the soundtrack neatly arranged by type (event, dungeon, town, battle, etc), check out all the voice samples in the game (battle samples arranged by character, event voices arranged by chapter and scene), replay any skit (voiced skited are arranged first, followed by unvoiced ones), or watch any of the FMVs again. It's a great feature, and also one that all JRPGs should have. It's a great reward for players that put all their time into a game, and it's great to be able to review various aspects of the media in the game over again at anytime.
Summary
I really, really enjoyed the game. I feel that it is probably the best DS RPG that I've played, and definitely the most enjoyable. Before this, the benchmark for traditional style JRPGs on the DS for me was FFIV, but this totally blows it out of the water. There are definitely many other DS RPGs I enjoyed, but I've noticed that most of them are various subgenres, that are usually strong in a specific gameplay element, but not really traditional RPGs in the overall sense (EO, Soma Bringer, etc).
Tales of Hearts on the other hand, is a RPG that covers all the bases that gamers expect from a JRPG - story, characters, a full world, many towns and dungeons, a sizable cast, many events, nice FMVs, lots of battles and bosses, tons of optional content, various interesting gameplay systems, etc. It's not really missing anything that you would expect from a JRPG, and it does really well in pretty much all the fields. I found the cast likeable, the story was entertaining, the battles are fun and balanced, the dugeons are well designed, the graphics and art direction is great, even the music works well, and the entire game feels so polished and put together with a lot of care.
