Likewise, Hearts R features an intricate combo system that focuses on aerial combat, and the amount of the time you spend in the air is just extremely fun. Having a free range of movement in the battles adds so much, and creates for a more dynamic gameplay experience. The battles in Hearts R are in full 3D, and anyone who is familiar with how Xillia played should be able to get adjusted to Hearts R very quickly. With that soapbox out of the way, let’s move on to the real meat of the game so I can tell you how Tales of Hearts R is the best portable Tales game I have ever played. Ultimately, your thoughts on the matter will come down to personal taste and how much value you place in a good localization. Overall, this is by no means even close to Bandai Namco’s last huge failure that was Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, and Tales fans have been put through far worse in the past so, perhaps Hearts R is being judged a tad too harshly. I felt it was pretty true to all the characters, too, even if the editor punched up the dialogue a bit to give it more pazazz, although that’s a fairly common practice. It is generally a great read, flows really naturally, and has a lot of personality. It wasn’t for me, but it does feel awkward to sit through at times, which is a pity, as the rest of the game’s localization isn’t bad. Such as a character basically saying one word like “thank goodness (yokatta)” in the Japanese audio, while the text boxes give us long sentences such as “Oh, thank God! You’re okay, I’m so glad you aren’t hurt! I worried so much about you!” That said, even those who aren’t familiar with Japanese will still experience an odd moment here and there. So, what we’re left with is some sort of Frankenstein-esque translation that feels like it’s made to be dubbed, and the original Japanese that doesn’t always match up, especially for those that do understand the Japanese language. It honestly feels like Bandai Namco went into this project with the full intent of producing a dub, but somewhere along the line had to cancel it. The inconsistencies between what was originally there, and what was decided on for the localization, are extremely obvious when the original audio is presented instead of a dub. However, even that makes little sense since those games didn’t feature Japanese audio. Now, as odd as Kor is, it can be debated whether or not his new name is an attempt at replicating the meaning of the name in Japanese, similar to how the Inazuma Eleven, or Phoenix Wright games were handled. The biggest example of this is that, originally, the protagonist was named Shing instead of Kor. Furthermore, for some reason it features a lot of out-of-place localization choice, many of which are just totally random, unexplainable, and unnecessary name changes for characters, plot concepts, and especially for the arte attacks. Hearts R is the first in the Tales series in a while to be released with just Japanese audio, and no English dub to speak of. The greatest criticism Tales of Hearts R has been faced with, even before its release, has been the translation. If you can put up with that sort of thing, though, the game does a reasonably good job telling its story. If you’re turned off by these kinds of stories, Tales of Hearts R won’t really do anything that will change your mind. Now, in order to save the girl, Kor must travel around the world with her reasonably upset, but overprotective big brother, and collect these shards of her heart, all the while trying to evade the pursuing witch.Īs it should be expected out of a game with “Hearts” in its title, the story does veer into “the power of love” and “with our hearts combined” territory at times. However something terrible and unexpected happens while Kor is inside her Spiria, and it is instead torn to shreds and scattered all across the world, leaving Kohaku without a heart, basically turning her into nothing more than a vegetable. In a state of both panic over Kohaku and anger over losing his only family member, Kor tries to use a secondary function of his Soma-to dive into somebody’s Spiria (think of it like your heart)-in the hopes of purifying Kohaku, or to at least ascertain what is wrong with her.
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