Hadn't played this one since the original came out on 360 way back in the day, so I was interested to see how it held up to my admittedly vague memories of back then. I recall it being quite strong, but it's kind of gone down in my estimation this time for a couple of reasons. After replaying it I think it's fairly average- there's some quality stuff here, but overall it's tied down by fumbling and sloppiness that the game just can't seem to escape.
Easiest thing to get out of the way: the game still looks and sounds wonderful. There's tons of polish here- the fact that it holds up today without too drastic of a visual change or upgrade in the DE is a testament to just how good this managed to look for the time it came out. Really though, the core strength of Vesperia really lies in the main cast, probably one of the best in the series. With the exception of Estelle the characters all feel very fully rounded and don't fall too hard into archetypal roles while still maintaining the Tales of "vibe" you'd expect. You get everything you'd want out of a Tales cast here, but backed up by overall quality character writing.
To its credit, those characters are used well in the first half of the game as well, which dispenses with a lot of the go-to plot elements that you'd expect out of a JRPG and winds up telling a fairly level headed crime and punishment type of story- keeping itself close to the ground and focusing on Yuri's worldview, relationships, and his personal growth as he's beholden to life outside the lower quarter make for a pretty engaging narrative, one that's given a decently tight pace and keeps itself strung along well over the first 8-10 hours.
Unfortunately, Vesperia kind of loses its way around the midpoint of the story- the second act is bloated and confused, Alexei and even Duke make for pretty poor antagonists, and it seemingly can't figure out what kind of message it wants to get across or where it wants to focus its narrative energies anymore. The legitimate questions about justice, law & order, personal freedoms, etc, are all thrown out the window for very sloppy JRPG fare about "saving the world no matter what" and finding magical golden solutions to impossible problems.
Around this time the game begins to pad out every dungeon and town with character dialogue that, while not so bad on its own, and still competently written, feels tiresome and plodding simply due to almost never letting up- the pace of things gets kind of smoothed over in a very unappealing way and sharply contrasts with the early game's energy. This, combined with some rather unnecessary feeling dungeons (Cados, Baction, Blade Drifts, Atherum, etc) and a fair amount of to-and-fro backtracking around the world make the whole thing feel like a chore all of a sudden, a feeling which scarcely lets up as it progresses.
Even some of the more iconic elements to come out around this time kind of don't work very well- Yuri's killings are meant to further his characterization and juxtaposition with Flynn, but they lack the oomph that might be expected from a "crossing the line" moment. The victims are just so cartoonishly evil that there's no real question to ask about the legitimacy/necessity of the act or if Yuri is going too far- even the rest of the cast seems to struggle to care about it once they learn, and shortly after it ceases to be brought up much at all.
This is made worse by the game treating the oft-repeated suggestion of killing Estelle (or being forced to) as a kind of lunacy- that Yuri himself can talk about how it's an unthinkable solution for Duke or Pharoah to suggest and have his hypocrisy unchallenged by the narrative is clumsy at best- similarly clumsy to the Raven/Schwann double agent shenanigans, or Alexei being revealed as "behind everything, even people like Barbos", that his villainous plan barely makes sense when viewed from afar- basically every beat in the second half contributes to an air of sloppiness that never really goes away. It's a real shame, with such a strong starting point. At certain times it feels like draft versions of two different Tales titles that were badly welded together.
Despite all that I think it's still a decently fun game overall, and if you just want to experience a Tales game and aren't overly concerned with the minute details, or don't mind some mindless JRPG slop story, it would suffice. Outside of some weird difficulty humps and the pacing issues the game is indeed pretty mechanically fun to mess around with, and the quality of the characters carry a lot of the shortcomings of the plot as it starts to wane. You could certainly do a lot worse for a Tales game, or for a JRPG in general.
