REVIEW: Tales of Hearts R

Tales of Hearts R’s battle system is fairly well-balanced and engaging. In this game, you have direct control over one character while three more characters are AI-controlled. These characters do typically fare well on their own, but you will need to keep track of them in order to prevent them from being massacred. You have the ability to issue a direct command for any character to immediately use an attack, or to use an item, so you are still given a nominal amount of control over the rest of the party.

One nice feature the game has is the ability to change the difficulty setting at any time. That way, you can put the game on Hard Mode if you feel the game is too easy or vice versa. There is also a good mix between reflexes and preparation. In many instances, what you equip can greatly affect the outcome of a battle. At the same time, however, there are enough reactionary aspects, such as knowing when to guard or when to get out of the way of an enemy’s attack. Another aspect of combat to keep in mind is that you need to hit an enemy a certain number of times before your attacks interrupt theirs and move them across the battlefield. You can even launch your enemies into the air and get off several consecutive attacks if you get enough shots in while their guard is down.

One thing to keep in mind is that each character controls and plays differently if you decide to play as them. Think of it sort of like a fighting game where each character has their own specific timing for attacks and different moves. I personally did not find myself switching from controlling Kor very much throughout the game, seeing as how there was never any real reason to. This ends up making you wonder what the point of having multiple play styles even is. In something like a fighting game, it makes sense seeing as how they are largely multiplayer-based. Tales of Hearts R, however, is a single player game and is based on strategy much more than reflexes or pattern recognition. Ultimately, this just means that nothing will change other than the controls, which does not add much to the game.

While on the subject of controls, there are a few issues that keep battles from being as good as they could have been; the first of which is how the game handles auto-targeting. Similarly to the 3D Zelda games, your character’s attacks are set to aim towards whichever enemy you are targeting, and you can change which enemy you are targeting with the R Button. The problem with this is that the R button is way too stiff, and I often needed to press it multiple times to get it to change targets. This makes it a lot less convenient to change targets and often means that you still not bother doing so.

One part of the battle system that could have been improved was the use of status buffs or debuffs. While there are a few of the former in the game, they often take up too much time to cast and are very inefficient. The latter, on the other hand, are practically nonexistent. Most special attacks against normal enemies are also inefficient due to being easy for the enemies to interrupt. This means that just about every normal battle comes down to normal attacks and healing, which greatly limits the amount of variety in gameplay. Granted, this is something that can be applied to most JRPGs, but, when one considers that the original Tales of Phantasia had proper implementation of status effects and special attacks, it becomes a bit disappointing.

I will admit, Tales of Hearts R may not have fully lived up to my initial expectations, but I don’t even care about that at this point. I am still glad I got to play this game regardless, and I enjoyed doing so. While it started out rather slowly and had a bit of control issues, it still delivered in plenty of other areas. The characters were memorable, the combat was solid and the music was effective. I suppose I am a bit hesitant to replay it immediately just due to the slow beginning, but I can definitely imagine myself doing so eventually (although it will likely be the original DS version). Tales of Hearts R is about 40 hours long during a normal playthrough, and there may be at least 10 hours added to that if you go after all the side content. There is definitely enough content to be worth the $50 price tag.