Tales Remasters That Need to Happen
Tales of Hearts R
Tales of Hearts R is another entry in the series trapped in an unfortunate position, only playable on the PlayStation Vita.
The game is, luckily, available to download on PSN, but the fact that it’s only on Vita means that many people likely didn’t get a chance to experience it.
Tales of Hearts R doesn’t reach the heights that something like Vesperia or Xillia does, but as a handheld title it’s astonishing that Bandai Namco managed to cram in a totally uncompromised Tales experience, both in terms of story and battle system.
Heart’s battle system is fully in 3D, not semi-3D, and puts a big emphasis on juggling and air combos.
An Aerial Chase system lets your character follow enemies into the air after knocking them up, and the whole focus on aerials is a surprisingly nice bit of variation on the rest of the series.
The ensemble cast isn’t the best in Hearts, but there are a few interesting characters that help hold everything up, like the boneheaded man character Cor Meteor or the mechanical knight Kunzite.
More than anything, Tales of Hearts R is a game that could really benefit from an upgrade, something that a full remaster would easily be able to do.
It still feels like a handheld game to some degree, but it could easily hold up on modern consoles, especially if you look at porting it to the Switch.
