As the summer games drought concludes, I always feel it's a good time to get out of your comfort zone and play something different. After all, during the summer you find yourself playing the same games over and over to keep yourself going, so as the industry blearily comes out of hibernation I find there's merit to be had in trying something new. With that in mind I've been keeping an eye on the upcoming Tales Of Zestiria, the latest in the venerable "Tales" series from Bandai Namco and tri-Crescendo.

 

In fact, Zestiria marks the twentieth year of that franchise, which is one of the reasons I'm intrigued. Something with that kind of staying power has to be doing something right, and I want to know what it is, which is the same thought that eventually got me to play other good games like XCOM and Mass Effect. It's not a guarantee of quality, but it is a good sign, a good start.

 

The other big reason I want to find out more is Bandai Namco themselves, who have brought out a series of big bouncing successes recently, including the Tekken games, Super Smash Bros and my eternal sweetheart, Dark Souls. That last ones nets them big points in my book, let me tell you. Dark Souls' postman would get a proposal of marriage if he showed up at my house. I don't know how much involvement BN usually have with their games, but I hope that it's enough to carry some of that magic over.

 

But what's the deal with Tales Of Zestiria? Well, from what I gather it's a Japanese Role-Playing Game with a fantasy focus, all about the relationship between two races, the humans and seraphim. As this is going on, the kingdoms they live in go at each other like a couple of pitbull terriers with only one dog dish.

 

Bing bang boom, that's a good solid core for everything to build around, and I genuinely hope it does. I've been playing a lot of multiplayer titles over the summer, but recently games like Sunless Sea have put me back in the mood for some narrative-driven gameplay. I'm happy to get dropped into some political skullduggery, get blasted by magic spells and save a brightly animated world from something I don't quite understand. Bring it Zesty, I got nothing on this weekend.

 

Remember, this isn't a normal pick for me, this is an experiment. I haven't played many JRPGs and the few I have? Well, we didn't get along great. Quite honestly, that pitbull analogy seems like it could be used here too. But I don't think it was always the games' fault - call it a pronounced cultural clash. They were selling what I wasn't buying, that sort of thing.

 

And yet Zestiria seems to have an appeal to me that I can't quite put my finger on, not that there's no reason not to find it appealing. It looks nicely animated, seems to have confidence in its own storytelling and if the reviews from Japan are anything to go by, we could be onto something good.

 

I'm also interested in the brawler combat that appears to make up the main body of gameplay. There's a lot of building high combos as you smack enemies across the battlefield, something I've been into since Batman: Arkham Asylum, and we've been hearing rumours of characters fusing together to get power-ups mid-battle. Sounds painful to me, but hey, as long as I get +10 to dragon mashing, I don't care if they're forming swords-and-sorcery Voltron.

 

The technical comparison that came to mind was Devil May Cry, which is good, because I like the combat in Devil May Cry. There's something enormously cathartic about wielding an irresponsibly large sword and blatting monsters into the ionosphere, before bellowing some arcane spell and watching them explode in a ball of flame. It's like being unable to decide whether you want to be Thor, Dr. Strange or The Human Torch, and finally settling for the obvious option - I'll have all three, and take my power fantasy to go, please.

 

Remember, this is only a preview, the hypothesis before the actual experiment is done, but I'm optimistic. Sure, there's stuff I'm concerned about, stuff I hope it'll sidestep - I often struggle with character archetypes in anime-style narratives, for example - but either way you can hit giant wolves with fiery swords and done right, that can carry anything. Remember that for your next Christmas party.