Tales of Berseria (2016)

Always a shame when games and books take the coward's way out to letting their main characters do something potentially morally suspect. Even after making it clear the target is nowhere near innocent, they still have to contrive some stupidly convenient way for them to die.

All the more glaring in a game with the kind of themes this one has.

Having played many games in the Tales Of series, I found this one in particular to be the more compelling one.

The story is interesting, the lore is well developed (and has some connections to Zestiria too). Revenge is always a good way to move a story forward, definitely,.

The main character is BADASS – and we really needed that after Zestiria I think. I also feel like the interactions between party members are very real in this one – they are all on the same boat for different reasons and they sometimes disagree, fight. It adds a lot of depth to each of them and their respective story arcs, but it also adds to the overall picture.

Music is a 10 out of 10.

Visually is stunning. I do remember some of the corridor dungeons to be basic but apart from that the maps are beautifully detailed.

The gameplay mechanic is very addictive, and I played with most of the characters so I can say they put a lot of effort into that (which is something they dropped in later entries, sadly).

Strongly recommend!

I haven't had a lot of time to play this in the past week. Last weekend I was busy with a lot of cleaning and trying to see friends; this week has just been hectic at work (when is it nottttt?).

I think one benefit of Arise being so linear and not having like, any puzzles or anything to really do other than "move ahead, fight monsters, fight boss, move through next area, repeat" was that I could easily sink hours into it each evening (and more on weekends). With Berseria and playing with a guide like I usually do in order to not miss quests and such, it's a little more...not tedious, but...involved? You also can't just save anywhere like you could in Arise (a new addition to the series that was very welcome), so I have to kind of schedule my time with it. That's part of why I've just kind of been playing a few indies/chill games when I have time to sit down in the evenings.

Either way, I'm still enjoying my time back with this game. I forgot a lot of the details of the plot and battle mechanics, so it feels fresh in a lot of ways.

I really don't want to get burnt out and start up another long JRPG but I haven't been able to stop thinking about finally replaying Berseria for like two days now, so I guess I'm doing this.

[I basically did everything I could do in Arise in the past two days--the little bonus quest that was cool, and then got my whole party to Lv. 100. I didn't do all of the training grounds, and I hate the fishing so Kisara is never getting those titles, but everything else is done. Not much post-game to speak of. I think, coupled with the fact that I've wanted to replay Berseria for years and just haven't, I also want to play a Tales game that feels more Tales than Arise did.]

This is a great JRPG game. The cast is one of the best I've seen in any game, period. The game play is fun with a unique take on combat I've not seen before that rewards skill and team management. An interesting plot that consistently answers every question brought up until the very end and a satisfying and intense ending. Side quest are as interesting as the main and with more enjoyable quirks to do with levelling up equipment, playing mini games and exploring the vast and interesting world.

The post game is a good challenge that provides even more character development on top of what the base game already does. The gameplay's increase in difficulty is welcomed and the achievements, for the most part, aren't too tedious to earn making them an extra layer of enjoyment when hunting them.

I'm about 7 hours in and... I've put it on pause. The recipe for the plot seems kind of repetitive, and I really am not a fan of the combat. I know it's an RPG and I should expect to spend a lot of time in menus, but... I feel extremely overwhelmed by all the artes and how to combo them, etc. Instead of getting joy out of combat and customization, I was dreading it.

Who knows if I'll return.

Another generic and stereotyped "Tales of" with old PS2 graphics, full of cliches and exponentially more convulse combat to fake the player in thinking this new title adds anything of substance to a combat system that actually reached near perfection many years ago and now just throws sand in the eyes to keep you busy.

Horrid, cheap, amateur dungeon design.

Usual low level story, writing and characters as per japanese stagnant gaming mentality.

I just finished Tales of Berseria and wow what a ride. I loved all the characters, skits and their constant interactions, the world, lore and backstory all kept me fascinated throughout the game.

The battle system was fascinating with a lot variation in play style offered by changing characters and I loved having the freedom to change the difficulty on the fly so I could just cruise by when I was in more of a mood to relax but also ramp things up when I wanted challenge.

My only slight dissapointment was ending was bit unexpected in a weird way I wasn't quite sure what to think or feel after it. I'm guessing there is a pretty significant tie in to Zestria I can only guess at having not played it.

But I digress as Eizen says its about the journey not the destination and this was one of the best journeys I've taken in a video game for some time.

I can't wait to check out more of the series and already have bought Zestria to follow on with.

Tales of Berseria (Progress Update) And here we are, the final part of the game. At the time of me writing this, I have clocked in a little over 50 hours into the game. And I enjoyed every second of it :). Can't wait to see how this all plays out....

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Saved the prince and the little girl from the abbey, but unfortunately the little girl had her free will removed from her since we were too late :(. Afterwards we headed up north towards Mount Kilaraus where the final showdown is going to take place. Awaken the 4 Empeyreans by sacrificing the souls of Teresa and her brother, have Rokurou take down Shigure with the blade forged with the body of the blacksmith, beat down Melchior, kill Artorious and finish off Inominat.... this is gonna be one heck of a battle lol

Tales of Berseria Update: And it's a long one lol xD. SPOILERS AHEAD.

So we finally found Aifread, and it turns out he was transformed into a demon by Melchior and the Abbey. Unfortunately, Eizen punched a literal hole right through his chest since he felt that Aifread was no longer himself and went against the very creed that he staked his life on.... I feel bad for the Eizen and the Van Eltia crew. Makes me wonder how it all would have turned out if Laphicet was able to fully use his power to remove all the malevolence from Aifread.

The group now plans to wake up the elemental Empyreans, which will somehow help reduce the power of Inominat (not quite sure how this is going to work out, but we'll see lol). On top of that, it looks like Inominat has started to strip away humanity's sin and ability to freely think. And many of the people are literally killing themselves since they are so sinful that they feel like they don't deserve to be alive..... this "utopia" is a lot creepier than I originally thought it was going to be. I totally thought everyone would have been just void of thought, and just go about their days as usual - almost like robots. Since they were all a "clean slate". But maybe this is all happening because Inominat doesn't have all of his power yet.... it's tough to say. Guess I gotta keep playing lol.

Tales of Berseria Update:

So I'm now approaching the end game of Tales of Berseria, and I'm glad they continue to push and develop the theme of self-interest vs self-sacrifice :).

Waaay to go Laphicet :). Finally smacked some sense into Velvet after confessing his love for her for giving him new meaning to his life - he's even willing to die for her simply for his own sake since he cannot imagine living a world without her (like being selfish for a good cause lol). Afterwards, Velvet acknowledges that what Artorious and her brother are doing to rid the world of daemons and sin isn't exactly wrong, but at the same she doesn't care about any of that is still willing to get her revenge because of the crap they put her through... she's driven by emotion, but at the same time it's what makes her human - the fact that she is angry and upset means she cares deeply and cherished the moments she had with her family. Good stuff!

El primer Tales series que he completado, si bien la experiencia al principio fue tediosa, el juego brilla notablemente y es una experiencia muy disfrutable que recuerda JRPGs clásicos, pero con el enfoque en la acción.

++ Videos buenísimos, son hechos por Ufotable que es una productora con muy buenos trabajos y que aquí obtuvo un producto muy bien logrado. Las voces en japones e inglés son también muy buenas. Personalmente me quede con el doblaje en inglés (lo cual es una herejía para algunos).

++ Magilou, el 90% del tiempo es una hdp que intenta tirar de los hilos de la protagonista :D, Y generalmente termina siendo ignorada y manteniéndose distante. En verdad es un personaje complejo y que logra un desarrollo muy llamativo sin tomar más protagonismo del debido.

++El ending es excelente D:

+La historia está muy bien complementada, las conversaciones incluyen cada plata/bebida/tradición y demás del mundo. Lo cual permite conocer cada rincón del mundo.

+El equipo es muy interesante, el juego se toma el trabajo de desarrollar adecuadamente cada personaje.

+Mecánicas detalladas para ajustar equipamiento y demás.

+Dificultad ajustable, útil si se está cansado del farmeo y a la vez recompensa el jugar en las dificultades superiores.

+/- El combate es muy activo, pero tiene la posibilidad de jugarse automáticamente como si fuera cualquier juego de celular. Lo cual hubiera sido mejor dejar por fuera. Ademas de tener mecánicas complejas de baja recompensa.

+/-La historia principal es algo meh, una historia básica de venganza ultra dramática que tiene su potencial, aunque eventualmente se siente sobre extendida.

+/- El arte es llamativo visualmente, pero debido a su longitud los NPCs y mobs se van volviendo repetitivos.

-Aunque opcional mayoritariamente en algunos casos el farmeo es necesario.

-La música, aunque con un par de buenas pistas puede ser muuuy repetitiva.

I made it about 15 hours before giving up, so take that as you will. I liked the characters and story, but absolutely could not get into a single one of the games systems.

Combat felt extremely clunky to me. Blocking and dodging didn't feel snappy, which is the biggest pet peeve of mine in an action game. There are far too many artes and a tired 'rock, paper, scissors' system of particular artes being best against particular types of enemies. That amounts to just creating a combo on each button for each element and mashing. There's probably more advanced things you could do with this that may be a little more effective, but I really didn't have the incentive to figure it out. Enemies guard constantly and only rarely attack, which leads to an extremely slow pace of battle. I'm sure fans of the game will say to just 'git gud', but there are a lot better games to spend the time on. The balance in the game also just feels consistently off. Regular battles and regular bosses are braindead easy, while the optional stuff is just frustrating.

The dungeons are completely uninspired and exploration is frequently just rewarded with katz souls, which can be used to unlock cosmetic items. However, katz souls respawn, so there's really not much of a point of hunting them down. The vast majority of chests I found just contained healing items, though a few towards the end of my time with the game included new equipment. A lot of the environments also felt very slow to go through due to the extremely slow movespeed, which hurt the pacing of the game for me.

The item management system is terrible. The game floods you with garbage equipment, some of which has marginally useful affixes. You're then supposed to break down the hundreds of items you get to upgrade your weapons. However, at least to the point I was, it felt like a complete waste of time, since you learn passives from weapons, so you never want to stick with one for too long. I'm sure that'd change later in the game, but it was just another factor that drug me down.

In the end, I found the gameplay to be a mix of boring, clunky, and frustrating that completely turned me off to the game. It's a real shame, because I appreciated the direction the story was going in and the level of character development that was going on.

Story & Characters

“Why do you think birds fly?” The words kept echoing in the beginning hours of the game as it ripped out your heart with its opening sequence and left you emotionally scarred with its tale of a young woman bent on vengeance over her lost family member. By the time I finished the game, I still don’t know the answer, but I do know this; Tales of Berseria is one of the best games I’ve ever played and will probably be my favorite tales game for a very long time.

It tells a dark story about a young girl on her quest of revenge for the loss of her cherished family member. There is no “bright side” to anything, as our heroine Velvet Crowe drives the plot forward with her bloodthirsty revenge on the man that took everything she cherished away from her.

Accompanying her are some of my favorite cast members to date in an JRPG. This includes an enraged pirate Eizen, the mouthy yet almost comedic Magilou, the demon Rokorou, the hopeful Laphi and the exorcist Eleanor. Not your average group of hopefuls, each of them have a very gripping story behind them as they band together as a group of misfits to save the world.

Combat

I really love the combat in this game. It’s slick and it’s fast-paced, almost like an action game. Basically every move is mapped onto a button on the controller called “Arts”. After you press one “Arts move” then it goes to an upper tier until tier 4 and then the combo restarts. It’s a mix of classic action game with the combo mechanic of Devil May Cry which is definitely a plus, however I can see how it might need some getting used to if you have not played something like this before. I, however, am in love with it.!

Aesthetics

For the aesthetics – now, I do know that it is not as high quality as some may have imagined it to be, but it is still quite decent considering it’s from a PS3 port. I love some towns and areas, especially in Southgand, which to me is one of the best places in the world.

I also love some of the skits, they were funny and in my opinion they give short little breaks to the dark story that is provided by the game. It fleshes out the characters’ back-stories and tells a little bit more of their personalities which I enjoyed a lot. From Laphi’s sense of discovery that is like a child’s curiosity towards the world to Magilou’s corny and out of place jokes, they all serve to the overall narrative of the story, aiming to further elaborate on the characters and make me care about them as they all have a story to tell.

Soundtrack

As I said in my previous review, I’m not well-versed about soundtracks, however I would say that I love most of the OST in the game, especially the opening theme - velvet’s theme - and the one from the beach. Sometimes I would stop whatever I was doing and just relax in the game while conversing with the townsfolk and listening the soundtrack. For example,

Negatives

However, the biggest drawback for me is definitely the repetition where you seriously have to back-paddle a whole lot to accomplish any goal. For example, they will have you kill off a boss, then collect something, solve a puzzle, and then open the lock with a key, ALL in the same area, and sometimes not just that, but you will come back to the same place again.

I really hope we do not get this form of back-paddling in the next tales series, because it just feels like too much in my opinion. Back-paddling can be served to expand on the narrative of the story, however do it too much and it only turns people off, which I have to say was certainly the case for me.

Another thing to point out is the dungeons: some of them are uninspiring and look pretty plain compared to others. It feels like the creators were out of ideas in some of them. However, this doesn’t take away from the experience. It just felt lacklustre compared to some of the nicer dungeons in the game.

Conclusion

The game is an excellent game and certainly one of JRPG’s classics that people can have fun with as long as people take time for it and don’t mind too much of the over excessive back-paddling the game has you do. The cast of characters are enjoyable with their own unique quirkiness and definitely have their own charm. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who loves JRPG, especially the tales series, as I had a lot of fun playing it.

Positive:

• Solid Gameplay
• Good Voice Acting
• Gorgeous Graphics
• Good Sound Design
• Lots of Things to Find
• Really Compelling Story
• Loveable and Convincing Characters

Negative:

• Sometimes Unecessary Backtracking
• Sometimes Too Long Empty Walks
• Teleport Shortcuts not working because of small Story Blips on the Way
• Needlessly Convoluted Battlesystem with waaaay to many Moves.