When getting into this series, I watched some Youtube videos of people ranking their favorites and Zestiria seemed to be that little oddball that most people said was one of the worst of the series, but a few others defended the game. I am kinda in the middle. I didn't love it or hate it.

I played Zestiria coming off of playing Berseria, so at first I was excited to see how the two games connected (being fully aware that Berseria was the prequel, meaning released after Zestiria). As a result, I wonder if the slower paced game wasn't as much of a drag to me as it was to others. The intrigue was enough to keep me going, finding that Eizen's sister was a main character in Zestira, seeing Zaveid reappear and getting to know him better after fighting him in Berseria.

The other thing that probably swayed my opinion a bit is that I did play the game on Simple (the game's easy mode) because I had heard how needlessly complicated the game's battle system was. I didn't think simple was too easy, but it didn't give as much of a challenge (unless you count the final boss, but once I figured his deal out, he was pretty easy).

The problem where it went from being a solid 8 or 7.5 down to a 7 stems from the third act. I was already kinda peeved at the game for the dreaded water temple. I gave up after with that puzzle and looked up a walkthrough where I basically ran through the dungeon. It wasn't even that I'm not smart enough to figure it out, I felt like the game was wasting my time because the punishment for failing the puzzle is that it keeps dropping you back at the entrance of the temple.

Once you get all those done, you are told by one of the characters that you need to pick up these memory orbs (Iris Gems) to get the full story behind the main baddie. So after one tedious dungeon and three...pretty fun ones, it was weird to be forced into a fetch quest. I think I had about half of them by that point, but the way the sidequest system is setup, it's not very intuitive to go around hunting them down. That wasn't so much hard as it was frustrating.

To top it off, the way the game gives you the backstory is really complicated and my ADHD mind spaced out and I ended up being completely lost when I was thrown into the much longer flashback that you get after you complete the fetch quest. I ended up looking up a synopsis for that whole thing, kinda making my slog to find all the gems kinda moot.

And then once that's done, the game further puts salt into your wounds by blocking the fast travel. I don't know. These are just minor annoyances, I guess, but they added up over time and by the time I got to the final end of Tales game slog, I was ready to end the game.

So I guess overall I liked the game, but the last third dragged the rest of the game down for me. Thank God for Berseria and Arise as those seemed to have saved the franchise after the lackluster performance of Zestiria.

I wouldn't say don't play it, I would just say that it's a weaker game in the series (at least out of the ones I've played thus far), but it's also hard to compete with Symphona and Berseria, to be fair. I don't regret playing it. It was mostly entertaining. Mewstly.

Going in, I had heard nothing but disappointment and distaste for this game, with numerous fans of the series outright warning people to not play it. As you can see from my ranking, I’m happy I didn’t listen to those who didn’t enjoy it. I’m fairly new to the Tales series, starting with Tales of Berseria in 2019, which I now consider one of my all time favorite rpgs. I’ve since gone on to play Tales of Vesperia (which I did not finish), Tales of Arise, and now Zesteria as my 4th in the series. The Tales series has played a major role in revitalizing my passion for the JRPG genre, which I used to love as a young person but fell out with for a solid decade or so. But enough about me. What is this game? It is, very simply, a classic, straightforward JRPG adventure story. A semi-destined young man leaves his sheltered life, meets a cast of colorful friends, travels around various countries solving local fantasy problems, then finally defeats some great evil to bring peace back to the land, etc. The basic premise doesn’t do much to spark excitement, especially if you have played many similar games before as I definitely have. But execution is everything. Rather than boring me with the same old retreaded themes and tropes, this game managed to pull me back into appreciating these simple concepts and remind me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. And that’s not to imply that the story doesn’t have any interesting themes or surprises in store. It certainly does, tucked away inside an otherwise for typical story. This simplicity does make getting into the game a bit more of a struggle. At about the 15 hour mark, despite having enjoyed the game to that point, I was strongly considering dropping it as I felt like I could pretty much guess everything coming and the most interesting gameplay mechanics had yet to be fully implemented, leaving the battles a bit dull. Fortunately, it was right about that point when the game started to reveal itself, picking up with the story and opening up the gameplay to create one of my favorite combat systems of any JRPG I’ve played.

Combat and RPG Elements: Though I consider the writing the main draw, I did eventually grow to really love this combat system. The next 2 games in the series (Berseria and Arise) both radically reinvented the long running series’ combat system in very different ways. Zesteria instead serves as the final iteration on a system the developers had been working with for many, many games. On top of that, it adds in a new twist mechanic that builds another layer of strategy over the typical combat system. The Tales series are essentially a mix of JRPG combat and a fighting game. Each of the games playable characters have their own combos, special mechanics, and strategic purpose in battle. Complex mechanics like animation canceling, perfect inputs, parries create a system that has an incredibly high skill ceiling for what looks like a fairly simple button masher. There are many different difficulty settings, but the game generally isn’t difficult enough to REQUIRE you to learn its more esoteric systems, but the knowledge that there is so much more to learn kept me constantly engaged, using even the most inconsequential random battles as a way to practice or experiment with no combos and techniques. The special addition I mentioned is the games Armatization system. Most of the party members in this game are Seraphs, a type of spirit which can fight on their own, but also combine with the human characters to transform into a more powerful alternate form. Knowing when to switch in and out of this form, or even using its transformation to dodge attacks and chain combos, adds a ton of variety to the combat. It also ties in with the games story in a lot of interesting ways. Seraphs cannot interact with the material world without a human partner granting them power, and there are only a few humans with that ability available. During the times in the story when you don’t have another allied human you are reduced to using only Sorey and a single Seraph at a time, even if you have 4 of them following you around. And since you need partners to utilize them, your party is required to always have your 2 human characters fighting, limiting you to using 2 Seraphs at a time. The magic system actually fully explains why you aren’t able to use your entire party all the time. Each Seraph has their own element focus and specialties, and you can freely switch them in and out during combat, with those out of battle gradually recovering health, allowing you to heal them without resorting to magic or healing items (which are balanced in such a way that they’re generally only worth using during a desperate moment). The game also has an extremely complicated system for equipment that allows you to customize your characters with dozens upon dozens of various stat and mechanical improvements. Unfortunately the system is not super well explained and I found it hard to understand. Even after 70+ hours of using it, I’m not sure I could tell you exactly how it works. It does add a huge layer of depth to the system, but in this case I think a bit of streamlining would only improve it. But it isn’t significant enough that it will overly damage your characters if you don’t master it, so if you don’t want to bother you can get buy just using the equipment with the best general stats and improving them until you find something better. Ultimately I found the combat system to be the most enjoyable to me of all of the Tales games I’ve played. It starts out fairly bare bones, so the early game encounters can be a bit boring, but it continues to open up through the entire game, adding in new mechanics even in the final act. So if you stick with it and make an effort to master it, the combat can be very satisfying.

The Story: The game’s plot is its weakest aspect. While the main characters their development are pretty great (that’ll be the next section), the actual twists and turns of the main story are generally uninspired. Many of the individual story arcs, solving problems in one settlement or another before moving on to the next, can be decent and are often used to pull out interesting aspects of the main cast. But the overall plot is extremely basic, and unfortunately, is pinned on a set of villains who have personality but little to no depth when it comes to their goals or motives. The main characters spend the majority of the game having no idea what the villains are up to or what they should do, mostly wandering around solving unrelated problems. This isn’t terrible, as the protagonist considers it his duty to generally repair damaged relations between the world of men and Seraph, and to purify the monsters that have become commonplace, so the main villain is just another problem on a larger scale. But it does lack much in the way of urgency or exciting revelations. The world it takes place in is pretty intriguing. It’s a surprisingly unusual one for a JRPG, as 90% of the actions taken by the protagonists are essentially invisible to the main populace. Monsters in the setting are a constant danger and problem for the world, but to ordinary humans with no special sight, they don’t even know they exist as the monsters are actually humans or animals who have been transformed by spiritual corruption. The game has a religious/ritualistic feel to it, with the main cast usually entering a new location, determining what human action has led to spiritual corruption, then solving those problems and moving on, leaving people better off but completely unaware of what has actually changed. The concept of Malevolence, the spiritual corruption causing so many problems, is a very interesting one that is explored in many ways throughout the game. Malevolence is a metaphysical degradation that corrupts spirits and people, turning them violent, cruel, selfish, and powerful. What is interesting about Malevolence is its origin: it is generated by humans through negative emotion, and when they perform acts that they know to be wrong, breaking their own moral codes. However, there is no such thing as any moral objectivity with Malevolence. War orphaned children transform into monsters as a result of their trauma, while fanatical serial killers and sociopathic slavers generate no Malevolence at all, as they have no guilt associated with their horrible actions. One of the main characters of the game is the leader of a secret for-hire assassination guild, but produces no Malevolence due to staying true to a strong moral code and ensuring through investigation that they never murder anyone they don’t truly believe deserves it.

The Characters: The Tales series is known for its great casts and the depths of which it characterizes them. Zesteria’s characters aren’t quite on the level of Arise or Berseria, but they still receive a lot more development than your average JRPG party. Main protagonist Sorey comes across as a little dull and generic at first, being your typical high-minded good-natured heroic Nice Boy that wants to help everyone and always do the right thing. But he gets fleshed out considerably thorugh his relationships with other character bringing out unexpected dimensions, and also in how the story chips away at his idealistic viewpoint and tempers it with a sense of pragmatism as he is confronted with moral quandaries and darker themes. I particularly like Sorey’s relationship with the game’s women. There are 3 women in the game who all seem like they might be intended as love interests for Sorey, each of them on the surface looking like they might be designed as a typical sort of “waifu” style anime wish fulfillment girl. But surprisingly Sorey develops a different unique relationship with each of the 3 of them, all of which are EXPLICITLY non-romantic. In fact, Sorey never at any point expresses attraction towards women and is mildly implied to be gay, which is a bit surprising for a JRPG protagonist. The main heroine of the game, Rose, is pretty unique character, and my favorite of the game. Rose is the aforementioned assassin, who is noted many times throughout the game to be capable of killing without any Malevolence or personal trauma. But she is far from sociopathic, in fact being a very empathetic and kind person who simply has the strength of will to stand by her actions and go through with killing when she believes it is the best thing to do, typically bringing justice to those who will never pay for their crimes within the corrupt systems they inhabit. She goes through a lot of development, but always stays true to herself and is always allowed to be given focus as the arbiter of her own character, never being pushed aside or supplanted by a male character as is so very common in JRPGS and anime. The rest of the main cast, the Seraphs, are a fun and quirky bunch, but get a great deal less development. Being elemental embodiment of spirituality, they are by their nature less changeable and active than humans. They fall more often into the role of comic relief, world-building exposition, and general banter than the main human characters. But they do each have their own depth of character, relationships, and arcs they go on throughout the game, again, far more so than you’ll see in an average JRPG. Of particular note here is the game’s Skit system, which is a staple of the Tales series. Skits are optional conversations that can be triggered under specific circumstances, where the game pauses and carries out a voice-acted conversation involving some number of the party members. Despite the name sounding like these meant to be humorous, they run the complete gamut of purpose. Some are purely for fun, others draw out world-building, explore character backstories, or have the characters processing their emotions after some major event. There are LOADS of these Skits, well over a hundred, along with many other automatic conversations of the same type. It is because of this system that these characters are so well-defined. Stopping to listen to these might be annoying to players who just want to get through the games story and gameplay, but for me I never passed up a chance for one as I consider these Skits the single best aspect of the series.

Sorey and Rose’s Relationship (Spoilers): I just want to use this section to talk about certain game themes and characterization that I loved, being a big part of why I enjoyed this game. I’d consider these spoilers only if you don’t want to go into the game knowing certain major themes or character arcs in advance, as I’m not really interested in mentioning any specific plot details. I’ll elaborate on the Sorey and Rose relationship mentioned above, as I consider it the strongest in the game and most interesting, doing some things I don’t think I’ve seen done before. Being such a Good Guy, Sorey is absolutely adamant throughout the game that he will never be a killer, that he’ll always find a way to resolve problems without taking a life. This extends even to the hundreds of monsters and enemies you fight throughout the game. Canonically, when you win a battle against the monsters in game, Sorey performs a Purification ritual, something only he can do as the game’s Shepherd. Purification strips the defeated foes of their Malevolence, returning them to normal humans or animals and making them of no threat to the party. This fairly common refusal to kill is contrasted with Rose, who is a professional assassin. Rather than the two of them butting heads over the issue though, Sorey and Rose actually quickly develop a powerful respect for each other’s ideals and methods. They are able to discuss their philosophies on the subject repeatedly throughout the game without growing angry or resentful towards each other. Rose is generally portrayed as the more mature one, with Sorey slowly reconsidering his beliefs as it becomes harder to deny there are times when death may be necessary or justified. Eventually, Sorey comes to rely on Rose to be the one to step up and do the hard things when they encounter villains who can’t be purified or reasoned with, who need to die. Rose in turn takes it on herself to be the one to kill, urging Sorey to stay pure and leave the killing to those who can psychologically handle it. I’ve frequently seen this dynamic with one character urged to keep their hands clean with a second being the one who handles dirty jobs, but pretty much every version of this I can think of has a female character being the one to stay “pure.” Having the gender roles swapped made it feel a lot more fresh. Ultimately, Sorey’s main character arc actually involves him taking influence from Rose and deciding that he DOES have to kill sometimes, and that he can’t cling to an absolute black-and-white mentality forever. I found the two of them’s relationship really interesting and emotional. It is extremely rare to see such a powerful and detailed relationship between a man and a woman that isn’t centered around romance. In fact, it’s pretty rare to even see an example of a strong male/female platonic friendship in these kinds of stories.

Conclusion: My general tone for this review might seem a bit hedging, as there is a lot I’ve criticized or portrayed as just decent. Ultimately I think Tales of Zesteria just comes out to more than the sum of its parts. The character writing is strong and enjoyable to listen to, the gameplay remains engaging for dozens of hours, the world’s presentation, while simple and technically unremarkable, has a lot of personality and is just pleasant to experience. I loved this game, and would highly recommend it to anyone who feels the yearning for simple old-fashioned JRPG adventure story.

Introduction

Tales of Zestiria isn’t a good game, nor is it even the worst game of the franchise. It is to me an average game of the series. I both love it and loathe it at the same time. It tells a tale of a boy wonder who is on a hero’s journey affair as our main character Sorey embarks on a hero’s quest to become the newest Shepard in town and save the world from malevolence. This is further complicated by the two warring nations - Hyland Kingdom and the Rolance Empire - where our hero ended up as the middleman.

Soon, our Shepard was joined by his companions consisting of: Mikleo, a young water seraph that is Sorey’s childhood friend, the princess-knight Alisha, Rose the leader of the merchant guild, and four more elemental seraphim which are Lailah, Edna, Dezel and a returning character from Berseria called Zaveid.

For the most part, the story is something you would expect - the companions play roles where they are just there to motivate Sorey so that he fulfils his role as the Shepard while he grows stronger and stronger until he’s ready to fight the final Boss which, for me, as unfortunate as it is to say, is predictable and boring. By no means is this a terrible game – just that story-wise, it’s very boring.

Combat

Unlike Berseria, I have a love-hate relationship with the combat in this game. Some aspects of the combat I do love, and others, coupled up with the terrible drunken cameraman makes it a very bad experience for me. For starters, I like the armatization technique that they introduce to the combat. It’s vibrant in colors and it leaves a lasting image to the player with its dazzling moves and hard-hitting combos. The lack of exploration-to-battle camera cutaways are also gone which, to say, gives a visual change from the classic JRPG and that is a needed plus.

However, other than that, there isn’t much to say except the negatives. From the absurd camera placements to the inability of customizing one’s arts on the buttons of the controller, it all really pisses me off during battle sequences- especially while fighting in the indoor areas where the camera takes some very annoying angles, which goes to the extremities when the combat takes place near a corner, at which stage it is impossible to see anything (including your opponent) clearly. I had this one time where the camera jerks around like it’s having a blast in a Christmas party - very, very hard on the eyes and when it stops it doesn’t give you any sense of direction of where you’re facing or where the enemy is.'

Story

To me, the story was boring until towards the climax, where the story finally picks up. It was fairly dull, and all in all it felt more like a glorified fetch quest where Sorey is like a super important errand boy instead of something as big as the Shepard in the game. I felt like that they could have made it more important or maybe could have provoked some sort of feelings of anxiety that the world is ending and Sorey is the only one who can stop it - I think that would have made a much better storyline than being nothing more than an errand boy.

It wasn’t until towards the end that the story finally progresses, and I have to admit I love the ending sequence of events a lot. This makes it all much more bearable to say the least and I’m glad to have carried on with the game. The ending leaves that sort of emotion that the world was going to end if Sorey and crew hadn’t managed to save it, which I do appreciate.

I also have to say that going back to the final area really did bring back that sensation that you could really feel malevolence creeping in and devouring the world, just like they pointed it out, which was an obligatory touch. Not to mention, going back to the area and seeing how it transformed really amped up the feeling as it changed in the time of Zestiria.

Soundtrack

I however, am in love with the soundtracks in the game. From the soother side of things during the emotional parts of the game, to the unforgettable opening sequence of the game. I love the soundtracks and it still one of the reasons why I love JRPGs and the tales series now that I’m introduced to the series. They are incredible and worth listening to everyday !

Conclusion

In Conclusion, there were some parts that I love in Zestiria, but there were other parts that I hated. The characters were bland in my eyes with only Edna and Zaveid providing to give the interesting spark to the crew. Maybe some people would love this game, but for that you have to try it for yourself, since for me it’s average.

I'm starting up a second playthrough two-and-a-half years later, so I'll probably leave a more detailed review when that's done. I just want to indicate that, while Zestiria is not my all-time favorite Tales and it tends to get a lot of hate, it's really a decent entry in the series. (Legendia is and always will be the worst, and the only one I've left unfinished.) I want to play Berseria again, so I decided to replay this first.

That said, PLAY THIS BEFORE BERSERIA. I cannot stress enough how much more of an impact on you Berseria will have when you play this first. Yes, Berseria is a prequel, but some of the events, characters, and other aspects of the game had such an emotional impact on me because of having played Zestiria first, and seeing how certain things end up hundreds of years later. Berseria is absolutely a better game, but I will always recommend playing Zestiria as well, and first. The "playing by release order" rule is a good idea here.

Actual Review Stuff:

Battles: I don't have much difficulty with the battle camera, though that is one of the biggest complaints most have about this game. It's quite different from previous Tales games, sure, but I don't find it that cumbersome. The battles themselves are pretty damn smooth, and the Armatization is interesting--it's like an improved version of the Chromatus from Xillia 2 (which was a disappointing game, especially with how much I LOVE Xillia). There's more of a focus on martial artes (what would be just your normal X-button attack in other Tales games), and those are placed on an uneditable artes tree. You can still set your Hidden Artes to O + direction. There are a lot of things going on in battles with the different artes, and all of the aspects of Armatization, but it doesn't take long to get used to.

Characters: I love Sorey and Mikleo because they're such nerds. They get all excited about ruins and discoveries, and I'm so down for that. Alisha is also a hella solid character. She's humble and hardworking and wants to do whatever she can for her country despite all of the corrupt higher-ups trying to screw her over constantly. Most of the characters show some kind of growth, so I don't agree with those that say they're boring and flat. In playing through this again, I realized they're probably one of my favorite parties overall, because I just like more of the party characters than I do in a lot of other Tales. (Like, I adore Xillia, but Jude and Milla are the only party characters that I truly love. The others I like just fine or don't really care one way or the other.) Tales has really always been a reliable series when it comes to relationships between the main cast.

Story: Admittedly predictable in some ways, from what I remember, but a decent hero story. Elements of sacrifice for the greater good, good vs. evil, the true nature of good and evil and whether it's so black and white, breaking away from tradition, and the usual Tales social commentary. There are obvious nods to Arthurian names and locations, but none of it feels on the nose or too contrived.

Music: The Tales OSTs might not be as lauded as the Final Fantasy series', but they're always really well done. The music is pretty different from previous entries, but still has a lot of the Tales indicators. I don't really know how to phrase it, but if you've played enough Tales, you can hear a new song and be like, "Oh, this is totally a Tales song." (Like when I played Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and thought the music sounded really Tales-y, and then looked it up to find that it was indeed the same composer.) They typically suit the locations very well, and there are always a few standouts.

-My main draw to the game is the visuals. It's just such a beautiful game, with vibrant colors and locations, and eye-catching battle animations. Transitions from running on the field into cutscenes are also reaaaally smooth.

Side note: The series does a lot of religious commentary that I tend to appreciate as well, and it's here, though not as prevalent as, say, Symphonia or Abyss. I'm not religious myself, and I find a lot wrong with organized religion, so the fact that, in many Tales games, you're trying to save the world by other means--like just being decent human beings and cutting out or reforming the corrupt religion--speaks to me.

So, not my favorite Tales, but definitely not at the bottom of the list, either. I'd say it's mostly average, as someone with a pretty extensive Tales background. Worth playing through at least once if you're a fan of the series. I'm not feeling like this second playthrough is a waste of time, if that tells you anything.