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.
