Look, I love this series like crazy, so it’s hard for these games to disappoint, but even I know this whole series is just loaded with exposition. The world-building is arguably, uh, terrible because it is purposefully made so convoluted as most of the mystery and drama of most of these games’ story scenarios comes from characters unfolding and connecting passages from their respective world’s Book of Genesis, until the cast of characters find themselves twisted into their world’s Book of Revelations. Tales of Berseria’s scenario does well, though, in pacing out their discoveries and exposition so it never feels like you’re being given important information so late into the game. There are plenty of moments of characters going “Ah yes, of course, it’s just like the earth synergy.” “Earth synergy? What’s that?” but it’s never to a point where it feels like it’s too overbearing, or lazy, or goofy. I played a lot of this game spaced out over the last seven months and never forgot the important details of how this world works, as it was given to me, and I think that’s a pretty good testament to how this game doesn’t overload you. Even in the last section, where other ‘Tales’ games might dump a lot of last minute stuff on you, this one feels like it’s trying to stay linear.

I also think expositional dialog works here because each of the main cast are of different backgrounds. Demons, priests, witches, pirates! Everyone has lived a different life and, thus, can bring different knowledge to a discussion about the world! This makes what could be heavy-handed expository dialog a little lighter as the cast converses like a bunch of strangers of different strokes coming together to play ancient history detective. Then, of course, we learn more about these characters that we like as we learn about the world and its mystery.

The characters are all great. The party of six are each hits, all of them just endeared themselves to me so fast and easy, and the perfectly consistent writing of their personalities and how they clash and interact just had me giddy during some scenes. Sometimes a family isn’t a nuclear family of parent and children, sometimes it’s a gay samurai and a gay pirate and a mean lesbian and a closeted youth group lesbian and a quirky trans girl and the cute little kid they all see as a little brother! And the mean lesbian herself, Velvet freakin’ Crowe, is such a great, great protagonist. She and this game’s villain are perfect opposite extremes of what this whole game is about: what is the point of hurting?

This isn’t the first text to tackle this subject matter, of course, we all know what the point of hurting is! It means we’re human! It means we’re alive! It is a quintessential part of the human experience to be met with pain, the hard part is processing it. The antagonist of this game (light spoilers) wants to rid the world of pain; it should be something that no one should experience, as it is only borne from faults that mankind are saddled with. Velvet wants revenge for her pain, it drives an all-consuming (pun intended, as the connection is made obvious in subtext) rage that she plans to use to remove anything in her path. Velvet’s costume, at first glance, seems a bit much; a very revealing mess of tattered clothing that someone might wear to a nightclub’s goth-themed event. Though, I think it serves a purpose. Velvet is also a daemon (sic), a blight on the world, seen as ugly and broken by the church that runs the entire world. Her outfit is just a reflection of how the enemy sees her, and any objectification made towards her revealing outfit just helps the metaphor that not only is the church disgusted by her, but they also see her as a tool.

Her arc is spectacular, and, like most JRPGs, the solution is friends. As a writer, though, I’ve grown less sensitive to the same kinda of stories, especially in games, and to me, what’s important is not whether your message is new, or even if the story beats aren’t familiar, it’s how you write characters and how you take them to where they need to be taken to. The path that Velvet goes on to see her friends clearly as they are is so great and so fulfilling, and so clear and beautiful, and in tandem, Laphicet’s arc and growth is so good. Ugh! I cried folks, I really did. This entire story had me in chains the whole time, and the ending was truly something else, and still has me thinking about it with a massive amount of emotion. I don’t think I’ll ever forget about Velvet Crowe. She’s up there with Guts and Maka Albarn as characters I will cherish forever.

“Your despair… how is it gone?”

Now, the video game part of this game was, well, less spectacular than the story, relatively. The combat in this game is maybe my favorite of the ‘Tales’ games I’ve played. It replaces mana points with a stamina meter made up of five points that get spent during your moves. It, for me, led to a much fluid style of play. High-hit combos are pretty easy, but still fun to land, the system was never too convoluted to the point where I found myself struggling to execute something, or was ignoring entire mechanics because I felt there was no need. The thing was, there were moments where I felt like I could just kind of brute-force a lot of situations. While I think this could be chalked up to the game being well-balanced to the point where, without me ever needing to grind, and I was the level I should’ve been throughout the entire game, I did feel like there wasn’t a whole lot of struggle, or strategizing. I just mapped artes to my buttons well, used the mystic artes when I could, and made it through pretty unscathed.

The struggle in this game, really, is dungeon design. When it’s not boring, it’s annoying, and the fucking two-hour-long final dungeon was plenty more enough for me! The dungeon “puzzles” basically come down to you walking from end-to-end hitting the right switches. I feel like, at least in exploration-rewarding JRPGs with encounters like this, the fun of dungeons can just be figuring out where to go. The final dungeon being this big fucking thing that was so annoying to navigate because of how the in-game map presents itself just drove me crazy, I cannot stress this enough. I detest the idea that the final boss needs this kind of carpet laid out for them, that you need to go through one final challenge leading up to the final battle. Buddy, the entire game was the lead up! Having already stayed up a couple of hours extra to finish the job, only to go to the location where I expected to fight the final boss and see a teleporter that took me to this huge complex with orbs and switches and bridges and doors and switches and warps and the most annoying monsters ever!!! It was a long night.

Though, the dungeons were my only gripe, and the very last one was the only one that was long enough to be a drag, to be fair. This is definitely my favorite tale that the ‘Tales’ series has ever told, though the video game itself didn’t exactly stand out next to other installments that I’ve completed.

It’s really about time I threw in the towel on this game. I’ve been playing this title on and off for a little under a year now, and I’d always go long stretches of time just forgetting about this game then being reminded of it’s existence by seeing it on my “playing” tab.

The thing about this game is that it really doesn’t have anything to engage me. There are a variety of things a game can engage me through and this game really has none of them. The cast is fine, none of the characters stood out to me in any way and I really didn’t enjoy them besides a select few story interactions and those skit segments. The villains are incredibly bland and merely serve as motivations for the protagonists rather than as fleshed out individual characters. The art direction is incredibly generic, the locations and world are incredibly standard for JRPGs, the dungeon puzzles are an insult to the word puzzle, I could really go on and on and on with each and every thing in this game.

It sucks too since I know someone who really seems to enjoy this game, but I just can’t get into it in the 20 hours I’ve given it.

I tried Tales Of titles in the past, and unfortunately none of them really stuck with me, for different reasons.

Berseria is a massive exception. This title took me by surprise and turned into one of my favorite JRPGs.
It is able to present a story about revenge that does feels overdone, and full of emotions and depth, with a protagonist that makes for a great anti-hero without feeling like a complete edgelord like her design may make you think.

It has one of the best party members in any RPGs, with banters that alone are able to sell you on the title (Magilou, you absolute beast)

I feel the combat can become quickly repetitive, and the fact there is not a lot of options for fast travels makes for a kinda sluggish exploration. But the charm of the writing and the characters makes you go forward and makes you witness a fantastic adventure.

A big surprise for me. I highly recommend it!

A solid JRPG. I took a huge break to finish this one, as during the first half of the playthrough I was honestly disappointed by the experience. I was led to believe this game was the darkest Tales game, and that it was different from the rest, but that is a straight up lie. This is as basic Tales as you can get, just with an edgelord protag that is more cringe than cool. Of course, by the end, I found Velvet to be a good character, but the journey was rough. Overall, the whole cast took a while to sell me on them. Eleanor and Magilou were great from the get go, but Rokurou, Eizen, and (name is a spoiler) were pretty generic, though still likable.

Fortunately, when I returned to the game after a year-long hiatus, and took it for what it is, another solid Tales game, I liked the game a whole lot more. The combat felt fresh, I didn't mind the structure anymore, and the story was picking up. Berseria is another great Tales game, and while it might go on a little too long, it was still an enjoyable experience that I don't regret spending 60hrs on.

Docked half-a-star for Bienfu, naturally.

There are the 3-star games that are "just okay", and 3-star games that average out from epic highs and equally epic lows. This is very much the latter. Loved most of the plot, best party in a Tales game bar none, and Velvet is a great protagonist. But it's also bogged down by an ending I didn't care for, oversexualized female character designs, and numerous mechanical annoyances.

The combat system is much-maligned, even (especially) among Tales veterans, who often find it "too easy" and "button mashing". This was also my opinion at first, but after engaging with the systems for what they are (instead of just "this is not like other Tales games"), I ended up finding a lot of joy in Switch Blasts, Break Souls, Mystic Arte chains, and derivative artes. I mostly played as Eleanor, who has tremendous AoE and a fun capacity to juggle enemies, and any time I was inflicted with a status effect I got rid of it by Switch-Blasting to someone else. Swapping in and out and perpetually changing playstyles made things more enjoyable and chaotic.

I still found the vast majority of the bosses quite easy-- way too easy, really, like they weren't scaled to Hard difficulty. I'm not sure if there is a way to scale it to a challenging sweet spot, to be honest--the way the combat works creates a snowball effect where the more staggers you (or the enemy) inflict, the better combos you can pull off. That meant that mobs were almost invariably more challenging than bosses, and most of the difficulty with bosses came from not being able to collect souls as easily, and having to chip away at their health until you perform one big combo. Bit repetitive. I don't think it's a coincidence that the final boss fight is the only dual boss fight (as far as I remember) and also one of the only tough ones.

By far my favourite tales games (I haven't played tales of arise yet but I will update this once I have.) I nearly quit the tales of franchise after Zestiria (By far my least favorite tales of game) but I decided to play this afterwards, and it was amazing. The story is great and you should experience it for yourself but what I want to talk about is my favorite combat system in the tales of franchise.

In battle there is an entire economy going on. You have a limited number icons above your health bar, this goes from 1-5, the enemy has one as well. The number you have dictates the amount of moves you can perform in a combo. Now here's the kicker, you can steal them from your enemies by dealing status effects to them and they can do the same to you. Wait there's more. You and your enemy can give them back to the opponent in return for a an ability called a breaksoul! This immediately creates a very dynamic system where you balance having these icons and using them while also giving your opponents the chance to use them as well. But wait there's more! As the characters level up they'll learn higher level abilities which require you to collect higher combos like 8 before you can perform them. Wait didn't you say you can have a maximum combo of 5 which is limited by these icons? Yes I did, what I didn't say is that using the break souls allows you to restart the combo so you can land 5 hits, then use the break soul and land 4 more then you can pull off this higher level ability. It's so brilliantly designed it even makes regular encounters fun! Something none of the other games in this franchise has done for me.

That being said this game does have its flaws. It carried over the very questionable decision of not being able to heal characters when they're afflicted by a status effect from tales of Zestiria. This was probably done to incentivize removing said status effects as soon as possible but it removes the interesting strategy earlier games had where you had to decide whether to remove a status effect and try and survive another few seconds with very little health before you can use an item again or heal up and try to survive with a lot of health but with a status effect.

The largest flaw is the difficulty. No not that it's too hard and that you need to grind for hours before matching the boss's level like every other JRPG or entry into the tales of franchise. This game is far too easy. I think they realized when developing this game that people were getting tired of grinding for an hour before being strong enough to face the next boss so they turned the difficulty down but they failed to account for the fact that this battle system is so fun that not only will players fight most if not all enemies along the way and take on challenges that will level them up further. One of my favourite mechanics for example allows you to combine two encounters as one and you get a challenging random ecounter with way more enemies and subsequently way more exp. This easiness lead to me facing avoiding nearly enemy in the final dungeon, not because I didn't enjoy generic encounters, but because I wanted to avoid getting stronger so the final boss was actually challenge. I succeeded but the mere fact I had to show up 10 levels under level before a BOSS became challenging is speaking volumes about the difficulty.

Velvet's character arc and internal struggle is among one of the best things about this game. A lot of the characters are simply far too lovable, and the world building and setting were really intriguing, with the twist of the Therions and how they worked being an especially poignant twist that drew me in as I played the game more.

The combat is clunky. There isn't any denying that. Having to manually test out and switch attacks isn't ideal, and and some enemies did feel a little tanky towards the end, but it wasn't anything too disastrous. I hear a LOT of complaints on this game regarding the map size and walking speed. I'm in the minority for this, but it wasn't honestly a bit deal. I enjoyed it for what it was. Heck, I've played slower games.

This was honestly my first Tales of entry that I properly finished. I'm very intrigued to see the others now, but I'm glad I started with this one. It was a great game through-and-through, and I definitely regard it as a JRPG Enthusiast's Must-Play!

"Tell me. Why is it that birds fly?"

Tales games have always been treated as RPG comfort food. That isn't necessarily an incorrect way to describe them. A fun, deep combat system, wonderful characters and rich settings have made Tales games so popular. Berseria is no different, yet, it offers characters who are morally ambiguous, but you can't help but love, a story of revenge and trauma that you have to keep going through. And once it was all done for me, I had to let out a breath of relief and resignation. For so long these characters were in my head, and now their story is over, and what a story it was. Play this one. It's fantastic.

Note: Despite being the inferior game, Tales of Zestiria is connected to Berseria, both take place in the same world 1000 years apart. I recommend playing Zestiria first, it's not the greatest, but still pretty good, and then play Berseria. You get to see so many cool implications and connections between the two by playing them in this order. I recommend doing so.

This was really really good. Berseria easily had one of the best stories and some of the best characters I’ve seen in a game recently; the overall message and themes heavily resonated with me.

Velvet is an all time protagonist, and her internal conflict and struggle was for sure the highlight of an already stacked story. She feels like a very realistic portrayal of trauma and despair and her deeply self destructive nature illustrates those traits well. Her dynamic with the rest of the party, them pursuing their own struggles just like she does, creates a deeply fascinating cast that I love to death. I really do want to give shoutouts to every character in the group but I feel like I’d be here all day talking about each and every thing I love about them. Every character had a nice arc and a satisfying conclusion that highlighted their way to live. I do want to bring up as strong as Velvet was, my favorite of them had to be Eleanor. I definitely saw a lot of myself in her.

As for gameplay, I’ll skim over that but I would like to bring to attention I thought it was the lowlight of this game. It felt kinda clunky to me, maybe that’s just a product of me never playing a Tales game before, but it did bring me out of it a bit. The combat was probably what my biggest issue was in regards to it; I mostly found myself using Velvet and just button mashing my way through a lot of fights. I realize I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had learned to get better by using other characters but I never really felt motivated enough to do so. There’s definitely a lot to like about what I saw but as it stands I wasn’t all that huge on it.

Really the gameplay really is the only thing holding this back from being a 10 for me, but man that story and those characters are something I’m gonna be thinking about for a long time. I picked this up on a whim, started this on a whim, but I’m so glad I did and I wouldn’t be surprised at the end of the year if this was still one of my favorites. Way to start the year right. Velvet Crowe, I was moved.

I bought this game in 2018 and just beat it. For the most part I really enjoyed this game. The main cast is all hits and their group dynamics carry the game. The main plot is incredible and skits are fun. My only real problems are the middle section of the game being a boring globetrotting fetch quest and I didn't really vibe with the combat besides Velvet (kinda feels like the game was designed around only playing as her). Another thing I had trouble with is how all 6 party members unlock like 30 different moves and I couldn't figure out what weaves well into what. I'm not sure if I missed something obvious or if I had to look up YouTube videos. Overall I enjoyed this game and would recommend it to anyone interested in JRPGs