I started Tales of Berseria last year after the dissappointment that Tales of Arise was, as i heard that this title was better, and with those expectations I played around the 50% of the game and ended up dropping it, as I felt dissappointed again.

Two weeks ago or so, I picked up this game again, with different expectations, trying to appreciate the beauty of Berseria, and somehow...it felt different.

Let's talk about the good things!:

First of all, I want to talk about Velvet, not only she has a cool as fuck design, and a very iconic main skill (her demonic hand), she's also quite a well written main character! she has some issues (as everyone in the game due to the writing), but aside from that i feel like her motivations are super valid, her breakdowns are great and make lots of sense, and she has a really good character development.

The story is fine in general, it's not really crazy, but i think it performs decently, its very JRPGish, it makes sense most of the time, i feel like it inspired endwalker (you'll know why), and it has many touching moments.
It has pretty good foreshadowing, and in general, the story keeps getting better and better (not too much though lol).
In general terms, I like the concept, how everyone in the party is partially evil/selfish, the message of rebellion is well done, and I think that the game succeeds in most of the things it tries, delivering a good message, and being able to touch our hearts, definetely not your typical story.
Everyone in the main party is a pretty good character, which is not something easy at all, they all feel really charistmatic and natural, I liked their skits and their development/motivations.
The main antagonist is also pretty cool and their ideas are not silly.

The combat is suprisingly pretty good and engaging, the exploration is not really bad, and the badtracking is not as bad as i thought it would be, it has some puzzles that arent really great but could definetely be worse.

Now, let's go with the bad things:

The writing is very questionable, and with this, I mean some of the choices in the story, and especially the dialogues, it's like some of them feel really off when they shouldn't. I feel like this damages the whole game, I also experienced something similar with Xenoblade 2, which has a great story but also features this problem, and what bothers me is that i can't exactly pinpoint what happens, but I hope you all guys get it.

The game also looks kinda outdated for its release, and many textures are pretty ugly, thanks goodness the cell shading and the artistic direction saves the game a little, but im glad they improved this part with Arise, despite fucking up many other things on the go.

Some animations are really really bad and they turn me really off in some important scenes.

The music is memorable at times, and i guess it works well generally, but its not really inspired at all, except for the main theme and a few themes more.

The pacing really really hurts, theres some filler especially in the beginning, and the backtracking also hurts a little.

And at last, some things in the story really feel like Deus Ex Machinas, they either happen because they have to, or some resolutions make no sense at all, some other things just straight up make 0 sense, and etc, I guess this is part of the writing problem, but I just felt like mentioning it.

Anyways, despite its many flaws, I doubt i'll ever forget Tales of Berseria!

Final Fantasy XIV's Grand Finale.
An amazing closure for an amazing videogame, it ties everything so well, from the cryptic scenes about gods to the political interests between nations.

It has extremely touching that had me sobbing all the time, and the music is even better if that was possible at all, what Soken did really had no sense.

It also has one of my all time favourite characters ever, Venat! Who has one of my favourite sequences and message from the whole game and perhaps from even gaming!

It has some filler, which is sadly understandable in this MMO format, some questionable decisions and some pacing issues again, I'd probably say that ShB was their peak, but still, Endwalker delivers an extremely good story and message that none of us will never forget.

The Deconstruction of the Light vs Shadow trope, and a magnificient story, everything is so well written, it really shows XIV's true potential.

The setting, ambient and problematique are absolutely charming and captivating, the music is also absurdly iconic and masterfully composed, just bravo.

On the other hand, it has some pacing issues, but that's the only con i can find.

It's such a masterpiece and gives us one of the best villains in the whole franchise.